Convince me to buy a film M

[the warrior]

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Excelent photos nowhiremn .......

[otto.f]

@colonel in #180: Or some real people like film

Edited April 27, 2016 by otto.f

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[Brenton C]

I suppose I could have anticipated how my post might invite name calling (Luddite). Beyond that dismissive label, my argument wasn't addressed, which was that modern convieniences often fail in their goal or promise to deliver better performance that lacks for nothing that went before it. Many times it just isn't true, particularly where techology in mass production purports to be an adequate substitute for skilled craftsmanship. 

 

Others have well articulated how even the modern conveniences of a digital work flow are not necessarily always moreconvenient. 

 

But I'd also like to acknowledge Nowhere's point that personal and emotional elements are part of a preference here too.

 

 

When I returned to film, I didn't imagine I would also return to diy developing, by Doc Henry almost has me convinced to at least start out small. . .  A Paterson tank and a scanner, then. . . Who knows. 

 

So, to the OP, it wasn't too hard to convince myself to get a film camera, and as it turns out, you weren't too tough to sell on it either. The support on this forum, by the way, wasa big part of that decision for me too. 

 

 

Film is great but this is almost a Luddite screed. As I've written elsewhere, I particularly love film for its treatment of highlights in bright and harsh tropical light, but a choice between digital and film today is not easy because the advantages are not one-sided, as I showed in this thread: 

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155090

Going back to film is a personal decision and must have a strong emotional element because it simply is a lot more work, whether one prints in the darkroom or scans; unfortunately there is no really good solution for scanning right now. It’s interesting, although not necessarily instructive, to look at some well-known photographers when thinking about going back to film:

 

David Alan Harvey, having tried the M9 and MM is clearly happy with the Fuji X100T and X-Pro 2, although I believe that he has recently made some darkroom prints and last year shot some medium format.

 

Ralph Gibson, after saying for years that digital was not real photography, happily switched to the M-Monochrom. He has continued to use the M-Monochrom. From a recent interview, it seems that he has continued with the MM, and also has been shooting color with the M240. If you're interested in his work you may want to read this interview: http://museemagazine.com/art-2/features/ralph-gibson-political-abstraction-at-mary-boone-gallery/

...in which he says that, with film, couldn't have done his latest book, Political Abstraction in a year. Here is an excerpt:

 

 

Jacob Aue Sobol showed that he could use the M-Monochrom to maintain the look he had with film, but after his trip on the Trans-Siberian railway for Leica with the MM, went back to film, presumably using small point-and-shoot cameras in the manner of Moriyama Daido and Anders Peterson.

 

Moriyama Daido has been shooting with digital point-and-shoot cameras for a few years, and likes the fact that he can decide whether a particular photo should be color or B&W. He currently has an exhibition of digital color photographs at the Cartier Foundation in Paris.

 

Paulo Nozolino, in whom I've become interested recently, shoots with an M6 and maintains that "digital is not photography." I like the idea that Nozolino is gutsy enough not even to have a website. 

 

[wlaidlaw]

If you are going to do your own developing - please don't follow my example. Use the chemicals with care and handle with proper nitrile gloves, not cheap supermarket latex ones. Make sure your darkroom area is properly ventilated, ideally with an extractor fan. Otherwise you can end up like I did, totally sensitised to most photographic chemicals. If I even handle a freshly developed negative now with bare hands, they will come up in red lumps. From around the age of 6, when I started to help my father and for the next 40 odd years, I never wore gloves (gloves are for cissies) and usually the darkroom was a small, unventilated under-stairs cupboard. Going into any wet darkroom will now have me wheezing in seconds. 

 

Wilson

[Brenton C]

Good point Wilson, my dad's darkroom was of the sort you describe, and i wouldn't have thought to take any of these precautions you mention.

[honcho]

It seems Mr. Puts has moved away from digital and now singularly embraces the film M as his weapon of choice.  For instance...

 

http://www.imx.nl/photo/blog/files/4f22d2125702582ec8f3826e3e077819-36.html

 

http://www.imx.nl/photo/blog/files/0ecb45e7cb822204d869ca7da6a19ab9-39.html

 

Shocked to discover that I use a variety of 'photographic engines' and 'digital capture engines'.

 

I was convinced I'd bought some cameras.

[chrism]

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If you are going to do your own developing - please don't follow my example. Use the chemicals with care and handle with proper nitrile gloves, not cheap supermarket latex ones. Make sure your darkroom area is properly ventilated, ideally with an extractor fan. Otherwise you can end up like I did, totally sensitised to most photographic chemicals. If I even handle a freshly developed negative now with bare hands, they will come up in red lumps. From around the age of 6, when I started to help my father and for the next 40 odd years, I never wore gloves (gloves are for cissies) and usually the darkroom was a small, unventilated under-stairs cupboard. Going into any wet darkroom will now have me wheezing in seconds. 

 

Wilson

 

Bill (I think, but my muscle memory might be wrong...),

Do you know which chemicals affected you? Allergies require large molecules to form antibodies as the allergen has to fit into the right part of the immunoglobulin. The colour developer used in C-41 is famously good at doing this (and even won an Allergen of the Year award at one time). I have never worried much about B&W developers, but use rubber gloves always for colour film developing.

Nonetheless, and possibly irrelevant, I developed CLL at the laughably early age of 56 (average age for diagnosis is 71). Many of the chemicals we love to use are noted to cause NHL (and again, I vaguely remember you might know more about that than you would like) but CLL is probably plain bad luck. I don't currently take precautions with B&W chemicals and, comparing cancers to allergies, I'm not sure I should worry about allergies! If you tell me I ought to be worried I'll don the rubber gloves even for the B&W.

 

Chris

[Wayne]

 I have found developing my own film, through use of Paterson equipment and scanner, consistently leaves me with results both exciting and calming. The photographs- many of them well less than perfectly developed and/or exposed- all speak for themselves...seem to represent a continuation of the same thing, a flow; even though coming from various different cameras, lenses, films, and chemicals, one body of work. As a hobbyist, I would say that film seems more like a stable, continuing occupation........as opposed to digital, which, to me, is more like a constantly evolving form of entertainment.

 

I do like to be entertained; but there are times when a bit of stability is good for my soul.

[wlaidlaw]

Bill (I think, but my muscle memory might be wrong...),

Do you know which chemicals affected you? Allergies require large molecules to form antibodies as the allergen has to fit into the right part of the immunoglobulin. The colour developer used in C-41 is famously good at doing this (and even won an Allergen of the Year award at one time). I have never worried much about B&W developers, but use rubber gloves always for colour film developing.

Nonetheless, and possibly irrelevant, I developed CLL at the laughably early age of 56 (average age for diagnosis is 71). Many of the chemicals we love to use are noted to cause NHL (and again, I vaguely remember you might know more about that than you would like) but CLL is probably plain bad luck. I don't currently take precautions with B&W chemicals and, comparing cancers to allergies, I'm not sure I should worry about allergies! If you tell me I ought to be worried I'll don the rubber gloves even for the B&W.

 

Chris

 

It's Wilson BTW - never Bill.

 

I developed allergies to both Metol and Phenidone at about the same time as I developed a form of psoriatic arthritis (sero-negative), in my late 40's. My rheumatologist thought it possible that one allergy triggered the other, which is an auto-allergy, so advised me very strongly to steer clear of these chemicals, which many developers contain. I know there are developers which use other chemicals but I don't want to risk stirring up my arthritis more than it currently is, so it is easier just to let others do my developing. After I get the negatives back, I take them out of their covers, wearing nitrile gloves and leave them between two sheets of acid free blotting paper for a couple of weeks. After that I can handle them with impunity. 

 

Wilson

[chrism]

Thank you, Wilson.

 

I knew my memory was not to be trusted...

 

C.

[pixie]

I love Film.

I like digital, for it's immediacy.

Film means being observant of the light, the special moment.

Film is a journey, with straight runs and devilish hair raising terrors.

It is part of my life's journey and diary.

It is archival.

Digital is not.

Enough of all the back-ups, extra drives, cloud!

Millennial have few or none pix as babies..

Outdated PC's, lost phones, Corrupted files on cards, floppies, CD's whatever.

As a Friend once said,"Digital promised (us) more than we ever had, had,

but delivered, far less, than we ever would have accepted." Larry Potter.

I have always done my own BW, Nikor tanks and reels, a Canon scanner,

HP5 or Kentmere 100 and 400.

My kitchen or bathroom.

Go for it.

Enjoy.