Can the increase in popularity of toy cameras save film?

[earleygallery]

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Stephen, go back to the shop and do a deal on that M, assuming it's still there. Wait until you are ready and it will be sold to someone else, most likely just as you turn up! Always happens to me.

 

As for worrying about not being able to use it in a few years time, don't - any digital camera will become obsolete long before then. There are still plenty of film types available, and plenty of us using it, not least the movie industry which is where 35mm still photography came from in the first place!

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[FiZZ]

Maybe we should start making our own emulsions....

[earleygallery]

Why bother when there's plenty of excellent film available and it's still one of the cheapest components of photography.

[adan]

I would not be too sanguine about the "movie industry" saving film (or at least Kodak film):

 

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/PCN040710_Q.pdf

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/PCN030110_Q.pdf

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/PCN020110_Q.pdf

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/PCN010310_Q.pdf

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/PCN040510_Q.pdf

 

...and that's just since the start of the year.

 

That being said, I also doubt film will disappear "in a few years." The processing infrastructure for consumer color may eventually collapse, but basic B&W 35mm dates to the Ur-Leica 100 years ago when cars were Model Ts and airplanes were kites with engines. Doesn't require much technology.

 

I doubt Holgas and Lomos will have much influence either way.

[Xmas]

I do worry about investing in a camera system which I may not be able to use in a few years time. Hence the starting of this thread.

 

Hi

 

I'd not worry, film should be available for a long time, but some time in future it will not be sold at all current high street shops and not processable at local supermarkets and drug stores. You wont be able to get all the current emulsions, and e.g. the C41 home processing kits may vanish. You will need to post off your C41 or make up own chemicals.

 

220 B&W has gone cause no one (not enough people) were using it and Kodak were the only supplier and decided they did not need it as a loss leader. You can still get 220 C41, and pros and hams use it, so I still have an option for my 220 back, when my stash of mono 220 is exhausted. In effect 220 B&W was history when Fuji or Ilford stopped.

 

The cine Plus-X ditto, the cine people have to use 5222 (-XX).

 

Kodachrome ditto.

 

C41 colour (and to a lesser extent C41 mono) still are consumer films, but types may be slimmed down, like C41 mono might go. The conventional monos could be culled, If Fuji kill off the medium speeds, Kodak will follow suit for sure, or other way around. Ilford might cull to D100 and hang on, they are lower volume.

 

There are other suppliers of conventional mono. Low volume suppliers might decide to compete with Ilford. In 1990 no one would have predicted that Cosina would make competitive LTM and M lenses and eat Leica's lunch thereby.

 

You can still buy vinyl sound discs and players.

 

I'd by an M2 cheaper and smooooooooth, yes you have to learn how to use an exposure meter no bad thing, reccommend a Weston II. And get a big fridge as well.

 

Noel

[Guest aurora_borealis]

(...) Toy cameras are an inexpensive way for an experimental person to try out film for the first time. There is always the possibility that the person may become serious and start looking to purchase a more professional quality camera and fill it with more professional quality film at a later date (...)

 

Sorry I don't mean to offend you, but I think many many photographers would find your comment extremely amusing. At least I do myself. Personally, I see that toy cameras are professional tools like everything else. Also, you can make a professional camera from a shoebox or just use the camera on your mobile phone. How do you define 'an experimental person' as you write in your comment? - and how do you define 'serious'? Is good art only possible via expensive equipment? What is photography all about?

 

All beginners I know would never choose a film camera, not even if it costed 30 Eur. They all buy a digital point-and-shoot and use that with joy.

[Guest aurora_borealis]

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(...) Toy cameras aren't the domain of people who can't afford professional cameras. They're used because of their aesthetic values, mostly by people who are already good photographers, and who have substantial investments in cameras of all types and sizes. For many people, learning to use a vintage/toy camera is an end point in their photography journey, not the starting point. No one embraces a plastic camera with one shutter speed, a point and guess viewfinder and zone focusing unless they're appreciative of its character and have the skills to get the most from it. Anyone using a toy camera knows that instinct and reflex are their primary tools - and any photographer knows those are the skills that are hardest to acquire (...)

 

I agree with you You can learn A LOT from using a cheap toy camera. But I also think that the hardest skill to acquire for a photographer who like people is to be able to participate with people and interact with life - while carrying a camera - and make that part of photography.

[Guest aurora_borealis]

Maybe we should start making our own emulsions....

 

Lots of people do that. Sally Mann to name only one....

[Gentleman Villain]

Sorry I don't mean to offend you, but I think many many photographers would find your comment extremely amusing. At least I do myself. Personally, I see that toy cameras are professional tools like everything else. Also, you can make a professional camera from a shoebox or just use the camera on your mobile phone. How do you define 'an experimental person' as you write in your comment? - and how do you define 'serious'? Is good art only possible via expensive equipment? What is photography all about?

 

All beginners I know would never choose a film camera, not even if it costed 30 Eur. They all buy a digital point-and-shoot and use that with joy.

 

annie leibovitz is really worried about all the competition she's getting from the shoebox camera shooters

[Guest aurora_borealis]

annie leibovitz is really worried about all the competition she's getting from the shoebox camera shooters

 

Perhaps, but she is not a good photographer so it doesn't count

[Gentleman Villain]

Perhaps, but she is not a good photographer so it doesn't count

 

lol! That's cool man it's ok to have personal prejudices

 

bottom line: anything that gets people using film will be good for film sales and that's pretty much the answer to the OP's question

 

But if it's OK to add personal prejudice...There is this lame romance people have with bad tools and technique. They think that the only thing that matters is the idea. But the tools and technique are not divorced from the idea. Toy cameras are usually for toy photographers. Poor tools are usually handled by poor craftsman. Bad craftsman usually have bad ideas. The best chefs rarely use the worst ingredients. So why is it that photographers suffer under this romantic notion that bad cameras and bad technique will make great pictures?

[Xmas]

All beginners I know would never choose a film camera, not even if it costed 30 Eur. They all buy a digital point-and-shoot and use that with joy.

 

All the kids here get issued with a mobile phone so they can phone home to say when they will be late for tea. Most are hand me downs which come with dig cam. My Uncle complains my cousin has a pano auto stitch mobile phone...

 

They have CD quality sound systems in ears the rest of time.

 

You must live in a world with .375 magnum bolt action carbines and polar bears?

 

I've handed photog students a Canon P for a trial shot and wind on, the P is real smooth like a M2, and their lips curl up when they discover it is a film camera, quote 'you mean it has tape inside it', photog sutdents don't expect cameras to have film in them, like plate cameras have glass? There is glass in this DDS?

 

Good luck with the bears.

 

Noel

[plasticman]

So why is it that photographers suffer under this romantic notion that bad cameras and bad technique will make great pictures?

 

Well I guess you at least recognize these statements are "personal prejudices".

Still, I find it hard to understand how these value-judgements can be justified even in that sense. In what possible way can a certain piece of equipment be judged 'bad' and another intrinsically 'good' by your apparent standards of sharpness or light-tightness (or some other totally arbitrary measure)? And what exactly is 'bad' technique?

 

The narrowness - I'd go as far as to say the sheer philistinism - of the aesthetic that some have advocated in this thread leaves me astounded.

 

Obviously Miroslav Tichy's work is completely abysmal according to this standard, his cameras don't meet the exacting Canikon standards that are the measure of a 'good' artist I assume. Maybe if he'd used a 5D MarkII...?

[Xmas]

Maybe if he'd used a 5D MarkII...?

 

Hey this is a film forum and that is a plastic d-camera...I'm not to sure about ones with zinc top plates either...

90% of the auto drivers in a New York survey were better then average.

People blame the badger, tree or road or car after an accident.

 

Noel

[Gentleman Villain]

@plasticman

 

you seem to be the one that has difficulty handling alternative opinion...maybe you're the one that is narrow minded

[plasticman]

@plasticman

 

you seem to be the one that has difficulty handling alternative opinion...maybe you're the one that is narrow minded

 

Alternative opinion? You mean calling certain sorts of photography 'bad' because it's not taken with a technically advanced camera?

 

I'm afraid I don't call that 'alternative opinion' I call it bigotry.

[Guest aurora_borealis]

(...) You must live in a world with .375 magnum bolt action carbines and polar bears?(...)

 

Well, yes I do as a matter of fact. Do I hear any prejudices?...

 

It's totally great if beginners choose a film camera. I really recommend that. I'm just saying that I have not met any beginners doing that as a first camera.

 

Have a nice day.

[Gentleman Villain]

Alternative opinion? You mean calling certain sorts of photography 'bad' because it's not taken with a technically advanced camera?

 

I'm afraid I don't call that 'alternative opinion' I call it bigotry.

 

you're an elitist that likes to police the thoughts of others

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[ndjambrose]

But if it's OK to add personal prejudice...There is this lame romance people have with bad tools and technique. They think that the only thing that matters is the idea. But the tools and technique are not divorced from the idea. Toy cameras are usually for toy photographers. Poor tools are usually handled by poor craftsman. Bad craftsman usually have bad ideas. The best chefs rarely use the worst ingredients. So why is it that photographers suffer under this romantic notion that bad cameras and bad technique will make great pictures?

 

You're entitled to whatever prejudice you want. But I have to say I do read the above as prejudice rather than any kind of informed opinion.

 

I'm in the process of scanning a series of test shots I made recently with a 1962 Dacora Digna I found on the net for a few quid. One shutter speed (1/50), two apertures, a crude and tiny viewfinder so dirty I could hardly see through it, and a lens that depends on guess work focusing without even a DOF scale. I shot it on 400 TMY in full sun, used experience to judge correct focusing, calculated for the compensation reduction in development, processed with reduced agitation to control grain and contrast implicit in overexposure, and have been rewarded with a series of images that are pleasingly soft, well focused, beautifully toned and unlike anything I could achieve with any of my other medium format cameras.

 

Bad camera? Maybe by today's standards - certainly crude, little more than a metal box with a single element and a paperclip spring to release the shutter. Bad technique? Personally I'd say the process was considered, careful and required a fair degree of technical understanding to extract the best from the available tools. Toy cameras - or vintage cameras with even fewer features - don't have to mean toy photography. I actually think they're more demanding and push the photographer in technique and understanding much further than cutting edge cameras with their 'press the button and the camera does everything for you' approach.

 

More to the point, I'm pleased with the results (and the camera), which is enough justification for me.

[plasticman]

you're an elitist that likes to police the thoughts of others

 

There was a time in the arts that it wasn't possible to be a competent artist without also being a competent craftsman. But it's not like that in this age of democracy. Now, anybody with a toy camera can be considered an artist and competence in the craft is of little consequence. People that advocate for high standards of craftsmanship within the arts are often considered un-democratic and can be slurred as elitists or snobs etc.