Film vs. Digital

[wildlightphoto]

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Scene: mother and daughter cleaning out recently departed grandfather's room...

 

d: Mom, look at all these old Cds and hard drives Grandpa left behind.

 

m: Yes dear, he was quite the pack rat. Throw them all in the bin over there, I'll have your father take it out with the trash.

 

My family knows what's on my CDs and hard drives, and they all ask for copies of them.

[zlatkob]

Grandpa's digital images will be trashed unseen with anything else older than 5 years. Oh no, these nice memories kept on film and print I am gonna keep.

Steve

 

Wow, that is very pessimistic. Why assume Gandpa never makes a print? Digital photo labs around the world are busy making prints. I am regularly uploading digital files to my lab to be printed on Fuji professional paper, the same paper I would use for color prints made from film negatives. This week I uploaded about 1,350 photos to be printed. I also print on a beautiful papers made by Epson and Hahnemuhle. Those digital images are not getting trashed because they are printed. They are in photo boxes, frames and albums, not on broken old hard drives.

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[noah_addis]

I switched back to film primarily for the look of the final prints. I like a bit of grain, but not too much. I like detail to fade gradually, not fall apart once I pass a certain enlargement threshold. And I like the subtle color provided by certain color negative films.

 

The M8 and M9 are great cameras, but even with the M9 I wasn't happy with the look of the large prints in the 40x50in. range. Shooting 35mm film wasn't working for me either so I went to 6x7 with a Mamiya 7 and it's just right in terms of quality and speed.

 

I also prefer the workflow and process of shooting with film.

 

In terms of archiving, I have the best of both worlds. I can save the original film as well as high-res scans on multiple disks in multiple locations.

 

If you shoot digital there's no reason you can't get your best work output to film for archiving, though it is expensive.

 

It's purely a matter of personal preference.

[erl]

I think the human condition is to "never learn from the past" for the benefit of the future!

 

Just an observation I made up on the spot, but I think it fits what we are discussing here.

 

In the opinions I have read here there is a total failure to observe what was lost in the past from all those printed images. Today,we only have access to what has survived, but I suggest that just as many images shot on film have been trashed, one way or another, as we say are being or will be lost from digital capture. My reason is thus: I believe the single greatest factor in causing loss is human indifference to the value of the item. Consider how many prints flowing out of fast photo shops now, or in the past, will really survive past say, one year, five years, or pick a number. They habitually 'just disappear' mainly because no one files them deliberately and safely. Loss by negligence. At least with digital images there is some inbuilt motivation and facility to systematically store them.

 

Now I am not advocation digital over film at all. I don't need to because my film files dating back to when I was 13 years old are all still on file. (I did one smart thing in my youth!) I am now old enough to retire. My point is the single (but not only) greatest factor in archival security is a personal will for it to happen. Not the availability of a method, which of course is also necessary.

 

So, choose your media (I suggest both ) and take steps to preserve them. Their future is then up to our ancestors to appreciate our efforts.

[giordano]

If I remember correctly some parts of the confederates states had 7 foot gauge

 

I'm almost certain that no railway in the US used Brunel's broad gauge. It took much more labour and material to build the permanent way (that's one reason other British companies didn't follow the GWR's lead) and most American railroad companies were desperate to get the track built as quickly and cheaply as possible to start earning revenue.

 

But a lot of Southern railroads did use a broader gauge than 4'8.5", often 5 foot.

[AlanG]

In the age where images are being posted to galleries on the internet, the whole concept of prints becomes somewhat irrelevant. Images are now being shared with friends, family and others as never before. They are also being organized better on line and off line and may have a good chance to be retrieved and viewed well into the future. (I'd suspect the typical film snap shooter can't easily retrieve an old negative in order to make a print if someone requests a copy.) An image that previously may have never seen the light in someone's basement drawer now even has a chance to be discovered and sold as a stock image. Besides, somebody must be buying all those inkjet printers and papers.

 

As for the film/digital debate, this is irrelevant also as film will inevitably fade away into oblivion. (A few diehards will keep using it even if they have to make their own emulsions.) Several years ago, Kodak and Fuji couldn't even give away film samples at our ASMP meetings. Kodak and Fuji reps stopped coming to our local ASMP and APA meetings some time ago. I have taught a few courses in photography and dealt with a fair number of young photographers. Very few of them have ever shot film nor do they have a desire to shoot any. So where are the future film shooters going to come from in order to keep film usage alive?

Edited July 30, 2010 by AlanG

[redbaron]

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In the age where images are being posted to galleries on the internet, the whole concept of prints becomes somewhat irrelevant.

 

As for the film/digital debate, this is irrelevant also as film will inevitably fade away into oblivion.

 

Wait until the stories about family photos, which have conveniently embedded geo-tags, being used by crime gangs hit the mass media.

 

Just because people like you want it to disappear doesn't mean that it will.

[erl]

....snipped.......

 

As for the film/digital debate, this is irrelevant also as film will inevitably fade away into oblivion. (A few diehards will keep using it even if they have to make their own emulsions.) Several years ago, Kodak and Fuji couldn't even give away film samples at our ASMP meetings. Kodak and Fuji reps stopped coming to our local ASMP and APA meetings some time ago. I have taught a few courses in photography and dealt with a fair number of young photographers. Very few of them have ever shot film nor do they have a desire to shoot any. So where are the future film shooters going to come from in order to keep film usage alive?

 

Alan, nothing inevitable about the demise of film at all. A selective group will always exist based on evidence available, which, like your prediction, is not guaranteed either.

 

Regarding the desires of your young photographers, well what can I say? They will learn, maybe. They, like so many before them, will become dissatisfied with the regular 'dishing up' of the latest digi craze. Then, just maybe, they will discover the alternative that film has to offer and if they are smarter by then, they will adopt both. But who really knows?

[Steve Ash]

I just recently scanned about 45 year old film stripes of my parents wedding that I have not seen before. Who would bother to look at a 40 year old hard drive?

Steve

Edited July 30, 2010 by Steve Ash

[plasticman]

No, keep out the bright light, as we all know the beauty of film rendering these - keep it to the "out of focus rendering difference" only - I am genuinely interested in this!

 

Sorry not to be able to help more from my hotel room - I remember in the early M9 days there was a thread with a scanned article from a Japanese magazine with a comparison shot of a young woman in front of some trees taken with an M9 and an M7. I remember the comparison was much criticised for it's methodology, but in any case maybe someone could locate that thread with better access than me today.

[wildlightphoto]

Browsing through this thread (and virtually every other film vs. digital thread) it seems that a lot of the objections to either film or digital photography are based on fear: fear that drives/CDs will not be readable, fear that one's life work will be consumed in a single cataclysmic event no matter how unlikely, fear of being 'left behind' as the world moves on to newer and flashier things.

 

Fear is the politician's best friend. Fear is an irrational emotion that often causes people to do really stupid things. Do you remember Y2K? The swine flu "pandemic"? Weapons of Mass Destruction?

 

There are well-known strategies for managing the risks inherent in archiving either film or digital photos. Let's just accept the concept that there are these risks, they're manageable, and leave the fear-mongering to politicians and sensationalist "news" rags.

[menos I M6]

For this year's Le Mans race I took a M7, loaded with pushed Tri-X and a M8.2, shooting DNG files and developing in Adobe Lightroom.

The M8.2 shot has been only lightly touched and not finished (sharpening, curves, etc).

I am now working myself through the images, preparing some handprinted books, posters and prints.

 

I have a 1:1 crop from two files here - which do you like more?

 

 

[01af]

I have a 1:1 crop from two files here—which do you like more?

Are you kidding or what? That not a 1:1 crop from two files; it's two crops (not both 1:1) from one file.

[chrism]

Maybe the crops look different because of the sensor crop on the M8.2? Oddly, the digital file looks more like Tri-X to me!

 

Chris

[MAX]

Are you kidding or what? That not a 1:1 crop from two files; it's two crops (not both 1:1) from one file.

 

...analog vs. digital in two different Negativs/files ( FF vs. 8.2 Crop ) ...

 

...and i like the first ! one, too .

Of course, the second one is perfectly concerning details.

Edited July 30, 2010 by MBI

[pop]

... fear that drives/CDs will not be readable, fear that one's life work will be consumed in a single cataclysmic event no matter how unlikely ... Do you remember Y2K? ...

There are well-known strategies for managing the risks inherent in archiving either film or digital photos. Let's just accept the concept that there are these risks, they're manageable ...

 

Drives and CDs will indeed become unreadable. While this is not a problem if storage is properly maintained, managed and planned for, it most certainly will destroy images which become unattended for any reason whatsoever.

 

In the case of my family collection, that's a salient point because there were indeed intervals measured in decades during which the prints and negatives were unattended. They remained in attics, cupboards and so on until someone detected them.

 

May we derive from your statement that you never worked in IT? I do remember the y2k problem, and it was - if not a problem - a unholy amount of work which used up capacity that could have been spent to better ends.

[andybarton]

Was the Y2K problem only not a problem because people spent an extraordinary amount of money on making it "not a problem"? Does anyone really know what would really have happend if no one had done anything about it?

 

It never ceases to amaze me how much money is spent putting right IT stuff that should never have been wrong in the first place. Sloppy coding and built-in degeneration of OSs means continuous work for IT support staff - nice work if you can get it. My Windows laptop was completely "re-built" from the hard drive up only 6 months ago, because its OS had degenerated so much that it took 20 minutes just to boot in the morning. Now, 6 months later, its getting just as bad and we will have to pay someone to do it all again. Madness.

[redbaron]

Get a Mac.

[FiZZ]

Was the Y2K problem only not a problem because people spent an extraordinary amount of money on making it "not a problem"? Does anyone really know what would really have happend if no one had done anything about it?

 

It never ceases to amaze me how much money is spent putting right IT stuff that should never have been wrong in the first place. Sloppy coding and built-in degeneration of OSs means continuous work for IT support staff - nice work if you can get it. My Windows laptop was completely "re-built" from the hard drive up only 6 months ago, because its OS had degenerated so much that it took 20 minutes just to boot in the morning. Now, 6 months later, its getting just as bad and we will have to pay someone to do it all again. Madness.

 

Thank Microsoft for that.

 

inb4MacvsWindowsdebate

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[wildlightphoto]

May we derive from your statement that you never worked in IT?.

 

I write engineering software for a living. The software that might have been affected by Y2K was being replaced for numerous other reasons.