Big thoughts

[Annibale G.]

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Hi guys,

how are you? I hope all of you are fine. Those days I have a lot of big thoughts. For ages I shot film black and white with two leica M7 and a R6.2, all motorized. Also now that I've been back from Congo RD I used just film. I'm getting close to professional journalism but I have those big thoughts in my mind. I don't know if it is good shooting in black and white film for future. I love developing film, I love darkroom, I'm fond of with my cameras, so small compared with digital slr; but I don't know what to do. Continuing this way? or going to digital as well? will be difficult then to chose if it's going to be good for a story to tell, to say to use digital or film.

What do you suggest?

[stunsworth]

If you were a pro-journalist wouldn't the client dictate whether you were shooting film or digital? In other words, wouldn't the choice be out of your hands?

 

Of course things might be different if you were 'a name', but as someone breaking into the field wouldn''t you just have to use what ever they told you to use?

 

Speaking of Congo, you may want to take a look at this photographer's work...

 

http://www.agencevu.com/photographers/photographer.php?id=214

 

and

 

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1673770,00.html

 

I saw his latest exhibition in Perpignan a few weeks ago. Outstanding in every way.

[redbaron]

Stick with the film if your're shooting long term stuff. News needs digital, but I do just fine with just B&W film. Good luck.

[stuny]

A NatGeo photographer I met in Rwanda said he moved to all digital.

[Annibale G.]

I know, all in agency as well except big names use digital. I met John Stanmeyer as well form VII who looked at me with my Leicas as to say... I don't know...

Unluckily I can't afford a M9, digital SLR are very big for me :-(

[alun]

Annibale, Surely there are at least different considerations -- linked but quite distinct.

 

1. Aesthetics: does the subject 'demand' or require B&W? Does this do it justice? Will it enhance or diminish its impact? Will it enhance or diminish the future 'saleability' of the work -- will more clients want it or fewer?

 

2. Cost: does shooting film make it more or less costly for you to pursue a subject? A semi-pro photographer friend of mine recently explained that he was working on a project that he simply couldn't afford to shoot on film. And from a different perspective I remember a good blog post somewhere recently by a pro wedding photographer who made the point that only by shooting digital could he bring in weddings at a price point that enabled him to compete in the marketplace.

 

3. Speed and convenience: does digital offer you advantages in terms of speed, processing and convenience which mean that you will be more likely to meet client deadlines and therefore have more work for which there is a market?

 

Obviously, what you choose to do will to some extent be determined by what you can afford to do and the gear you can afford to buy.... But from the perspective of an amateur who rarely earns from his photography, I would have to say that it looks to me as if it would be a very particular kind of professional photographer who could afford *not* to shoot digital....

[Paolo.Battista]

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I know, all in agency as well except big names use digital. I met John Stanmeyer as well form VII who looked at me with my Leicas as to say... I don't know...

Unluckily I can't afford a M9, digital SLR are very big for me :-(

 

You can look for a used M8 on this forum, price are intersting.

It has a 1,33x crop factor, that can be useful to extend a little the tele range of the M platform.

On the other hand, if you shoot really wide you are losing some field of view.

 

Same DSLR. You should probably look at some EVIL model in order to keep dimension low, but you have to accept a crop factor from 1,5x to 2x. Otherwise, in the FF field the lowest cost platform is Sony Alfa 850, which is good for colours and resolution at base ISO but lacks high ISO capabilities of Canon 5DmkII or Nikon D700. Both Sony and Nikon needs to have the mounts changed directly on Leica lenses (Leica & Pentax & Nikon | Leitax), when Canon needs only an adapter.

[earleygallery]

Hi, I'd be interested to see some of your work, have you posted anything here?

 

Unless your hoping to sell images to the daily press I think you can still dictate your medium, and shooting film will help differentiate your work from the press photographers.

 

Digital has many advantages though including the option of choosing colour or B&W after the event and the chance of getting a scoop shot and being able to sell it around the world in an instant!

 

But...consider also how changing mediums might affect your style, which it certainly will to some degree, possibly not for the better!

 

I know you are shooting a lot of film from your other threads, what do you do with the negs? Digital may speed up your workflow or could make it a more tiresome process with the learning curve to consider too.

 

Short answer, buy a Canon DSLR body and try it out with your R glass.

[DTD]

I understand that virtually all print publications want colour images.

They would expect them to be given them as digital files.

 

For a recent project I took the photographs on a digital camera in colour, but knew the final result would be black and white prints. Shooting digital images made it much easier to distribute and re-purpose and produce multi-media presentations etc.

[jplomley]

Annibale, I'm a fan of your work and have enjoyed several of your repotages presented in LFI magazine. I have nothing to criticize about your current workflow, and if that is what you are most comfortable with, why not just continue? There are plenty of pros that still shoot film...Ernesto Bazan and Anthony Sau (World Press winner, 2009) as two obvious examples. Your content is solid, your compositions are exceptional, and the tonalities you extract from your black and white work suit the subject material, not to mention the infusion of atmosphere from the grain inherent in your media. If you want to give digital a try, by all means the M8 seems the best bet given your abilities with a rangefinder and your suite of M lenses. But please do not abandon film as I feel you have developed a wonderful signature.

[Annibale G.]

thank all of you guy and thanks awfully Jeff, I appreciate you like my job. Maybe I'll think another bit and I will continue shooting film.....

[MPerson]

Mr Plomley said it all: "Your content is solid, your compositions are exceptional, and the tonalities you extract from your black and white work suit the subject material, not to mention the infusion of atmosphere from the grain inherent in your media."

 

Even with digital you can keep film as part of your arsenal.

[Annibale G.]

Thanks again. Well the problem is for example that I will go for a reportage on AIDS in the subsahairan Africa in november . All started from my mind, no one commission me that job.

What to do? Going to make this reportage in digital or still with black and white film? Those are my doubts. I hope to be with an agency or a megazine in the future and as well I don't know what will be the perfect way to present the work: all teh same way in black and white, maybe some colours work.... confusion confusion.....:(

Any suggestion will be appreciate.

[Guest]

95-99% of pros shoot digital.

Your pictures are not big, they're great, Annibale! The thought about this decision doesn't need to be.

It's just that decisions are never easy.

Please get two M8 and no film M body along.

Maybe best do a reportage first at home with them.

 

Tanti auguri!

Ciao, Simone

[dickgrafixstop]

Little thoughts. How do you use your current cameras. Do you shoot mainly "wider angle" stuff with the M7 or do you shoot more "telephoto" with the R? Do you feel your work is any "better" with the rangefinder or the SLR? Do you have an appropriate selection of lens in both formats or are you weighted towards one or the other? How's your back?

Realistically good pictures can be obtained with a develop-once cardboard camera if you recognize the limitations and optimize images for what it can do best.

 

Were I to be doing a complicated photo project far from home and on my own dime, I would look for redundancy (two d3100 vrs one d700, two 50d vrs one 5dmkII). I'd look for a nice focal range of lenses, and the availability of repair services reasonably close. I'd opt for digital because a laptop computer is far easier to transport than a dark room and I'd want to be able

to verify or edit my work on site. Either Nikon or Canon can be used with R glass if that's your

strong point, or a m7-m8 combo may work also. I'd probably also bring a quality p&s -

the D-lux is a good choice or possibly the new Vlux2 if it's available in time (great zoom reach).

 

You could also take a simplistic approach - use an X1. With it's 50mm (equivalent) lens, you

shouldn't need anything else (worked for cartier-bresson, ought to work for you) You'd have to get "up close and personal" with your subjects, but isn't that what the project is about? Stock up on SD cards and go!

[250swb]

Thanks again. Well the problem is for example that I will go for a reportage on AIDS in the subsahairan Africa in november . All started from my mind, no one commission me that job.

What to do? Going to make this reportage in digital or still with black and white film? Those are my doubts. I hope to be with an agency or a megazine in the future and as well I don't know what will be the perfect way to present the work: all teh same way in black and white, maybe some colours work.... confusion confusion.....:(

Any suggestion will be appreciate.

 

For my 2 cents worth you need to work in colour for maximum flexibility and to be able to compete with other photographers, because thats the deal, you need to be competitive. Forget 'art' and your own favourite medium. But it should be still possible to fully maintain your eye for the subject despite this. Its no time to be overly sentimental about film or things like the purity of the medium, that will just hold you back. Lock your film camera away and don't let anybody tell while setting out to earn a living thats its possible to use both film and digital alongside each other. Its the road to ruin. It will split your concentration in two, it will confuse your viewpoint about what you give priority to, and film will slow you down (try telling a picture desk nowadays they can have a shot, but they'll have to wait while the film is processed!)

 

Before getting to the career stage where you unlock the cupboard containing your film camera, and you tell the picture editor you are going to shoot your next assignment on B&W film, you need to have the confidence of that picture editor. Until then the photodesk won't like being dictated to about whether its colour or B&W, and you could lose out on publication simply because B&W wouldn't work in layout terms that particular week. So until you are the person they phone, you shouldn't be dogmatic, go with the flow, suggest if you like that your colour images can be turned into B&W, but shoot colour.

 

Buy a digital camera, and a laptop, and whatever you need to upload images to a picture desk from a desert or a jungle.

 

Steve

[redbaron]

95-99% of pros shoot digital.

Your pictures are not big, they're great, Annibale! The thought about this decision doesn't need to be.

It's just that decisions are never easy.

Please get two M8 and no film M body along.

Maybe best do a reportage first at home with them.

 

Tanti auguri!

Ciao, Simone

 

And where exactly did you pull this absurd statistic from?

[giordano]

Its no time to be overly sentimental about film or things like the purity of the medium, that will just hold you back.

 

+1.

 

Even the sainted Henri used colour film when the client insisted. I'm not saying he enjoyed it...

[wda]

Thanks again. Well the problem is for example that I will go for a reportage on AIDS in the subsahairan Africa in november . All started from my mind, no one commission me that job.

What to do? Going to make this reportage in digital or still with black and white film? Those are my doubts. I hope to be with an agency or a megazine in the future and as well I don't know what will be the perfect way to present the work: all teh same way in black and white, maybe some colours work.... confusion confusion.....:(

Any suggestion will be appreciate.

I wouldn't undertake an important project, such as the one you cited, with a strange digital system. It takes a little time for your new work-flow to settle down and mature.

 

May I suggest that you take an affordable Leica digital compact camera, such as the current D Lux 4 or its replacement the D Lux 5, and run it in parallel in Africa on your AIDS project? Assuming you have sufficient time, set time aside for tackling aspects of your project purely with digital. Treat them as mini-projects and assess the results when you return home. But keep your wonderful film photography running until you reach a considered conclusion about the digital alternative.

 

If you conclude that you wish to switch more seriously into digital, consider buying a young used M8 for which you would have some lenses already. Less haste - more speed!

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[stunsworth]

A couple of practical considerations.

 

Have you pitched your idea to anyone yet? If so have they been encouraging - even if they won't fund your trip. If not, do you have the contacts? Do you know _who_ to approach and how to present your assignment?

 

Have you made contact with anyone in the area where you intend to shoot? Do you know where you'll be shooting, and more to the point who, or what, will be the subject of the project? Do you have permission from people to photograph them, or are you hoping to persuade them once you arrive - I would imagine that in institutions you will need permission from both the institution and the individuals you need to photograph.

 

Are you confident about writing the story as well as taking the photographs, or do you know someone who can write the words? Or, do you see it as just a photo essay without text? Will a magazine be interested in that?

 

Do you have a schedule - how long you are going to be away, and where will you be photographing?

 

Finally, can your finances take the hit if you return from photographing and can't find anyone interested in buying the story?

 

Sorry to sound so negative - that isn't my intention - but if I were in your position these would be the questions I'd be asking myself even before I decided whether to shoot digital or film.