I like film...(open thread)

[philipus]

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Sterling photograph, Steve. Very enjoyable.
 

Outer Hebrides.
 
Hasselblad 503CW
Zeiss 50mm f4 cfi
Fuji Acros 100 in APH09

 
I agree with every word that you write, Chris, and thank you for putting it with such lucidity. I would not have been able to do that, but I have had very similar thoughts wondering why I persist in using film. I'm still thinking about it, but I believe that I've concluded that it is because of habit and the enjoyment which the process gives. I'm very happy for those who enjoy using digital cameras. I even sometimes wish that I could take that step; well sometimes but not very often (though definitely when I see the pile of unscanned film I have here on my desk...).
 
But I did give digital an honest chance and then took a conscious decision against it because I don't like the results. To me it doesn't have so much to do with digital being easier. It certainly can be, depending on one's expectations, but a fully digital workflow, it seems to me, is at least as challenging as an all-analogue or a hybrid workflow, if not more since technology moves so fast.
 
So I'm sure one can find the same level of enjoyment in the digital process as I find in the analogue-hybrid workflow.
 
The enjoyment I refer to is really about the challenges inherent in any given worthwhile human endeavour. In my case, even if I enjoyed challenging myself in an all-digital workflow, but didn't like the end result or only tried to mimic what film already gives, there would be no point in using such a workflow. So I stick with film. 
 
Anyway, regardless of whichever process or processes one chooses to use for one's photographic expressions there will be challenges which sometimes makes one wonder if it is worth it. In those situations there is for me one thing that JFK said which has always rung true in my ears and to which I sometimes turn as a source of inspiration. It's a bit cheesy, perhaps:

 

"But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win"

 

Against that background, anything seems easy.

Philip
 

I can justify darkroom work to myself as an end in itself: the demonstration of arcane skills (such as I have of them) and the satisfaction of achieving a result by hard work that I could have arrived at with trivial effort or skill after scanning, processing and digitally printing the same negative. It could never be the only way, or even the main way, for me to see my photographs; it's simply an entertaining alternative to amuse me as an amateur photographer.*
 
But I struggle with why I use film to take those photographs. I don't think film is better—whatever that might mean in terms of resolution, contrast, dynamic range, colour fidelity etc, but it is more authentic, at least, to me. That's because I grew up with film, and doing it in such an easy way as modern digital offers really feels like cheating to someone with that background. Digital is easier, and probably often technically better. So the question remains as to what I am doing and why? If the final image is everything, then I ought to be using digital to get perfectly exposed high-resolution pictures very easily. Oh, I remind myself about all the fantastic cameras that I can use that are now relatively cheap, and it's true that I revel in using them—there's nothing like the satisfaction of a Rolleiflex, Hasselblad 500, Leica M2 or even any example from the pinnacle of the manual SLR era. But what of the process? A lot of satisfaction comes from doing something difficult correctly (the downside being those moments like yesterday when I developed four rolls of 35mm in one tank, but only had two Hewes reels, and the effing-awful bent Taiwanese reels destroyed several negatives by letting adjacent film surfaces touch—perhaps I ought to include that in the pleasure of film as there is only satisfaction in avoiding mistakes, and if no mistakes were possible then no satisfaction could be attained). That process includes not only manual camera abilities, but an awareness of the characteristics of films, developers, chemical knowledge, darkroom skills—lots of things way beyond the shutter button! I could have used a digital camera instead, and probably got photos that were technically better, but I would have taken no pleasure in it. Too easy! I think I'm doing what I do partly because of the lovely old cameras, partly to avoid the guilty feeling of cheating, and consequently accepting lower image quality a lot of the time in return.
This is the thing I struggle with—if the final image is all, and the art of photography lies in seeing a good photograph before you pick up the camera then it doesn't matter how it was taken. But I still have the feeling that anyone could have made the right menu settings and relied upon a digital camera's brain to ensure it came out right. So I have to be talking about something else here, the satisfaction of achieving something by doing in a way that is not easy, and whether that satisfaction outweighs the results being technically less perfect. That's probably the issue—I'm trying to satisfy two different drives—to make a satisfying image (the result, which is agnostic about how it was made and digital is easier), and to enjoy the craft of photography (the process, where analog allows for more deployment of skill and thus more satisfaction). If I had a Dionysian mindset, I'd do what felt good at the time, and use all cameras with complete equanimity, but being cursed with an Apollonian mind, I have to bloody well feel like I'm doing, and using, the best I can. It's a curse, and it is only difficult and destructive because I can't separate the pleasure in a good result from the pleasure of navigating a tricky process.
You might think it is easy, when stuck in this kind of endless loop, to look down upon digital users as those who take the easy way, who have a few integrated circuits doing what can be done in wetware with enough practice and effort, but I think I envy anyone who uses a digital camera with a clear conscience. Plainly, this is all psychopathology on my part, and ought not to influence anyone else unduly.
 
Chris
*contrast this calm acceptance of the ease of digitally scanning, adjusting and printing my negatives with my reluctance to let that digitisation move a step closer to the start of the process. Weird.

[schattenundlicht]

To keep the purity , the original and the "natural" reproduction by film, I prefer not convert color to b&w.

It's another picture in black and white this time , taken at the same time.

Black is nicer and homogeneous !

 

 

Tam Ky at sunset

2016

 

Leica MP-Summilux 50 Asph-Kodak TMAX100 (dev in pure Kodak D76)

Tiff from Scanner Nikon Coolscan 5000 > Jpeg for posting , sorry for the digital step

 

 

Image11tamkypaysagekodtmaxmpcipredrlfht+++-1000.jpg

 

Rg

Henry

Although I am a b/w aficionado, this is one of the rare cases where I prefer your colour version (https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/205842-i-like-filmopen-thread/page-1789?do=findComment&comment=3311198 ) which has a very serene feel to it and a beautiful rhythm of subdued green and steely yet not glaring blue. Edited July 8, 2017 by schattenundlicht

[Wayne]

image433126 by Keith Finney, on Flickr

 

M3, 50mm Summicron DR, Tmax 400

[Keith (M)]

Apropros darkrooms and my earlier post, I thought I had disposed not only of my LPL 7200, but also all the associated bits'n'pieces.  However, there was a niggling thought that I had uncovered some such items a while ago and a quick delve into the dark recesses revealed that a few had escaped the cull.  When I dismantled my darkroom many moons ago, restoring it to being a utility room and nothing but a utility room (!), the idea was that when eventually I reached retirement age, we would convert part of the garage to a purpose-built darkroom.  Well, I retired over ten years ago and the garage is still just a garage and the conversion idea is no longer on the action list.  Is photography any less satisfying?  No, not as long as I can challenge myself with my 35mm, 6x6 and 6x9 film cameras and with processing my b&w films at the kitchen sink!

(Leica Q image)

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Edited July 8, 2017 by Keith (M)

[Wayne]

image433120 by Keith Finney, on Flickr

 

M3 50mm Summicron DR Tmax 400

[AntonioF]

I pushed some HP5 to 1600 in Locorotondo. It's summertime and there's a lot of sun light in southern Italy, but we also go out more in the evenings, so pushing is useful.

 

M6 + 35/2 asph + HP5@1600 in HC-110(

 

 

 

 

 

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[gbealnz]

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Ah, the memories Antonio.

Gary

[Wayne]

I pushed some HP5 to 1600 in Locorotondo. It's summertime and there's a lot of sun light in southern Italy, but we also go out more in the evenings, so pushing is useful.

 

M6 + 35/2 asph + HP5@1600 in HC-110(

 

 

 

 

 

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I am jealous......Sure that you ate better a better meal than I did. I lived in Gaeta for a couple years; I can still taste it.

[Guest JMF]

A Sagui macaco !

 

macaco Sagui by JM__, on Flickr

 

800 Fujicolor - Ricoh GR1V

[Ratzfatz]

Felix ...

 

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M7, Silvermax 100, ADOX Silvermax, Epson V700

Edited July 8, 2017 by Ratzfatz

[mikemgb]

Mike "yes you can" 

 

I will, I built my first one at age 15 in a closet provided to me by my boarding school, my second was in my parents utility room in my late teens when I still lived at home. My third was in a bedroom of a rental apartment in my very early 30s, it could only be used after dark as there were light leaks all over the place.

 

My fourth I hope to be in a purpose built room with dust control filtration built in.

Edited July 9, 2017 by mikemgb

[mikemgb]

A few from a walk around St. Louis. Leica M2, DR Summicron 50, Ilford FP4 Plus.

 

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[stray cat]

If I had a Dionysian mindset, I'd do what felt good at the time, and use all cameras with complete equanimity, but being cursed with an Apollonian mind, I have to bloody well feel like I'm doing, and using, the best I can. It's a curse, and it is only difficult and destructive because I can't separate the pleasure in a good result from the pleasure of navigating a tricky process.

 

Chris yours is a wonderful summation of the thinking process that has gone - and obviously continues to nag at you - into your choice of process for your photography. My thoughts are much along the same lines but I wouldn't be able to put it as eloquently as you have.

 

At the end of the day, for me, I really like neither the look nor the process of digital photography. I tried it some years ago for 2 or 3 years and one day woke up to the fact that photography no longer held any interest whatsoever for me - not the doing, nor the enjoyment of the pictures, no matter how "good" they were. Because the process was too - you and others have put it best - taken out of my hands. The knowledge I'd built up over decades now counted for zip, and I didn't like that. Also I didn't like the smooth, artificial look of the pictures. At the time, I was able to sell my digital gear at a reasonable prices and buy Leica and Hasselblad film gear for crazy low (comparatively!) prices because it was the era of people "getting rid" of their film gear and switching to digital. I have never been happier with my photography since, and that is saying something as I have always been a "photography tragic". I've since parted ways with the Hasselblad but the Leicas will have to be prised from my cold dead hands.

 

Note that I'd never wish anyone to regard my choices as a "put down" of their own choices and I hope the above won't be taken that way. Digital photography has enabled so many of my friends and acquaintances to pursue photography, whereas they might not have with film, and I have had incredible enjoyment photographing alongside them, the dinosaur with his quaint old-fashioned film cameras. I scan my pictures as I have not yet set up a darkroom again - like many here, this is a future project, on the back-burner for now. But the scans still reveal the grain and (most of) the nuance and, as Henry says, that delicate "softness" that pictures taken on film have, and it is a compromise I'm happy with for now.

 

I'm not sure that any of this even matters. People must be free to make their own choices and each of us will prefer things that others may not, and who would have it any other way? We have abundant choice and that is a wondrous thing. It just seems that on an "I like film" thread it is valuable to read stories - the stories of journeys - such that Chris, Philip, Henry and others have embarked on to end up here.

[A miller]

Steve - Lovely photo.  I was doing some spare thinking about the theory behind the 40mm FL.  This is probably a bogus thought but I was thinking that it might have to do with the fact that lab prints tend to crop off part of the frame.  I was thinking that if you shoot with the 40mm but use the 50mm viewfinder frame to compose then your lab prints will not come out cropped!!

restaurant in the mission district SF .... portra 160 ... leica 40mm summicron (beginning to really love this lens)

 

Lovely!

Montauk NY

Portra 400 - M6 - 50 Summicron

 

Christoph - Basically, the Provia had more EV range and much less of a wet paint look.  Given that we are looking at paint on a wall, why wouldn't everyone want a wet paint look, no matter what it looks like in person??!?!?

Adam,

You may be right that you can make these films look alike, though even on the restricted screen of my pre-historic mini ipad it seems to me that the velvia shots do show a more intense red color. And not having seen the original I find it difficult to give a film preference, particularly with an artificially colored subject such as this.

Rgds

C.

 

Another lovely photo!  I didn't even know about that place!

'The Egg' Albany NY

Portra 160 - M6 - 21/4.5 Zeiss Biogon

 

Nice, Keith.  The Ektar is noticeable sharper and crisper than Portra 400 

Image #8 from Wed's roll of Ektar 100 (Hasselblad 500C, Tessar 160mm CB).

 

​High Summer on the High Street

 

Thanks, I agree

I prefer the Velvia (as I usually do).

 

Right on

Same here, +1 for Velvia !

 

Great photo.  You've captured her essence quite well.

Another in my Return to Film adventure. My daughter.

 

So much to learn, but this is getting closer to the look I'm hoping for from Tri-X and HC-110. This time much longer development time and much less agitation. 

 

John 

 

 

M6 | ZM Planar 50

 

Philip - I just love that "throw your hat over the wall" story which JFK used in that speech you quoted.  

Sterling photograph, Steve. Very enjoyable.
 

 
I agree with every word that you write, Chris, and thank you for putting it with such lucidity. I would not have been able to do that, but I have had very similar thoughts wondering why I persist in using film. I'm still thinking about it, but I believe that I've concluded that it is because of habit and the enjoyment which the process gives. I'm very happy for those who enjoy using digital cameras. I even sometimes wish that I could take that step; well sometimes but not very often (though definitely when I see the pile of unscanned film I have here on my desk...).
 
But I did give digital an honest chance and then took a conscious decision against it because I don't like the results. To me it doesn't have so much to do with digital being easier. It certainly can be, depending on one's expectations, but a fully digital workflow, it seems to me, is at least as challenging as an all-analogue or a hybrid workflow, if not more since technology moves so fast.
 
So I'm sure one can find the same level of enjoyment in the digital process as I find in the analogue-hybrid workflow.
 
The enjoyment I refer to is really about the challenges inherent in any given worthwhile human endeavour. In my case, even if I enjoyed challenging myself in an all-digital workflow, but didn't like the end result or only tried to mimic what film already gives, there would be no point in using such a workflow. So I stick with film. 
 
Anyway, regardless of whichever process or processes one chooses to use for one's photographic expressions there will be challenges which sometimes makes one wonder if it is worth it. In those situations there is for me one thing that JFK said which has always rung true in my ears and to which I sometimes turn as a source of inspiration. It's a bit cheesy, perhaps:

 

"But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win"

 

Against that background, anything seems easy.

Philip
 

[A miller]

NYC LGBT Pride parade

M-A, 28mm cron, Portra 400 (@800)

 

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[A miller]

A bit of self expression...

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Edited July 9, 2017 by A miller

[Wayne]

Chris yours is a wonderful summation of the thinking process that has gone - and obviously continues to nag at you - into your choice of process for your photography. My thoughts are much along the same lines but I wouldn't be able to put it as eloquently as you have.

 

At the end of the day, for me, I really like neither the look nor the process of digital photography. I tried it some years ago for 2 or 3 years and one day woke up to the fact that photography no longer held any interest whatsoever for me - not the doing, nor the enjoyment of the pictures, no matter how "good" they were. Because the process was too - you and others have put it best - taken out of my hands. The knowledge I'd built up over decades now counted for zip, and I didn't like that. Also I didn't like the smooth, artificial look of the pictures. At the time, I was able to sell my digital gear at a reasonable prices and buy Leica and Hasselblad film gear for crazy low (comparatively!) prices because it was the era of people "getting rid" of their film gear and switching to digital. I have never been happier with my photography since, and that is saying something as I have always been a "photography tragic". I've since parted ways with the Hasselblad but the Leicas will have to be prised from my cold dead hands.

 

Note that I'd never wish anyone to regard my choices as a "put down" of their own choices and I hope the above won't be taken that way. Digital photography has enabled so many of my friends and acquaintances to pursue photography, whereas they might not have with film, and I have had incredible enjoyment photographing alongside them, the dinosaur with his quaint old-fashioned film cameras. I scan my pictures as I have not yet set up a darkroom again - like many here, this is a future project, on the back-burner for now. But the scans still reveal the grain and (most of) the nuance and, as Henry says, that delicate "softness" that pictures taken on film have, and it is a compromise I'm happy with for now.

 

I'm not sure that any of this even matters. People must be free to make their own choices and each of us will prefer things that others may not, and who would have it any other way? We have abundant choice and that is a wondrous thing. It just seems that on an "I like film" thread it is valuable to read stories - the stories of journeys - such that Chris, Philip, Henry and others have embarked on to end up here.

I read somewhere- I cannot remember when or where- Art is some physical act we perform to convey an emotion we have. Like all definition on the subject, I am sure it does not work for everyone.......But it works for me. I think it natural that physical effort forms a deeper attachment to the final result.

 

Best,

 

Wayne

[sblitz]

Steve - Lovely photo.  I was doing some spare thinking about the theory behind the 40mm FL.  This is probably a bogus thought but I was thinking that it might have to do with the fact that lab prints tend to crop off part of the frame.  I was thinking that if you shoot with the 40mm but use the 50mm viewfinder frame to compose then your lab prints will not come out cropped!!

 

Lovely!

 

Christoph - Basically, the Provia had more EV range and much less of a wet paint look.  Given that we are looking at paint on a wall, why wouldn't everyone want a wet paint look, no matter what it looks like in person??!?!?

 

Another lovely photo!  I didn't even know about that place!

 

Nice, Keith.  The Ektar is noticeable sharper and crisper than Portra 400 

 

Thanks, I agree

 

Right on

 

Great photo.  You've captured her essence quite well.

 

Philip - I just love that "throw your hat over the wall" story which JFK used in that speech you quoted.  

 

Since the photo is scanned, I get the whole negative. No, the reason I like the 40mm (and I bought a Voigtlander 40mm viewfinder) is it is tiny, somewhat contrasty in colors, a wide berth for hyper-focal focusing, and 40 is just a sweet spot for any everyday lens. Traveling about, it is really the only size you need -- a little wider than 50, tighter than 35.....Okay, I am not selling my others but it is really a fun lens to shoot.

[A miller]

Since the photo is scanned, I get the whole negative. No, the reason I like the 40mm (and I bought a Voigtlander 40mm viewfinder) is it is tiny, somewhat contrasty in colors, a wide berth for hyper-focal focusing, and 40 is just a sweet spot for any everyday lens. Traveling about, it is really the only size you need -- a little wider than 50, tighter than 35.....Okay, I am not selling my others but it is really a fun lens to shoot.

 

Totally get you.  I was just thinking about the time the lens was initially released.   Lots of people did lab scans...

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[EoinC]

 I have developed BW400CN in black and white chemistry, 18 minutes in Ilfosol 3 and 10 minutes in Ilford Rapid Fixer gave me some dense but perfectly usable negatives.

Thanks, Mike. The development is a done deal, but I could try re-fixing to see if I can clear some of the dark orange-brown.