what are the reasons we shoot film today?

[Stealth3kpl]

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It's a great feeling having stepped off that digital upgrade conveyor belt and only to be thinking about lenses and film types and images. Don't you just love it? Soon I'll be staying in a bothy in the mountains of the Lake District so I'm wondering whether to shoot Portra 800, Fuji 800H, or Tri-X which will be stand developed. I've never tried stand developing before so I might go with the Tri-X. Photography is fun again.

Pete

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[semi-ambivalent]

Photography is fun again.

Pete

 

Pete,

 

Part of that fun is going crazy trying out different film/developer combinations. 150 years of history has left you a lot of room to explore, and nobody's 20 degrees C. is going to be *just* like yours. Settle in with a solid combination you can always fall back on and then start poking around the edges. FilmDev | All FilmDev Recipes will not help one bit.

 

s-a

[hendriphile]

...a temporality that recalls the moment . . . because you can see/feel that the image is captured light against a surface, rather than the abstract, reconstructed image you get with digital.

 

This comes close to conveying the difficult-to-express-in-words but incontestable difference between film & digital.

[gberger]

This is a steal from a quote I saw some time ago;

 

With digital, you know right away that you're not a wonderful photographer.

With film, you have to wait several days to reach the same conclusion.

 

So, I shoot film and bask in happy delusions until I put the transparencies on the light table.

[JohnBragg1]

I shoot film because I never left it. I never bought into the digi bandwagon and the planned obsolescence school of marketing. I am delighted to see that digital users see a need to try film as an alternative and a credible one at that ! Many never go back and get heavily into the alchemy of developing and testing. Long may the film resurgence continue !

[Doc Henry]

Hi All, once again I leave aside more and more my 2 M digital and I shoot only with my 2 M7.

The film is well above the soft and real side (relief and faithful color) of the image . Colors are distinctly

different versus digital who always need correction

Look at these recent pictures posted here :

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/other/286747-i-like-film-open-thread-105.html

Regards

Henry

[Brenton C]

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Did I understand you to say the enlargements were --and digipilliacs, please forgive my biased word choice-- "proper enlargements", that is, using an enlarger and chemicals on photo paper?

 

I wonder where such a process is available commercially in my town. Does this "old fashioned" way of enlarging have a standardized name to look or ask for?

[gbealnz]

Did I understand you to say the enlargements were --and digipilliacs, please forgive my biased word choice-- "proper enlargements", that is, using an enlarger and chemicals on photo paper?

 

I wonder where such a process is available commercially in my town. Does this "old fashioned" way of enlarging have a standardized name to look or ask for?

 

Can't answer your location question, I don't know where you are. But it will be a "custom" service most likely, enlarging anyway.

 

Do it yourself, it's a simple (or complex, up to you) process, and to my mind just as much fun as the capture.

 

Equipment is dirt cheap, nobody wants darkroom gear, long may that be the case.

Gary

[Brenton C]

We used to develop b&w when I was a kid-- dad had a darkroom set up.

 

But I always understood color developing to be too finicky... I'm pretty sure that colour film processing demands more precise temp control of chemicals, but I guess I just assumed colour enlarging followed suit.

[erl]

Color processing more demanding than B&W, but that is only a relative argument. The fact is, it is still not difficult!

 

The thing about colour processing is consistency, not accuracy. If you have temperature variation during process, simply ensure that that variation is consistent with subsequent processes for predictability. Maintaining an achievable temperature consistency is very easy. If you need advice on that, just ask.

 

The out of pocket expense of trying is not great, but the fun is!

[Dave M]

Hi I have recently sold all my Olympus film equipment to purchase a Leica M9,I have been doing quite a bit of research on the M9 and had my heart set on one.But for some reason and I am not sure what I am going back to film.Film captures time and takes me back in time, I am new to Leica equipment and this forum I have purchased a Summicron M90 f2 but yet to purchase the M7 I just wish my wife was understanding and give me the money but I am working on it thanks Dave.

 

Hi my wife says I have a problem,I just cant make my mind up and when i do I cant sleep because I have to spend money.I started off looking for a M9 then I changed my mind and went back to film .Having researched the M7 and the MP I have come to the conclusion that the MP may be the better camera in the long term for repair and the after sale price.If anyone can recommend any over the counter tablets for my predicament please advise thanks Dave.

[250swb]

please advise thanks Dave.

 

Well you shouldn't wallow in nostalgia and you shouldn't have sold your Olympus film equipment if you are now thinking of going back to film. Buy the camera you need for now, because it will presumably help you express the ideas you are having now and not anticipating some time in the future.

 

 

Steve

[M9reno]

Buy the camera you need for now, because it will presumably help you express the ideas you are having now and not anticipating some time in the future.

 

 

Steve

 

Well said, and exactly the message of this 1950s cardboard ad. Buy yourself an M3 today.

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[bender73]

Film makes me a better photographer. Going from a D3 to a meter-less M3 is a punch in the face. But, it makes me actually think.

[bobewest]

I get great satisfaction from working every thing out for myself.

 

Film makes you stop and think.

 

Bob

[sblitz]

and while meterless film photography is an old way of doing things, firing those cognitive synapses in the brain is the best way to stay young.

[christoph_d]

Gentlemen,

 

A few days ago I read a neat little article on the BBC news website. It was entitled "Will autocorrect make you too predictable?", and discusses the merits - and otherwise - of this automatic feature that follows your every keystroke on your computer. The distinct possibility to become boring in the perfection of one's autocorrected writing is mentioned.

 

Somehow this reminded me of my reasons why I take pictures the analogue way. The outcome is not too perfect, is not too predictable, and I hope that - in the eyes of my audience - it is not boring either.

 

Rgds

 

C.

[BjarniM]

For me the reason is quite simple.

 

Shooting film with a Leica fitted with a manual focus lens is as close as i get to the way photography in the first place was invented.

 

For me there are not several of things that are distracting me, so i in the end miss the decisive moment.

 

Today digital cameras are equipped with so much electronics that my main focus, when shooting digital, is on mastering the technique alone, and not mastering what's in the frame and the decisive moment.

 

Digital files may look a bit smoother, but in my opinion digital files are flat, boring, clinical and without soul.

 

I do put more effort in every single shot i shoot with film, since it's to easy for me just to snap some hundreds of shots when shooting digital, and just shoot away and come home with some hundreds less or more useless digital files.

 

Film has definitive made me a better photographer.

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[peterjcb]

...why do I shoot film today is probably the same reason that I drive a 1986 Porsche 944 turbo...going on close to 30 years and I'd rather drive that than a new car...really.

 

That being said, I do own both Leica & Pentax digital cameras and lenses which I use most of the time but I will always love using my mechanical film cameras. It's what I learned on and what really feels the best in my hands.

[lieberdavid]

Hello Atoumas,

 

I found your attached chart rather interesting after the little delay in figuring it out.

 

If the film data recorded refers to film that has been scanned, then it seems to agree with what many people seem to say. But if the film data refers to raw unscanned film, then articles i have read seem to conflict with these results. It must be remembered that the scanning process loses a lot of the information contained on the film.

 

In one of these articles it is asserted that a digital camera with a 35 mm sensor would need to have 50 - 60 megapixels in order to have the resolving power of a fine grained film. Certainly my own experience in projecting slides on a large screen supports the view that so far there is nothing on the digital market that can reproduce photographs in that size with anything like that kind of quality.

 

In the other article a well known mathematically inclined photographer did an analysis and came up with the conclusion that a digital 35 mm sensor would have to be of the order of 175 megabytes in order to equal a fine grained film and a great deal more to surpass it.

 

I have myself both types of (Leica) cameras, and I am not able to project on a large screen my digital photos at all in order myself to compare them with projected slides. But I do look on my computer daily. I have a fairly large good quality monitor, and, although up to date, it is far from reproducing photos as well as a slide projector can do with transparencies. In any event, on my monitor I see countless photos taken with film M's and R's and with the new M240. So far I have yet to see a single photo taken with the M240 that is as sharp as those I see every day with the film Leicas.

 

I don't know where the truth lies at this point, but I certainly acknowledge that in the future the quality of digital photos will surpass that of film photos, if it hasn't already.