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Digital cameras are incredible, but they have nothing on the craft of film photography. Loading film, winding every frame, optical-only viewfinders, visualisation, the delayed gratification and organic feeling of the images. That's the struggle, to get incredible digital raw files, or to have a more thoughtful, tactile photographic experience?

I mean... I can't even attach my cable release to my Sony camera :( 

To me, there's nothing more meditative in photography than standing next to an M7 on a tripod with a threaded cable release at sunrise or sunset loaded with Kodak Portra 160.

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Edited by Nick Bedford
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6 hours ago, Nick Bedford said:

......To me, there's nothing more meditative in photography than standing next to an M7 on a tripod with a threaded cable release at sunrise or sunset loaded with Kodak Portra 160.

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I don't agree that your approach to photography with an M7 is the most 'meditative' approach, but I get your drift.

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6 hours ago, Nick Bedford said:

Digital cameras are incredible, but they have nothing on the craft of film photography. Loading film, winding every frame

I would say that loading film or winding every frame is a craft. Sounds a bit of an elitist complex there. I also enjoy the process of using film. But once it's loaded, and as long as I don't forget to wind it, the process and enjoyment of using my MP or my M9 is quite similar.

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I don't have the patience, time or money to shoot only film, and ironically I kind of envy the people who do. Film images can be so lovely and expressive, evoking the sense of a memory rather than a direct scene. I can dirty-up a M9 image but it's not the same. The most film-like experience I can get in digital is to shoot with slightly older design lenses and take my time with shooting. This weekend, I'll have my M9 and Contax T3 with me, so we'll see how that goes.

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I started with film, went to digital and now back to film. Neither digital nor film are better or worst than the other, just different. I went back to film because. Just because. The skill set to capture your vision as an image hasn't changed - just a different workflow and technical requirement.

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13 hours ago, Nick Bedford said:

nothing more meditative in photography than standing next to an M7 on a tripod with a threaded cable release at sunrise or sunset loaded with Kodak Portra 160.

Oh no, the most meditative moment for me is in the darkroom when the image comes up in the developer tray, that is in b&w of course. This is what explains for me the addiction to film photography: the process of appearance of the image shows all the possibilities of the tonal scale in that photo. In reality it is hardly possible to do right to all the different possibilities of the capture and you have to choose for one final version. This leaves an infinite desire which is unfulfillable and thus addicting.

Edited by otto.f
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I love using film and, like anyone of my age, grew up with film.  However, the nuisance factor of developing and scanning makes it a rare thing for me now.  Sort of too bad because along with my late '66 M4 and '57 DR Summicron, I have a lot of film cameras that I used over the years.  Still, film cameras seem natural to me, digital not so much.

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I suppose that I take around 60% digital and 40% film. I develop my own B & W but send my colour films off to a lab. I find scanning the negs about as exciting as watching paint dry but the final results are worth it. Sadly I no longer have access to a darkroom and remember, fondly, late nights printing colour and black and white.

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On 9/13/2019 at 10:44 AM, Matlock said:

I suppose that I take around 60% digital and 40% film. I develop my own B & W but send my colour films off to a lab. I find scanning the negs about as exciting as watching paint dry but the final results are worth it. Sadly I no longer have access to a darkroom and remember, fondly, late nights printing colour and black and white.

I am thinking of using community darkroom facility. Few months ago I discovered them. I am yet to go and check them out. 

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On 9/13/2019 at 5:21 PM, ianman said:

I would say that loading film or winding every frame is a craft. Sounds a bit of an elitist complex there. I also enjoy the process of using film. But once it's loaded, and as long as I don't forget to wind it, the process and enjoyment of using my MP or my M9 is quite similar.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound elitist. I should have really said, "for me", there is nothing on the craft aspect of film photography with manual cameras. I really miss everything about manual film camera photography when I shoot a digital camera for my own work. It's like writing with a pen on a notepad instead of a tablet or mobile app. Two different methods, one uses physical materials, one virtual, electronic materials.

I guess I've come to really love the physical, non-electronic nature of it all.

On 9/13/2019 at 5:14 PM, Ouroboros said:

I don't agree that your approach to photography with an M7 is the most 'meditative' approach, but I get your drift.

I did say, to me, but perhaps it sounded too much like I was saying that for everyone. This has been my experience especially recently (in said picture). Quietness, frame it up optically, set exposure, click, then no choice but to move on.

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5 hours ago, jmahto said:

I am thinking of using community darkroom facility. Few months ago I discovered them. I am yet to go and check them out. 

Where’s that? 😁 Such a facility would be impossible to manage financially in the Netherlands, film photography has been pretty much ‘cleaned up’ here since 2008. Film camera’s are held for interior decoration, you have to order your films from Germany or Belgium, let alone the rest of your darkroom equipment  like papers and chemicals, dreadful.

 

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9 hours ago, jmahto said:

I am thinking of using community darkroom facility. Few months ago I discovered them. I am yet to go and check them out. 

A couple of years ago a coffee shop/bookstore opened in our area and they offered a darkroom with equipment and chemicals.  You just had to bring your own paper.  It closed about a year later.  This is in a metro area with about one million residents. 

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12 hours ago, otto.f said:

Where’s that? 😁 Such a facility would be impossible to manage financially in the Netherlands, film photography has been pretty much ‘cleaned up’ here since 2008. Film camera’s are held for interior decoration, you have to order your films from Germany or Belgium, let alone the rest of your darkroom equipment  like papers and chemicals, dreadful.

 

I was surprised myself. In my area (San Francisco Bay Area) there are few. Look onto localdarkroom.com

I have yet to use it but I did correspond with the darkroom staff (they have classes as well). 

Edited by jmahto
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The photographic culture/climate in the US is really different from Europe and Asia in my view, with about 100 times more attention and interest in Large Format film photography, due to the trail Ansel Adams, Fred Picker, Zone iv studios etc. left behind. The whole idea of ‘the larger the better’ is lacking in Europe and seems to me a fascination in the US. This may be a cultural/historical factor which would make community darkrooms in the US more feasible.

(although on the maps of localdarkroom.com I see stunning few facilities in the US)

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7 minutes ago, otto.f said:

The photographic culture/climate in the US is really different from Europe and Asia in my view, with about 100 times more attention and interest in Large Format film photography, due to the trail Ansel Adams, Fred Picker, Zone iv studios etc. left behind. The whole idea of ‘the larger the better’ is lacking in Europe and seems to me a fascination in the US. This may be a cultural/historical factor which would make community darkrooms in the US more feasible

I live in a semi-rural city where we still have diverse and some advanced tech industry with advanced degree employees, largely engineers, and were among the first to the Internet,  and I see no interest whatsoever in large format, nor film.

When I worked for a state university that had both film and digital photography courses the prints from the film people were gut-wrenching horrible. I found the reason when the film students generally agreed that they were not going to spend more time making prints than the digital mavens did. The film labs were soon closed, dead to the university.

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