Price rising, do you still shoot film?

[Einst_Stein]

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1 hour ago, erl said:

Conclusion: I must test further if I am to believe the 'real' outcome.

Fair enough. One has to do his own test to convince himself, assuming he knows the right way to test.

[erl]

1 hour ago, Einst_Stein said:

Fair enough. One has to do his own test to convince himself, assuming he knows the right way to test.

I agree. My 'real' test is to find the result I want. Not scientific, but keeps me happy.

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[Viv]

On 4/17/2022 at 10:12 PM, Einst_Stein said:

A s much as I like shooting film, the rising price finally pushes me away. 
 

I no longer shoot film.

The price rise did not deter me, but the increasingly long turnaround times for development did.

In addition, I never managed to achieve scanning results that satisfied me.

So I reluctantly sold my Zeiss Ikon rangefinder camera.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Viv

[erl]

6 minutes ago, Viv said:

I no longer shoot film.

The price rise did not deter me, but the increasingly long turnaround times for development did.

In addition, I never managed to achieve scanning results that satisfied me.

So I reluctantly sold my Zeiss Ikon rangefinder camera.

Sorry to read about your disappointment. Home development is very easy, and cheap. Scanning on the other hand, whilst a bit of a 'Black Art', is doable as much as using a Leica RF camera is doable. Both involve a learning curve, like most creative pursuits, but become an enjoyable part of the journey.

Resorting to digital will also demand that you experience a learning curve. The only 'effort free' photography experience seems to be to use a PhonCam! 🤓

[Viv]

Just now, erl said:

Sorry to read about your disappointment. Home development is very easy, and cheap. Scanning on the other hand, whilst a bit of a 'Black Art', is doable as much as using a Leica RF camera is doable. Both involve a learning curve, like most creative pursuits, but become an enjoyable part of the journey.

Resorting to digital will also demand that you experience a learning curve. The only 'effort free' photography experience seems to be to use a PhonCam! 🤓

Thanks, I take your point about the scanning learning curve. But I did try very hard, using a variety of scanners. Not hard enough, obviously ...

I have surmounted the digital learning curve and am now totally at ease with all aspects of digital photography.

[Anbaric]

On 4/21/2022 at 2:35 PM, Ornello said:

Unless you make prints directly from the negatives, you will not obtain the full 'film' look.

I wonder how many people shooting film late in the 'mainstream analogue' era realised they were shooting semi-digital? Those Fuji Frontier labs we were all using 20 years ago scanned the negative before printing it (and made a better job of it than the previous generation of 'pure analogue' labs). And in the movie world, one of the things I like about the higher resolution digital formats (e.g. Blu-ray) is that you can see the film grain...

[Steve Ricoh]

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I have enough film in the cooler tray to last me a good few years, certainly at the rate I use it. Thereafter I’ll have to consider whether film is worth the price they’ll be asking 3 years from now.

My wife tells me I have too many cameras, and she’s probably right. The digital gear I’ll keep because that’s the backstop to my photography if film becomes too expensive. But I’m trying to predict the best time to offload some of my film cameras, eg why do I need an FM2, an FM3a and an F100? I have others including a ‘minty’ M6.
 

[Einst_Stein]

1 hour ago, Anbaric said:

I wonder how many people shooting film late in the 'mainstream analogue' era realised they were shooting semi-digital? Those Fuji Frontier labs we were all using 20 years ago scanned the negative before printing it (and made a better job of it than the previous generation of 'pure analogue' labs). And in the movie world, one of the things I like about the higher resolution digital formats (e.g. Blu-ray) is that you can see the film grain...

Real film look? Which film? Every film is different. 

For color negatives, the most obvious is the less accurate color rendering compare to the modern digital. And yes, the grain. 

I shoot film to keep my cameras alive. Hasselblad SWC or Fujifilm GX680 can only show their glory with film. Digital back can’t get there (yet, and likely will never).  Also no digital camera can give me the joy of holdling Rollei 35S.

I shoot film also to enjoy the time in darkroom. Seeing image coming out of the wet paper is nothing like out of any noisy printer. 

Edited May 15, 2022 by Einst_Stein

[Anbaric]

25 minutes ago, Einst_Stein said:

Real film look? Which film? Every film is different. 

For color negatives, the most obvious is the less accurate color rendering compare to the modern digital. And yes, the grain. 

I shoot film to keep my cameras alive. Hasselblad SWC or Fujifilm GX680 can only show their glory with film. Digital back can’t get there (yet, and likely will never).  Also no digital camera can give me the joy of holdling Rollei 35S.

I shoot film also to enjoy the time in darkroom. Seeing image coming out of the wet paper is nothing like out of any noisy printer. 

I meant that a semi-digital workflow involving scanning a negative or transparency preserves much of what makes film attractive, especially in colour where most people have always had their printing done by third parties. The grain is still there, though the colour is generally better corrected.

 

[Einst_Stein]

2 hours ago, Anbaric said:

I meant that a semi-digital workflow involving scanning a negative or transparency preserves much of what makes film attractive, especially in colour where most people have always had their printing done by third parties. The grain is still there, though the colour is generally better corrected.

 

I know your point, and I agree that the “real film look” from print shop has involved digital scanning, no difference from home scanning. Yes, scanner and scanning skill varies. People claiming the “real analog film look” most likely don’t know what they are talking about. 

[Ornello]

4 hours ago, Einst_Stein said:

I know your point, and I agree that the “real film look” from print shop has involved digital scanning, no difference from home scanning. Yes, scanner and scanning skill varies. People claiming the “real analog film look” most likely don’t know what they are talking about. 

Yup! The best way to see good B&W is to watch old B&W movies on Blu-Ray. Try Kiss Me Deadly or Seconds.

[250swb]

8 hours ago, Anbaric said:

I meant that a semi-digital workflow involving scanning a negative or transparency preserves much of what makes film attractive, especially in colour where most people have always had their printing done by third parties. The grain is still there, though the colour is generally better corrected.

 

And if it wasn't for people in Hollywood bankrolling the continued production of film stock Kodak may have finally gone out of business, but they invested in the future and the look that film gives. But that film look has to transferred to the film theatre and nobody is using the old projectors anymore so it has to be done digitally. I guess Quentin Tarantino knows that what he see's by shooting film makes it all worth it at the cinema.

[John Robinson]

How much do you value your time and the quality you get from shooting film compared with digital?  Two different media, two different outcomes.  Digital can be very good for many purposes and its immediacy (as in, images ready immediately) is often the most important point (reportage for example).

In the 2000s I could pick up a roll of Agfacolor 200 at the supermarket checkout for GBP2 (sometimes GBP1 on special).  My local minilab charged me GBP1 to put it through the C41 chemistry and give it back uncut.  So the marginal cost of each frame on the film (excluding my time spent feeding it into the film scanner and post-processing) was about 8.3 pence.  Put another way, each click of the shutter cost 8.3 pence (a bit more for professional stock).

Jump forward twenty years.  The minilab closed and there are none left in my town, meaning I have to send films away for processing.  A roll of C41 film costs anything from GBP6 to GBP15 and the lab charges GBP4.49 for process-only (7.39 for ECN-2).  Add in postage costs and the average cost per roll purchased and processed is about GBP15.  That is 41pence for each click of the shutter (quite a lot more for professional stock).

Back to the original question:  how much do you value the difference film makes?  In my case, a 500% increase in the marginal costs (putting aside the cost of cameras) which makes me more careful about pressing the shutter, but I still think the results are worth it.

Twenty years ago, the immediacy of digital was a novelty although the time spent copying the files to the computer and post-processing the images were not much different from scanning film.  The marginal cost of each click of the shutter was zero.  That made for a completely different dynamic around shooting.  The big cost was purchase of the camera, making digital a more capital-intensive activity.  The sting was the upgrade cycle.  11MPixel not even close to a scanned film frame.  18Mpixel closer.  Finally 24Mpixel "full-frame" put the "film versus digital" debates to bed.  As others have commented, the amount of money spent upgrading cameras every two or three years far exceeded what might have been spent on film.  With the pixel count of digital now well past 35mm film, into medium-format territory (with camera prices to match) it is still a valid question to ask:  does film give me something that digital capture does not?  The shooting experience is different.  The time between taking the shot and seeing the result is different.  For many things, the immediacy of digital is more important, and the quality of current-model cameras is excellent but in other cases, the rhythm of shooting film adds something to the experience and the results have quite a different look about them.

Once you forget the cost of the cameras, lenses and peripherals it comes down to the marginal cost for each click of the shutter.  Only you can answer the question when you look at the result:  is it worth it?

[Einst_Stein]

The value of the spending is unmeasurable. The amount of the spending is. This is about fun, not about business. People making money from photography must have an objective evaluation method. 
 

Personally, I am deciding to quit shooting film, the last chance is to try out Kodak ECN-2 Movie films. The film cost is about half of C41, and is about the same as student grade B&W, about 5$ per 36 exp. (400$/400ft),  Alas the processing offset the benefit. The processing cost should have a large room to improve if the vendors willing to do so,  Currently a 5L package costs ~$140, that’s about 2$ per roll. If they can package it in 1L x 5 or even 0.5L x10 instead of a big 5L package, I will go for it. The problem with 5L big package is it must be prepared altogether and used up in 1-2 months.  Well, there are 0.5L and 1L package, but the cost increases dramatically. About 4$ per roll. 

I think offering the 0.5L per dose package in- large quantity per sell with the cost of current 5L price.per roll could make the ECN-2 a huge success for nonprofessional photographers, or the last attraction to the least. Alas it is unlikely to happen.  

Edited May 16, 2022 by Einst_Stein

[Ornello]

6 hours ago, John Robinson said:

How much do you value your time and the quality you get from shooting film compared with digital?  Two different media, two different outcomes.  Digital can be very good for many purposes and its immediacy (as in, images ready immediately) is often the most important point (reportage for example).

In the 2000s I could pick up a roll of Agfacolor 200 at the supermarket checkout for GBP2 (sometimes GBP1 on special).  My local minilab charged me GBP1 to put it through the C41 chemistry and give it back uncut.  So the marginal cost of each frame on the film (excluding my time spent feeding it into the film scanner and post-processing) was about 8.3 pence.  Put another way, each click of the shutter cost 8.3 pence (a bit more for professional stock).

Jump forward twenty years.  The minilab closed and there are none left in my town, meaning I have to send films away for processing.  A roll of C41 film costs anything from GBP6 to GBP15 and the lab charges GBP4.49 for process-only (7.39 for ECN-2).  Add in postage costs and the average cost per roll purchased and processed is about GBP15.  That is 41pence for each click of the shutter (quite a lot more for professional stock).

Back to the original question:  how much do you value the difference film makes?  In my case, a 500% increase in the marginal costs (putting aside the cost of cameras) which makes me more careful about pressing the shutter, but I still think the results are worth it.

Twenty years ago, the immediacy of digital was a novelty although the time spent copying the files to the computer and post-processing the images were not much different from scanning film.  The marginal cost of each click of the shutter was zero.  That made for a completely different dynamic around shooting.  The big cost was purchase of the camera, making digital a more capital-intensive activity.  The sting was the upgrade cycle.  11MPixel not even close to a scanned film frame.  18Mpixel closer.  Finally 24Mpixel "full-frame" put the "film versus digital" debates to bed.  As others have commented, the amount of money spent upgrading cameras every two or three years far exceeded what might have been spent on film.  With the pixel count of digital now well past 35mm film, into medium-format territory (with camera prices to match) it is still a valid question to ask:  does film give me something that digital capture does not?  The shooting experience is different.  The time between taking the shot and seeing the result is different.  For many things, the immediacy of digital is more important, and the quality of current-model cameras is excellent but in other cases, the rhythm of shooting film adds something to the experience and the results have quite a different look about them.

Once you forget the cost of the cameras, lenses and peripherals it comes down to the marginal cost for each click of the shutter.  Only you can answer the question when you look at the result:  is it worth it?

Si!

[chacker]

vor 7 Stunden schrieb John Robinson:

...

Only you can answer the question when you look at the result:  is it worth it?

It is.

And for me it is not just about the results. The time spend on photographing things, develop the film, scan it and/or print it in the darkroom is what I call "quality time".
 

[Herr Barnack]

On 4/17/2022 at 10:20 PM, Aryel said:

Price rising, do you still shoot film?

Yes, digital isn’t worth it for me. This is personal of course!

Digital is 51% a godsend, 49% FPITA.  The 40% FPITA is 100% Lightroom library module.

As for the price increases of film, it is still a non-factor when you consider the prices of Leica M cameras and lenses. 

Don't misconstrue that as bashing Leica over  their price structure - research, development and manufacturing of the best cameras and lenses in the world is not to be had on the cheap.

For those who take umbrage at my saying that Leica cameras and lenses are the best in the world, I don't really give a "fork."  😁

 

[Aryel]

5 hours ago, Herr Barnack said:

Digital is 51% a godsend, 49% FPITA.  The 40% FPITA is 100% Lightroom library module.

I’d say 100% ´mansend’ 😋. The rest is all a matter of preferences. 
 

[Einst_Stein]

9 hours ago, Herr Barnack said:

As for the price increases of film, it is still a non-factor when you consider the prices of Leica M cameras and lenses. 

This is a good argument when the camera and lens costs are part of the decision factors. 

But the situation is, you or I already have a nice digital camera (of course that can only be Leica! :)_)  and a lovely film camera,  shooting film offers some fun that digital does not, with the rising price in shooting film, how does it affect the amount of film spending. 

It is not an argument to against shooting film, it is just a response or result to the situation. 

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[oldwino]

On 5/19/2022 at 1:49 AM, Einst_Stein said:

This is a good argument when the camera and lens costs are part of the decision factors. 

But the situation is, you or I already have a nice digital camera (of course that can only be Leica! :)_)  and a lovely film camera,  shooting film offers some fun that digital does not, with the rising price in shooting film, how does it affect the amount of film spending. 

It is not an argument to against shooting film, it is just a response or result to the situation. 

Shooting film allows me the pleasure of using my 1932 Barnack Leica, or my 1950s Agfa Super Isolette, or my 1990s Nikon FM3a. There is no digital equivalent to the feel and pleasure of using these great film cameras.

Digital is hard to beat in terms of resolution, ease of use, post-processing flexibility, etc. Digital does everything film can do, and does it better, and adds some new things that film could never do.

But, please see my first paragraph...