When George Eastman introduced the Brownie - a camera for the masses costing just one dollar, with the advertising slogan “You press the button, we do the rest”, in the first year of the twentieth century, he brought affordable photography into the hands of the general public for the first time and made a fortune for the newly established Eastman Kodak company. Photography was previously a hobby for the elite, who could afford the time and money to set up a darkroom, and considerable knowledge and expertise, but all of that was changed for ever … but now the giant who started it all has been mortally wounded as the new kid on the block - the compact digital - has all but killed off the popular need for film and processing.
I am a late convert to the digital age - not entirely from choice but necessity - and love the convenience and immediacy of it all, but I have some regrets, and have seen a few (admittedly very few) comments on ‘365’ which raise doubts whether digital is really the panacea for all purposes for all people, and I would love to see a discussion here on the advantages and disadvantages of “The wet darkroom“ and total personal control, versus automation and dry hands, without waiting for the prints to arrive in the mail.
Just wondering ... Is there still room for both methods, or is it just a nostalgic dream - a product of the steam age?
Well for me, film photography was always out of reach in terms of finances. I loved studying other people's photos, but was confined to the crappy little "instant" Kodaks, back in the day. I could barely afford to get those photos developed, let alone a 35 mm camera. So digital has opened the door for me on something I've always been really interested in, and inspired by!
Having said that, I was at an art festival a few months ago, and a photographer who used only film had his work displayed. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and he'd written some commentary about why he still uses this method. Unfortunately, I don't have his name to reference it.
So, I think there's room for both, particularly for creative, artistic people who want more than photos of family reunions and graduations.
Isn't it hard to even get film these days? I don't see much of it at the stores. Even so, I totally like that I have control over the processing. I became very disenchanted by taking my negatives somewhere to be printed only to see things I would have done differently, like the color adjustment or cropping. It was because of this photography took a backseat for so many years. That and raising kids. ;-) For me, I am much happier and more interested in the processing of the photograph. This has always been the case since I learned to work in the darkroom, years ago. So, I am a happy photographer with today's digital cameras and photo editing software.
I would like to throw in here that I think negatives are long term storage for photographs that cannot be replicated anywhere on the internet. Computers crash, files can be corrupted, data can be lost unless it's not backed up, and storage media becomes obsolute quickly compared to negatives. People recommend farming out the photos on the internet to insure some would be saved should that happen to a server holding them. I don't know the answer for this but negatives have a longer life span.
@dmortega I shoot on film all the time, and I actually have no problems buying it, whether it is 120 or 35mm, both of which I use. I do have the advantage of living in a pretty large city, but even so, Amazon and such places have a wide variety to choose from. I try to buy mine from my local camera store, not a chain store, even though they are a little more pricy, because I totally appreciate that stores like this are a) a valuable resource and b) a dying breed.
@wordpixman I've dabbled in film for awhile now with Holga cameras, and in the last few months have began shooting on film more seriously. I strongly prefer the more vintage, mechanical cameras - I have a Mamiya Sekor 500TL and a Rolleicord, among others. I love the simplicity of shooting on these simple cameras, and I believe doing so has taught me things about ISO, aperture, and shutter speed then I was never able to fully grasp by just shooting digital.
Yes, film is more expensive, and I still shoot digital quite often for lots of reasons. There's just something about film that I love. I like having to have the patience to see how a shot turned out because you have to develop it (I always have my film developed and uploaded, and don't often bother with getting prints). Patience is something I need more of in my life, anyway. :). I like having to be more contemplative about what I'm shooting because I have a limited roll of film instead of a large memory card.
I don't see ever going to a purely film workflow, but it's something I love learning more about. :)
Arthur, this is an interesting topic! I'm not the best person to respond, because I never developed my own film. But I'm not ready to get rid of my film cameras.
I've read that many landscape photographers still use film; Ken Rockwell says digital and film are completely different media: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm. So recently I got out my old Pentax K1000, bought some film and took some landscape shots.
Buying film was easier but a little disappointing--there aren't nearly the choices as in pre-digital days! I was sad to learn from the camera shop staff that LSU, the local university, has eliminated its darkroom so photography students no longer begin with film. The students are pleased, so I guess I shouldn't be sad. Maybe, like you, I'm just being nostalgic.
My shots were OK, but I sure missed being able to crop and enhance them myself. The great benefit for me in using the old camera was that I was forced to put more thought into each shot rather than taking 50 and deleting 49. My camera is manual, so I had to think about focus, aperture and shutter speed for each shot. It was like slowing down and smelling the roses--I found I enjoyed the process. However, if I'd been shooting sports, I would have been frustrated.
Recently I was disappointed with some shots I took, so looked up my 1998 film shots of a similar subject. They were better--I got in closer and had better detail. But I'm not sure if it was due to the film....
I'll be interested to see what other people think about this topic.
@eudora I would absolutely love to learn darkroom skills - how sad that it isn't even an option at that school anymore, but I understand why. If nothing else, I'd like to be able to at least develop my own film and perhaps have a negative scanner for the rest.
I'm gutted because there was, apparently, a popular place here in Denver for YEARS where a chap taught film shooting and darkroom classes, etc. It looked pretty promising, but I couldn't understand why none of the links for the place worked anymore. Turns out that he closed up shop and retired, and like in the same MONTH I started shooting on film in earnest. :( I'll just have to keep looking, I suppose!
I think there is a place and even a need for film cameras and home developing. It would educate people on the process and why they do what they do in camera and in post processing. However it is cost prohibitive for most people. I am thankful that I can shoot 200 photos on my digital camera and learn where I am going wrong so the next time I am in that situation, I can shoot 50 shots and get more quality shots out of it. There is no way I could afford to do that with film. I think that in some aspects, that is a lazy way to do it because with film, you are forced to think through the shot (technical and framing) and have a lot more knowledge before you press the shutter BECAUSE of the cost of developing that many rolls of film or plates depending on your camera. I never liked sending my film to someone else to get it developed. I think that for the family memory shots, it's usually fine. But for artistic prints, the best way is to develop them yourself. That is where PS and other post processing is adventageous. We can easily learn and gain an understanding of what processes are needed to get a desired result. It helps us to gain the knowledge of what was/is done to film to get the same result, with less cost. Obviously the chemicals and ratios are not learned but how they affect the end result is. I think that one feeds the other and both are still necessary. You learn the limitations early photograpers faced when you develop in a "wet" scenario and how they still produced stunning images. You learn how to go beyond those limitations with digital technology and computer based post processing. I think that no matter where you start, it is a circle and once you finish it, your understanding of photography is more complete, if that makes sense. If wet developing dissappears, I think that digital photography will suffer. Most of the people who are against editing photos are ignorant of the wet process and what those photographers actually did in the dark room. They edited more than most of today's photographers, partly out of necessity because the camera didn't do white balance or color correction for them, but partly out of experimentation and knowledge of the chemical developing process. We move a few slider and get a result, they had to mix chemicals or use different chemicals to get the same type of results. I think that if more people were aware of where we come from as photographers they would understand where to go in their personal photography lives. I am by no means an expert of where we came from but I feel I have a better understanding than others. I started out on film cameras and had to gain the knowledge of how aperture, ISO, shutter speed affected my shot before I took it so I wasn't single handidly financing the film companies with the amount of film rolls I used up. It definitely helped when I transitioned to digital, it made the learning curve a little less steep. I still have a lot to learn and I re-visit my photography books often to see if I can apply that process to my digital world. Sometimes it translates and sometimes it doesn't, at least not directly. My long winded 2 cents!
@shadesofgrey ... You have summed up most of what I hoped to hear. Understanding the wet darkroom makes light work of learning digital processing because the digital applications of tone values and curves were written by people who truly understood what they were doing, and most of the fancy software embodies those basic functions, dressed up to sound 'new' and difficult to understand. I don't use Photoshop or anything similar because I find Picnik quite adequate, and more transparent in allowing the user to know what it is doing. You also correctly mentioned that a manual film camera made the user think before taking the picture instead of shooting at random - although there is nothing wrong with trying different angles, exposure, focus and depth of field with a digital camera, and then choosing the best. I remember in the days of plate cameras when a photographer who earned the nickname "Mr one-shot" could be justly proud, because there often was not time to change the plate before the opportuniuty was lost, and it took skill to predict the precise moment. Oh, and I also agree with you that there was a great amount of post-processing done in those days because it was a matter of pride to ensure that the finished product was as near perfect as possible, unlike today when the acronym 'SOOC' appended to an image is sometimes seen as an accolade!
I am sure others will have different ideas, but that surely is what this project is all about - gathering views and choosing for ourselves which to accept or follow.
"Good photographs are seen in the mind's eye before the shutter is tripped, but they are made in the darkroom. For it is the final stage of photography -in the production of negative and print- that the creative vision is realized in a picture meant to be looked at, admired, perhaps honoured. - Anonymous , The Print: The LIFE Library of Photography by Editors" http://www.photoquotes.com/ShowQuotes.aspx?id=77
@dmortega Film is not hard to get these days. There's many online retailers and stores in larger cities that sell large varieties. I never really have an issue getting the 120 I like to use through online means.
I'll always love film photography more than digital. I shot digital for two years before I started in with film seriously... and film made me a better photographer. You don't get to take 56000 lame photos and then just delete them off a harddrive. Film makes you learn skills, and learn them quickly. You don't get to "fix" photos with photoshop with film, and do some cliche fake HDR to get all the noobs on the internets going "omg, best photog EVERRR" The main reason why I do so little film at the moment is I don't have the room to do my own developing and printing where I currently live. But I cannot wait until I can have a darkroom! Mmm, the smell of fixer in the morning, nothing better! Beats a computer screen any day... And I'm waiting to buy a Mamiya 645 autofocus MF body... then I foresee a large ditching of my digital bodies...
I don't like the term SOOC. Cameras add so much in camera processing, nothing is really a raw shot. I never quite got why people think they're special snowflakes for posting SOOC shots. Hipstamatic is a "SOOC" shot technically, do I get cookies, too?
@hmgphotos Oh, don't I know it!! I have a Mamiya Sekor 500TL, and it is full of awesome, but I keep thinking how much MORE awesome it would be if it was a 645! :)
@shadesofgrey summed it up very well.
I started with a film camera but never developed myself. I was a student at that time and very short on money. I really had to think more than twice before shooting and couldn't afford much experimentation. I'm glad I can do it now with digital, although I still prefer thinking twice about the settings instead of taking 10 shots to discard 9. I'm also very glad I started with film photography because I had to learn first how a camera works and what the different settings are for. I just can't imagine shooting without knowing what exposure, aperture, ISO, etc. are (although I know some people are able to produce some wonderful shots without that knowledge).
I think there is a place for both. My brother in law is now shooting with an old Leica M3 after he sold his Canon 7D. His shots have something unique that I can't find back with digital pictures. In the same time he cannot experiment too much and he sometimes miss some photos and has nothing left for memory in the end. So, to me, they are complementary.
@scatcat A Leica M3 is my dream camera!! :) But what you said goes a lot to the way I use film and digital. I wouldn't rely solely on film to capture memories, especially with the vintage cameras I have. It's not unheard of for me to 'lose' a roll of film, for one reason or another, and there go the shots of Meemaw and Papaw's anniversary. :) I think of shooting on film when I'm trying to be artistic, if you will, but for something with memories I don't want to chance losing, I'd either use digital or make sure to have digital at hand.
@beautifulthing I agree with you. My BIL recently messed up with all the pics taken during my daughter's birthday, because he used a flash for the first time (and messed up with the shutter speed, lesson learned now). I'm glad I also took digital pics so that we have something for memories. And with kids I think you MUST have a digital camera for some situations.
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Having said that, I was at an art festival a few months ago, and a photographer who used only film had his work displayed. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and he'd written some commentary about why he still uses this method. Unfortunately, I don't have his name to reference it.
So, I think there's room for both, particularly for creative, artistic people who want more than photos of family reunions and graduations.
@wordpixman I've dabbled in film for awhile now with Holga cameras, and in the last few months have began shooting on film more seriously. I strongly prefer the more vintage, mechanical cameras - I have a Mamiya Sekor 500TL and a Rolleicord, among others. I love the simplicity of shooting on these simple cameras, and I believe doing so has taught me things about ISO, aperture, and shutter speed then I was never able to fully grasp by just shooting digital.
Yes, film is more expensive, and I still shoot digital quite often for lots of reasons. There's just something about film that I love. I like having to have the patience to see how a shot turned out because you have to develop it (I always have my film developed and uploaded, and don't often bother with getting prints). Patience is something I need more of in my life, anyway. :). I like having to be more contemplative about what I'm shooting because I have a limited roll of film instead of a large memory card.
I don't see ever going to a purely film workflow, but it's something I love learning more about. :)
I've read that many landscape photographers still use film; Ken Rockwell says digital and film are completely different media: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm. So recently I got out my old Pentax K1000, bought some film and took some landscape shots.
Buying film was easier but a little disappointing--there aren't nearly the choices as in pre-digital days! I was sad to learn from the camera shop staff that LSU, the local university, has eliminated its darkroom so photography students no longer begin with film. The students are pleased, so I guess I shouldn't be sad. Maybe, like you, I'm just being nostalgic.
My shots were OK, but I sure missed being able to crop and enhance them myself. The great benefit for me in using the old camera was that I was forced to put more thought into each shot rather than taking 50 and deleting 49. My camera is manual, so I had to think about focus, aperture and shutter speed for each shot. It was like slowing down and smelling the roses--I found I enjoyed the process. However, if I'd been shooting sports, I would have been frustrated.
Recently I was disappointed with some shots I took, so looked up my 1998 film shots of a similar subject. They were better--I got in closer and had better detail. But I'm not sure if it was due to the film....
I'll be interested to see what other people think about this topic.
I'm gutted because there was, apparently, a popular place here in Denver for YEARS where a chap taught film shooting and darkroom classes, etc. It looked pretty promising, but I couldn't understand why none of the links for the place worked anymore. Turns out that he closed up shop and retired, and like in the same MONTH I started shooting on film in earnest. :( I'll just have to keep looking, I suppose!
@shadesofgrey ... You have summed up most of what I hoped to hear. Understanding the wet darkroom makes light work of learning digital processing because the digital applications of tone values and curves were written by people who truly understood what they were doing, and most of the fancy software embodies those basic functions, dressed up to sound 'new' and difficult to understand. I don't use Photoshop or anything similar because I find Picnik quite adequate, and more transparent in allowing the user to know what it is doing. You also correctly mentioned that a manual film camera made the user think before taking the picture instead of shooting at random - although there is nothing wrong with trying different angles, exposure, focus and depth of field with a digital camera, and then choosing the best. I remember in the days of plate cameras when a photographer who earned the nickname "Mr one-shot" could be justly proud, because there often was not time to change the plate before the opportuniuty was lost, and it took skill to predict the precise moment. Oh, and I also agree with you that there was a great amount of post-processing done in those days because it was a matter of pride to ensure that the finished product was as near perfect as possible, unlike today when the acronym 'SOOC' appended to an image is sometimes seen as an accolade!
I am sure others will have different ideas, but that surely is what this project is all about - gathering views and choosing for ourselves which to accept or follow.
http://www.photoquotes.com/ShowQuotes.aspx?id=77
I'll always love film photography more than digital. I shot digital for two years before I started in with film seriously... and film made me a better photographer. You don't get to take 56000 lame photos and then just delete them off a harddrive. Film makes you learn skills, and learn them quickly. You don't get to "fix" photos with photoshop with film, and do some cliche fake HDR to get all the noobs on the internets going "omg, best photog EVERRR" The main reason why I do so little film at the moment is I don't have the room to do my own developing and printing where I currently live. But I cannot wait until I can have a darkroom! Mmm, the smell of fixer in the morning, nothing better! Beats a computer screen any day... And I'm waiting to buy a Mamiya 645 autofocus MF body... then I foresee a large ditching of my digital bodies...
I don't like the term SOOC. Cameras add so much in camera processing, nothing is really a raw shot. I never quite got why people think they're special snowflakes for posting SOOC shots. Hipstamatic is a "SOOC" shot technically, do I get cookies, too?
I started with a film camera but never developed myself. I was a student at that time and very short on money. I really had to think more than twice before shooting and couldn't afford much experimentation. I'm glad I can do it now with digital, although I still prefer thinking twice about the settings instead of taking 10 shots to discard 9. I'm also very glad I started with film photography because I had to learn first how a camera works and what the different settings are for. I just can't imagine shooting without knowing what exposure, aperture, ISO, etc. are (although I know some people are able to produce some wonderful shots without that knowledge).
I think there is a place for both. My brother in law is now shooting with an old Leica M3 after he sold his Canon 7D. His shots have something unique that I can't find back with digital pictures. In the same time he cannot experiment too much and he sometimes miss some photos and has nothing left for memory in the end. So, to me, they are complementary.