Old Film Cameras

[edger]

I didn't realize until I started to use digital how much my enjoyment of photography hinged on the whole film shooting experience. I certainly see the advantages of digital and I keep trying to continue using it, but in fact, it has all but killed my enjoyment of photography. I like the smell of film, the darkroom work when I did that in my teens and twenties, the loading and advancing of film, the sound of the shutter, and in those cases when applicable, the wait for the film to be processed, which allowed me to rethink my photo shoot before seeing the results, which could be disappointing or thrillingly better than expected. With digital, everyone is a photographer with their phone, and shoot like crazy and so get some good pictures. That's good! You can even shoot in black-and-white, though now it is just an affect and not much a living genre. But the joy in photography, for me, is much diminished, a frail shadow of how it felt with celluloid. I'd be interested if celluloid came back, like vinyl records, but I think digital has it outgunned, I'm not sure what the appeal would be for people not experienced with it in the past. Someone will do it, for art's sake, but whether it will be available at a moderate price for us old celluloid guys, I doubt. Someone will get a Ford Foundation grant to do it, to much ballyhoo at the New York City galleries.

It might have something to do with times we grew up in. Film was kind of magical in the fifties and sixties, and I suspect digital is magical to the younger folk. The ubiquitousness of lousy images beautifully reproduced is really the only change. We husbanded our frames due to cost, so we took more care to make them count.

 

[anotherbob]

I didn't realize until I started to use digital how much my enjoyment of photography hinged on the whole film shooting experience. I certainly see the advantages of digital and I keep trying to continue using it, but in fact, it has all but killed my enjoyment of photography. I like the smell of film, the darkroom work when I did that in my teens and twenties, the loading and advancing of film, the sound of the shutter, and in those cases when applicable, the wait for the film to be processed, which allowed me to rethink my photo shoot before seeing the results, which could be disappointing or thrillingly better than expected. With digital, everyone is a photographer with their phone, and shoot like crazy and so get some good pictures. That's good! You can even shoot in black-and-white, though now it is just an affect and not much a living genre. But the joy in photography, for me, is much diminished, a frail shadow of how it felt with celluloid. I'd be interested if celluloid came back, like vinyl records, but I think digital has it outgunned, I'm not sure what the appeal would be for people not experienced with it in the past. Someone will do it, for art's sake, but whether it will be available at a moderate price for us old celluloid guys, I doubt. Someone will get a Ford Foundation grant to do it, to much ballyhoo at the New York City galleries.

I know the only reason I am planning on getting a digital camera is because I keep seeing crazy awesome animals in weird places. Like that grey fox those I keep seeing. Or the multitude of animals I keep surprising in my neighborhood on my walk home. But I just don't have the same drive to just take pictures without the whole process. It is funny it's often with art how the limitations become the things we end up loving. Example how many people try to capture guitar sounds that came about because the recording tech in the day wasn't so good? That is preamble to this statement, when I first tried digital I was amazed by being able to take a picture and see if it was a good picture if everything came out how I wanted it too yet one of the things I miss so much is that tension of seeing which pictures came out right and how many good shots you actually got. And sometimes it could take a while because you had to finish a roll of film get time in the dark room etc.....

 

[sablebrush52]

I completely agree. With film you had lens perspective, shutter speed, and aperture to deal with while shooting. Everything else, more or less, was post processing. With digital it seems you have more decisions at the front end. Hard for me to get used to, but certainly a boon to creativity.

You do have more decisions at the front end, but if you choose not to get buried in the options, you still have greater flexibility to alter the characteristics of of your image during the digital equivalent of the developing stage. With traditional photo-chemical processes we had various combinations of emulsions, developers, and processing that we could employ to get an effect like increased contrast or altered graininess. But it was both limited in scope and in predictability.
With the tools we now have it's much easier to make precise adjustments or add effects. Moving a slider is much simpler than calculating development times to achieve target gammas on color separation records running through a Houston Fearless.

 

[anotherbob]

It might have something to do with times we grew up in. Film was kind of magical in the fifties and sixties, and I suspect digital is magical to the younger folk. The ubiquitousness of lousy images beautifully reproduced is really the only change. We husbanded our frames due to cost, so we took more care to make them count.

I went to high school in the 90's and film holds a nostalgic place in my heart too. Funny digital seemed like a cheap but over priced gimmick something the pros might use but not just everybody.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I went to high school in the 90's and film holds a nostalgic place in my heart too. Funny digital seemed like a cheap but over priced gimmick something the pros might use but not just everybody.

Actually, in the beginning of digital, you could really have fun with it. I remember putting the sensor plates into medium format cameras, pinhole cameras, and just making up things to do with the plates. The resolution wasn't great, but you could get some unique stuff with them.

 

[anotherbob]

Actually, in the beginning of digital, you could really have fun with it. I remember putting the sensor plates into medium format cameras, pinhole cameras, and just making up things to do with the plates. The resolution wasn't great, but you could get some unique stuff with them.

sounds like fun

 

[olkofri]

It might have something to do with times we grew up in. Film was kind of magical in the fifties and sixties, and I suspect digital is magical to the younger folk. The ubiquitousness of lousy images beautifully reproduced is really the only change. We husbanded our frames due to cost, so we took more care to make them count.

And plenty of times not so beautiful, heck not beautiful at all, just reproduced and we're all s'posed to go "oooh" and "aaaah" at bad images. Now with phones everyone's a photographer.

 

[renfield]

I have an old Nikon F3HP with many attachments for technical photography. I had a darkroom for many years. The F3 is a beautiful machine and I still occasionally cycle the mechanism and marvel at the sensuous feel and sound. I resisted digital for a long time but now it offers too many advantages for me.

I know only 1 person who lost all their photo prints and negatives (house fire). I know quite a few who’ve lost all of their digital images to various computer problems. Something people should keep in mind but often don’t.

 

[olkofri]

I know quite a few who’ve lost all of their digital images to various computer problems. Something people should keep in mind but often don’t.

Definitely! The safest way to prevent your photos is to print them.

I had a major HDD failure a few years ago: the photos storage drive went south and I hadn't backed it up. @ ~$1500 CAD for the data recovery it was a very costly lesson to learn, and even then, a few files were lost.

 

[mso489]

My first outings with a digital camera involved Native American dancers, and I picked up on the movement and the moment I wanted to capture, so tried to get that. But in the 90's, the shutter had a delay, a full second or two, so I had to lead the target as it was. After four or five missteps, I finally got the timing and got the picture, although I felt not as well as I could have done with a celluloid film camera. All that's fixed now, but it gave the technology an odd distance for me, retained by other aspects of the technology. It's like the coder and programmer are taking the pictures and I'm a spectator.

 

[warren]

I'm guessing many of you, growing up, were never subjected to hours of mundane slides or photographs of the "trip to Europe" by friends or family. Or, sometimes worse, a wallet full of "precious baby" photos. Digital has neither improved nor worsened the level of photography. I will concede the camera phone is invasive in the hands of many people but, that's the user not the tool. Snap shots are snap shots. Serious photography is an entirely different activity. Taking snaps is much different from seeing a shot, evaluating what you see and figuing the best perspective, crop, settings, etc. to capture what really caught your eye in a scene. Never settle for what the camera sees, it's different than what you see and you will surely scratch your head and wonder why you took the shot when you get home from your once in a lifetime trip.

I made the switch to digital when Nikon digital achieved a semblance of equality with Kodachrome 64. I had to change the way I evaluated light as digital sensors handle light much differently than film. It took a while but, I eventually became competent and now take quality shots again. Admittedly most viewers of photographs do not see the difference, I'm not shooting for those folks.

Your digital shots are easy to secure. Thumb drives, "The Cloud", free standing hard drives all lend themselves to secure storage. My shots are stored on three drives, one of which is stored "off-location." This is certainly more secure than the old photo album or negs/slides stored in attics or basements slowly degrading from environment and time.

If your shots are valuable to you, family treasures, take the time and make an effort to secure them properly..

 

[warren]

I should add, photo editors refusing all but digital submissions also forced the change from film.

 

[mso489]

This may sound simple minded, but I think the magic moment in doing photography, film or digital, is when you realize you are photographing the light off objects and not the objects themselves, so you are experiencing the active lighting, not the physical items, first. In fashion or industrial photos, you may set up and manipulate the light yourself, but outdoors or in "captured" photos you have to work with the light. I love the old term available light, which hint at this principle.

 

[americaman]

I mainly shoot film. It just offers a different look, especially with 35mm, that cannot be replicated (yet) in Lightroom or any of those editing softwares.

 

[F4RM3R]

I'm a big fan of film, maybe go through a roll a month or two. Mostly digital though, my girlfriend has a very nice canon. I like my Diana+ Lomo film camera though. It's obviously a cheap plastic toy compared to most film cameras, but what it lacks in prescision it makes up for in artistic character. The fact that you can get so many different lenses(i love fish eye) and switch from 35 to 120 or even fuji instax instant film with the same camera by just changing the backplate is neat. I also like that it can do multiple exposures on the same frame.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I mainly shoot film. It just offers a different look, especially with 35mm, that cannot be replicated (yet) in Lightroom or any of those editing softwares.

I disagree. I believe Photoshop in the hands of the clever can replicate any film look from Daguerrotype (sp?) to anything made in the last century and a half.

Mind you, I am not that person. But what do you like about the 'look' of 35mm film?

 

[sablebrush52]

I disagree. I believe Photoshop in the hands of the clever can replicate any film look from Daguerrotype (sp?) to anything made in the last century and a half.

Mind you, I am not that person. But what do you like about the 'look' of 35mm film?

True this. I've got 28 years of working with Photoshop in production. You can do just about anything you want to do to an image. Plus there are a plethora of third party filter sets including sets that replicate the texture of different emulsions, that extend it's capabilities enormously. It's a matter of expertise.

 

[anotherbob]

This may sound simple minded, but I think the magic moment in doing photography, film or digital, is when you realize you are photographing the light off objects and not the objects themselves, so you are experiencing the active lighting, not the physical items, first. In fashion or industrial photos, you may set up and manipulate the light yourself, but outdoors or in "captured" photos you have to work with the light. I love the old term available light, which hint at this principle.

yeah that's lesson number 3. You photo graph light you're literally making a record of the light, heck it's in the name. It really makes a difference to realize that. It's strange how sometimes something that doesn't seem like it should make a difference beyond being academic, can be so critical. Oh and bonus points because I am actually resisting the urge to be crass at the moment. That's a reason to celebrate if there ever was one.

 

[anotherbob]

Admittedly most viewers of photographs do not see the difference, I'm not shooting for those folks.

They still react to it though. Maybe not dramatically. But often times it's those subtle to the untrained eye differences that make someone really love a photo instead of just liking it quite a bit. Same thing with most creative skills. Think about cooking or tobacco blending how some blends to a new smoker may taste the same yet they certainly find themselves smoking more of one then the other.

 

[mso489]

There's also the difference between what you intend to photograph and what you actually get. The most common example is when the tourist photographs the beautiful ship at sea. The tourist can see its port holes and lifelines and detail, but when they get the photo, the ship is a gnat on the horizon. Likewise, people photograph backlit people and objects and get nothing but a dark form in front of a brightly lit background. These are crass examples, but even people who know a lot more about what they're doing get the same effect. The intention overrides the actual image from wishful thinking.