Anyone shooting film?

[slclick]

Holy resurrection batman, this thread went 4 years without a reply and zip, bam, boom, it's back!

If someone want's to shoot film because its different and fun, and a diversion, more power to them! But to respond to those people by telling them digital in 2016 is cheaper and more efficient.... seems silly. I think they know that.
This is a little like saying why restore a '68 mustang, when new ones are available down at the ford dealer. I think, because that person just wants a '68, not a 2016.

Thank you. So many times most responses to posts are taken as if the OP is a complete dolt and hasn't taken in the most obvious of ideas and reasoning. Process! That's why I enjoy film. I love all the steps, the time it takes to craft a proper image. I am in no rush for something worthwhile and done with my own hands (and eyes) Using LR is great but I didn't write the software.

 

[gsealy]

Hell yes! Lots of people shoot film, in fact it's making quite the "come back".

I shoot a few rolls a week, mostly medium format, either on my Mamiya 645 Pro TL, or the Mamiya RB67.

There is definitely something special about the process, and the look you get from the negs. I'm a big fan.

Vinyl records too are making a comeback. That doesn't mean the quality is better than carefully crafted 100% digital. Like all things it's the care that goes into producing the result that makes the result good, and I very much doubt that analogue/film would be better than digital using current models of camera and lenses.

The problem is, so much of modern recording isn't carefully crafted for the benefit of the listener, but rather for perceived demands which don't necessarily align. This may have it's roots in broadcaster demands (for louder vs peak sound which helps their station sound louder without breaking radio modulation requirements, and so shows up more easily for users tuning their radio).

Of course if the music wasn't digitised then there would be less ability to compress it and hence older vinyl can often sound much better just becasue it hasn't been ruined by crass DR compression... though some old vinyl was also horrifically compressed. I've even come across heavily compressed classical pieces, one I'll always remember is Ravel's Bolero which isn't great, it's basically one huge crescendo, but the recording I heard had compressed this and totally removed the DR killing the piece entirely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Digital pictures and audio are a sampling and number representation of a continuous medium. There are not 256 shades of gray, for example, there are an infinite number of them. So, in that regard digital anything can never be as good as an analogue recording. AT&T/Bell Labs figured out back in the 1960's that sound could be reasonably represented by numbers if it was sampled enough times and at the right frequencies. So Aunt Jenny sounded like Aunt Jenny even though her voice was turned into numbers and then back to audio. Aunt Jenny never knew the difference. So in the same regard, digital photos and video are samples too and are "good enough" so that that the eye usually doesn't know the difference.

Some people's hearing is refined enough so that they can tell the difference between digital and vinyl. It is the same with photos. Once a film originated picture is scanned, then it is digital too and subject to the same inherent quality issue that a digital originated picture has. But it is "good enough."

 

[jeffa4444]

My biggest regret was selling my AE-1 Program I loved that camera and the AE-1 before it. I do however still have the camera that started the whole EOS system the EOS 650 film camera which is in full working order and I use for B&W film which gives photographs I feel cannot be produced digitally. I bought this camera in 1987 along with a EF 35-70mm lens which was its kit lens followed by the EF 28mm f2.8 that Ive used continuosly since 1988.

Canon were years ahead on Nikon when they launched the EOS system and Nikon have never really recovered.

 

[Sporgon]

I wonder how many are not only shooting film but developing prints as well ? Probably not many. Ironically digital has given film a new lease of life because after the developing of the neg or slide, which gives you a tangible raw image, you can then very effectively digitalise it and print. I guess there are more people doing this than you might think as there are reports of film sales actually increasing in some areas.

This way you can shoot real medium format rather than the digital apology of MF which is really FF on steroids.

If we are talking 35 mm then in my opinion you can duplicate the 'look' of film with digital if you want to, so other than doing it for the sake of it I don't see the point.

 

[Rocky]

There is another variable. It is the lens that is being used. Some says that the film give the picture a certain appearance that the digital cannot match. Has anyone try the same lens on a digital camera ? Some uncoated old lens from the film period will have the image that the modern coated lens that cannot duplicate. If the same lense use on the digital camera, it will duplicate the same effect. Also one op says there is only 256 shade of grey in digital media. That is not true. The grey is still come from 3 primary colors. Therefore there is 256X256X256. That is 16,777,216 shades of grey from the digital media. I am questioning who can tell the difference between this and the supposed infinite shade of grey from the B/W film.

 

[slclick]

I wonder how many are not only shooting film but developing prints as well ? Probably not many. Ironically digital has given film a new lease of life because after the developing of the neg or slide, which gives you a tangible raw image, you can then very effectively digitalise it and print. I guess there are more people doing this than you might think as there are reports of film sales actually increasing in some areas.

This way you can shoot real medium format rather than the digital apology of MF which is really FF on steroids.

If we are talking 35 mm then in my opinion you can duplicate the 'look' of film with digital if you want to, so other than doing it for the sake of it I don't see the point.

In the past 10 years the only film I worked with was the film I processed prints from as well. I just don't get doing half the work (the easy half)

 

[jeffa4444]

I wonder how many are not only shooting film but developing prints as well ? Probably not many. Ironically digital has given film a new lease of life because after the developing of the neg or slide, which gives you a tangible raw image, you can then very effectively digitalise it and print. I guess there are more people doing this than you might think as there are reports of film sales actually increasing in some areas.

This way you can shoot real medium format rather than the digital apology of MF which is really FF on steroids.

If we are talking 35 mm then in my opinion you can duplicate the 'look' of film with digital if you want to, so other than doing it for the sake of it I don't see the point.

I can only give you this parrallel. Red, Arri & Sony make great digital cinematography cameras all successful and they would argue better than film. Fact is however in 2015 and now again in 2016 half of the Hollywood majors were shooting are on film and the reason often given is film gives more natural looking colours that digital fails to do. Its not about budget, its an artistic choice and about not producing movies that look too similar. Motion Picture cameras are using a format similar to APS-H blown up far larger normally than still images (billboards excepted) so I would disagree about 35mm full frame stills which is Vistavision in Motion Picture.
In 2015 film saw its first increase in sales since 1991 with B&W increasing more than colour and it was the 25s and younger who drove this.

 

[jeffa4444]

Would also add Kodak are launching a new Super 8 camera later this year!

 

[Hillsilly]

I wonder how many are not only shooting film but developing prints as well ?

I'm contact printing cyanotypes, but using digital negatives that are created from scanned negatives. Does that count?

(One day I'll pick up a 16" x 20" camera and be able to skip the whole scanning process.)

 

[slclick]

I wonder how many are not only shooting film but developing prints as well ?

I'm contact printing cyanotypes, but using digital negatives that are created from scanned negatives. Does that count?

(One day I'll pick up a 16" x 20" camera and be able to skip the whole scanning process.)

I do the same process occasionally. The best part of this method is the ease of getting an 8 x 10 positive with a great tonal range for the blue vs cream tones.

 

[Sporgon]

I wonder how many are not only shooting film but developing prints as well ? Probably not many. Ironically digital has given film a new lease of life because after the developing of the neg or slide, which gives you a tangible raw image, you can then very effectively digitalise it and print. I guess there are more people doing this than you might think as there are reports of film sales actually increasing in some areas.

This way you can shoot real medium format rather than the digital apology of MF which is really FF on steroids.

If we are talking 35 mm then in my opinion you can duplicate the 'look' of film with digital if you want to, so other than doing it for the sake of it I don't see the point.

I can only give you this parrallel. Red, Arri & Sony make great digital cinematography cameras all successful and they would argue better than film. Fact is however in 2015 and now again in 2016 half of the Hollywood majors were shooting are on film and the reason often given is film gives more natural looking colours that digital fails to do. Its not about budget, its an artistic choice and about not producing movies that look too similar. Motion Picture cameras are using a format similar to APS-H blown up far larger normally than still images (billboards excepted) so I would disagree about 35mm full frame stills which is Vistavision in Motion Picture.
In 2015 film saw its first increase in sales since 1991 with B&W increasing more than colour and it was the 25s and younger who drove this.

You don't get many prints in a motion picture do you ?

 

[jeffa4444]

I wonder how many are not only shooting film but developing prints as well ? Probably not many. Ironically digital has given film a new lease of life because after the developing of the neg or slide, which gives you a tangible raw image, you can then very effectively digitalise it and print. I guess there are more people doing this than you might think as there are reports of film sales actually increasing in some areas.

This way you can shoot real medium format rather than the digital apology of MF which is really FF on steroids.

If we are talking 35 mm then in my opinion you can duplicate the 'look' of film with digital if you want to, so other than doing it for the sake of it I don't see the point.

I can only give you this parrallel. Red, Arri & Sony make great digital cinematography cameras all successful and they would argue better than film. Fact is however in 2015 and now again in 2016 half of the Hollywood majors were shooting are on film and the reason often given is film gives more natural looking colours that digital fails to do. Its not about budget, its an artistic choice and about not producing movies that look too similar. Motion Picture cameras are using a format similar to APS-H blown up far larger normally than still images (billboards excepted) so I would disagree about 35mm full frame stills which is Vistavision in Motion Picture.
In 2015 film saw its first increase in sales since 1991 with B&W increasing more than colour and it was the 25s and younger who drove this.

You don't get many prints in a motion picture do you ?

Your missing my point if you want film to look like digital shoot digital. If you want digital to look like film shoot film.
Artists can choose between water colours & oils whats the difference? I have some A3 B&W prints taken recently that I cannot recreate easily on digital so why bother.

 

[jeffa4444]

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/02/02/is-film-dead-not-according-to-the-stats-from-ilfords-latest-analog-survey

 

[Hillsilly]

Kodak is also likely to be profitable this year driven largely by film sales (although most motion picture film).

A lot of big budget movies have used film recently - http://motion.kodak.com/motion/customers/productions/default.htm - and they typically use over a million feet of film. And I suspect we're mostly talking 65mm. I'm not good at maths, but I assume that equates to a lot of 35mm canisters.

 

[TexPhoto]

Holy resurrection batman, this thread went 4 years without a reply and zip, bam, boom, it's back!

If someone want's to shoot film because its different and fun, and a diversion, more power to them! But to respond to those people by telling them digital in 2016 is cheaper and more efficient.... seems silly. I think they know that.
This is a little like saying why restore a '68 mustang, when new ones are available down at the ford dealer. I think, because that person just wants a '68, not a 2016.

Thank you. So many times most responses to posts are taken as if the OP is a complete dolt and hasn't taken in the most obvious of ideas and reasoning. Process! That's why I enjoy film. I love all the steps, the time it takes to craft a proper image. I am in no rush for something worthwhile and done with my own hands (and eyes) Using LR is great but I didn't write the software.

No problem, I get that all the time here. I post "hey have you ever tried X, cool sometimes" and the response from 80% of people is: Are you crazy, you can't shoot X in every photo you do for the rest of you life, that's crazy!

 

[jeffa4444]

Kodak is also likely to be profitable this year driven largely by film sales (although most motion picture film).

A lot of big budget movies have used film recently - http://motion.kodak.com/motion/customers/productions/default.htm - and they typically use over a million feet of film. And I suspect we're mostly talking 65mm. I'm not good at maths, but I assume that equates to a lot of 35mm canisters.

Hateful 8 shot 65mm film but most current 65mm production is on the Alexa 65 which is digital. Star Wars was film (35mm) and most others shooting film are 35mm only one company processes 65mm film globally.

 

[Hillsilly]

That's the problem when you look at sites like IMDB. Eg for Star Wars VII, they list: -

Aspect Ratio 1.43 : 1 (some scenes: IMAX 70mm)
2.35 : 1
Camera Arri Alexa (aerial plates)
IMAX MKIII, Hasselblad Lenses
IMAX MSM 9802, Hasselblad Lenses
Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2, Panavision Primo, Retro C-, E-Series, ATZ and AWZ2 Lenses

But you have no idea of the percentage each camera was used, or even the percentage shot with film vs digital.

Bit off topic, but for those who don't know, BlackMagic's Davinci Resolve programme has a free version that allows you to colour correct movies and still shots. It has some options for making digital movies look more like some film stocks.

 

[Pookie]

A week ago I would not have had a reply here. Fortunately now, I do.

There is an elderly lady I take to the doctor once in a while. We were talking and she found out I take photography very seriously as a hobby. She said she had some old cameras I could have if I wanted them.

She gave me a Polaroid 600 (which I'll never use and probably can't find film for), A really cheap plastic Keystone Regal 35mm...

But then she handed me a 1960 Voigtlander VITO CL Standard. She'd bought the camera herself brand new when she was a 20 year old. It is a very nice little camera with a 50mm f/2.8 lens. The lens is not interchangeable as far as I can tell. It is the Lanthar lens and not the Color-skopar.

I'm shooting through a 24 exposure roll of color film I picked up at Walmart. However, I'll be looking online for some black and white film.

I'm very proud to have this camera and plan on using it as much as I can. It even has a self timer that works. It is pristine.

So, it isn't medium format or anything expensive. It seems to be just a great little camera. It will hold a lot of sentimental value for me. This lady has no family left in the world. I'm very touched she gave these old cameras to me.

Any suggestions on which black and white films and where to get processed would be appreciated. Thank you for this thread. Maybe we should post pics of our film cameras?

CFB, that 600 film is alive and well. What model is it, working(?) and would you be willing to sell it if you're not interested in keeping it?

Check out... https://us.impossible-project.com/collections/film?gclid=Cj0KEQjwvtS6BRC8pcKn8OXIg_wBEiQAqtpiz-w0D8A4_uWqc3ULT04_A2ZMCN40jYb-jgxobCzsjEEaAjJM8P8HAQ

 

[East Wind Photography]

I still have a working EOS 3 that i use occasionally. Works perfectly. Im always intrigued by the eye tracking technology which never made it back into the lineup. I mostly shoot black and white with it for special events. Otherwise the dslrs get most of the wear and tear.

 

[slclick]

Today in fact, Delta 400 on my Elan 7e. (it's my car camera)