canon Lee

Hi Rick... After High school I graduated from RCA institute for electronics, to learn how to repair T.V.'s.. there were only at that time, B&W tubes... A few yrs later I had to learn about transistors, since tubes were no longer being used in T.V.'s.... Well I paid for an expensive education and it became useless in a short time.. Furthermore I had to learn about audio since t.v.s became less of a money maker for me.. So you ask, whats your point? ..... Things die out and become useless, as this is the scenario of electronics , computers, phones, and cameras.. It takes a lot of effort to keep up with the latest... Yes it would be fantastic if things would not change, but they do... Keeping up means moving on.. looking to the future... embracing change...

anotherview Loc: California

Other, earlier photographic modes passed away when a better mode appeared. We see the same transition happening today with film and digital photography.

I'm not an expert but I've read expert views, and they present something like a consensus -- that digital means of photography can emulate the looks of film photography. In that sense, film photography will continue. But the future lies with digital photography.

I like to believe that film photography will stay around longer than other, earlier techniques because it has a rich legacy spanning 100
years.

BebuLamar

Hi Lee! I agree with you that darkroom and B&W film class is not important for someone who wants to pursue a career in photography just like a class in vacuum tube. However, as a hobbyist I have done darkroom work (although only in color) and study the vacuum tube after my formal education in solid state electronics. For my work in industrial automation I do have to keep up with the technology but for my hobby I still like to do it the old ways.

Paul Moshay Loc: Los Angeles, CA

I feel the same as you and I have been doing just that every once in a while. Though I cannot stand in the darkroom leaning over the sink and processing prints, but processing film is not too difficult. Scanning and printing digitally brings the old time fun back to my life. There is definitely a resurgence in using film, both color and B&W, at the lab I work in. We have been processing a couple dozen rolls each week, and it seems like that will increase as the word, and our website, spreads the news.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

I say yes...there is a market for analogue photography instruction. I'd also say don't mix it with digital...the two are apples and oranges. If you want a digital output of your image then just shoot digital.

I find that when I show folks the darkroom and how a print comes to life they are amazed! They really get a kick out of shooting the film, developing it, and then using those negatives to make a print come to life like magic. Sure, scanning is faster, but that's exactly the point..it's not the same thing. It's not about speed or convenience or ease, it's about the EXPERIENCE of making that magic happen.

That's my two cents.

Analogue photography is magic. That's one thing that digital can never take away from it...the magic, the experience. It's not about how close you can get to the "look" of a film shot in your digital manipulations...it's HOW you got there that is so much a part of it.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

The community college where I live just stopped last year giving courses on BW film photography as not enough people were interested. Changing times.

anotherview Loc: California

You have stated one of the two pillars of film photography to justify it even though passe. It presents a "magical" experience as the image appears on a sheet of photo paper.

Digital processing of an image provides a similar but different kind of personal experience: The potential of the image emerges during the processing of it for an acute visual satisfaction.

The second pillar: Doing film photography requires the photographer to take more care and put in more thought when shooting due to a limited number of exposures and coincidentally not knowing until later if the shot came out as intended. So the film photographer has to spend more conscious effort to get it right in the camera.

The careful, skilled, and experienced digital photographer will do something very similar to the exercise of the film photographer when shooting. Neither has an advantage over the other in this regard. The digital photographer, however, enjoys the latitude of taking several shots of a subject, yet with no concern for the wastage of film and that constraint.

The diehard advocates of film photography invariably ignore that film photography always involves an engineered look, never true color, unlike digital photography that may achieve true color.

The history of photography depicts technological change affecting its mechanical capture of a subject and subsequent development of the photographic medium. So today we only see more of the same now in the transition from film photography to digital photography.

In fact, experts say digital photography has surpassed film photography. Of course, the latter will still appeal to a niche element among photographers. The field of photography has room for all approaches to it.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Not passe to me.



The experience isn't the same to me.



Yes...that's part of the enjoyment; that mindset that's not entirely possible knowing that you can just chimp and delete.



Exactly, it's knowing that you have multiple tries that makes it not like the film experience. Even if you pretend that you don't have them, you do and you know it. So, it's not the same experience for me.



And that's part of what makes it enjoyable, the interpretation of reality by the film stock. It's like having a fridge full of different sensors.



Sort of I guess.



It depends what your value system is as to whether something is surpassed or not. If you like what digi does...then yes. If you like film for what it is...digi will never be what that is.