selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

That's a shame. If shooting digital means you can stop thinking, I'm glad I still shoot film. I also shoot digital but I don't like to waste my time viewing and editing stuff I might not like.

To me, the real benefit of digital is that I can take the same image several different ways and discard all but the best.

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

a year ago i would have climbed up on my bandwagon shouting
"digitals only value is in cutting the cost in setting up a film shoot"
Now i have to admitt i'm slowly coming over to the dark side..

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Hmmmm, my darkroom don't smell at all.
John, you best check out your computer, maybe it's burning up!! :lol:
SS

JaiGieEse Loc: Foxworth, MS

There are a handful of collodion photographers who ply their trade at Civil War reenactments every year. I came across one of them at a large event in north Mississippi several years ago, and as it was said back in the day, I had my likeness captured. The photographer used an antique camera and precisely the plates, chemicals, materials and procedures employed by his 19th century forebears. Here's the result - how I look as a 19th century soldier. Interesting note: the glass plate images produced by this process are negatives. One paints the back of the glass with black lacquer to produce a positive image. It took a bit over an hour to shoot and process this one image. Yes, indeedy, we do have it much easier these days

NikonJohn Loc: Indiana U.S.A.

It was a unique smell wasn't it.
When ever I work with silicone caulk it reminds me of stop bath. :)
I think my biggest problem with the smell was in high school. I had lunch right after photography, my hands smelled like fix and that did not go well with food. :lol:

NikonJohn Loc: Indiana U.S.A.

My computer doesn't smell at all like my darkroom did...

The name of my computer that I do my photography on is "my darkroom". :)

jeryh Loc: Oxfordshire UK

Philistine !

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

For myself, I never grew up shooting film. The first time I really got into Photography it was digital. The closest I ever got to film was taking shots with disposable cameras and I remember I had one Canon film camera...but I think that film looks great...so full of character.

If I had my wish, it would be a digital camera that worked like and looked like and produced images like a film camera...except that they are digital.

The day someone comes out with the successor to the Epson RD-1 I'll be a happy camper.

Racmanaz Loc: Sunny Tucson!

I duno, maybe Sniper is a lot like a film photographer, he does not need a lot of ammo to "shoot" his target. The sniper just practices and prepairs till he is skillful enough to get his target with the least amount of ammo, ulike someone who is not as skillful who needs an Uzi to shoot as many bullets as possible in hopes to "hit" his target. ;)

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

JaiGieEse, that is a wonderful, classical image of you! Terrific! :D I'm sure you already know, but others may not know that what you have there is an ambrotype, which indeed is the wet collodion processed to a negative, then "reversed" to a positive simply by black-lacquering the back. I used to do a tremendous amount of copy work in my studio. I loved it because I got to see lots of old pictures. A woman came in one day with what was left of an ambrotype, a family group in the studio. The image seemed fine but the lacquer was badly cracked and peeling. She wanted me to copy and restore it. I asked her if it might be okay to remove the remaining lacquer and try to print the image directly. She was thrilled! The resulting print was gorgeous, and the negative could now be enlarged. There was no restoration necessary since the original was not damaged. When I was done I took a piece of glossy photo paper, flashed it, developed it to maximum black, ferrotyped it to a high gloss and sandwiched it behind the collodion negative in its original case so it was back to where it had started more than a century before. Worked like a charm! :D

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Racmanaz, I understand your point, and I agree to an extent, based on the "blind squirrel" principle (even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then). Sure, anybody can take a $5K camera out, lock it on auto everything, blaze away until the card is full, and probably get a prize winner or two, but I don't believe that most serious photographers do, and I do believe that most folks who get involved with The Hog are serious.

I myself love the freedom to explore a subject. Shooting film, especially if I were not on assignment so somebody else was paying for it ;) , I tended to be cautious because every shot was a shot less on the roll, every roll cost money, so on and so forth. That said, I'd venture that 80% of what I shoot now I make one exposure and walk away. BUT—— there are some subjects that want to be explored, high, low, front, back… I'm like that with sculpture in particular because it's so difficult to adequately represent 3-dimensional art in 2-dimensions.

I believe there is even a place for "spray'n'pray." I just posted elsewhere that I have a favorite "cheat" that I freely use sometimes when the focus is chancy, such as a hand-held macro of a moving target, say a flower in a slight breeze. You're likely to have subject motion, or camera motion, or both. At high magnifications depth-of-field is measured in millimeters, and few of them, and it can be nearly impossible to tell when you have the focus nailed, and besides it's changing constantly. My "cheat" is to blast away in continuous for, oh, 6 or 10 frames. It's disgusting, I know. It's the true meaning of "spray'n'pray," but in hand-held closeups it may be the only reasonable way. Upload everything to your favorite PP app and enlarge to 100%, then start dumping the fuzzies. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: (No shame!) :lol:

JaiGieEse Loc: Foxworth, MS

Both approaches have their place. Ever watch a gaggle of photo-journalists at work? when the moment is fleeting, when they've a subject that is moving fast and they know they aren't likely to get a second chance, they use continuous exposure. In the film days, they'd have used motor drives and often, bulf spool backs on their cameras.

Yeah, it's preferable to get the image with a single shot, maybe two as a backup. But sometimes, y'gotta use the Uzi.

Oh, and those 1200+ images I shot on my honeymoon? There were a few double-shots, but most were singles.

dem45133 Loc: Home-Hillsboro OH, work NM

Hummm. "rapid turnover...", well for some that's a plus I would think... but for me since I've owned and used an 1971 M/S SLR for 30 years and then a digital Kodak imitation camera for 10... that would not be a driver for me. Heck my old 35 still works fine for serous shots... for run-of-the-mill memory shots the little digital Z1015 did fine. two cameras... 40 years... I guess that's not important to me (smile). Sorry, the term "rapid turnover" just made me chuckle... I generally try to by decent quality to begin with and use it forever. We don't get much turnover in our house, and yea it is becoming more of a museum now than a house. My wife has a saying that she inherited from her grandmother..."use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without". Can't tell her grandmother lived through the depression years can ya? Unless something is beyond repair it generally doesn't get replaced, and yea we do have to do without on occasion. I am also an audiophile... but I've had only two system upgrades is 33 years. Still use some of the original 1980 system every day.

Emp Loc: new york state nassau county

I shoot both film and digital. The only thing that worries me about digital is many point and shoot people delete all their pictures because they were nothing special. Sometimes history takes time to show how important some shots can be. I took some digital photos of the surf on the East End of Long Island on the eve of Hurricane Sandy. Not remarkable pictures. But I am glad I did not delete them!!!!

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

I find the opposite problem - I tend to keep *everything*, just in case I might want that shot later. Now that I am shooting a lot more, and using RAW, I need to start getting rid of the ones which just don't cut it! I have to be strict with myself...