Joecosentino Loc: Whitesboro, New York

could be that people miss holding a photo in their hand. Thousands of photos are taken by the average person each year and downloaded to a hard drive maybe looked at once or twice and then they just keep getting pushed back under new folders of photos. The old hard drive crashes and the kids 1st birthday memories are gone forever.

I make a point of printing at least 12 photos every year some years I do more. some are 5x7 and some are on the walls at 24x30 but they are printed, I did a gallery show last year with 35 prints it was really nice looking back at the room after they were hung and seeing my work on the walls.

Quinn 4

Why I like film camera over digital camera. It challenging to use a film camera- One has to think before shooting, no second chance. Right speed of film, lighting, is this the lens I want to use. Most of the cameras I use have no batteries to them, so no worry about batteries. Then the history of a camera. I just got pictures back I got from using 1930s German 120mm film camera. By using that camera I got to understand what it was like to use a 1930s camera. Yes, you have to wait for your pictures to come back. No, you can't go on the computer to change the picture. Cost is far less with a film camera vs. a digital camera. Being that digital cameras are electric item, it has a very short life. Top today, junk tomorrow. I have seen at auctions digital cameras that cost $300.00 when new, sell for $20.00. The only use I have for a digital is to put pictures on a web site. it take less time and less steps than using film camera.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Right but does this make you angrier as this is the question?

I and a few other have noted that those who go digital then revert to analog (film) are usually angrier than other users...

Quinn 4

No, I can understand why people become angrier using a digital camera, it because people think the complex of working a digital camera, is less than film camera, which it is not, if anything it more. So, you are right about anger and using a digital camera.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Maybe it is frustration with technology. People hate to fail and processing with Photoshop is hard you need to learn how to use it and some people do not have that aptitude

So perhaps for some going back to film maybe a way of removing that frustration but it's not easy on the ego being beat by a machine and knowing digital can provide great results but knowing your not capable of doing the post processing will gnaw at you for a while. For others film is an interesting technology with clearer challenges and has a great look to it. I'm not angry film is just a different way of doing something I love.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

True enough. Some of us make conscious decisions to use one or the other medium for its positive attributes. But there is a certain anger upon the part of many who want to follow the crowd, but can't, for various reasons. For some, the primary reason is cost, and for others, it's the learning curve, and the self-confidence and learning skills required to climb that curve. For them, film remains a viable medium.

I consider myself lucky to have been a "wave rider" from the start. I'm happy on the digital beach — still learning, but confident in my choices.

kdogg Loc: Gallipolis Ferry WV

I cut my teeth in photography in 1965 with a Kodak Brownie (wish I still had it) moved with 35mm Haminex Pracktica than onto to a progression of Minotas. Missed the large negative and got into an Rb67 and 4x5 Crown Graphic. Bought my first DSLR in 2016 a Canon T5, realized it's limitations and picked up a used 7D. For me it is all about photography and the quest for knowledge. My father (a college professor) taught radio and television in the 60's and 70's at the University of Detroit always told me to follow the technology it will serve you well. I look at my films days and realize that it totally prepared me for the digital revolution of photography. These day's I do both film and digital and am still having fun some 40+ years later. The thrill of the darkroom and the thrill of getting and image right on my computer for me are one in the same. It's all about doing something I love, it's all about PHOTOGRAPHY!

berchman Loc: South Central PA

I started taking pictures in the early 60's with a Pentax H1a. I would send them out to Meridian lab in NYC to be processed. I dropped photography for about thirty-five years and bought my first digital camera, a shirt pocket sized Konica Minolta in 2002. About six years ago I saw that the college from which I had retired was offering a summer school course in black and white photography including dark room work. I took it, not because I thought I could learn more about photography by shooting film, but in order to experience developing and printing film. When I first saw a print appear in the developer tray I found it thrilling, miraculous. I also marveled that I was able to successfully wind a roll of film in the developing tank just by feel since I'm pretty non-mechanical. So I agree that one does not have to take a course using film in order to learn photography, but it was very enjoyable.

I'm also a kind of gadget hound so when my college got its first desktop computer I was the only professor in the building who spent hours learning how to use it. (It was a dumb terminal and I had to memorize a lot of obscure commands to do word processing.) Now, even though I'm almost 80, I use a powerful custom built desktop and a new hot Dell laptop to process photos with Lightroom and Photoshop. But if a local school offered a course in using a large format view camera I would take that course because it would be fun to learn how to load the film and use the tilt, shift controls.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Good for you! You had, and once again have fun with, an "interrupted by life" hobby.

There are many here who would do well to learn from that example. It's perfectly okay to be curious about media that are new to you, even if the mainstream considers them obsolete. The art of photography is often a separate world from the commerce of photography, and as such, embraces rare tools.

My biggest beef with academia where photography is concerned is the "film must come first" attitude. I don't see a thing wrong with teaching film-based methods IF and WHEN someone wants to learn them, but to foist film on an 18-to-21-year-old student who just wants to use photography as a practical tool for communications is just short of a criminal act, if you ask me. It makes no logical sense, either.

These days, photography is ubiquitous. Most of us carry a smartphone, and own a computer. We use some form of social media. So the camera is now like the pen was in the age of the typewriter. We use cameras for so many different and practical reasons that have nothing to do with art. Yet many schools "stuff" photography into the art department. That makes little sense and seems just stereotypical. There should be a track that is just practical, and just digital, if desired. Instructors who can't see that are stuck in the past, or hiding their ignorance, or both.

At a yearbook and portrait photography company, where I worked in nine roles over 33 years, I used photography in a myriad of different ways. Many of them were promotional, illustrational, educational, instructional... related to training and systems improvement. MOST of those uses were practical and communicative in a business context, and had nothing to do with self-expression. When digital came along, I dove in head first (It was my job to help transition our lab from optical to digital processes). I found parallels in digital photography to everything in film photography, and learned how to teach digital photography with no references to film — none at all. Learning digital photography from the ground up DOES take a measure of computer literacy, but little else other than basic intelligence.

Isn't it amazing how so few professionals embraced computing until fairly recently? I'm 62, and was one of the first folks at my company outside of IT to use a computer, back in the early 1980s. But, back then, "real" business men (and "professional" women like my attorney sister) didn't type. That was a significant barrier to entry. I was lucky to learn typing in third grade (Thanks, Mom!).

View cameras still have a place in artistic and illustrative photography. You can do almost everything they do in Photoshop, but... for some, it's easier and more organic to do it with film. And you can't beat the resolution. One key reason they're still around is the ability to compose on the ground glass, and actually SEE what all the swings and tilts are doing. Pre-visualization is a large part of the collaboration between an art director and a photographer, and view cameras bolster that. It's sort of like working with a digital camera tethered to a computer.

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

I think that it's going to be an "all the above" kind of thing.
I taught a Learning Annex beginner's photo class in the 80s. A little practice and concepts, a K1000, some Sunny 16 and good pictures happened. But I still have at least a half dozen hand meters.
I have *boxes* of pictures from my Nikon Fs, and they look better, more realistic, 3d like than my digitals.
What's with all these menus?!?! All the time! I hear folk complain that these are just not consumer user friendly. A lot of low shutter cameras are on ebay because they aren't beginner friendly.
A lot of my under 40 folk like the bridge camera concept. It's simple, does what they want, reasonable price, fits a pocket or purse, and they don't need to worry about which "system" it is.
My Ikontas, my Fs and thee olde Pentacon6 are much more point and shoot than my 7100.

I'm keeping my EM50 because, to me, it's a point and shoot. Set aperture. Aim focus fire. My wife's first gift to me. It fits all my lenses. And it takes great photos. Without menus!
The 7100 is almost magical in what it can do. I did a wedding dinner > ceremony > reception > walk around at a RenFaire, from a foggy dawn to a dusty dusk, and after some major brutal culling I still had over 600 good precise sharp shots. How many fit in the wedding album? The couple still like looking thru the disc and remembering- but my Zenobia would probably have taken prettier pictures to print.
Yeah, I know. I still run my Cable TV thru my Marantz, too.
Just sayin ...

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

IMNSHO, it's kinda sorta all the above. Find somebody who's photos are with a 5 year old phone, hand her a d7100 and talk about them menus. She uses Snapchat- give her a shot at Photoshop. Yeah right! Hand her a simple bridge camera, talk about the dial and the scenes, let her loose.
Same girl might "steal" my old Ikonta. 120 film @ 6x4.5, and a hand meter. She understands hyperfocus and perspective, and she's waay more artistic than me.
I just got some pics back from my EM- they look 3d compared to my digital. I'm going to dust off my Iskra for Sunday.
My bad. I forgot I already posted, didn't check, and reposted. *sigh* Getting old - something something.

wolfMark Loc: Southern Oregon

I had a similar experience in the graphic design business. I saw the light very early and learned the Mac and publishing software like Quark and Illustrator. I remember sitting in class and saw a poster for Photoshop 1.0. I had never seen that before but intuitively knew that was for me. I tried to convince my coworkers to get on board, as that's where we're going. Many went but some stayed behind. I miss the skill involved with doing paste up mechanicals and such, just as I miss seeing the image appear in the developing tray.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I don’t miss any of it. I have done both pre-press prep and photography both ways. I worked for yearbook printers and portrait labs in many roles. I can say unequivocally that I don’t want to go back. The benefits of digital outweigh any charm or nostalgia I might have about analog methods.

wolfMark Loc: Southern Oregon

Yeah I haven't turned back either.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I will clarify that the fluid, sharing nature of digital images is so important to me, I'm going back to the film from my youth and digitizing it. When I get done with that, I'll digitize film from my family life (1983 to 2005), for my kids and in-laws to see.

Photo albums are static entities, as are shoeboxes of prints in a closet somewhere. We *almost NEVER* look at them. Wall space is limited, even in large homes, and there is only so much available wall space you can cover with photos before they become clutter. But online sharing sites are multi-user, with 24 hour, seven day access.