BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

That would be CHG_CANON. He often makes rather outlandish statements that may have some truth but mostly made tongue in cheek I think. Calling film guys old fossils is cute, but everyone should know that some people enjoy doing things old school. I certainly don't speak for CHG_CANON, but I'm bettin' he understands this as well as anyone.

Some people collect old cars, some don't.
Some use a Jack plane.
Some use a 24", multi-segmented, spiral cutter head, 5hp planer.

bradkg Loc: englishtown nj

I think he just knows how to get an interesting conversation going. If I must be honest, I am a fossil, idle rich and hail from Brooklyn, proudly.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

To me the film photography made fewer of us photographers. We had to learn to shoot a a cost of every click and a delay of hours or days to see our mistakes. Learning could be slow and costly. Yes I'm a old fossil i guess. Starting with a folding Kodak and getting serious in the early 50's with a Argus C3 from the PX in Libya shooting 35mm slide film at 10 ASA.

reguli Loc: Uruguay

I have taken photos for as long as I can remember (many years ago). The first camera I had was a Voightlander (my father's camera); in 1978 I had a Canon AE1 and in 1999 a Canon Rebel G. Since 1978 I started with my own darkroom for black and white photography because color development in external laboratories was very expensive and a family-level color darkroom was out of meaning. I really enjoyed the long nights developing and enlarging the photos taken previously. The work was very intense and time-consuming. But in 2002 I wanted to take color photographs of my grandchildren and the laboratory process disappointed me with random results, as well as the results of photographs taken on various tours. So I decided in 2005 to go digital with Canon and forget about film once and for all. I had to start over from scratch, because none of the techniques I had used in the past was useful for digital. Different concept of exposure, new software to learn, new type of paper to print more hardware for processed photo, but more control in what I wanted. I think that taking a photo is independent of what is inside the camera; the photo is a frame to build your own artistic inspiration. So film, digital or some other way of capturing light is valid to express what you want to show. Nowadays digital is massive because it is simpler, you can see the results immediately and if you want to be more professional you can do it sitting comfortably at home. So the film is in the past.

Peteso Loc: Blacks Hills

Respectfully, I disagree. Before all this technology, if you wanted to get into photography, cameras were entirely manual. Today many, but not all, photographers rely on technology exclusively. To be clear, I am not critical of relying on technology. But what I am saying is technology gives photographers the luxury of not developing the skills to control and/override their camera settings manually. Dark rooms also provided skills that only tactile experiences offer.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Sorry, I did not infer that.

bradkg Loc: englishtown nj

Completely agree with this. To be fair you need to take this comment a step further. If you learned on a digital telephone appliance to take photos, you know nothing about aperture, depth of field, f stop, etc. Not many people learn the basics of photography and thus the reason for a hurting camera industry and the lack of interest in buying, carrying multi pound equipment. On the flip side, look at how many non photographers capture memories that they would never have gotten and think of the thousands of photos taken that would have been lost. I guess not everything photo wise is done for the art that many love but rather for the recording which is a valid flip side to all of this.

Peteso Loc: Blacks Hills

No apologies necessary. This site has some interesting dialogs. Respectful disagreement can and should be constructive.

richardsaccount

Yes, there are people who like film for its "look". Film works only if your shots fall within the parameters set by its inerrant limitations. I spent most of my working life employed by institutions and one commercial lab. About 38 years total. Do I want to spend hours breathing ascetic acid fumes again. No thank you. Ironically I still have frozen film and good film cameras. I also have several rolls of exposed film that have yet to be processed. If some body wants to shoot film I think that 120 roll film renders a much better image quality. Your decision works for you, stick with it.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

#1 you should “quote reply” so that it’s clear who you’re disagreeing with.
#2 Yes it’s possible to take decent photos without developing the skills to control their camera settings, but in the days of film there were plenty of cameras that took photos without having to change settings or even providing the ability to change settings. I think, just as with film, most photographers learn to control the technology to take their work to the next level. Understanding things like exposure, focus modes, aperture, shutter speed, DOF, etc. are still important. Digital just gives us more options.

David C.

This conversation of film vs: digital has been going on for a long time. My stand is..."film is not dead". I enjoy shoot film and using my collection of camera types. They vary from range finders, SLR's to medium and large format of different manufactured brands. I also have and use a few digital cameras. My photo excursions are usually with my grand children, they get to pick a camera, we load it up and then go off to take pictures. One thing I try to make sure they do is document the exposure to include; location, conditions, film and settings. This also carries over to digital as well. The real fun is seeing the developed prints and holding them in hand not on a monitor screen. I think the anticipation os a good part of print photography it is also the best way to evaluate your efforts. I know that digital fans will say they can do the same thing but when you grow up with film there is that tie to the past that is hard to give up and why should we? David C.

JohnR Loc: The Gates of Hell

I notice (and admire) that you shoot a lot of film - just wondering which of those categories you fit into

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

Thanks, TNT. Bloody hard to keep up when folks are firing replies to Someone without saying who.

reverand

The day after I retired, I bought a digital camera and started doing digital photography, after many years of b&w work, chiefly 4 x 5 view camera photography (although, when traveling, for speed and convenience, I used a Nikon F, then F2).

I think the results in digital color are far superior to film color, in part, because the printers use pigments, which is what artists use, instead of chemical colors. Ektacolor always looked to me washed out, and Cibachrome always looked contrasty, and heavy on the yellow and purple. But digital color is spectacular

Lately, I've been doing digital b&w, printing up to 14 x 21, and the results are spectacular. Burning and dodging is much easier, and it can be more accurately targeted. Spotting is much, much better, especially using Photoshop's numerous adjustment brushes. And you can actually darken the sky either by sliding the highlight slider to the left, or by increasing the blue saturation. Darkening the sky in printing from film has to be done by burning, and you can't do that if there are trees in the foreground, because the trees will all turn black. Large prints from a Nikon D850 are every bit as sharp as prints from 4 x 5 film, although it's a different kind of sharpness: pixels have sharp edges, whereas clusters of silver do not. Film sharpness looks to me smoother.

Having said that, I'd have to say that digital b&w prints look different than film b&w prints, not better, not worse, but just different, the way engravings are different from etchings. To me, prints from film look richer and smoother, while digital prints can look more dramatic (in part, because of the sharpening tools, and the nature of pixel sharpening). I note that John Sexton, one of my favorite photographers, still uses film, but now digitizes the negatives and prints them digitally. I don't know whether I'll go that route, since it's much more tedious, but it remains an option.

And yes, I know there are film presets and profiles, which imitate film curves. Each of them yields a different b&w look, some good, some terrible, but nothing matches film like, well, film.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

My last film photos were taken in 1996.