Bigmike1 Loc: I am from Gaffney, S.C. but live in Utah.

Film is just too expensive now. I have a roll of film sitting in front of me that I wanted to have developed. They will develop the film and provide prints for about $50.00. That is just too rich for my blood. I have a collection of about 30 film cameras. If film became as cheap as it formerly was I would use these cameras just for the nostalgia.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Please, prints? in 2023??

If you're going to spend the time and effort to shoot film, my attitude is you should also pay for a high resolution professional scan. I use North Coast Photography after changing over from the Darkroom, getting roughly 18MP scans per image. That pixel resolution (5035x3339) yields JPEGs fully editable in Lightroom, same as any DSLR image. The problem I've had with both shops, more so with the Darkroom before I changed, is the dust and occasional scratch in the scans that are tedious to remove via LR editing. I've done my own EPSON scans as well. I'd rather pay to have it done faster and better by the shop processing the film, even with the risk of needing to clean-up the occasional imperfections in those scans.

All you need is high-resolution scans of the film, not prints. You need the negatives back too, but not for anything important except to have access to the original negatives, should there ever need to be a re-scan.

polyman6 Loc: Chatham Ontario

I loved watching my precious images appear like magic in the developing tray under a red safelight.
I miss that feeling.

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

I'm assuming that's supposed to be funny...It's NOT!

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

I used to shoot 120 slide film in my Mamiya 645. I loved it!...But Full Frame digital does it for me now. Medium Format digital if I can ever afford it! Faster, cheaper, immediate feedback, no need for rare and expensive projectors...what's not to like? But I still go back to the Mamiya occasionally.

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

The sooner User ID is banned, the better. Glad you agree, Thank you!

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

I could be a "fossil" maybe. I turned 69 yesterday. I'm neither rich nor idle and certainly not from any part of NY, or Chicago for that matter But maybe wouldn't mind being a hipster for a day, well maybe an hour. I do still go back to film on occasion. I loved medium format slides. But digital Full Frame is kinda like that. And medium format digital would be even more so!

BebuLamar

Thanks for answering my question. The OP never answered my question. I guess he can ask but I have no right to ask him.

User ID

In your bozo dreams.
Ive already outlasted film.
Looks like youre next.
You and film together forever, RIP.

BebuLamar

Ban, Ban, Ban, Ban... we shouldn't ban anything. Let people do what they want.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I guess it may depend on what your ultimate goal is.

When film was a regular thing, I aimed at slides; now I look at ‘jpg’ images to be viewed on my computer screen - which seems weird to many folk for whom prints hanging from the wall has always been the goal {which seems weird to me}.

User ID

Amen. I agree 100% (except for film) !

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

User ID

(Download)

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Film has a strong following among photography teachers, professors, artists, hippie throwbacks, serious hobbyists, and young people who are amazed to watch a B&W print "come up" in the developer tray.

Now, I am NOT knocking film. I used it from 1960 to 2005, and spent 20 years in a photo lab that processed tens of thousands of miles of it. That was before I helped to guide that company's transition to 100% digital processes. Retired, I spend a lot of time now, digitizing film negatives and slides.

It is amazing to see how many film stocks are still available, although the variety is dwindling. Old film cameras are cheap, while the NEW 2022 Leica M6 body alone costs $5295 or so. You HAVE to love film or have burnable cash to buy that... and add lenses!

MIT's Dr. Nicholas Negroponte is fond of saying, "Bits beat atoms." What he means is that the virtual world has more advantages than the physical world when it comes to image making. In the school portrait business, we recognized that back in the early 1990s as Kodak shared their development efforts with us. Once the market matured enough for practical production, we dove in fully.

Unfortunately for us, however, the market went sideways, with the Internet and its sharing sites, personal computers, tablets, and smartphones taking away the benefits of a package of school portraits. Our industry tanked over about a 20-year period. People want most of their images on screens, accessible from anywhere, not in shoeboxes or albums that have to be viewed in one place.

Film served its purpose for me for decades. Digital has met my needs since 2005, including that of preserving my film images and sharing them broadly. It enables me to do things with film I exposed 50 years ago that I could not do 50 years ago. So while I no longer expose film, I still make use of film images. Here is a sample:
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Breakfast at the Citrus Hotel (from a Kodachrome 64 slide made in 1983… transitioned in Photoshop Neural Filters) VIEW DOWNLOAD!

(Download)