Film Users Won't Go Away

[venchka]

There is hope!

Originally Posted by Michael Kadillak

Three cheers for film!

Sep 19, 1:49 PM EDT
Film Still Popular Among the Pros

By BEN DOBBIN
AP Business Writer

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) -- Photojournalist Chris Usher usually relies on digital technology. When he wants something special, though, he reaches for a film camera.

"I shoot just as much digital as the next guy out of necessity," Usher said. "I use film probably a third of the time, on personal projects 100 percent of the time. There's a richness and a depth of field that becomes more prevalent when you're shooting film as opposed to digital. It has a tangible feel to it."

Even as the digital revolution is transforming photography, more than two-thirds of professional photographers in a survey released Wednesday said they still prefer using film for certain tasks, praising its ability to add an almost organic quality to pictures.

Eastman Kodak Co., which surveyed 9,000 U.S. photographers who earn their livelihoods freeze-framing news, weddings, nature, fashion and other worlds, will draw some comfort from its findings.

Putting the finishing touches to a drastic, four-year digital makeover, Kodak is still betting that film, its cash cow for a century, will continue to generate enough revenue to see it through the most painful passage in its 126-year history. Kodak's work force will slip to 34,000 at year-end, half what it was five years ago.

Even while its chemical-based businesses shrink, Kodak remains the world's top maker of silver-halide film, and the storied product - which George Eastman launched in 1889 - retains an ardent following.

"If a client gives me the choice, I'm going to shoot film," said Matthew Jordan Smith, a fashion and celebrity photographer in Los Angeles. "With digital, there's this whole thing of, 'Oh, it looks good enough to get by, it's fine, it'll do.' You didn't have that with film. Was it good enough? It was great!

"Digital will continue to get better and better and better," Smith said. "Maybe film will become an art thing, who knows? But there will always be those who want to shoot film."

The survey was mailed in mid-August to more than 40,000 of the nation's estimated 64,000 full-time and part-time professional photographers, and 75 percent of the 9,000 who responded said they will continue to use film even as they embrace digital imaging.

Sixty-eight percent said they prefer film over digital for a variety of applications. Many cited its superiority for shooting larger-format and black-and-white images, the adaptability of color film to a wider range of lighting conditions, and film archives being far easier to store than electronic ones.

Usher, a freelancer who covers the White House for both Newsweek and Time magazines and is coming out with a book illustrating hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, isn't surprised his colleagues expressed a lingering loyalty to some of the old methods.

"Film by its very physical nature is layers of grains of different colors," he said. "It's hard to describe, but it does actually have a micro three-dimensionality that you can see in that weird way."

By contrast, he said, "digital pictures look very flat, and even the prints. ... Digital looks literally cut-and-pasted.

"Probably the biggest disadvantage of digital - I think if you ask most photographers, at least the ones that are honest will admit this - is you end up spending more time behind the computer than you do behind the camera. If you're shooting raw, you still have to go in there and adjust the images, tweak 'em, tone 'em and get everything just so. With film, there it is."

While "digital is here to stay," Usher expects film's fortunes will someday brighten once more.

"In fact, now that the honeymoon and the infatuation is starting to run its course," he said, "I think that in the next five years you're going to see almost a retro backlash because of the things that film gives you that you can't get with digital."

[JohnT]

http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...ad.php?t=57758

[boldimagery]

I still shoot film too... :(

:D

I love film! I am mostly digi though... like 99.9% of the time.

[JohnT]

FWIW, I have an old film camera that I've been thinking shooting some B&W with just for the heck of it.

[venchka]

Sorry this is old news here. It can't hurt to spread the Word.

Stop thinking. Just do it!

[timbertoes]

LOL, my pentax 645 is a daily traveler. Now, I dont take pictures every day with it, but its ready when need be. Really, I just need to find the $$ for a suitable scanner.

Took a portrait-print to class one day. A few were "amazed", and wanted to know what kind of a printer was used :)

[DeLeon]

I shoot digital 100% for paid assignments. BUT I still shoot alot of B&W film with my pentax K1000. That is what keeps my love for photography alive. There is just something about being in the darkroom with some good music playing, watching an image come to life in the tray, that I just can't get sitting at my desk using PS.

I can spend all night on 3 images in the darkroom...its just not economical for me to shoot film for my portrait or real estate work, especially the real estate work.

[Triana]

Another film lover here. I have a special place for digital and I love that it allows me the freedom to experiment and shoot the same shot 40 times without paying for it. But THEN I want to shoot the real one in film. Digital just can't compare.

[venchka]

I worry about folks who only know digital image production. I feel they are missing out on the history and lore of photography. They are certainly missing the sense of accomplishment gained by creating a photograph by hand.

So very true:

"Probably the biggest disadvantage of digital - I think if you ask most photographers, at least the ones that are honest will admit this - is you end up spending more time behind the computer than you do behind the camera. If you're shooting raw, you still have to go in there and adjust the images, tweak 'em, tone 'em and get everything just so. With film, there it is."

[brad]

Ah, but the paradigm falls apart if you consider that most film shooters don't process their own film.... and if they do, they are spending more time in the darkroom than they are behind the camera.... Chris said it above... "I can spend all night on 3 images in the darkroom" (I can do the same sometimes on the computer, honestly, but not normally).... the difference here is that the computer is the darkroom for digital .... AND you don't have to rely on a third party to handle the development .... AND you can develop the same shot multiple ways (unlike film which you only get one shot at).

Don't get me wrong, I love film... I learned photography on film... I think fillm still has an important role in photography as there are things on film that you still can't do in digital (contrast and dynamic ranges for instance)... but I felt the need to toss that in.

[photophorous]

That nagging feeling of the cost of each frame, the very thing that makes most people want to shoot digital, makes me want to shoot film. It slows me down and forces me to think more about what I'm trying to do, and I think I take better pictures because of it. I find the same is true of using manual focus prime lenses.

[kenw]

Brad: so true.

[photophorous]

Originally Posted by brad

Ah, but the paradigm falls apart if you consider that most film shooters don't process their own film.... and if they do, they are spending more time in the darkroom than they are behind the camera.... Chris said it above... "I can spend all night on 3 images in the darkroom" (I can do the same sometimes on the computer, honestly, but not normally).... the difference here is that the computer is the darkroom for digital .... AND you don't have to rely on a third party to handle the development .... AND you can develop the same shot multiple ways (unlike film which you only get one shot at).

Don't get me wrong, I love film... I learned photography on film... I think fillm still has an important role in photography as there are things on film that you still can't do in digital (contrast and dynamic ranges for instance)... but I felt the need to toss that in.

True, it is just as easy to spend lots of time in a wet darkroom. But the difference for me is in the quantity of photos I take. It's much more with digital and thus I have more to sort through. That sounds like a good thing, but it's not for me. I just end up with more junk. Digital is only good for me when I'm in an unfamiliar situation and I need to experiment a lot.

I develop my own B&W but I pay for color. Then, I scan it and process it digitally. So, I still spend too much time in front of the computer.

[adirty1]

Not true Brad you can use all kinds of Alt processes on your film and prints. I love the look of film and nothing beats a great 4x5 or 8x10 chrome. I showed a client an 8x10 contract print and he could not believe how sharp it was and the color was so deep and true to life. Only thing I had to do was find an 8x10 camera to shoot with.

I have found more clients are wanting real b/w prints from film done for portraits because they like the way the real b/w looks. I shot one client with film both in color and b/w and in digital. she was drawn to the film images like a moth to a flame. I didnt tell her which was which and she didnt care she just wanted the film version. That's why I built my wet darkroom. Plus nothing is better then grabbing a cup of stop in the dark and thinking its your coffee or soft drink and taking a big mothful. It's sweet for a second but then yuck.


Wayne your so right. I really feel for the people that never shot film and have no idea what it was like.

[venchka]

Originally Posted by adirty1

...Wayne your so right. I really feel for the people that never shot film and have no idea what it was like.

What it IS like! Present tense. Please!