[JimJ]

So I miss photography.

I've been out of it for a good four years now, and I miss the creative process...I had a Contax RTSII with the Zeiss 50mm my last two years of high school, and that camera was basically attached to my hip for that time.

I really liked the way those old metal cameras worked, it was solid in your hands, with a manual advance that had a nice reassuring click. Or not, if you wanted a double exposure, it was your choice. No huge LCD screen to scratch in the field, just a viewfinder, your wits, and a fast lens to make the image. Of course I have a little Canon digital P&S that I bought in '04 or so, but it's not a platform for what I'd call serious photography. Makes me miss that Contax...or a Hassy, Rolleiflex TLR, or anything else that could withstand Armageddon and still take good shots.

But even if I got that Leica or Rolleiflex of my dreams, there's the film issue...honestly, what's the future like in film? If I get back into this, I was thinking about going 6x6 medium format...just something I've wanted to try. Is the general consensus that companies are still going to be producing "obsolete" film? In the audio world we all know records aren't going anywhere soon because there's still demand for them, but I don't know about film...maybe, I hope my fears are wrong. Perhaps even I could afford better gear now than I could before, because so many people have gone digital...?

So what would you guys suggest? I've used a friend's Nikon DSLR, and honestly, it bores me...


 

[gsm18439]

I still use a Canon F-1 35mm SLR, solid brass body and all. However, it is harder and harder to find decent labs that will process and develop real film and print real photographs.

[JohnR]

MF gear is so cheap compared to what it used to be... I'd get what you want, a decent flatbed, and have fun.

[nathanm]

Vote with your feet!  The future of film is what you make of it.  If people buy it they'll keep making it.  Granted it will never be as big as it was when it was the only way to take photos, but I don't suspect it will die entirely. 

Too many people worry about the Death of Thing "X" and instead of supporting it with their dollars they just sit back and wring their hands and hope enough other people do the work.  I'm not trying to point fingers at you Jim, I'm just saying that's a general reaction I've noticed, that's all.  Something new and more convenient is always going to come along, but if we have enough willpower as consumers to not always choose the faster and cheaper route then mediums we like don't have to disappear.

Now go forth, and buy film!

Another thing to consider is that in years to come those old fashioned physical mediums might be the only thing left of your photos.  Your great grandkids won't know what to do with those weird plastic discs and today's hard drives and flash cards will be a museum exhibit somewhere.

[woodsyi]

So I miss photography.

I've been out of it for a good four years now, and I miss the creative process...I had a Contax RTSII with the Zeiss 50mm my last two years of high school, and that camera was basically attached to my hip for that time.

I really liked the way those old metal cameras worked, it was solid in your hands, with a manual advance that had a nice reassuring click. Or not, if you wanted a double exposure, it was your choice. No huge LCD screen to scratch in the field, just a viewfinder, your wits, and a fast lens to make the image. Of course I have a little Canon digital P&S that I bought in '04 or so, but it's not a platform for what I'd call serious photography. Makes me miss that Contax...or a Hassy, Rolleiflex TLR, or anything else that could withstand Armageddon and still take good shots.

But even if I got that Leica or Rolleiflex of my dreams, there's the film issue...honestly, what's the future like in film? If I get back into this, I was thinking about going 6x6 medium format...just something I've wanted to try. Is the general consensus that companies are still going to be producing "obsolete" film? In the audio world we all know records aren't going anywhere soon because there's still demand for them, but I don't know about film...maybe, I hope my fears are wrong. Perhaps even I could afford better gear now than I could before, because so many people have gone digital...?

So what would you guys suggest? I've used a friend's Nikon DSLR, and honestly, it bores me...


 

Hassy and Rollei both have medium format digital (back) models out. 

[RoadTripper]

I've got a Contax G-2, a Nikon N90, a Mamiya VII (6x7 medium format), a Voigtlander 35mm and a 4x5 view camera. On my last photo trip, I took my Nikon D70 with just the kit lens. So, I left about $8000 worth of cameras and lenses at home. While it's true that that older hardware is far sexier than a miserable Nikon D70, the images I got with the digital camera were just fine.

I have friends who obsess over the equipment/lenses and in some ways view digital gear as inferior. Yet what they shoot with their top notch equipment is frequently very pedestrian. I personally believe that the equipment is not going to make great photos. And I also believe that digital gear will get one's 10,000 bad photos out of the way a lot faster than film will. I recommend going to the http://photo.net/  galleries and see just how many great amateur photographers there are who are shooting digital.

[JimJ]

Man, I've been checking out the prices of Sinar large-format stuff on Ebay...4x5 rigs for under $600, now that's tempting!

Wonder where I'd ever get the sheets processed, though...

[nathanm]

I process my own b&w 4x5 sheets at home but not finding any local labs for sheet film I dug around for some mail-order places to send E6.  If it wasn't for 13 out of 17 Quickloads not quick loading worth a damn they did a fine job.  I haven't as of yet fallen in love with color film, but I haven't  abandoned the thought of giving DIY color development a try if worse comes to worse.

[konut]

I majored in photography in college in the early '70s. Summers I worked for a pro photographer.Only 'Blads and Nikons. He is a major luddite. He only got rid of his rotary phone 3 years ago. 2 years ago all of his clients wanted files instead of transparencies. He rented a digital Nikon. HE HAS NOT LOOKED BACK. Its all about resolution. Check this out. http://sigma-dp1.com/main.html

[IronLion]

I have friends who obsess over the equipment/lenses and in some ways view digital gear as inferior. Yet what they shoot with their top notch equipment is frequently very pedestrian. I personally believe that the equipment is not going to make great photos. And I also believe that digital gear will get one's 10,000 bad photos out of the way a lot faster than film will. I recommend going to the http://photo.net/  galleries and see just how many great amateur photographers there are who are shooting digital.

Totally agree with Semiarian.  If you can get past any stigma for digital that you might have, you just might get into that creative process you missed significantly faster than you might with film.  The whole reason I took up photography when I was in high school was because of the digital cameras; I didn't want to deal with film.  I learned a lot, a lot faster than I would have with film.     

[nathanm]

It depends on what you want to do.  A working pro needing to produce images in a timely manner would be foolish to not use digital.  For me I want to shoot fine art stuff and make big prints of it.  My 9-megapixel digital craps out and starts going to hell on the big blowups, but the 113-megapixel film scan stays sharp and creamy.  But I can take all the time I want, I don't have any clients to please.  If you don't print big there's zero need for massive resolution.  But if you DO want to print big and want fine close-quarters detail (i.e. your face 12" from the print) then film can get you for a few bucks per shot what you currently have to spend about 20-40 grand to do digitally. 

But resolution is just one aspect, there's all sorts of other factors at work.  Personally I see film as being similar to vinyl records.  It's not a 1:1 scenario, but similar subjective arguments can be used in either medium.

Anyway, I'm just excited that this thread could possibly be the start of a beautiful 60-page brouhaha about Film vs. Digital with all sorts of vicious fighting, nasty words exchanged and all sorts of administrative fretting behind-the-scenes about who needs to be given a timeout or possibly banned!  Yessss!  I can't wait to use my vast, sweeping powers to punish evildoers!

[JimJ]

See, but I want to be inconvenienced!

Part of what made 35mm cool for me was going back to the darkroom, and taking the image from the negative stage (although putting rolls in developing tanks really sucked, I'll give you that ), and ending up with a finished print. Sometimes, things screwed up and you got a totally different result than what you were hoping for, but sometimes those mistakes turned out to be really cool prints.

I don't get the same sense of...ownership, I guess you could say, with digital. It's just plug a USB cable into the computer and press a button, poof, images. Sure, you can touch up and Photoshop the images all day, but I didn't feel like I did anything.

I'm not knocking digital in the least, I know for a professional it's a godsend, and I won't be getting rid of my small Canon anytime soon, but part of the coolness of (hobby) photography for me was all the things that might have made it seem like drudgery for you.

Not to mention...all the DSLR's that would interest me are way over my budget

[nathanm]

You're absolutely right about the idea of ownership, Jim!    Yep, I agree a lot of it has to do with the process.  We live in a world where we keep working smarter and smarter and the result is incredible convenience and instant gratification.  But you can also feel like you haven't earned the result.  It didn't take much labor to get there so you value it a little less.  To me the right balance is combining the archaic processes of the past with those of the present. A blend of convenience and inconvenience!  Heh!

I love the fact that I can choose what bits to do old school and what bits to do high tech.  Like for instance I could never do what the photographic legends did in the darkroom.  I just don't have the skill or patience; that to me seems to be drudgery.  The very idea of what it took to do an unsharp mask in the darkroom makes me weak in the knees.  Anyone who does that is HARDCORE in my book.  But I will gladly spend five hours doing the same kind of work in Photoshop.  And the old timers would probably be bewildered by Photoshop too, so I guess it all evens out. 

We get very spoiled by speed; like now it seems unthinkable for my company to shoot product photos on film.  But really, it wasn't all THAT long ago that we were shooting chromes.  Somehow, we lived though it. It wasn't all THAT long ago that people were fine with the idea of dropping off your roll of holiday snaps at the corner shop and waiting three days to get the prints back.  You used to have to pay attention to what number was on the little window.  But in the day where the image shows up instantly on the back of the camera, copies nearly instantly to your computer and can be nearly instantly published to the world, we are quite spoiled indeed!  It's almost too much convenience.  For me at least, shooting film is a backlash against all that modernity.

It's too bad I don't have kids, cause right about now is where I'd tell them how I had to walk to school in three feet of snow, uphill, both ways!

[SET Man]

Hey!

   Jim, so far I think that digital is the future.

   But! I don't think the film will disapear anytime soon. But more likely that there will be less selection, harder to find and cost more. It will become more of a specialty thing.

   

...Part of what made 35mm cool for me was going back to the darkroom, and taking the image from the negative stage (although putting rolls in developing tanks really sucked, I'll give you that ), and ending up with a finished print....

I don't get the same sense of...ownership, I guess you could say, with digital. It's just plug a USB cable into the computer and press a button, poof, images. Sure, you can touch up and Photoshop the images all day, but I didn't feel like I did anything.

    I totally agreed with you here. I did 8X10  B&W prints from digital files from my regular lab. They are good but the prints didn't have the same feeling like those B&W print I did in the darkroom from B&W negs. It is just different I guess.

   Anyway, I wish I had time to shoot B&W film and could spend an evening in the darkroom like back than.

   Personally I want to do that too. But doing darkroom in my current apartment is not possible right now. So, I'm planning to go back to B&W half way. I will shoot with B&W film, develop them but instead of wet traditional darkroom I will scan them instead. And maybe in the future print them using real B&W paper in traditional wet darkroom.

  So, if you have time to do this than I would say go for it! Don't worry about film's future and just enjoy it.

Take care,
Buddy

[drphoto]

Hate to be crass and try to make a sale, but if you want to go medium format, we've got Pentax 6x7 and Hassy stuff to unload. PM for details if interested.

I miss shooting w/ my 'blad. I never liked 35mm cameras.... film, or the digital equivilents (using Canon 1Ds Mk2 now) I feel like I'm squinting through a keyhole when I try to compose an image. But film is dead for commercial work.

I'd love to have a digital back to use on the 'blad or more especially, my Sinar 4x5, but screw it, I'm getting out of this business next year.

[Martyn]

Well, I can certainly empathise with Jim about missing that old brass-bodied manual SLR. I also miss the the almost mystic voodoo (for me, anyway) of spending an entire day in a makeshift darkroom watching images magically emerge while trying to compensate for baths that were steadily cooling down and trying not to get my tongs mixed up. I also miss dragging out the screen, setting up the projector, and boring the family with a couple of boxes of slides on a winter's evening...

I resisted a digital SLR for as long as I could (until last year, in fact), despising the instant gratification of the new, trigger-happy, everyone's-a-photographer society, and also irked by the blatantly excessive retail prices of a plastic box of electronics when compared to a mechanical or electro-mechanical precision instrument, but the convenience really is the hook! To be able to snap a shot and stuff it onto Craig's List minutes later or to run a slide show on my 50" plasma is just brilliant.

Take solace in the knowledge that the typical user still knows next to nothing about either the art of composition or the science of exposure, whereas you learned it through practical experience that will be hard to duplicate. The thing I still miss is the intuitive simplicity of rotating the aperture ring or shutter speed dial while composing and metering a shot...maybe adding an EV or two...and then squeezing the shutter. I really hate these bloody menu systems! I wish I could fit a digital back to my 1972 SLR...

(sorry for the rant, but Nathan sounded rather hopeful)