The Death of Film

While at my local Barnes and Noble the other day, I noticed a book titled, "Film Is Not Dead." The author, Jonathan Canlas, makes the argument that the "look" of film cannot be duplicated in digital and that it is making a resurgence due to the special qualities that it possesses. I grew up in the film days, having recieved my first camera, a beautiful Canon EF, in 1979. My dad was a shutterbug and went all out in the hobby, creating his own black and white AND color darkroom, and I took every photography course offered at my local university and had access to all of its resources. It may, therefore, be surprising to hear me say that while film is not dead, I for one would not mourn its passing and would be the first to throw dirt on its casket. People tend to see the past through rose-colored glasses, and photography is certainly no different. In film, the whole process from capture to output was just awful compared to today's technology. Why?

1. You had to work with film. Often you would fail to load it correctly on the take-up spool and not even know it, "shoot" the entire roll, pop open the camera back and see that you didn't take a single shot! I was so paranoid about it that I would sometimes pop open the back to see if it really loaded and overexpose several frames. And try loading a roll of film with gloves on when its -20 outside. Not being able to change your ISO (called ASA back then) on the fly meant that you would waste a lot of film. ASA 50 was a standard daylight film and you needed a lot of light for that! And then you had to develop the negatives in complete darkness, rolling it onto a spool. If any of the film touched in the developer you ruined frames.

2. All the expensive chemicals that stank and were probably more toxic than we were led to believe. At least with black and white you had the joy of watching the image pop up in the D-76; color prints, and awful they were, developed in a drum.

3. You were limited to 12, 24, 27, or 36 shots. My 16 gb CF card gives me a gazillion shots, even more if I shot in JPEG.

No, I don't miss film, any more than I miss the death of the abacus, horse and buggy or drive-in movies. It's just nostalgia.

Well put. Sometimes for the sake of nostalgia, I break out my abacus and do my bills.

I actually like working with black and white film and other older processes if available to me...the hard part is not having a dark room.

Sure, digital is easier, but sometimes, film makes it fun. Even more like a hobby.

Two of the biggest ad agencies in New York still insist on film and I saw a PBS special on the top National Geo photographers and half still shoot film.

Nothing like a properly exposed, processed and then printed large format zone system print in the digital world.

Heres a couple of masters that still shoot film
Takes a few seconds for the site to load. Spend some time in the midwest section. Check his about page and see the major museum collections he's in.
http://www.michaeljohn​sonphotography.com/

Another master photographer that still shoots film
http://vimeo.com/45721​468

good interview with another.
Not saying he is right but he does bring up some good points
http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=NzMQcE2E-1o

Film is not near dead. It can be knowing which is the right tool for the job and the look the client needs or you what you as an artist needs and then being able to use the right tool to its full potential is what makes a knowledgable photographer.

D-76 is film developer not print, maybe dektol, thats a print developer...So you will see a print come up in dektol not D76.

I still have my color and B&W darkroom equipment and two film cameras 35 mm format and 120mm. As long as they still produce film I see no reason to do away with the gear even if I have not used either for a long time. My 1st digital camera had all of 2mg of memory. I might be a bit of a hoarder. I have about 10,000 negatives and close to the same amount of processed slides next to the negatives waiting for me to get busy and print out. Yeah I know there are better odds of an honest politician being found alive than me printing them out but just as soon as I discard the film gear there will be a massive revival of analog image printing.

irishman wrote in post #14956190
While at my local Barnes and Noble the other day, I noticed a book titled, "Film Is Not Dead." The author, Jonathan Canlas, makes the argument that the "look" of film cannot be duplicated in digital and that it is making a resurgence due to the special qualities that it possesses. I grew up in the film days, having recieved my first camera, a beautiful Canon EF, in 1979. My dad was a shutterbug and went all out in the hobby, creating his own black and white AND color darkroom, and I took every photography course offered at my local university and had access to all of its resources. It may, therefore, be surprising to hear me say that while film is not dead, I for one would not mourn its passing and would be the first to throw dirt on its casket. People tend to see the past through rose-colored glasses, and photography is certainly no different. In film, the whole process from capture to output was just awful compared to today's technology. Why?

1. You had to work with film. Often you would fail to load it correctly on the take-up spool and not even know it, "shoot" the entire roll, pop open the camera back and see that you didn't take a single shot! I was so paranoid about it that I would sometimes pop open the back to see if it really loaded and overexpose several frames. And try loading a roll of film with gloves on when its -20 outside. Not being able to change your ISO (called ASA back then) on the fly meant that you would waste a lot of film. ASA 50 was a standard daylight film and you needed a lot of light for that! And then you had to develop the negatives in complete darkness, rolling it onto a spool. If any of the film touched in the developer you ruined frames.

2. All the expensive chemicals that stank and were probably more toxic than we were led to believe. At least with black and white you had the joy of watching the image pop up in the D-76; color prints, and awful they were, developed in a drum.

3. You were limited to 12, 24, 27, or 36 shots. My 16 gb CF card gives me a gazillion shots, even more if I shot in JPEG.

No, I don't miss film, any more than I miss the death of the abacus, horse and buggy or drive-in movies. It's just nostalgia.

So you are against choice...brilliant.

irishman wrote in post #14956190
While at my local Barnes and Noble the other day, I noticed a book titled, "Film Is Not Dead." The author, Jonathan Canlas, makes the argument that the "look" of film cannot be duplicated in digital and that it is making a resurgence due to the special qualities that it possesses. I grew up in the film days, having recieved my first camera, a beautiful Canon EF, in 1979. My dad was a shutterbug and went all out in the hobby, creating his own black and white AND color darkroom, and I took every photography course offered at my local university and had access to all of its resources. It may, therefore, be surprising to hear me say that while film is not dead, I for one would not mourn its passing and would be the first to throw dirt on its casket. People tend to see the past through rose-colored glasses, and photography is certainly no different. In film, the whole process from capture to output was just awful compared to today's technology. Why?

1. You had to work with film. Often you would fail to load it correctly on the take-up spool and not even know it, "shoot" the entire roll, pop open the camera back and see that you didn't take a single shot! so you had to put some effort into it. good, that builds character. i dont think i EVER mis-loaded a roll. was taught to get a wrap or two on the take up before even dropping the canister in the other side... I was so paranoid about it that I would sometimes pop open the back to see if it really loaded and overexpose several frames. And try loading a roll of film with gloves on when its -20 outside. did it. spent a month in Alaska in january (-65 F) and shot about 130 rolls of film (United States Air Force time)... Not being able to change your ISO (called ASA back then) on the fly meant that you would waste a lot of film. you learned to put the proper film in before you started shooting. if i was doing a sports event i didnt even mess with anything under 400 (the fastest other than specialty film at the time)... ASA 50 was a standard daylight film and you needed a lot of light for that! standard daylight ASA film speeds were 125 or 32 (black and white in plus-x or pan-x) and 25 or 64 (kodachrome and ektachrome) and 100 (kodacolor) or if you wanted a softer look, 125 for Verichrome (VPS-II and III). at least when I was shooting film (1975-1995) And then you had to develop the negatives in complete darkness, rolling it onto a spool. If any of the film touched in the developer you ruined frames. again, you learned to not mis-roll it.

2. All the expensive chemicals that stank and were probably more toxic than we were led to believe. At least with black and white you had the joy of watching the image pop up in the D-76; color prints, and awful they were, developed in a drum. having run a darkroom for my college's newspaper the chemicals (d-76, stop bath, fixer, dektol) really werent that expensive when purchased in powder form. the liquid solutions were more but on $3.65 an hour i could afford my own chemicals and a car payment...

3. You were limited to 12, 24, 27, or 36 shots. My 16 gb CF card gives me a gazillion shots, even more if I shot in JPEG. nah. if you rolled your own you could make up rolls of 4 or 5 frames and i think i once got 44 frames in a canister. too longer to process because i had couldnt spool it and had to CAREFULLY dip it in the soup... when i ran the darkroom (photo editor) i didnt want the photographers trying to shoot 3-4-5 assignments on one roll of film because it made MY job of editing harder since they didnt take it seriously and didnt keep very good notes re: subject matter

No, I don't miss film, any more than I miss the death of the abacus, horse and buggy or drive-in movies. It's just nostalgia.

photography is certainly easier now but i think film is a labor of love. kind of like reading the bible in the King James version...

From the side of someone who still sells film:

In regards to young people: We are starting to see the very first generation of kids/teenagers who didn't grow up in a family with a film camera (at least one they remember). While they understand what film is, they don't have memories of it, so they want to make some. We're seeing lots of kids come through and shoot film for the nostalgia. Call them hippies/hipsters, whatever, but they are seeing what it's all about, and some of it is sticking.

Also, high school and entry-level college classes still use film, even as kids and parents see it as an outdated mode of learning. Having taken college photog. classes recently, I couldn't disagree more with the outdated train of thought. It is possibly the only way to teach the zone system, or to really help teach dodging and burning. Film will have a place in teaching photography for a while, I believe.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are older people with film cameras (P&S style). They want to hang onto film forever because they don't want to be "forced" into digital, or, slightly less commonly, they don't think digital has the quality or "feel" of film. While I can't argue against the look/feel argument, I think we can all attest digital has easily equaled - and more likely surpassed - the quality of film.

Just my $0.02.

Ever drive to a local park and see the car show with all the old guys sitting around next to all the mustangs, camaros,roadrunners and 57 chevys.......just sayin

bjyoder wrote in post #14956576
From the side of someone who still sells film:

In regards to young people: We are starting to see the very first generation of kids/teenagers who didn't grow up in a family with a film camera (at least one they remember). While they understand what film is, they don't have memories of it, so they want to make some. We're seeing lots of kids come through and shoot film for the nostalgia. Call them hippies/hipsters, whatever, but they are seeing what it's all about, and some of it is sticking.

Also, high school and entry-level college classes still use film, even as kids and parents see it as an outdated mode of learning. Having taken college photog. classes recently, I couldn't disagree more with the outdated train of thought. It is possibly the only way to teach the zone system, or to really help teach dodging and burning. Film will have a place in teaching photography for a while, I believe.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are older people with film cameras (P&S style). They want to hang onto film forever because they don't want to be "forced" into digital, or, slightly less commonly, they don't think digital has the quality or "feel" of film. While I can't argue against the look/feel argument, I think we can all attest digital has easily equaled - and more likely surpassed - the quality of film.

Just my $0.02.

There are still many very serious landscape photographers that are large format B&W zone system photographers because nothing in the digital world gives them the control and the dynamic range that they get from that process.

I am still working on this, so future edits are likely. Nevertheless, thought this was an appropriate opportunity; in all of it's 6,400-word glory on why I shoot film and the inane calls for its demise:

http://27-303.tumblr.com/post/31​017936386/film

And hey, I even mention '57, well, Fords, and horse & buggies...

Obviously, I've said all I need to say in the above blog, so I'm out of this thread.

However, PM's always welcome.

Neither the abacus nor the horse & buggy are dead. You can still buy them.

Personally, I don't have any use for either one. Or film. But to each his own.

I will say that the digital age has allowed people who are not big into photography capture memories and share those cheaply and easily. Regardless of famous people who still shoot film (its the image that counts afterall, not the gear or process) the progression to a widely available and easy to use interface has allowed people around the world to capture more unique moments in history and share them.

it is nice that it is still available for those that want to explore that medium or are comfortable with it, but the digital age has allowed for things never possible with film and I for one love that.

sjones wrote in post #14956512
So you are against choice...brilliant.

Excuse me, but that comes across as a mighty rude comment. I didn't read anything in the Original Post advising others not to use film, nor criticizing those who do. What I read was one person's opinion of why he chooses not to use film anymore.

As for me, I too grew up using film. I never had a darkroom myself, but I've shot thousands of rolls of film throughout the years. I also agree with everything that was said, and I don't much miss film either. One of the things I remember is loading my camera with ASA 100 (planning on shooting outdoors on a sunny day) only to be disappointed and faced with the choice of either waiting for good light or wasting half a roll of film. I've also shot an entire roll only to find that it didn't properly load, I certainly don't miss that.

I personally view film much the way as I do vinyl records - I believe the modern alternative is much better. If you want to shoot film or listen to clicks and pops with your music more power to you. But I much prefer digital.

Was it a problem with Canon cameras? I never used a Canon film body, just Nikon and Minolta and that has never happened to me.

Anyway I'm done with film also.