Had an interesting experience last night while talking with a snap shooting buddy.

I told him I was getting back into film and he asked why.

I said "Film has a different look and characteristics and film always creates originals where digital is much the same as using a high tech copier"

He got it. :)

Good description.

My response is usually "Ah well, it's good fun isn't it?", but I like yours too.

My daughter, at a class for early childhood studies, answered a question regarding containers for small amounts of paint. "Why not use film canisters?" To which her 16 year old friend replied...." what's a film canister?"

Like Fleath, I just smile and say it's good fun!

Tony

I'd give them the same answer as I gave my son when he asked me what trams were, I said, "something they had in the olden days".

When someone asks me why I still shoot film, I answer that I'd have to spend five or six thousand dollars to buy a digital camera that can do everything my film cameras can.

I'd give them the same answer as I gave my son when he asked me what trams were, I said, "something they had in the olden days".

Because in the olden days they designed systems which were cheap to run and worked. Many cities still use electric trams for that very reason.
Progess is a marketing term.

Progess is a marketing term.

I like that and with your permission I plan to use it in the future.

I like that and with your permission I plan to use it in the future.
I grant you an open source license for use where ever and when ever you like. For profit or not for pofit. And and anyone else too. :D

i don't understand why so many people look down on digital. don't get me wrong, i love film and use it as its like nothing else but you'd think that if someone is interested in photography and really enjoys it, that they would be able to appreciate a good photo no matter how it was taken.

i don't understand why so many people look down on digital. don't get me wrong, i love film and use it but you'd think that if someone is interested in photography and really enjoys it, that they would be able to appreciate a good photo no matter how it was taken.

I've yet to actually read someone saying "DIGITAL SUCKS" on this forum. I do read a lot of "film and digital are simply different," or light-hearted remarks saying "digital sucks," but just kidding around.

Had an interesting experience last night while talking with a snap shooting buddy.

I told him I was getting back into film and he asked why.

I said "Film has a different look and characteristics and film always creates originals where digital is much the same as using a high tech copier"

He got it. :)

There's a simple answer. You point out that you are forced to use a computer at school, you are forced to use a computer in the workplace, you are forced to use a computer to do your banking, you are forced to use a computer to pay your utility bills, you are forced to use a computer to do your marketing, you are being forced to use a computer to do your shopping. Infact there is virtually nothing left in life which doesn't force you to use a computer. When it comes to my leisure time I don't want to use a f****** computer. Using film I'm forced to use my brain. What do you use?

Had an interesting experience last night while talking with a snap shooting buddy.

I told him I was getting back into film and he asked why.

I said "Film has a different look and characteristics and film always creates originals where digital is much the same as using a high tech copier"

He got it. :)Why didn't you just grunt "Film GOOD! Digital BAD!" and scratch in an armpit for emphasis?

More seriously, copiers weren't always laser printers. To my naive unsophisticated eye, xerography gives a different effect than scan and print.

And, if a digital shot isn't an original, what is it?

Cheers,

Dan

And, if a digital shot isn't an original, what is it?




The way I see it is this. With film each shot creates a permanent original on the film. With digital each shot is a transient image on the CCD and then it becomes a bunch of ones and zeros somewhere in a piece of silicon. There is no permanent original. So I understand the copier analogy.

And, if a digital shot isn't an original, what is it?

Cheers,

Dan

Digital can create originals, that's rarely what I see, most people e-mail digital snaps of their new babe to their entire address book and get wallets for all the Grand's.

When any digital image is printed, the print dialog box pops up it asks "how many" and it will print 1 or 70 or 600 virtually exact copies.

Printing film with an enlarger there are few if any virtually exact copies, there might be something you might call "awful darn similar" but nothing exact. The time will vary, the chemicals will change strength and hand burning and dodging between prints could almost never be duplicated.

There are good uses for both digital and film. Film is good at originals.

i don't understand why so many people look down on digital.

Hey Birdfeet,

It's not about be down on digital, it's about helping people understand the differing characteristics of the mediums.

If someone needs a gazillion copies digital rocks.

If somebody wants some art for the wall, well a hand made original might hold a bit more value.

There's a simple answer. When it comes to my leisure time I don't want to use a f****** computer. Using film I'm forced to use my brain. What do you use?

Amen

Mark, if each print from a negative is unique, are they all original?

<snip> When it comes to my leisure time I don't want to use a f****** computer. Using film I'm forced to use my brain. What do you use?Rob, I sometimes shoot with a Canon AF35ML. Nearly fully automatic completely uncontrollable by the user point and shoot. The only thing it doesn't do for the user is compose. All the user can do is point the thing, ask the AF what it thinks, and push the button or ask the AF to reconsider.

In-camera computers came along long before digital photography. What on earth do you think makes autoexposure and autofocus work? The tooth fairy?

The only significant differences between modern film cameras and digicams have to do with how the image is captured and with viewfinders.

Mark, if each print from a negative is unique, are they all original?

I would grant that the prints may not have totally unique content but each negative, positive, or hand made print would at least have a personality of it's own based on differences created by human intent or failings and environmental changes.

The analog process inherently creates differences, digital processes inherantly create duplicates.

The point of this thread is basically that I found a way to explain the difference that somebody outside APUG actually "gets".

This is one of the big reasons I've come back to film, I don't want copies. I mostly shoot slides, I keep my favorites and pass on the others to family and friends that might enjoy those shots. In this case I'm not sharing duplicates, I'm sharing true originals. When my family gets together they can share thier slides with each other knowing that the rest of the family has something different than they do and they don't even need electricity.

xerography gives a different effect than scan and print.


Technically, laser printers use a xerographic process. Just, with, you know, lasers, instead of white light. But I know what you mean. Remember the really old ones that printed a kind of smelly battleship grey? (That may have been even pre-xerography technology.)

I think the thing is not that digital is no good for anything, but that digital users can't seem to grasp that there's still a place for film. That indeed, it is fun to work the camera, to work in the darkroom, to do stuff without the computer.

And yeah, digital cameras are the logical end result of the process of increasing automation of cameras, of slowly turning them into consumer electronics over the last 30 years or so. Which is partly why my cameras are all older mechanical models.

Rob, I sometimes shoot with a Canon AF35ML. Nearly fully automatic completely uncontrollable by the user point and shoot. The only thing it doesn't do for the user is compose. All the user can do is point the thing, ask the AF what it thinks, and push the button or ask the AF to reconsider.

In-camera computers came along long before digital photography. What on earth do you think makes autoexposure and autofocus work? The tooth fairy?

The only significant differences between modern film cameras and digicams have to do with how the image is captured and with viewfinders.

Yeah and most people could do mental arithmetic before the calculator came along. A reliance on computers makes your brain very lazy so that when you do need to use it you can't.

New Nikon D-SLR kit . . . $800.00.

Minolta XG-M w/ Rokkor-X 50mm lens on eBay . . . $40.00.
100 rolls of TMax ISO 400 Black and White film . . . $375.00.
Chemicals and gear to develop this film . . . $130.00.
Cheap enlarger on eBay . . .$75.00.
Printing paper . . . $80.00.
Printing equipment . . . $100.00.

The sense of accomplishment . . . priceless.

The sense of accomplishment . . . priceless.

Bang on! I scan any colour work I do, and bash its pixels on the old magic box. But I just don't get the same satisfaction from producing a colour print, as I do from producing a B&W print in the darkroom!

Um, Christopher, some aspects of the film vs. digital discussion, which this thread's OP makes clear is not the thread's topic, remind me very much of the film (cine) vs. camcorder debates of the 1980s. Your post, in particular, brings back memories.

In 1987, when I decided to start shooting movies, Super 8 was on the way out. I'm not sure why, but since usable affordable camcorders weren't quite available yet the problem may have been with S8. Anyway, after some canny buying and reselling and careful shopping ... I ended up with a 66 minute epic ready to show, a couple of very good S8 cameras, an Ikelite housing for one of them, a good editing rig, and a very good projector for the cost of a good two piece (portable videocamera, portable video tape machine) camcorder in 1987. Those two piece rigs were all that was available when I decided that I had to shoot a movie.

Understand that making a movie is as much about editing as it is about shooting and you'll understand the terrible handicap that videographers labored under in those days. Editing gear was priced, as we say, outta sight.

I was able to do what I did at the price I did because the market for S8 gear was collapsing. Even though it was in near free fall, I managed to arbitrage between very low (camera shows) and low (people who bought from the small ads in the back of Shutterbug, as it then was). Lack of demand, in a short phrase. Otherwise there wouldn't have been all the short-dated film, used cameras selling at distressed prices, ...

In short, my excellent cinematographic adventure wasn't an argument in favor of shooting S8, it was more evidence that S8 was dead. Your example may be an argument in favor of shooting film instead of digital, but I see it more as evidence that practically no one is taking up film.