OT: Still use film?

[oldbuckster]

You mean new camera's don't use film? That's why I can't figure out where the film goes !!!!!!!!! Damn, sure have wasted alot of time trying to load film, old fart learns something new today..............NO Film for Digital Camera................

[seti]

Michael is righ film is beautiful.

I use my digital for snapshots or to upload but when I go on vacation or want to take pictures I reach for my stereo realist 3d stereo camera. It is old school light meter in one hand camera in the other.

[sputnik]

Not only am I still using film, I'm probably one of the few dinosaurs still using a manual focus camera. I've got a couple of Canon T-90 bodies and about 8 or 9 lenses. I love this camera! I'm sure I will eventually have to switch to a digital SLR. Most everyone in my photo club has made the switch. The biggest reason I haven't done it yet is due to expense. Not so much the cost of the camera, but because of all the lenses I will have to replace. I also don't want to buy a digital SLR until the full-frame sensor models become a bit less expensive. Unfortunately (or fortunately), digital cameras are similar to the computer industry -- prices will keep coming down and capabilities will keep going up.

You're not the only dinosuar. I've got lots of digital and autofocus gear but I'll never part with my manual sweeties. There's nothing else like em. Even with digital taking over, modern film emulsion technology has produced some fantastic film stock over the last few years.

Here are two magnificent pieces of glass with lovely trim bodies.

[Chicago_Pete]

Wow! That fast Nikon glass is impressive.

Lots of cool pics posted and informative replies.

Guess I started this post because a friend gave me, yes gave me a mint Contax RTS III with a Zeiss 25mm last week.

Pushed a roll through it Saturday and had a ball doing it. Set everything on manual and tested my 49 year old memory.

Results were better than I expected even with the cheap 1 hour processing. The prints were over exposed but I scanned a few frames on my Scitex 340

and they look great.

Doubt I would ever revert back to film totally but it was fun.

Pete

[WMcD]

I have used my Mavica for several years. It is the last one with a floppy drive built in. As Larry suggests, this is good enough for forum posts. The macro is pretty good too.

For many years I used my F3 for work and family. Often this involved available light and long exposures. Naturally this was always a juggling of film (sometimes pushed), exposure time, and lense settings.

I wonder if I could ever get those results with a digital. I have followed the technology closely. Is there any CCD which has ASA up at 3200?

Gil

[pauln]

My only camera is the Pentax K1000, manual everything, auto nothing,

don't even use the light meter (no battery). I recieve the "prints" on

CD; fastest and cheapest way.

[Islander]

Unlike many people, I find film to be cheaper and less work than digital. All that post-production work, instead of just dropping off your film and picking up well-made prints produced on a $100,000 machine instead of my inkjet printer. The obsolescence factor with digital is terrible, too. My Pentax MZ-S may be a 2001 model, but I'm using 2007 film in it, and I can use 2007 film in my 30-year-old Pentax 6x7, but to be honest, I don't use it that much, since I can get nice 11x14s on 800 film with the 35mm.

However, the 6x7 can produce a 320 Mpixel image in 48-bit colour, and 60-80 Mpixel is normal with the 35, although more than 30 Mpixels is more than the printer needs. Pros today grind their teeth over having to buy a new digital camera or cameras every couple of years and then have to give away the now-obsolete 2-year-old digital cameras.

Direct comparisons of images can be misleading, though. Digital has less detail, but looks sharper, making for more flattering portraits, with less detail of skin blemishes. Film has less apparent sharpness, but more real detail, making it the medium of choice for landscapes, among other things. Different tools for different jobs.

As for archival qualities, though, decades-old negs and slides are often good as new, while sometimes 3-year-old CDs won't open.

Philosophically speaking, a neg or a slide is an image, while a digital file is a description of an image.

CDs and digicams are handy, but vinyl and film rule!

[ClaudeJ1]

Not since 1999. Shooting digitally since 1995 to replace polaroid. Helped develop the original Foveon, sold all Hasselblads in 2000, not shot film since then. On a per square inch basis of format, modern SS sensors blow film away. the best backs with their 39 megapixel sensors have the equivalent of 5x7 film resolution. Pretty much been proven over time that the lenses are the weak point now. I said goodbye to grain a long time ago. Modern Canon CMOS SLR's pretty much have dynamic range and smoothness equivalent of ISO 50 Velvia at ISO 800.

Have a 128 Megapixel Scanback that outresolves all my view camera lenses and makes film look fuzzy in comparison.

I'm have been Tech. Editor of 4 Pro Photo Mags. since 1994 and I'm on my 46th digital camera in 12 years. I do this for a living. Kodak used to pay my AOL bill on the Wedding Board as the resident technical expert. I also judge internationl print competition. I shoot an average of 100,000 images a year and sell 80% of them.

But I honestly don't want to argue with anyone about it. It doesn't matter what the front end is, it's the output that counts. I don't care how it is made as long as it's a good print.

[sputnik]

.......Modern Canon CMOS SLR's pretty much have dynamic range and smoothness equivalent of ISO 50 Velvia at ISO 800.........

I don't think there is any dispute that digital rules and that the Canon CMOS SLRs are amazing but I'm still glad that Fuji brought back Velvia 50.

[jt1stcav]

You're not the only dinosuar. I've got lots of digital and autofocus gear but I'll never part with my manual sweeties. There's nothing else like em. Even with digital taking over, modern film emulsion technology has produced some fantastic film stock over the last few years.

Here are two magnificent pieces of glass with lovely trim bodies.

What beauties. Those fast lenses are to die for!

That pic reminds me of the only image I have of any of my manual SLRs I used to own, taken by my bro back in '01. I have no other images of my countless cameras...I sure do miss them, though. That '72 OM-1 was fitted with a spotless Zuiko 55mm f/1.2 normal lense.

[Speedball]

Makes me wonder what the local Photography studios are using to make their living with nowdays? film or digital?

[Def Leper]

I might be the only practicing pro photographer here, so my comments will be coming from that perspective. I sure get a kick out of reading these comments from audiophiles-- Just as entertaining as reading a discussion of audio by camera nuts!!

I waited quite awhile before switching from film do digital, mainly because there were no digital SLR's on the market with the capability of matching the physical performance of my Nikon F5's while providing enough resolving power to replace 35mm film. When I did switch, it was a complete system switch to Canon Digital and their watershed product, the EOS 1D-Mk II. This was the camera that (virtually) the whole pro SLR industry changed to, especially PJ and sports photographers. The low noise 1.3 crop sensor and 8.2 MP, 8 frames per second throughput, not only did the Mark II easily replace the Nikon film camera, I found in actual practice that the camera produced better images than the film camera. Why? Although the digital images don't have the outright resolution of film, the lack of grain and the low noise of Canon's imaging chip gives a big practical advantage to digital images compared to scanned film images. In other words, an 8.2 MP image from the digital camera can be enlarged and sharpened much more than the scanned film image. In practice, my Mark II system captures images at ISO (speed) ratings two or three stops faster than film at equal grain/noise levels. That gives a very practical shooting advantage. For my clients, the digital system has improved my turnaround times substantially compared to film. For example, I can shoot a professional portrait session (50-100 portraits on location) and supply a finished proof disk (color corrected proofs) to the client before leaving for the day. After the client selects the desired images from the proof, I can then do the post production (cropping, vignetting) and send the images to the lab with a few hours work. My images have much more consistent color quality and uniformity than I could ever get with film, and for portraits, there is actually too much resolution. I never print in house except for special jobs, and my pro lab is just as happy (actually happier) working with digital sources than with film.

For architectural and landscape photography, the story is a bit different. Many architectural clients don't need high resolution, and the DSLR with a tilt/shift lens works well. However, some jobs require more resolution and/or more extreme movements than the tilt/shift lens can provide, and then the 4X5 camera comes out. Landscape photography rarely needs much in the way of camera movements (other than to maximize depth of focus) but the larger film gives the ability to resolve much finer details and fine tonal graduations with a wider color gamut than I can get with the digital SLR. That doesn't mean that digital can't do this, it just means that I don't do enough of this kind of work to invest in a large or medium format digital back. On the other hand, with some subjects, I can use high dynamic range or tiling techniques with the digital SLR and do things that I couldn't even dream of doing with a large format or medium format camera, such as shooting and printing subjects with 11 or more stops of dynamic range or stitching panoramics with 80 or more gigabytes of information. For all practical purposes, the medium format backs with a good quality lens very easily replace medium format film systems and can approach 4X5 film quality, but I haven't seen anything yet that can capture the sheer mountain of information that a 5X7 or 8X10 film format can capture. On the other hand, these are not very practical solutions for most photographic situations compared to DSLR like the Canon EOS 1Ds-II or Hasselblad H2 with a medium format digital back.

My bread and butter is tabletop product photography, and here's another area where digital has successfully replaced film. In fact, I have several clients who used to demand medium format transparencies, and they are not only happy with 8.2MB digital images, they like them better! This goes back to the lack of film grain, which for all practical purposes is a form of noise. The other big factor is the ability to deliver images that have far more consistent white balance and exposure over the course of the job than I could ever get with film. Even with constantly rising costs, I've been able to drop my per-image prices to the client by half (yes, that's HALF) of what I had to charge three years ago for film. Why? Because I can shoot a job in 1/3rd (or less) the time than before, and my costs have gone down substantially because of the time savings and not having to spend approximately $2 per shot for polaroids, film, processing or scanning. My final, finished costs per shot for a job for digital have dropped to about $2 per shot including setup, shooting, post-production, proofing and archiving, compared to about $15 per shot (several years ago) for medium format film. Why? Since almost all clients need output in digital format, I had all the same post-production steps for film as digital, plus the extra costs of film, processing and scanning. Most importantly, film required a lot of extra work and expense to set up the session and get the best exposure and lighting, while this is a simple, very controllable process with digital because of the ability to instantly review a test image and adjust lighting and exposure.

Except for a few niche areas, film is as dead a product for the professional industry as it is for the amateur photographer. With the continuous improvement of digital imaging sensors, I see digital being able to replace film across the board in a few years, even in some areas where film currently reigns, such as high-resolution, high lattitude black and white photography. We are even nearing a threshold in cinematography, and I think you'll see cinema film cameras completely replaced by digital systems over the next ten years. You'll see digital cinema systems that can not only match the performance of film, they'll far exceed it with much better noise characteristics at high speed, and large sensors that can provide the shallow depth of focus that is important to the cinematographer, all in packages a fraction of the size of current camera systems. They will also provide instant review to help balance lighting and exposure.

I haven't shot a piece of film in over a year now. There is simply no demand for it.

I did get a kick out of the reactions to fast optics-- Amateur photographers are just as susceptible to how the stuff looks as audiphiles are to the styling of equipment, even when the performance is not there. Fast optics can never approach the performance of slower lenses, and a lens like the Nikon 50mm f1.4 AIS (or the newer AF-D) can't match the performance of a much cheaper optic like the 50mm f1.8. The only advantage is the ability to shoot under lighting conditions that are a half-stop darker, a poor tradeoff in my opinion. If anything, the main advantage of a fast lens is the brighter viewfinder image for composition and focusing.

[jt1stcav]

Very interesting response, Randy...I would've assumed slide film was still king in the professional photographer's world (for certain applications maybe it still is?). But digital SLRs seem to be improving in the imaging sensor department, and from what I've personally experienced, Canon's products are indeed leading the way (and I was always an Olympus fan until now). For film, Nikon and their lenses are the leaders in the industry, but IMO, even with the limited experience I have currently with digital SLRs, Canon is the best in terms of overall white balance in all lighting conditions, and lowest in noise at even higher ISO settings (I've never seen more useable shots at ISO 800 and higher with exceptional sharpness and virtual lack of grain with either Nikon or Olympus products than I have with Canon and their better optics...I can only imagine the picture quality with Canon's TOTL EOS 1D-MkII, and I'm using the discontinued 10D)!

Thanks for your take on the pro side with digital SLR technology...fascinating reading indeed.

[Mallette]

I think it safe to say that many pro's remain biased towards film, but work in a cut throat environment where there is no room for bias.

"We are even nearing a threshold in cinematography, and I think you'll see cinema film cameras completely replaced by digital systems over the next ten years."

That day is already here. A very film-biased friend of mine says even med-sized mall theatres are already switching over. He says the most recent one he visited (Spider3) was superior to film. That's coming from a VERY filmic person... As I mentioned above, the economic realities of digital completely overpower any nostalgia for clacking projectors. This would be so even if the only issue were shipping costs... Even those productions still being shot on film (where the cost difference is not such a factor in the equation) are being transferred to digital for editing and distribution.

Dave

[JJkizak]

From what I have read the new digital cameras ($125,000.00) with hard drives (500gig now) speed up the workflow many times for the editors.

JJK

[lighting guy]

One area of production (besides feature films) that still uses 35mm film is TV commercials, especially national spots. Hi-def video is definitely making inroads but 35mm still bests it in latitude. Video boasts a film-like latitude, and it IS getting better every year, but it's not there yet, especially in the upper end of its range. It tends to blow out quicker and not in a pleasing way that film does. Films stocks have also made significant advances in the last few years, but they're definitely on the way out. The new crop of professional hi-def cameras with their larger imagers and ability to easily use the best 35mm lenses will soon bring the film world to its practical end. It's too bad really, shooters much prefer using film cameras. Great viewfinders, ergonomic controls and the lack of ALL THOSE WIRES associated with hi-def systems make them much faster to set up and easier to operate. I have to admit as a lighting person I prefer working in the best video systems because of the real-time feedback I get looking at a good on-set monitor. Less metering and guesswork involved.

In the end, producers and most directors will push for more video production. It's cheaper to shoot and edit. Most film is transfered to video anyway when it's posted. TV commercials certainly are and most big budget feature films go though a digitial intermediate process for editing purposes even if it will be re-transfered to film for projection. The lines are getting more blurred every year.

[kentamcolin]

I still use film, primarily B&W film, but am days away from switching completely to digital. I love B&W film, tubes, vinyl, mechanical watches, etc. All the cool old stuff.

[seti]

I still use film, primarily B&W film, but am days away from switching completely to digital. I love B&W film, tubes, vinyl, mechanical watches, etc. All the cool old stuff.

Amen

There is a movement that was born out of the cyber punk subculture called Steampunk which is very interesting and creative. Check it out especially for those that love old technology mixed with new. You have to dig a little but very cool ideas and creativity.

http://steampunkworkshop.com/

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9094/STEAM.html

http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/brassgoggles/

[pauln]

I still use film, but check out the zoom on this camera!

http://pycckuu.blogspot.com/2007/09/like-zoom-how-about-134-mpixel-photo.html

[psg]

Just an amateur here, but I switched from an Nikon F90 (film) body to a D50 about 18 months ago and never looked back. I get the same feel as I should to when pressing the shutter but I get to press it a lot more often.