Film? Never heard of it. What's it do?
Discussion
I used a Nikon F55 and a Zeiss Ikon Contessa at a camera club studio night. One of the members laughed at me. "Your images will be over-exposed as you can't see what you've taken." I felt like saying, "If you can switch off the viewscreen and use your brain and try exposure bracketing, that won't be a problem." In fact, he didn't even have an exposure meter for the studio lighting and estimated an exposure. I wonder how he would've reacted if I'd said, "I'm using uprated B&W film which I will push-process."
The laughter came from someone who has never known anything else other than digital photography. It seems that photographers like him are now calling the shots (pun intended). Shoot it, download it, photoshop it and print it. I have two digital cameras but I don't want to lose sight of traditional values.
I've used all types of cameras, ranging from a 110 pocket camera, 35mm compact, a Lubitel medium format camera, a Zenith E, and two Praktica SLR's since 1984. So maybe I'm the one who is more disciplined in camera usage.
The laughter came from someone who has never known anything else other than digital photography. It seems that photographers like him are now calling the shots (pun intended). Shoot it, download it, photoshop it and print it. I have two digital cameras but I don't want to lose sight of traditional values.
I've used all types of cameras, ranging from a 110 pocket camera, 35mm compact, a Lubitel medium format camera, a Zenith E, and two Praktica SLR's since 1984. So maybe I'm the one who is more disciplined in camera usage.
Langweilig,
I have thought about this subject many times scince moving onto Digital. I'm not a proficient Photographer BTW. I do try not to "Photoshop" my imagies, but, there are times where I havn't got the exposure/F stop right & it does make a difference.Having said that, I'm with you on trying to get everything right without resorting to PS.
I guess that it could also be said that if you develop your own film then you also have a degree of influence on how a photograh will appear, rather than rely on your own abilities with exposure etc.
I have posted recently in the Random Photo's section and the only one I can remember PS'ing is the "Blue" sunset and that was to adgust the "Hue". The rest are as taken, though it might have taken a few trial shots to get everyting right.
I'm sure it is an emotive subject in the Photography world.
Dick
I have thought about this subject many times scince moving onto Digital. I'm not a proficient Photographer BTW. I do try not to "Photoshop" my imagies, but, there are times where I havn't got the exposure/F stop right & it does make a difference.Having said that, I'm with you on trying to get everything right without resorting to PS.
I guess that it could also be said that if you develop your own film then you also have a degree of influence on how a photograh will appear, rather than rely on your own abilities with exposure etc.
I have posted recently in the Random Photo's section and the only one I can remember PS'ing is the "Blue" sunset and that was to adgust the "Hue". The rest are as taken, though it might have taken a few trial shots to get everyting right.
I'm sure it is an emotive subject in the Photography world.
Dick
I've been through this twice. First in the music biz in the 80's & 90's (old school - midi? quantization? samples? PAH!) 'Not real music though, is it!'
Then over the past 18 years (old school - Digital? layers? Photoshop? PAH!) 'Not real photography though, is it!'
Times change, and yoof will always think they know best (I certainly did when I was yoof innit). You should just ignore them and do what you do, if that's what floats your boat. Yoof will always think you are nuts. It's your decision and their ignorance.
Personally, I ditched the pencil and the film a.s.a.p. as I find life SO much more creative with 'ones and zeros'. Digital opened up a whole new world that I shamelessly exploit every day. I cringe when I think back to all the wasted time I spent with analogue dots and splashes....
Horses & courses methinks.
Then over the past 18 years (old school - Digital? layers? Photoshop? PAH!) 'Not real photography though, is it!'
Times change, and yoof will always think they know best (I certainly did when I was yoof innit). You should just ignore them and do what you do, if that's what floats your boat. Yoof will always think you are nuts. It's your decision and their ignorance.
Personally, I ditched the pencil and the film a.s.a.p. as I find life SO much more creative with 'ones and zeros'. Digital opened up a whole new world that I shamelessly exploit every day. I cringe when I think back to all the wasted time I spent with analogue dots and splashes....
Horses & courses methinks.
GetCarter said:
Times change...
+1I only got into photography a year and a half ago and have never used film and don't know anything about it. IMO it comes down to whether or not you can produce a good image, and if you can you should be credited regardless of how you get there. Obviously it pays to have more knowledge about how everything works and being able to use a film camera will aid this, but it's not paramount. Photoshop is there so you can enhance existing photos and make them look even better...there's no crime in that. It still remains that the better the photographer you are, the better the photos you will produce.
ETA If you can get the absolute perfect image first go with no manipulation needed then all credit to you, I am envious
Edited by 4Lmike on Saturday 5th February 14:19
No offence but I feel the whole "I can use a film camera, therefore I am a better photographer" thing a little stupid.
When digital really started to take off, I worked in a photographic lab. I too used film SLRs (a manual Pentax and a Practika, as well as a Nikon F55) and thought it nothing more than a fad at the time and that Pros would continue to use film and the rest would use digital as it was more practical. At the time, results from digital was pretty poor. Even from some of the pros we processed for. There image quality had dropped significantly over night when they switched to digital and we just couldn't understand why they would prefer to use it.
These days though, you would be daft to use a film camera for anything other than experimenting imo. Quality is right up there with film and there is so much more scope for post processing to produce images that could only be dreamt of 20 years ago. I think film has its place but its old hat these days and the majority of people would not benefit from using it.
Horses for courses really but technology moves on. Your not still using cassettes and VHS tapes are you?
I don't think digital technology is killing photography though. Quite the opposite.
When digital really started to take off, I worked in a photographic lab. I too used film SLRs (a manual Pentax and a Practika, as well as a Nikon F55) and thought it nothing more than a fad at the time and that Pros would continue to use film and the rest would use digital as it was more practical. At the time, results from digital was pretty poor. Even from some of the pros we processed for. There image quality had dropped significantly over night when they switched to digital and we just couldn't understand why they would prefer to use it.
These days though, you would be daft to use a film camera for anything other than experimenting imo. Quality is right up there with film and there is so much more scope for post processing to produce images that could only be dreamt of 20 years ago. I think film has its place but its old hat these days and the majority of people would not benefit from using it.
Horses for courses really but technology moves on. Your not still using cassettes and VHS tapes are you?
I don't think digital technology is killing photography though. Quite the opposite.
Edited by Deluded on Saturday 5th February 14:21
Anybody who does professional "production" photography (weddings, magazines, newspapers and so forth) would frankly be mental to be using film these days.
But the thing about film, in much the same vein as analogue vs. digital sound, is that the medium adds to the subject, in terms of colour balance, contrast and so forth. Often people will spend ages adjusting digital images to look like a film photo.
I think that, as has happened with music production, working in "analogue" will become a fun and interesting thing to do. I love the excitement of sending the film off, not being quite sure of what I'm going to get back.
but the biggest thing of all is that when I'm shooting, as soon as a photo is taken, it's done with. I can't look at it to see whether it came out OK, I just have to take another one. It feels more natural that way.
But the thing about film, in much the same vein as analogue vs. digital sound, is that the medium adds to the subject, in terms of colour balance, contrast and so forth. Often people will spend ages adjusting digital images to look like a film photo.
I think that, as has happened with music production, working in "analogue" will become a fun and interesting thing to do. I love the excitement of sending the film off, not being quite sure of what I'm going to get back.
but the biggest thing of all is that when I'm shooting, as soon as a photo is taken, it's done with. I can't look at it to see whether it came out OK, I just have to take another one. It feels more natural that way.
ian in lancs said:
And then there's hybrid; shooting on film, scanning and then Photoshop. Got some fantastic portraits that way. It does have a quality that digital doesn't.
Yep. Digital's getting better and better at an increasing pace, but they still need to invent a sensor that reacts logarithmically to light intensity. I'm about to embark on my final major project at college, and I'll be using digital initially to get my locations and angles and so on, but the bulk of the final output will probably be done on 5x4 film (I can hear my wallet quietly weeping even now) just for the sheer amount of detail I'll be able to squeeze out of it, and for a certain indefinable quality that film still possesses (akin to the 'warmth' of a valve amp over a transistor amp - it's hard to pin down, but it's there).As for the guy with the T-shirt above, I suppose that, in his youth, he would have been complaining about how push processing, dodging and burning, multigrade papers, cross-processing, negative spotting, etc. were ruining photography. Just as you can't get a decent print from film without some darkroom manipulation, so you can't get a decent picture from a sensor without some processing (whether in camera or out). The final image is the photographer's vision, nobody else's, and the amount of processing they do is up to them.
I'll continue to use film and I'll continue to use digital. I'll always do some some photoshopping on my pictures (I've never published a picture that hasn't been tweaked in some way) because, for me, it's the final image that counts, not some mystical virtue of chemistry over electronics or because there's something 'special' about pressing the shutter that prevents you from doing anything to the image subsequent to that.
We're photographers - it's the picture that's important, not artificial 'debates' over this or that aspect of the process. Don't tell me that Wolfgang Tilmans isn't a photographer because some of his images look a bit like Rothko paintings, or that Uta Barth isn't saying something because she deliberately defocusses her camera or that Chris Jordan should be rejected because he painstakingly builds up immense images from thousands of photoshop layers. It's about the image, not the way you got there, and it's the image that should be judged by whatever criteria you wish to use. End of.
Well said.
MB, I agreed with pretty much everything you wrote there until I got to this line:
Major Bloodnok said:
... Don't tell me that Wolfgang Tilmans isn't a photographer because some of his images look a bit like Rothko paintings ...
Personally speaking I don't think you could have picked a worse example than Tilmans. I've had the misfortune of working with him a couple of times from the gallery side, IMO the guy is a cock who knows nothing about either photgraphy or art.RobDickinson said:
croyde said:
Although Film Cameramen do get a hell of a lot more pay than us lowly TV Cameramen.
There not using film any more either...Yes, the new blood's taking to digital rapidly, but I know people who still get asked to shoot on film because it's what the production house 'knows', and knows how to handle it in PP.
Major Bloodnok said:
We're photographers - it's the picture that's important, not artificial 'debates' over this or that aspect of the process.
It's about the image, not the way you got there, and it's the image that should be judged by whatever criteria you wish to use.
But to the extent that the success of 'the image' to a viewer is a product of a particular process then surely it *is* relevant ?It's about the image, not the way you got there, and it's the image that should be judged by whatever criteria you wish to use.
To me it's not an artificial debate - different mediums produce different results, but that doesn't mean one is 'better' than the other. They each work in their own way, but in the same way that analogue records sound different to CDs, so too is there a difference between film and digital. Some of the differences are welcome, come can be a nuisance. But neither is a perfect solution.
So the differences should be embraced and welcomed, not used as a means of arguing whether one is 'better' based on an entirely subjective set of criteria.
Which is why I still choose to use both film and digital, depending on what I'm trying to achieve.
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