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As a 'millennial' hobby photographer that enjoys working with film cameras this is great news! However I find some of these comments disheartening. There is a

As a 'millennial' hobby photographer that enjoys working with film cameras this is great news! However I find some of these comments disheartening. There is a lot of discussion of the merits of film versus digital capture which really isn't the point or why someone would necessarily choose to shoot film today. Much like how a better camera doesn't automatically take better photos the same goes with the film vs digital debate. A camera, and film/digital sensor, is a tool that is used accomplish an ends (capturing an image). One tool might be easier to use or have more control or some other quality of preference. Similarly, a given film might subjectively have a preferred color palette or a sensor have more flexibility. I shoot film because it requires me to slow down and think about each shot; I can't fallback on "guess and check" for exposure or composition. Another thing to note is that much of the film market (both pro and consumer) have stabilized in recent years. Kodak (also Kodak Alaris) and the other manufacturers have adapted to be able to meet the lower demand of a niche market. A great example of this is Ilford. Anyway, I am just excited to have an excuse to shoot some slides this year!

andrei_says_ 10y ago
One thing that film gives me is a physical representation of reality as light bounced off of it at the time of me pressing the shutter. This, for me, is an act of alchemy, a bit of magic, which brings a special kind of awe and changes my attitude to the scene, to the moment I am taking the photo, and thus changes the outcome. I rarely shoot film, but when I do, it feels special.
- eyeinthepyramid 10y ago
  it's funny that that has become more special than transmogrifying reality into an ethereal form represented by numbers, stored by manipulating electricity, and recreated anywhere in the world by transforming electricity into light
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  Electricity is pretty magical too, if you stop to think about it. Most things are pretty magical, in a way, if you really think about them.
  - andrei_says_ 10y ago
    I agree. And yet, the molecules in the film emulsion get reconfigured directly by the light emitted by reality and focused by the lens. It's direct, physical, embedded in the material structure, testimony of what once was. A physical manifestation of one's experience. Light-sensitive transistors to electricity to software to memory feels much more ephemeral. Not less magic, but less al-chemical.
beat 10y ago
Take comfort in the fact that most of the people poo-pooing film here aren't actually serious photographers and have little or no experience with the nature of film photography.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  I managed a full-service film lab back in the early 90s. C-41 neg, E-6 chrome, enlargements, copy prints/negs/slides, everything (we didn't do K-14, but just about everything else). We processed several hundred rolls a day, and I personally shot 10-15 rolls a week (we got film at cost, and processing was free). So, yeah, I have quite a lot of experience with the nature of film photography. Once the first decent DSLRs appeared on the market, I switched and never looked back.
  - traviscj 10y ago
    All of that, and you can't understand why someone might want to go back and use the old medium?
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      Oh, I understand why someone might want to do it, in the same way that someone might want to, say, weave cloth by hand -- as an interesting hobby. I was objecting to the implied snobbery in the OP, e.g. "if you actually knew what you were doing, you'd want to shoot film for everything". Yes, I do know what I'm doing, and no, I don't want to shoot film. Neither do the vast majority of working professional photographers (I'm not one, myself, but I know a fair number of them). Digital has become better in just about every respect you can name. Yes, you can find the occasional art photographer who still shoots film, but there aren't many of them. The film guys are exactly like the vinyl record guys -- they're basing their preference on factors other than quantifiable objective data.
      - rangibaby 10y ago
        There so, so is much more to a good photo (art) than quantifiable objective data. IQ is only one component of a good photo, and even IQ is subjective because it is impossible to design a lens that is perfect in every aspect because correcting certain abberations can make other ones worse. That's why I think there is still a place for film. Fidelity doesn't equal quality.
RUG3Y 10y ago
Your comment echoes my own sentiments. I've been shooting for almost 25 years, and invested lots of money into 35mm cameras and lenses. To replace my equipment with digital equivalents would cost many thousands of dollars. Also, I feel like film photography requires one to slow down and think more while shooting, a benefit that isn't readily apparent to every user, but (for me) results in much better photographs.
- TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
  On the flip-side, as a person who has been doing cinematography for some time and has spent thousands on equipment over the years, I can say I would have never got into photography and cinematography if it wasn't digital. Nothing about the experience of developing film sounds interesting to me. Would you mind sharing other subtle nuances of shoot on film vs digital?
  - tel 10y ago
    Digital is WAAAY easier to get started on, no doubt. It's also much easier to learn the basics of composition and exposure. Unbelievably so! You can "develop" your images in microseconds. With film you have to supplement a lot of what's achievable in digital via guessing and checking with careful thought. You also have many fewer opportunities to get the shot right before you exhaust your film and probably blow the moment replacing it. This makes film into a forcing function to perform excellent technique and to pre-visualize your shot. This creates better technique. It's also nice that film has a very high effective resolution (when drum scanned), that film grain is a favorable aesthetic right now (it was usually considered ugly before digital), and that film has a logarithmic response to light meaning that it can handle a wider dynamic range than digital.
    - mulmen 10y ago
      The logarithmic response to light is the first non-emotional benefit to film photography I have seen in these discussions. Thanks for pointing that out.
leeoniya 10y ago
The fallacy is in the belief that "photography" is solely defined by the simple act of capturing an accurate representation of reality. Optimizing for just this aspect ignores the fact that perhaps i don't want to use photoshop to manip an image because i can get more desirable results organically using chemicals and my hands rather than a mouse. Photography is an art for many. It may be easy to mimic the results with digital editing, but it is much more difficult to discover new and unique things. For example, ML can mimic existing work: https://qz.com/495614/computers-can-now-paint-like-van-gogh-and-picasso/ https://qz.com/495614/computers-can-now-paint-like-van-gogh-... But ML is not a painter that will produce substantially meaningful, original work.
- NovaS1X 10y ago
  >The fallacy is in the belief that "photography" is solely defined by the simple act of capturing an accurate representation of reality. I wish I could upvote you twice. I never understand this mentality. And then on the same side people love the ultra-generic over-saturated tone-mapped HDR with 10-stop ND filter of a creek stuff you see on the explore page of Flickr every day. It's probably too much to ask of people who aren't photographers though. I can't blame people for thinking this way when the entire camera upgrade cycle is based on always more resolution and color accuracy. It's easier for companies to sell cameras this way.
svantana 10y ago
>I shoot film because it requires me to slow down and think about each shot; I can't fallback on "guess and check" for exposure or composition. If this is a common sentiment then here's an idea for a product: a digital camera that donates $1 to the red cross for every picture you take, charged to your bank account. Not only would it restore this "restraint", it would help people in need while also removing the usage of chemicals that are bad for health and environment.
- tel 10y ago
  It would need to also not let you see your photos for somewhere between 1 and 7 days, take SD cards no larger than 64 Mb, and break when X-rayed in airport security. That all said, I agree with the op.
  - mattnumbe 10y ago
    Also, a small chance that you end up with 24 of someone else's photos.
  - rangibaby 10y ago
    I thought this comment was funny but would like to point out that X ray machines won't fog film now. You'll need to hand check >=800ISO film though
    - tel 10y ago
      That's true for carry on luggage, but checked luggage (I've learned) still fogs.
- larsiusprime 10y ago
  > it would help people in need while also removing the usage of chemicals that are bad for health and environment. Because manufacturing digital cameras doesn't involve chemicals that are bad for health and environment...
- EpicEng 10y ago
  Yeah I'm sure that would fly off the shelves...
lightedman 10y ago
" I shoot film because it requires me to slow down and think about each shot; I can't fallback on "guess and check" for exposure or composition." Funny, I shoot film on my Minolta X700 (for over 25 years) because I DON'T have to slow down. What I see in my viewfinder is exactly what I'm going to see on film. The joys of real SLR versus Digital SLR. Your camera screen is not reliable for color reproduction - raw optics are.
- mrob 10y ago
  Film doesn't necessarily match the color response of the eye any more than digital sensors do. Fujifilm's Velvia film was renowned for extreme saturation, not accurate color reproduction. And optical viewfinders don't take into account exposure length either, so they won't give an accurate view of long exposure shots. If you shoot raw you can always tweak the color balance in post-production anyway.
  - lightedman 10y ago
    "And optical viewfinders don't take into account exposure length either" The Minolta X700 does do that via a secondary faux-shutter mechanism and a light sensor. If you actually bothered to have a battery installed (which dies after about 8 shots,) the tiny auto-exposure sensor inside would take over and the faux secondary shutter would move out of the way.
    - Laforet 10y ago
      The shutter in an X700 is timed electronically and won't work without battery power, a common fault occurs when one tiny capacitor in the timing mechanism fails, preventing the shutter from releasing. I have no idea what the faux shutter is because the camera had a fairly conventional horizontal fabric shutter. The actual innovatation is with the closed-loop AE mode where the camera will account for a faulty aperture or more importantly, non-TTL flash by measuring light reflected off the film in real time.
      - lightedman 10y ago
pmoriarty 10y ago
It's like a hammer vs an automatic electrical nail driver. Sure, the hammer is an old, primitive, slow, and occasionally painful technology, while the electrical nail driver is modern, convenient, and fast. But sometimes a hammer is the right tool for the job, and it would be a shame if hammers stopped being made.
hkmurakami 10y ago
I'm only a photography dilettante, but I'm a pretty decent golfer who chooses to use older equipment that is arguably less performant because of the emotional connection I feel with what I choose to play (ex: equipment from 15 years ago that I couldn't afford back then). I think that sort of emotional satisfaction shouldn't be understated for our passion pursuits.
CaptainZapp 10y ago
What can never be represented digitally is that intense feeling, when you see your picture come to life in the developer fluid in a lab. It's the feeling of controlling the whole process from taking the picture, developing the film, creating the prints and see the final represenation developing itself on baryte paper. For me that's still pretty intistinguishable from magic. I shoot film because it requires me to slow down and think about each shot On a related note: I think there's actually a huge advantage to fixed focal lenses. They slow you down! They force you to really engage with the picture you intend to take. You can't just zoom in on your motive and snap away and I always thought that's a good thing.

andrei_says_ 10y ago

One thing that film gives me is a physical representation of reality as light bounced off of it at the time of me pressing the shutter. This, for me, is an act of alchemy, a bit of magic, which brings a special kind of awe and changes my attitude to the scene, to the moment I am taking the photo, and thus changes the outcome. I rarely shoot film, but when I do, it feels special.

eyeinthepyramid 10y ago
it's funny that that has become more special than transmogrifying reality into an ethereal form represented by numbers, stored by manipulating electricity, and recreated anywhere in the world by transforming electricity into light
pmoriarty 10y ago
Electricity is pretty magical too, if you stop to think about it. Most things are pretty magical, in a way, if you really think about them.
- andrei_says_ 10y ago
  I agree. And yet, the molecules in the film emulsion get reconfigured directly by the light emitted by reality and focused by the lens. It's direct, physical, embedded in the material structure, testimony of what once was. A physical manifestation of one's experience. Light-sensitive transistors to electricity to software to memory feels much more ephemeral. Not less magic, but less al-chemical.

beat 10y ago

Take comfort in the fact that most of the people poo-pooing film here aren't actually serious photographers and have little or no experience with the nature of film photography.

Turing_Machine 10y ago
I managed a full-service film lab back in the early 90s. C-41 neg, E-6 chrome, enlargements, copy prints/negs/slides, everything (we didn't do K-14, but just about everything else). We processed several hundred rolls a day, and I personally shot 10-15 rolls a week (we got film at cost, and processing was free). So, yeah, I have quite a lot of experience with the nature of film photography. Once the first decent DSLRs appeared on the market, I switched and never looked back.
- traviscj 10y ago
  All of that, and you can't understand why someone might want to go back and use the old medium?
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    Oh, I understand why someone might want to do it, in the same way that someone might want to, say, weave cloth by hand -- as an interesting hobby. I was objecting to the implied snobbery in the OP, e.g. "if you actually knew what you were doing, you'd want to shoot film for everything". Yes, I do know what I'm doing, and no, I don't want to shoot film. Neither do the vast majority of working professional photographers (I'm not one, myself, but I know a fair number of them). Digital has become better in just about every respect you can name. Yes, you can find the occasional art photographer who still shoots film, but there aren't many of them. The film guys are exactly like the vinyl record guys -- they're basing their preference on factors other than quantifiable objective data.
    - rangibaby 10y ago
      There so, so is much more to a good photo (art) than quantifiable objective data. IQ is only one component of a good photo, and even IQ is subjective because it is impossible to design a lens that is perfect in every aspect because correcting certain abberations can make other ones worse. That's why I think there is still a place for film. Fidelity doesn't equal quality.

RUG3Y 10y ago

Your comment echoes my own sentiments. I've been shooting for almost 25 years, and invested lots of money into 35mm cameras and lenses. To replace my equipment with digital equivalents would cost many thousands of dollars. Also, I feel like film photography requires one to slow down and think more while shooting, a benefit that isn't readily apparent to every user, but (for me) results in much better photographs.

TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
On the flip-side, as a person who has been doing cinematography for some time and has spent thousands on equipment over the years, I can say I would have never got into photography and cinematography if it wasn't digital. Nothing about the experience of developing film sounds interesting to me. Would you mind sharing other subtle nuances of shoot on film vs digital?
- tel 10y ago
  Digital is WAAAY easier to get started on, no doubt. It's also much easier to learn the basics of composition and exposure. Unbelievably so! You can "develop" your images in microseconds. With film you have to supplement a lot of what's achievable in digital via guessing and checking with careful thought. You also have many fewer opportunities to get the shot right before you exhaust your film and probably blow the moment replacing it. This makes film into a forcing function to perform excellent technique and to pre-visualize your shot. This creates better technique. It's also nice that film has a very high effective resolution (when drum scanned), that film grain is a favorable aesthetic right now (it was usually considered ugly before digital), and that film has a logarithmic response to light meaning that it can handle a wider dynamic range than digital.
  - mulmen 10y ago
    The logarithmic response to light is the first non-emotional benefit to film photography I have seen in these discussions. Thanks for pointing that out.

leeoniya 10y ago

The fallacy is in the belief that "photography" is solely defined by the simple act of capturing an accurate representation of reality. Optimizing for just this aspect ignores the fact that perhaps i don't want to use photoshop to manip an image because i can get more desirable results organically using chemicals and my hands rather than a mouse. Photography is an art for many. It may be easy to mimic the results with digital editing, but it is much more difficult to discover new and unique things. For example, ML can mimic existing work: https://qz.com/495614/computers-can-now-paint-like-van-gogh-and-picasso/ https://qz.com/495614/computers-can-now-paint-like-van-gogh-... But ML is not a painter that will produce substantially meaningful, original work.

NovaS1X 10y ago
>The fallacy is in the belief that "photography" is solely defined by the simple act of capturing an accurate representation of reality. I wish I could upvote you twice. I never understand this mentality. And then on the same side people love the ultra-generic over-saturated tone-mapped HDR with 10-stop ND filter of a creek stuff you see on the explore page of Flickr every day. It's probably too much to ask of people who aren't photographers though. I can't blame people for thinking this way when the entire camera upgrade cycle is based on always more resolution and color accuracy. It's easier for companies to sell cameras this way.

svantana 10y ago

>I shoot film because it requires me to slow down and think about each shot; I can't fallback on "guess and check" for exposure or composition. If this is a common sentiment then here's an idea for a product: a digital camera that donates $1 to the red cross for every picture you take, charged to your bank account. Not only would it restore this "restraint", it would help people in need while also removing the usage of chemicals that are bad for health and environment.

tel 10y ago
It would need to also not let you see your photos for somewhere between 1 and 7 days, take SD cards no larger than 64 Mb, and break when X-rayed in airport security. That all said, I agree with the op.
- mattnumbe 10y ago
  Also, a small chance that you end up with 24 of someone else's photos.
- rangibaby 10y ago
  I thought this comment was funny but would like to point out that X ray machines won't fog film now. You'll need to hand check >=800ISO film though
  - tel 10y ago
    That's true for carry on luggage, but checked luggage (I've learned) still fogs.
larsiusprime 10y ago
> it would help people in need while also removing the usage of chemicals that are bad for health and environment. Because manufacturing digital cameras doesn't involve chemicals that are bad for health and environment...
EpicEng 10y ago
Yeah I'm sure that would fly off the shelves...

lightedman 10y ago

" I shoot film because it requires me to slow down and think about each shot; I can't fallback on "guess and check" for exposure or composition." Funny, I shoot film on my Minolta X700 (for over 25 years) because I DON'T have to slow down. What I see in my viewfinder is exactly what I'm going to see on film. The joys of real SLR versus Digital SLR. Your camera screen is not reliable for color reproduction - raw optics are.

mrob 10y ago
Film doesn't necessarily match the color response of the eye any more than digital sensors do. Fujifilm's Velvia film was renowned for extreme saturation, not accurate color reproduction. And optical viewfinders don't take into account exposure length either, so they won't give an accurate view of long exposure shots. If you shoot raw you can always tweak the color balance in post-production anyway.
- lightedman 10y ago
  "And optical viewfinders don't take into account exposure length either" The Minolta X700 does do that via a secondary faux-shutter mechanism and a light sensor. If you actually bothered to have a battery installed (which dies after about 8 shots,) the tiny auto-exposure sensor inside would take over and the faux secondary shutter would move out of the way.
  - Laforet 10y ago
    The shutter in an X700 is timed electronically and won't work without battery power, a common fault occurs when one tiny capacitor in the timing mechanism fails, preventing the shutter from releasing. I have no idea what the faux shutter is because the camera had a fairly conventional horizontal fabric shutter. The actual innovatation is with the closed-loop AE mode where the camera will account for a faulty aperture or more importantly, non-TTL flash by measuring light reflected off the film in real time.
    - lightedman 10y ago

pmoriarty 10y ago

It's like a hammer vs an automatic electrical nail driver. Sure, the hammer is an old, primitive, slow, and occasionally painful technology, while the electrical nail driver is modern, convenient, and fast. But sometimes a hammer is the right tool for the job, and it would be a shame if hammers stopped being made.

hkmurakami 10y ago

I'm only a photography dilettante, but I'm a pretty decent golfer who chooses to use older equipment that is arguably less performant because of the emotional connection I feel with what I choose to play (ex: equipment from 15 years ago that I couldn't afford back then). I think that sort of emotional satisfaction shouldn't be understated for our passion pursuits.

CaptainZapp 10y ago

What can never be represented digitally is that intense feeling, when you see your picture come to life in the developer fluid in a lab. It's the feeling of controlling the whole process from taking the picture, developing the film, creating the prints and see the final represenation developing itself on baryte paper. For me that's still pretty intistinguishable from magic. I shoot film because it requires me to slow down and think about each shot On a related note: I think there's actually a huge advantage to fixed focal lenses. They slow you down! They force you to really engage with the picture you intend to take. You can't just zoom in on your motive and snap away and I always thought that's a good thing.