5 ms·

You’re getting all kinds of answers but a key one, for me, is that film is unavoidably slow and expensive. Digital cameras teach you that each frame is cheap an

by tel 7y ago

You’re getting all kinds of answers but a key one, for me, is that film is unavoidably slow and expensive. Digital cameras teach you that each frame is cheap and throwaway. That encourages some kinds of photographic/artful thinking while obscuring others. Old masters of large format film photography have a workflow and thought process that’s vastly different from modern digicam shooting. When you have just one or two potential exposures and maybe only 15 minutes of perfect light to pull it off, you must research and plan and conceptualize deeply. Ansel Adams is the grandmaster here. He has three books on exposure, shooting, and development which read like alien artifacts to someone who’s used to digital. They also convey amazing conceptual clarity. Picking up an old film camera is a good way to get a little bit in touch with that ethos.

lb1lf 7y ago
This, this and this. I've consistently found my keeper ratio to be much higher when shooting film, as the memory cards are small and single-use only. That forces you to think your composition through, take an extra second or two to ensure the exposure is good - it basically enforces self discipline. (Which reminds me I've got a few rolls to develop after my latest outing with the Texas Leica - a Fuji G690BL; the 6*9 format gives me eight exposures on a roll of 120 film. Besides the enforced self discipline, I spend all of my working time in front of a computer, so I find it a bonus to have a hobby which does not (necessarily) involve one; I do shoot digital, too, though - I just mostly prefer the analog workflow for recreation.
- paulmd 7y ago
  I personally find the act of throwing away the garbage shots to be paralyzing with digital. If you have 8 nearly identical shots, which do you keep? And the act of examining and comparing to make a choice based on some minute detail drastically slows down the whole cataloging and editing process. It's the paralysis of choice. Less is literally more, and I personally don't find an evening of spending a couple hours paralyzed by choice and analyzing minute details to be enjoyable. At all. And yes, film makes you think a concept through fully and optimize everything before you press the shutter. My 'hit' rate is much higher with film than digital. I have so many cameras I don't have time to use them all, but my Fuji cameras and LF lenses are definitely among my favorites as well. Very underrated, Fuji didn't do a good job of advertising in the west at all. My general purpose camera is a Pentax 67 though. Looking forward to trying a new Polaroid rangefinder that was converted to 4x5 as well. Just bought some Velvia for a cool $2 per frame.
  - lb1lf 7y ago
    -I had the same problem - too many cameras - as there was a time when you could buy film cameras for a song. I have since pared down a bit (not sufficiently, though - the collector gene is strong in this one) - Nikon F (various bodies both F and D, and more optics than I care to think about), Leica M (primary body being the camera Leica ought to have made - the Zeiss Ikon ZM, but also an M4 for the times when old school is the order of the day) - 35 and 50mm Summicrons, 90mm Elmarit) and Fuji G690BL (65mm f/8, 100mm f/3.5 and 150mm f/5.6 lenses) The Pentax 67 is a beast, though - I had one for a couple of years and loved it to bits, but in the end it lost out to the 690 as I find myself preferring rangefinders more and more. Wonderful camera and optics, though.
    - paulmd 7y ago
      RFs are nice and especially if you like to shoot wide lenses they tend to be more accurate than SLRs (although I do have a split prism screen for mine, which helps a lot). The P67 is nice for portraits though, longer lenses are tricky on rangefinders. If you are a masochist and like to shoot wildlife/etc on MF/LF, the P67 system is by far the most comprehensive and affordable. Portability is really the problem with the P67. I find myself drawn to cameras that pack a big punch in a small package and the P67 just is a physically very large camera. I like my Fuji GS645 folder for travelling and would like a GF670, I snagged a 120-converted Kodak Medalist (heliar-type lens), and I have been trying to get set up with a compact 4x5 setup. I just got that Polaroid and I have some Grafmatics for it, maybe someday I'll grab a Pocket Gowland to go with it. I wouldn't mind a G690, but the lenses are fairly scarce and expensive. It is also a surprisingly big camera (assuming it's like the fixed-lens versions). Like, it doesn't look that big in pictures, until you realize that the camera body is about a 50% larger diagonal than your iphone plus. It is actually comical in person, not much smaller than a P67 at all. But, much lighter than a P67, which helps. Leica is too expensive for my blood although I do have a Nicca body and a Nikkor 28/3.5 LTM for it. I particularly liked that lens on the Nikonos and wanted a copy that didn't have the underwater mounting/scale focus. For really low light shooting I like the Yashica Lynx 14E and the Olympus XA with film pushed to 1600. The 14E is the fastest lens on a fixed-lens RF ever and has a leaf shutter to reduce vibrations, while the XA has a wide lens, a piezo release, and a leaf shutter. Both do well with handholdability at slow speeds. The Olympus XA can be modified to support 1600 by spinning the paper disc over the meter one stop further so that all speeds read one stop faster, the 14E is full manual. I mostly don't do 35mm SLRs anymore. Digital does that stuff better, so I do digital for that (I can adapt old lenses to my NEX camera) and MF/LF for fun. Easier to scan too, 35mm really needs a pretty decent scanner to get full quality, or wet printing. Trying to get set up for a basement darkroom, too many projects too little money. I don't mind GAS. I admit I like the collecting too, it's a hobby. And I don't mind having "special purpose" lenses or cameras that do one niche thing for me. It's nice to have the right tool for the job. Yeah, the late 2000s were a wild time for cameras. All the pros were dumping their film gear for digital, the financial crisis caused people to dump grandpa's old camera junk for a song and meant little competition, and hipsters hadn't latched onto film gear yet. I picked up my first 6x7 (non-MLU) for $300... with a meter prism and three lenses. That stuff has roughly tripled in value since those days, I think.
paulmd 7y ago
You can really skip The Camera if you like, it's 1930s era large-format-camera buying advice and isn't very relevant anymore. The Negative is absolutely indispensable and should be read by every shooter, film or digital. The Zone System conceptually works the same for everything, whether B+W or color, film or digital. It's a generalized system for placing an exposure level onto the sensor's available range. I suspect The Print is probably not entirely relevant anymore to most people who are doing hybrid-digital workflows (scanning their negatives), but may be of interest if you want to do wet printing. Which you should, it's super fun and rewarding and I can more easily deliver a better print than I can digitally. One thing it doesn't cover is split-grade printing, which is very easy to produce high-quality results, but requires "modern" variable-contrast emulsions which didn't exist in his day.

by tel 7y ago

lb1lf 7y ago

This, this and this. I've consistently found my keeper ratio to be much higher when shooting film, as the memory cards are small and single-use only. That forces you to think your composition through, take an extra second or two to ensure the exposure is good - it basically enforces self discipline. (Which reminds me I've got a few rolls to develop after my latest outing with the Texas Leica - a Fuji G690BL; the 6*9 format gives me eight exposures on a roll of 120 film. Besides the enforced self discipline, I spend all of my working time in front of a computer, so I find it a bonus to have a hobby which does not (necessarily) involve one; I do shoot digital, too, though - I just mostly prefer the analog workflow for recreation.

paulmd 7y ago
I personally find the act of throwing away the garbage shots to be paralyzing with digital. If you have 8 nearly identical shots, which do you keep? And the act of examining and comparing to make a choice based on some minute detail drastically slows down the whole cataloging and editing process. It's the paralysis of choice. Less is literally more, and I personally don't find an evening of spending a couple hours paralyzed by choice and analyzing minute details to be enjoyable. At all. And yes, film makes you think a concept through fully and optimize everything before you press the shutter. My 'hit' rate is much higher with film than digital. I have so many cameras I don't have time to use them all, but my Fuji cameras and LF lenses are definitely among my favorites as well. Very underrated, Fuji didn't do a good job of advertising in the west at all. My general purpose camera is a Pentax 67 though. Looking forward to trying a new Polaroid rangefinder that was converted to 4x5 as well. Just bought some Velvia for a cool $2 per frame.
- lb1lf 7y ago
  -I had the same problem - too many cameras - as there was a time when you could buy film cameras for a song. I have since pared down a bit (not sufficiently, though - the collector gene is strong in this one) - Nikon F (various bodies both F and D, and more optics than I care to think about), Leica M (primary body being the camera Leica ought to have made - the Zeiss Ikon ZM, but also an M4 for the times when old school is the order of the day) - 35 and 50mm Summicrons, 90mm Elmarit) and Fuji G690BL (65mm f/8, 100mm f/3.5 and 150mm f/5.6 lenses) The Pentax 67 is a beast, though - I had one for a couple of years and loved it to bits, but in the end it lost out to the 690 as I find myself preferring rangefinders more and more. Wonderful camera and optics, though.
  - paulmd 7y ago
    RFs are nice and especially if you like to shoot wide lenses they tend to be more accurate than SLRs (although I do have a split prism screen for mine, which helps a lot). The P67 is nice for portraits though, longer lenses are tricky on rangefinders. If you are a masochist and like to shoot wildlife/etc on MF/LF, the P67 system is by far the most comprehensive and affordable. Portability is really the problem with the P67. I find myself drawn to cameras that pack a big punch in a small package and the P67 just is a physically very large camera. I like my Fuji GS645 folder for travelling and would like a GF670, I snagged a 120-converted Kodak Medalist (heliar-type lens), and I have been trying to get set up with a compact 4x5 setup. I just got that Polaroid and I have some Grafmatics for it, maybe someday I'll grab a Pocket Gowland to go with it. I wouldn't mind a G690, but the lenses are fairly scarce and expensive. It is also a surprisingly big camera (assuming it's like the fixed-lens versions). Like, it doesn't look that big in pictures, until you realize that the camera body is about a 50% larger diagonal than your iphone plus. It is actually comical in person, not much smaller than a P67 at all. But, much lighter than a P67, which helps. Leica is too expensive for my blood although I do have a Nicca body and a Nikkor 28/3.5 LTM for it. I particularly liked that lens on the Nikonos and wanted a copy that didn't have the underwater mounting/scale focus. For really low light shooting I like the Yashica Lynx 14E and the Olympus XA with film pushed to 1600. The 14E is the fastest lens on a fixed-lens RF ever and has a leaf shutter to reduce vibrations, while the XA has a wide lens, a piezo release, and a leaf shutter. Both do well with handholdability at slow speeds. The Olympus XA can be modified to support 1600 by spinning the paper disc over the meter one stop further so that all speeds read one stop faster, the 14E is full manual. I mostly don't do 35mm SLRs anymore. Digital does that stuff better, so I do digital for that (I can adapt old lenses to my NEX camera) and MF/LF for fun. Easier to scan too, 35mm really needs a pretty decent scanner to get full quality, or wet printing. Trying to get set up for a basement darkroom, too many projects too little money. I don't mind GAS. I admit I like the collecting too, it's a hobby. And I don't mind having "special purpose" lenses or cameras that do one niche thing for me. It's nice to have the right tool for the job. Yeah, the late 2000s were a wild time for cameras. All the pros were dumping their film gear for digital, the financial crisis caused people to dump grandpa's old camera junk for a song and meant little competition, and hipsters hadn't latched onto film gear yet. I picked up my first 6x7 (non-MLU) for $300... with a meter prism and three lenses. That stuff has roughly tripled in value since those days, I think.

paulmd 7y ago

You can really skip The Camera if you like, it's 1930s era large-format-camera buying advice and isn't very relevant anymore. The Negative is absolutely indispensable and should be read by every shooter, film or digital. The Zone System conceptually works the same for everything, whether B+W or color, film or digital. It's a generalized system for placing an exposure level onto the sensor's available range. I suspect The Print is probably not entirely relevant anymore to most people who are doing hybrid-digital workflows (scanning their negatives), but may be of interest if you want to do wet printing. Which you should, it's super fun and rewarding and I can more easily deliver a better print than I can digitally. One thing it doesn't cover is split-grade printing, which is very easy to produce high-quality results, but requires "modern" variable-contrast emulsions which didn't exist in his day.