4 ms·

Welcome to the wonderful world of film. I’ve shot almost entirely analog after a short foray trying digital in the late 2000s. With my life so digitally connect

by piffey 4y ago

Welcome to the wonderful world of film. I’ve shot almost entirely analog after a short foray trying digital in the late 2000s. With my life so digitally connected I found having the analog process kept the joy in photography for me and I simply love the slow process from making images down to the final print in the darkroom. At the end of the day I don’t want to dodge and burn in Lightroom, spending even more time in front of a screen. I want to do it with my hands and home made darkroom tools under red safety lights. All this to say: if you’re getting into analog photography I suggest following it all the way to the end and making prints over scanning your images. It’s a lot of fun and gives you a lot of respect for every older photograph you look at plus wonder at what image processing has brought us in mobile phone sensors.

neverartful 4y ago
I completely agree. Some of my best parts of film photography was in the darkroom. It was one of the most calming and relaxing environments for me. It's magical to see an image slowly appear in a developer tray on the exposed paper.
- zabzonk 4y ago
  I agree about the magic of an image appearing on the paper, but in other respects I was never keen on the darkroom itself - the smell of the fixer and the stop-bath, the darkness and the fact that the images I produced were never as good as I wanted them to be kind of put me off. Still, it was fun, all in all. I've never found digital at all satisfying.
  - taylodl 4y ago
    The smell of fixer is pretty pungent. You forgot about processing the film. That has to be done in complete darkness (well, loading the processing tank anyway) and you get the added anxiety of drying the film in a dust-free place because any speck of dust getting on the film when it's wet is going to be near impossible to remove later. Nothing beats the exhilaration of having the perfect shot ruined by a speck of dust! </sarcasm> Yes, I really enjoyed working the darkroom back in the 80's and 90's but I wouldn't want to go back to that now.
    - zabzonk 4y ago
      Yeah, dust is a bugger. But it is amazing how W. Eugene Smith developed such great photos in some really primitive conditions.
      - taylodl 4y ago
        It really makes you appreciate the old-timers. Back when I started we already had computerized exposure control (my first camera was a Canon AE-1 Program). While it was primitive compared to what we have today, it was light years ahead of the old equipment. But damn! Keeping everything dust-free was a real PITA, especially when every time you loaded a new roll of film, changed a lens, or even took the cap off a lens presented a new opportunity for dust to get somewhere it wasn't wanted! Then after getting all the fates to align to make it that far the film gets dust on it while drying after being processed. Aargh! It seemed to me half of photography was about battling dust.
        zabzonk 4y ago
        > my first camera was a Canon AE-1 Hey! I had an AT-1, which was the manual version - I managed to lose it on a train in London about 1981, while moving flats. I was very upset.
        taylodl 4y ago
        Wow! I'd never even heard of an AT-1! It seemed like everybody around where I lived at the time was either selling the AE-1, the AE-1 Program, or the A-1. Now I see on Wikipedia there was not only the AT-1 that you had, but also an AV-1 and an AL-1. They all had the same bodies and lens mounts but slightly different features. I never knew!
        zabzonk 4y ago
        Yeah, I think the AE-1 was probably more popular in the UK at the time (late 70s), but I liked having all the control (and I couldn't afford an AE-1). But what I really liked about Canons was how chunky they were compared to Olympus and Pentax - it made for stable shooting. A bit later I got a Nikon F3 for work purposes (paid for by work), with lots of goodies (ring flash, macro lenses, etc.), but never really liked as much as the Canon.
  - quercusa 4y ago
    > were never as good as I wanted them to be It's kind of like chess - hours to learn, a lifetime to master. I've made thousands of b&w prints and there are two, maybe three, that I thought were as good as they could possibly be.
rimliu 4y ago
I have started with analog. There is some nostalgia for the darkroom, but I would never trade digital for film.

by piffey 4y ago

neverartful 4y ago

I completely agree. Some of my best parts of film photography was in the darkroom. It was one of the most calming and relaxing environments for me. It's magical to see an image slowly appear in a developer tray on the exposed paper.

zabzonk 4y ago
I agree about the magic of an image appearing on the paper, but in other respects I was never keen on the darkroom itself - the smell of the fixer and the stop-bath, the darkness and the fact that the images I produced were never as good as I wanted them to be kind of put me off. Still, it was fun, all in all. I've never found digital at all satisfying.
- taylodl 4y ago
  The smell of fixer is pretty pungent. You forgot about processing the film. That has to be done in complete darkness (well, loading the processing tank anyway) and you get the added anxiety of drying the film in a dust-free place because any speck of dust getting on the film when it's wet is going to be near impossible to remove later. Nothing beats the exhilaration of having the perfect shot ruined by a speck of dust! </sarcasm> Yes, I really enjoyed working the darkroom back in the 80's and 90's but I wouldn't want to go back to that now.
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    Yeah, dust is a bugger. But it is amazing how W. Eugene Smith developed such great photos in some really primitive conditions.
    - taylodl 4y ago
      It really makes you appreciate the old-timers. Back when I started we already had computerized exposure control (my first camera was a Canon AE-1 Program). While it was primitive compared to what we have today, it was light years ahead of the old equipment. But damn! Keeping everything dust-free was a real PITA, especially when every time you loaded a new roll of film, changed a lens, or even took the cap off a lens presented a new opportunity for dust to get somewhere it wasn't wanted! Then after getting all the fates to align to make it that far the film gets dust on it while drying after being processed. Aargh! It seemed to me half of photography was about battling dust.
      - zabzonk 4y ago
        > my first camera was a Canon AE-1 Hey! I had an AT-1, which was the manual version - I managed to lose it on a train in London about 1981, while moving flats. I was very upset.
        taylodl 4y ago
        Wow! I'd never even heard of an AT-1! It seemed like everybody around where I lived at the time was either selling the AE-1, the AE-1 Program, or the A-1. Now I see on Wikipedia there was not only the AT-1 that you had, but also an AV-1 and an AL-1. They all had the same bodies and lens mounts but slightly different features. I never knew!
        zabzonk 4y ago
        Yeah, I think the AE-1 was probably more popular in the UK at the time (late 70s), but I liked having all the control (and I couldn't afford an AE-1). But what I really liked about Canons was how chunky they were compared to Olympus and Pentax - it made for stable shooting. A bit later I got a Nikon F3 for work purposes (paid for by work), with lots of goodies (ring flash, macro lenses, etc.), but never really liked as much as the Canon.
- quercusa 4y ago
  > were never as good as I wanted them to be It's kind of like chess - hours to learn, a lifetime to master. I've made thousands of b&w prints and there are two, maybe three, that I thought were as good as they could possibly be.

rimliu 4y ago

I have started with analog. There is some nostalgia for the darkroom, but I would never trade digital for film.