# 35mm photographic film extinct?



## N10 (Jun 19, 2010)

I was just wandering who here still use their film cameras despite the fact that film rolls are becoming rarer and it seems that buying film and having them developed seems more costly than printing digital photos. gosh i might be a little old fashioned but I still love using my Nikon F3...there's a feel good factor when you mechanically wind up that film and even better when u actually get some really good shots...no photoshop!So...who here still use film or do you guys just think film is going extinct or will soon be?:green:


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## Stillphoto (Jun 19, 2010)

Depends on where you live and I suppose where you buy your stuff. I've not had an issue finding film, but then again, I shop at the professional photographic supply / lab that I used to work at. All about knowing where to go haha.

That said, I find it ironic that in the film industry (in which I work) everyone spends tons of time shooting things digitally so that in the end they can make it look like film.


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## kaptain_zero (Jun 19, 2010)

After reading this announcement from Kodak, I'm glad I no longer own 35mm equipment..... it's a sad thing indeed, further info can be found at Kodak:



> Eastman Kodak Company announced on June 22, 2009 that it will discontinue sales of KODACHROME Color Film this year, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon.


I've used more rolls of this film than almost any other except for perhaps Kodak Tri-X B&W.... uhh... and Tech Pan.... and..... never mind. <sigh>

Regards

Kaptain "I wonder if archeologists will some day discover ancient *.gif artifacts?" Zero


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## HarryN (Jun 19, 2010)

Good discussion of course for the photo area. I think it somewhat depends on how you do your photo work, and the "goals".

I really don't take that many pictures. 90% of them are "good enough" using my Nokia cell phone, and are not all that far from a digital camera that would cost $ 100 - 200 all by itself.

I have a minox 35mm for keeping in my travel briefcase. It is light, small, and batteries last forever. Pictures are superb, and even pro film is cheap now. The couple of rolls a year I take with it cost very little compared to buying an equivalent digital camera. I have the negs developed, and scan with a 30ish bit color depth scanner. Just try to find a digital camera with 30+ bit depth at a reasonable price. (corrected 48 bit depth)

The old pentax 35mm slr still does fine and can take pics far better than I ever will.

BTW - I never photo shop. I just take the pic and scan. My work isn't pro and I am not trying to be, just having fun for myself and family sharing.

Kodak still makes some great pro films that are readily available via mail order.


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## smokinbasser (Jun 19, 2010)

Fuji film is still available but suspect you might need to develop it yourself. I used to buy fuji iso 100 B/W 36 exp by the case([email protected]) and was going through a case sometimes twice a week. Now I have two of the Fuji digital cameras one P&S the other a very capable bridge camera that is in the camera bag with my Canon T2i


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## Vesper (Jun 20, 2010)

For other than specialty needs, it's done. There will be clubs in the near future who, as enthusiasts, will keep it alive much like the Polaroid enthusiasts do with that film now. Like the analog audio purists, the debate will go on for years but there are too many pros to digital. A total paradigm shift and it happened so fast.


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## blasterman (Jun 20, 2010)

> there's a feel good factor when you mechanically wind up that film and even better when u actually get some really good shots...no photoshop!


 
Good shots from what? Dropping film off at a lab and having a minimum wage teenager make all the density/color corrections for you so you don't have to think? The vast majority of film that is shot today is scanned and printed. Good luck even finding a lab that still uses analog optical gear for printing, and if they did, the quality would suck anyways like it always has. I used to work with about half a million dollar's worth of the best film repro gear on the market, knew how to use it, and a digital printer and camera puts that stuff to shame.

Scanning film typically requires this thing called a computer and likely Photoshop if you are a professional. 



> Just try to find a digital camera with 30+ bit depth at a reasonable price.


 
Typical stuff said by digital luddites when they don't have a clue what those numbers mean. 

I used to *only* scan my film on my 48-bit howetek drum at work, and I'll take an entry level dLSR over that *48-bit Howtek* and 35mm film anyday. My Howtek cost $40,000, and a decent dedicated 35mm film scanner about the same as an entry level dSLR. *The reason* film scanners require all the additional bit depth is due to the D/A conversion while trying to eat through film dye, and 30bits is pretty low end for a film scanner. 

Also, what really doesn't make sense is a film scanner *IS* a digital camera. Taking a digital sample of an analog copy (film) of the original scene is illogical and produces a worse result than taking a digital sample of the original scene in the first place. 

The majority of pro neg films on the market are still in use because the *elderly* wedding photogs still shooting it need the +12 stop lattitude range because they can't shoot right (lab fixes messes for them). 

Kodachrome nostalgia is my favorite. Here's a film that was never released in larger formats because pros didn't want it, it doesn't scan for beans and doesn't print really well, and Kodak's insistance on making their E-6 films look like it cost them most of their professional market share in the 80's and 90's to Fuji. Trust me, most Kodak shareholders wish Kodachrome and K-14 was killed off 30 years ago:twothumbs

The only thing I agree with you guys on is that classic 35mm film dSLRs are better ergonomically than current dSLRs. I had an F3 when I free lance for the local paper, and other than a D3 or 5D that old F3 was a better machine that any <$2000 dSLR on the market. I then moved on and realized that 35mm was just a _convenient, amatuer_ format anyways and the quality sucked compared to legitimate MF and LF formats. I'm also more concerned about how the final image looks and how I can share it rather than how good a shutter feels.


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## blasterman (Jun 20, 2010)

> Like the analog audio purists, the debate will go on for years but there are too many pros to digital


 
Bad analogy. As a photographer, I produce my own work and master my own work. Audio purists who rave about analog gear, turntables and $1000 speaker cables are typically not the artist and just into equipment fetish. They are about as relevant to the debate as somebody clicking on a picture on Flickr - just more arrogant.

If the studio and recording engineer elect to master the recording on analog, then that's how it should be played back. Putting a digital recording on vinyl doesn't improve the quality of the original, or make the guy with the $15,000 turn table smarter than the recording engineer. 

Just like people who still shoot 35mm film because they can't figure out digital and then make a lot of excuses :shrug:


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## Black Rose (Jun 20, 2010)

I still have a roll of Agfa Portrait 160 and two rolls of Agfa APX 100 film in the fridge.

I have no idea when I bought them, but the camera I would have used them in (Minolta X-700) was traded for my Olympus P&S Digital camera 7+ years ago.


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## Vesper (Jun 20, 2010)

blasterman said:


> Audio purists who rave about analog gear, turntables and $1000 speaker cables are typically not the artist and just into equipment fetish. They are about as relevant to the debate as somebody clicking on a picture on Flickr - just more arrogant.



Huh? Artists like musicians used in the example are most often gear-heads too and like you, have a pretty heavy opinion one way or another. The majority of them create and produce their own end-product, same as most photographers. Arrogance also isn't really a factor. :shrug:


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## KC2IXE (Jun 20, 2010)

kaptain_zero said:


> ...snip... and Tech Pan.... and..... never mind. <sigh>



I've got an exposed roll of Tech pan in the freezer for a decade or so, and of course have no technidol or LC - know where I can grab some, or someone I can send the roll to?


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## N10 (Jun 20, 2010)

Keep it cool guys.I must say,i'm not a pro either and to my standards,& i'm generally okay with the results i get by letting others develop my film rolls although i've tried to develop my own film with the help of school teacher.i wasn't really THAT good and still need practice.lol.I rarely do that now..plus i lack the equipment to do so.I guess i only did all that for the fun and had fairly low standards when it comes to photography compared to some other people.


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## JohnR66 (Jun 20, 2010)

I keep thinking about picking up an old 35mm SLR to shoot B&W film. If you look around, you can pick up an old camera with a lens or two for peanuts.

For me, I have not shot a roll of film since early 2004 when I went to Hawaii and even then I was using film as backup to my digital SLR I got in 2003.

I bought my parents a digital camera for xmas in 05 and they haven't touched film since.

Still, I'm amazed at how many single use film cameras I see used when I visit some attraction such as a zoo. A used 3 megapixel camera can be found for around $30 and provide better pictures than these single use cameras with the single element plastic lens, fixed shutter speed and no zoom.


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## Polar Light (Jun 20, 2010)

KC2IXE said:


> I've got an exposed roll of Tech pan in the freezer for a decade or so, and of course have no technidol or LC - know where I can grab some, or someone I can send the roll to?



https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/2994361&postcount=28


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## PCC (Jun 20, 2010)

Last year I loaded a roll of Kodak 200 ASA negative film into an old F4s I bought for a little bit more than peanuts. Half of the roll is still unexposed. Fortunately, there is a large professional photography store nearby to where I work so getting it processed will not be a problem, nor will getting film to feed this beast. I actually want to get an MB-20 for this camera because I don't think I'll ever use it in anything but single-shot mode so the extra speed (and heft) aren't needed. The great thing about this old camera is that it is AF and it compliments my much newer D70 digital camera. I'm hoping to replace the D70 with a D700 so lens compatibility should be 100% after the change.


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## Stillphoto (Jun 20, 2010)

So I've got my digital setup which I love, and I have my film cameras, which I don't have enough fingers to count. I'm actually still adding to them.

Dream is to own a black leica m4 or m6 and a 35mm lens. Then I can settle down for a bit.

Since the film industry still consumes a ton of film in the 35mm format, it will most likely be the last film format to die (after sheet film and 120). I don't see that happening for at least another 10-15 years. Sure, there isn't as broad a range available as there was even 5 years ago, but there's still plenty to be had.

Bummed I never got to shoot any kodachrome. I've got a roll in the fridge somewhere, but since I got it from someone else's stash, and it's in a film canister for a different type of film, I'm worried he might have already shot it. I don't exactly want to go shoot some great shots and then pay a ton for a double exposed roll haha.


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## bstrickler (Jun 20, 2010)

I've been shooting film for about 2 years, and it's really caught onto me. I love the way it looks better than B&W digital. The grain from film has a different look than noise in a digital camera. Due to the costs of enlarging film, I've swtiched to scanning my negatives with an Epson V500 (which I absolutely LOVE. It's not for non tech-savvy people, though. If you want to just plug it in, and scan away, while getting high-res pics, it's not for you.) 

I personally shoot Fomapan only now (primarily 100 ISO, since I live where the sun is bright). I've had nothing but crap with Arista, and Ilford was more expensive than I could afford constantly. I found Fomapan to be higher quality than Ilford, as well, so it makes sense.

I've had some experience with Adox CMS 20 ISO, but due to me not researching how to develop it, it came out poorly, and stained. But, it kinda worked with what I was shooting, especially with a few specific shots (airshow). If I had done my research BEFORE developing it, it would have turned out much better.

I own 2 Canon AE-1's, and about 6 lenses, one of which is customized (was a broken lens, and now is a macro lens, and I'm working on a ring light for it, so I can use it better for closeups.)

~Brian


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## kaptain_zero (Jun 20, 2010)

KC2IXE said:


> I've got an exposed roll of Tech pan in the freezer for a decade or so, and of course have no technidol or LC - know where I can grab some, or someone I can send the roll to?



I see Polar Light has answered your question with the link, however I was going to say that a "plan b" solution would be to head over to photoformulary on the net and check out their TD-3 developer and possibly other options. Myself, I used a lot of HC110 back then (15+ years ago), just because I could get my hands on it. Even further back when I lived in Scandinavia, I was partial to Neofin Blue and Red for various films.

Just to show how far we've gone away from film, I pulled a *MINT* Leitz Valoy II enlarger, complete except for the red focusing filter, out of the trash down the street. The old couple living there are up in age, and the gent who owned it has lost his eyesight so it wasn't in use anymore. I can remember waaay back when I was 13 years old, I got to visit an engineer who was in the photo club I'd joined and I remember drooling over this very enlarger... something I felt I'd never be able to afford. And now here I sit, staring at one...... that came out of the trash!

Mind you, it's quite a step down from my last enlarger (D5XL) and I did process film from 35mm up to 5" x 7" sheet in my darkroom. I had a sodium vapor BW/color dark room lamp that was so bright, I could read the paper in my darkroom while making prints! 

Anyway, hope you get that film processed. 

Regards

Kaptain "Maybe I'll start playing in the dark again...... " Zero


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## HarryN (Jun 21, 2010)

blasterman said:


> Just like people who still shoot 35mm film because they can't figure out digital and then make a lot of excuses :shrug:



You are at least 1/2 correct with regards to me. I don't really have a lot of interest in dialing through the menus and specialty camera settings needed to make most digital pictures come out right just because the sensors can't deal with reality.

Can an experienced virtual pro take great pics with digital - sure. Is it likely that my own pictures will improve substantially if I go through all of this bother vs the simple focus, light settings, and "click" of film? I doubt it. I would go fully digital in a minute if it was as forgiving as film in reasonable priced, easy to use gear. We have digital cameras, and I have used them, but I don't enjoy the hassle. With film and negative scan, the images are usually fine "as is", compared to my wife's digital camera, that nearly always needs corrections.

Have doubts? - take some pictures of a blue eyed blond with a digital camera and see how it looks without eye fixes. I doubt that you can capture the various shades of blue eyes with a DSLR costing much less than $2k. Now that you have finally gotten that great image, remember to tell your model that she has to wear special reflective makeup or the DSLR will see "into" the skin and she will look like death warmed over - oh, but 2 hours with photo shop can fix that of course.

The fact remains, that if a camera needs a different setting for "dog" vs "flower" for basic snapshot pics, why am I bothering to spend time learning it, since it will be obsolete in 2- 3 years anyway.

You are right, my canoscan is 48 bit depth, and I scan right off of negs, not prints. Is it perfect - no, but it makes film photography affordable vs getting prints made, and emailing them is easy. BTW, when you are taking a picture with a digital sensor, the camera has only a fraction of a second to do a complete capture of the image, so shortcuts are taken. A scanner has longer to do that scan, so the quality per $ investment is much better, IMHO.


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## will (Jun 22, 2010)

I still have about 15 rolls of film in the freezer and a few print mailers from A & I . I had an underwater film camera that I was using on the beach until a year ago. I picked up a digital underwater camera. I was using Ritz processing, out of business now, to process and print the film. I should have switched to all digital earlier than I did. I was getting about one or two good pictures underwater ( lots of junk along the shoreline - small bits of sand in the water ) 

I just bought an Epson film scanner and I am in the process of scanning my negatives and slides to my PC. Nice thing about the Epson software, it had a color restoration setting. This has fixed up a number of my really old slides. I find that I will look at the pictures if they are on the PC, much more often than those that are in in albums or are loose. The images taken with a Digital camera are better than those that are scanned

So - I'll finish up the film and use the mailers. The film cameras are stored, no batteries, in Lowepro camera bags. 

I have an old TLR 120 camera that I drag out on occasion, set it up on a tripod, break out the light meter and set everything. still some of the best pictures I have ever taken. But, that may be because I am forced to think about what I am doing. 

By the way - this is a 60 year old picture - nice thing about scanning and digital images, about 20 minutes to fix it...












I like being able to process my pictures on the PC. This is something I can't do with film. I generally do a little contrast adjustment and some cropping. Nothing much more that that. 

I think that the Digital vs Film will go on for years, much like tube amplifiers in the audio world.


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## N10 (Jun 22, 2010)

love that photo comparison Will. & Yeah i have to agree that digital format has wayy too many advantages that can't be ignored..compared to the 35mm one..in the end it's just a matter of preference.


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## gallagho (Jun 24, 2010)

I have just picked up a Holga 120 for fun, they produce a unique photo!


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## derangboy (Jun 26, 2010)

It seems it might be possible for 35mm film to be supported by the hobbyist group who typically process their own film. Colour negative film is still my favorite overall photography medium as very few methods of presentation have the impact that slide film has. My primary film camera is a Leica M6 with 35, 50 and 135mm lenses. At some point in my life, I'll get the digital body!


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## X Racer (Jun 26, 2010)

In a word, yes...

Digital has so many pros that it is a no-brainer these days...


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## kaptain_zero (Jun 26, 2010)

Digital has one big honking con....... it requires a charged battery! :sick2:

Traditional photography can be done with something as simple as an empty cardboard box, a small piece of tin foil, a piece of sheet film, adhesive tape and a pin. 

Another con for digital cameras is that should you even accidentally point the lens at the sun, lens in focus, and it's NOT an SLR with mirror, chances are, you'll smoke the ccd. A traditional camera allows you to simply advance the film, even if the sun has burnt a hole in it, to take another image. 

I don't own a film based camera anymore, I've gone digital, but I still miss the old ways and their superior capabilities... Equaling Tech-Pan with a 35mm CCD........ I think we have a way to go yet!


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## brucec (Jun 27, 2010)

The other day, I took out some of my old Velvia slides to share with a friend. It's been a while since I've broken out the slides, light panel, and loupe, but hands down, there is no purer way to experience an image than a slide through a Rodenstock loupe. It's a world of difference looking at the actual film that was in the camera being exposed to the actual light of the image that you are capturing. It's so good in color, sharpness, everything that your brain interprets it in 3D, even though you are clearly just using one eye to view the slide. No digital print or HD monitor can match that. I showed some co-workers who had never seen slide film through a loupe and they were absolutely stunned at what a real photograph looks like compared to the lame LCD excuse that we use today.

That said, I don't think I will ever use my Nikon FM2N or beautiful 50mm f1.2 Nikkor again. The D90 setup is just too easy to use. It's a shame though, because slides are still king.


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## kosPap (Jun 27, 2010)

I do not about you at US but in europe it is still strong for the amateur photographers and clubs....in my club we have orders from germany every 2-3 months...at very reasonable cost....

e can get Agfa, Ilford and Fuji, ilford papers and you should see what is going in in Chehia....it is a land astill standing with local reissues of old recipes (Tri-X)..many of these can be found in digiatltruth.com

Bragging abit oin my frdge I have still Agfa Ultra50, APX25 and APX*200S!*


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## blasterman (Jun 27, 2010)

> Traditional photography can be done with something as simple as an empty cardboard box, a small piece of tin foil, a piece of sheet film, adhesive tape and a pin.


 

..And then you take the sheet-film to a lab running half a million dollar's worth of computer controlled processors and chemical heaters, pumps, control strips, etc. Not to mention the production technology required to make film in the first place. Or, you process Tri-X yourself, and dump the silver rich chems down the drain so the local streams and rivers have to deal with it. 

With digital, you just need a home computer and a $100 printer, and a camera.



> It's a world of difference looking at the actual film that was in the camera being exposed to the actual light of the image that you are capturing.


 
I used to run several E-6 lines, and frankly after working with mostly 4x5 and 8x10 trannies I find it hard to 'get-off' on squinting at a stupid piece of amatuer 24x36" film. Also, do you mount and frame those little pieces of film on your wall, or hide them in a shoe box? If they are so great, why don't you *share them with us* rather than describe them to us? 



> No digital print or HD monitor can match that.


 
Frankly, I get more excited seeing my work roll out in a 24x36" LightJet print than stare at a tiny 35mm piece of film throug a loupe. Then again, the real thrill here is the fact you aren't held accountable and don't have to share the image, right? I used to play in the NFL and was married to a supermodel as well.

Also, Velvia, or 'Disney Chrome' as we used to call it it the most _unfaithfull garbage_ ever made. Velvia distorts colors and contrast so that middle aged housewives could by calendars of light houses with neo-deco colors. I'm trying to think of how many commercial portraits I've seen shot on Velvia, and the answer is none. All Velvia does is make a bland composition look better by increasing color saturation, which is why amatuer landscape photogs used it. 

At least I shot 6x7 Astia or at most Provia, then hand processed it through a custom E-6 calibration tweaked for Fuji and not Kodak. Velvia, ran through Kodak control sets (which it was 90% of the time) tended to look much worse than processed correctly through Fuji controls. Provia, given proper extended color developer time, darn near matched Velvia without as much distortion and without 'radioactive baby crap' greens.

I've noted that commercial shooters who shot Velvia in different countries tended to produce images that all looked the same because the ridiculous *film dye* dumbed down everything to look the same. I've noted that digital capture on the other hand tends to record with fidelity forcing the photog to think harder and not rely on industrial film dye to think for them.

Then again, that's what film is all about. The film dye thinks for you, the lab tech thinks for you, and then you go on the internet and say how great it was, but don't have anything to show for it. The actual purpose of photography is to share images, which goes contrary to everything I typically read from the film shooters here. They squat in their basement staring at film dye a through a loupe afraid to get drum scans of their slides because this will show just how bad their work actually is.

I'm willing to bet the digital snaps posted in other threads here have much photography in them as well.


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## Tempest UK (Jun 27, 2010)

I just shot a roll of Ilford FP4+ 125 in London the other day, using the Olympus OM-1n  

It's certainly not extinct.


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## McGizmo (Jun 27, 2010)

I purchased an old Leica and new fangled electric camera at about the same time. The digital camera could not yield an angled line; it was a stairway of pixels that were the size of an old Buick. I presume there were some advances in film after that and certainly the electronics in the 35mm film SLR's took on greater significance!! Exposure control and auto focus even!!!

I switched to digital well before it could compare to film because most of the shots I took were underwater with ambient light. These shots required post production color correction whether they were film or digital and the latter, I could do myself.

At this point, you could give me a Leica, Hasselblad (sp) or any top end film camera. You could include free film and free developing. You could give me the whole package at no cost to me and I would pass because I wouldn't use it.

I am no pro. I am no expert. I have equipment (cameras and software) that is well beyond my knowledge but I have figured out enough to get images that are more than satisfactory and I can get them whenever I want and work with them whenever I want. No chemicals, no paper, no physical materials needed unless I actually want a print. The only thing required for my images is energy and I now even get that from the sun. In the past, I contributed hundreds of rolls of film and thousands or 4x6 prints to the landfills. No idea what the impact was in chemicals, packaging, transportation and what have you.

I have no idea what the state of 35mm photographic film is today. I have always enjoyed photography and I think my first camera might have been a Brownie Starmite if I got the spelling right. A christmas gift in the '50's probably?!? No matter. I had my own B&W darkroom in HighSchool and college. HarryN talks about spending a couple hours in Photoshop. Hell how about spending the whole damn day in the dark room with nothing to show for it! :nana: Like I said, I am no pro! 

I take more pics now than I ever did and I do enjoy it. This would not be the case if I were still shooting film.

A good friend graduated from Brooks Institute and he did exceptionally well for a number of years and owned multiple very nice homes. I understand from my brother that recently he was working at a front desk in a Hotel or perhaps it was a restaurant. At any rate, the digital revolution killed the industry he was a master in. He shot fine automobiles and motorcycles among other things. If you wanted a shot of a Corvette on the beach in the Bahamas with a pretty babe on the hood, you flew the equipment, car and babe to the Bahamas. This was a business.

A friend posted THIS VIDEO on Facebook and if you catch the tail end, you can see where digital has taken us beyond film; not that there is any real surprise here but it is an interesting thing to see.

I think one way of considering a photo is that it is a means of capturing information to be viewed and evaluated at any point later in time. To my knowledge, RAW format now allows us to record much more information than film does and whether it is TMI or not is case specific.


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## kaptain_zero (Jun 27, 2010)

blasterman said:


> ..And then you take the sheet-film to a lab running half a million dollar's worth of computer controlled processors and chemical heaters, pumps, control strips, etc. Not to mention the production technology required to make film in the first place. Or, you process Tri-X yourself, and dump the silver rich chems down the drain so the local streams and rivers have to deal with it.
> 
> With digital, you just need a home computer and a $100 printer, and a camera.



My pinhole camera comment was done tongue in cheek. As for Digital being a more green way of doing things.... naw..... They pollute as much or more than the old gear did... $100 printers are made in a factory using toxic substances, they are thrown away many time in less that 2 years because they are not worth fixing... they use ink cartridges that are designed to be replaced, as frequently as possible, rather than reused. 

My Omega enlarger is built like a tank and will still be going strong after 50 years. Silver can be recovered from processing, even on a small scale, the other chemicals are rather benign in the great scheme of things. Inks contain solvents that evaporate into the atmosphere, digital cameras have to be replaced when new imaging technology comes along... When was the last time a camera manufacturer offered to replace the image sensor rather than the entire camera to give you the latest imaging sensor? All digital cameras require batteries of some kind.... Their manufacture and limited lifespan adds more metals and chemicals to the dump. That 50 year old film camera was able to take the latest film technology just as well as the older types of film. 

My first light meter (a Gossen) did not require batteries and lasted my father and me 35+ years before it became unreliable... 

Oh well.... as I mentioned earlier, I don't use film based imaging equipment anymore. But it is the convenience, not the quality that made me switch. Old black and white photos have lasted a long time and given us a record of what came before... Prints from a $100 printer are less likely to do so, though I must admit... there seems to be a lot of changes happening in that regard... new inks, new papers etc. etc..... I just don't follow it so I'm a bit in the dark with the latest stuff, and I'm happy to admit that.

Ultimately, the value of any image, will never be determined by the technical process used to make it, but rather it is based on the image itself. 

In the end, we must all make our choices based on what we know. It is unfortunate that in our world today, so many companies/governments/individuals give us only the information that supports the illusion that whatever they are selling is better for us and our environment than what someone else sells/does.

Back to the original question as posed by N10, I'd have to say no.... film will be here for a long time to come. Even my dentist still uses film to capture xray images and then scans them into the computer... Film tech is high quality and low cost in many applications. 


Regards

Kaptain"Going back to my flashlight drawing board" Zero


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## paulr (Jun 27, 2010)

I was big into shooting film as a college student. Since I was usually broke, I bought surplus black and white movie film from Freestyle (amazing place that advertised in photography mags), hand loaded it into cartridges and developed and printed it myself (usually just to contact sheets). When I graduated and entered the workforce I had more disposable income but no free time. I bought a few kilobucks of Nikon SLR gear over the years after that (not all at once, more like $100 here, $200 there, sort of like flashlights). I still have almost all of it, good stuff too, but never use it. I saw a guy using a Nikon FA in a park yesterday and was just amazed to see it.

These days I have some Nikon DSLR stuff mostly in order to use my old lenses, but I rarely even use the DSLR. Almost all my shooting is with a Canon pocket digicam (A570IS if anyone cares). I usualy only look at them on a computer--they look great on a 15" laptop screen, and one of these days I'll get a 30" high res monitor. I only one an actual print once in a huge while, and generally only postcard sized even then. 

Film still exists, you can still buy it and get it processed, but it's basically a special purpose item by now. I've used a couple of disposable single-use film cameras with the built-in underwater housings in environments where I wouldn't want to bring a digicam. There's been a few times when I felt like taking my Nikon FM2 out for a walk and shooting some frames just for fun, but I doubt I'd ever get around to getting the film developed.

I do think the Nikon film SLR's had stupendously better viewfinders than any digital SLR that I've looked at, including some high end ones (Canon 1DS).


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## Colorblinded (Jun 27, 2010)

Extinct? No, not yet. Definitely endangered though. Less selection in some ways, some prices going up, harder to get good stuff at just any shop. However, there have been more projects where enthusiasts are bringing out some unique products.


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## will (Jun 27, 2010)

This has been an interesting thread to read through. I started in photography with a manual rangefinder camera. I learned how to use a light meter, what depth of field meant and all the trappings of figuring out how to make a decent image on film. I took lots of slides and put them in those Kodak round trays. I even bought a screen to project the slides on. The image quality from slides is superb, project them up to a screen that is 6 feet wide and you really have a show. 

Now a bit of reality - how often did I break out the slides and look at them? not very often. 

I then switched to color negatives. These are easy to look at, but more often than I care to think about, the colors were off. Over the years I found a few places that did a good job processing and printing. I stored all these prints in albums and now I can watch the colors fade away, yes, even with proper storage the colors fade. 

I did some of my own processing with B & W film, I have a small enlarger that I drag out every few years and make some prints. I never got into color processing due to the expense and difficulty in getting decent color prints. 

I just bought a film scanner and I am in the process of converting all my old images to digital. Scanning a negative or slide is not as good as an original digital image. The process is slow, I have been doing this in the evening while the TV is on. The software has a 'color restoration ' feature which does a good job fixing up old negatives and slides. When I complete this, all the images will be copied to DVDs and then given to my children. There is no way I could do that with negatives or slides. 

So - aside from the artistic merits of film vs digital. Digital has the edge on ease of viewing, making copies, non-fading . I can fix up images on the PC with no expense due to materials, just time spent. I can view images easily, I can take lots of pictures with no worry about having them all printed out.


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## brucec (Jun 27, 2010)

blasterman said:


> ..And then you take the sheet-film to a lab running half a million dollar's worth of computer controlled processors and chemical heaters, pumps, control strips, etc. Not to mention the production technology required to make film in the first place. Or, you process Tri-X yourself, and dump the silver rich chems down the drain so the local streams and rivers have to deal with it.
> 
> With digital, you just need a home computer and a $100 printer, and a camera.
> 
> ...



Wow, calm down please. I was just lamenting about the difference in experience looking at the original slide through a loupe and then at the digital version of the same slide on a LCD monitor. I agree that film is largely about processing. I used to use the Slideprinter in Denver for processing, printing, and scanning, and I thought they were pretty good. Maybe not by your standards? But I don't think Velvia was all that bad. Yes it was unrealistic, but is B&W any more realistic? Velvia was meant to emphasize colors for outdoor shots and it had a pretty good track record in many outdoorsy magazines like Nat Geo. Bride magazines, obviously no.

I think you are a pro photographer so I can see how you think that photography is ALL about sharing. Because if you don't share, you don't get paid, right? But for myself, a lot of my photos are taken so that I can remember the feeling and experience of that particular place and time. To others, it may be just a picture, but for me, I was actually there standing in the snow, feeling the cold bite at my hands, shoulders aching under the straps, the dampness where a little snow got in my boot, a faint taste of blood from chapped lips, the overbearing silence of snowfall. I'm just saying that viewing the actual slides evoke these memories better than looking at the same thing on a screen.


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## Colorblinded (Jun 28, 2010)

Well I don't really know what blasterman is going on about after a point, but I agree with him on Disneychrome. I tried it, never much cared for it.


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## Black Rose (Jun 28, 2010)

kosPap said:


> Bragging abit oin my frdge I have still Agfa Ultra50, APX25 and APX*200S!*


I had some Agfa Ultra 50 but I never ended up using it.

I put it on eBay and it sold for double what I paid for it.


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## ElectronGuru (Jun 29, 2010)

Stillphoto said:


> I find it ironic that in the film industry (in which I work) everyone spends tons of time shooting things digitally so that in the end they can make it look like film.



Discussing not the technology, but the people using it, there's a (relatively) new fixation with the idea of _authentic_. We are essentially analog beings and for most of the time with most recording technology, analog has been the standard. That started to change in the 80's as one technology after another begin turning digital and by the 90's, it seemed that people began to lament, 'missing' the old tech. Movies started adding grain, songs gained added pops and scratches, and children's photographs started appearing en masse in grayscale (aka black and white), resembling that of their grand parents when they were kids.

Faced with puzzles like this, I like to play a game. Reverse the sequence and ask if digital photography came first, would anyone bother inventing film? Is it enough that a given print be better (more accurate) or does it need to look (or feel) like something meaningful to the viewer to be as meaningful. That is, when something is (or simply looks) too perfect, does it still feel real?

A funny aside to all this is color temperature. Film has always been at a given/set temp. You bought indoor or outdoor film and it was configured for the most likely lighting these environments were likely to have. Not very accurate. Digital cameras can be configured to one of dozens settings, covering hundreds of environments, calibrated pre or post shooting for highly accurate color. And the first thing we (tv shows and movies) did with this ability was start tuning the color to be less real and more surreal (see Matrix 1999).

So is it accuracy we are after or just control?


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## frisco (Jun 29, 2010)

The other ironic thing in the film industry is how some things are still shot on film and than digitized than manipulated on the computer!

frisco


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## HarryN (Jun 29, 2010)

I have seen great photos, and not being an artistic type, am just amazed by them. The fact that they are taken digital vs film is not that important to me. In my case, I am just to "frugal" to make the DSLR jump unless I really get a clear benefit. Some day I will do it, but the cameras need to get a lot easier to use and more reasonably sized before that happens.


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## will (Jun 29, 2010)

HarryN said:


> I have seen great photos, and not being an artistic type, am just amazed by them. The fact that they are taken digital vs film is not that important to me. In my case, I am just to "frugal" to make the DSLR jump unless I really get a clear benefit. Some day I will do it, but the cameras need to get a lot easier to use and more reasonably sized before that happens.



Take a look at used or refurbished DSLRs. Second to that - if you still shoot film, get the processor to cut a CD with the images. Last I looked - professional film processing is in the $15 per roll range, plus the cost to mail. If you only shoot a few rolls of film per year, it is difficult to justify a DSLR.


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## fyrstormer (Jun 29, 2010)

This is a ridiculous argument, it really is. Film can respond to colors of light outside the RGB color gamut, which means film can capture more colors (though not necessarily _more accurate_ colors) than digital can. That is a benefit if you have the ability to work solely in the photochemical arena, but unfortunately most people don't have that kind of access. On the other hand, a $3000 DSLR and a $1000 printer + $1000 of ink will produce far less waste over the long-term than a $3000 film camera and $2000 of photo lab services will, and the image files don't require special handling, only a backup copy in case your house burns down, which you'd need anyway if you work with film. It's also nice to be able to see whether the picture you just took is garbage or not, and the reduction in waste by eliminating useless blurry/mis-framed negatives is significant if you take a lot of photos.

My dad isn't a photographer, but he is a musician, and he says his skills have advanced more quickly in the five years he's been processing his music digitally than in all the decades beforehand -- because the digital format lets him experiment and isolate problems and figure out exactly how to keep them from happening next time, which if he were working with tape would be a totally infeasible process for someone who actually has to work for a living.


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## McGizmo (Jun 29, 2010)

HarryN said:


> .... Some day I will do it, but the cameras need to get a lot easier to use and more reasonably sized before that happens.



I have had a number of the Olympus Stylus point and shoot cameras and on the face of it, they are way more complicated than some of the DSLR's because they have programed in all sorts of conditional settings for you. If you plan to shoot a dog named spot in backlit conditions and candlelight then you can dial to this position and set the framistat framer to option B. Alternatively, you can ignore all of the options and just shoot the camera on some simple and automatic setting. With a few minutes of study, you can identify the bells and whistles you have no interest in and just ignore them.


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## HarryN (Jun 29, 2010)

will said:


> Take a look at used or refurbished DSLRs. Second to that - if you still shoot film, get the processor to cut a CD with the images. Last I looked - professional film processing is in the $15 per roll range, plus the cost to mail. If you only shoot a few rolls of film per year, it is difficult to justify a DSLR.



I don't get the negatives printed nor the low res scans on the CDs. The CD scans are nearly garbage. I scan them at home with much better image quality and much cheaper than $15 / roll. Few of my shots are printed, most just stay on the computer.

McGizmo- I tried some of the P+S cameras. The incident that really tipped the cake was when I had my 10 yo with me at an aquarium in SF. There were some fish swimming around inside of a cylindrical tank, and occassionally opening their mouth. As hard as we tried with various settings, we could not get a picture of those silly fish with the digital camera we had (nominal $250 camera). Later we were told by two camera shops that this was in fact very difficult with any digital camera under at least $ 1K.

We got the picture with my trusty minox 35mm, took two pics, (second one for insurance really) and it was done, no goofing around, no frustration. Both came out fine, not pro, but we got our snapshot.

This and similar incidents are what I mean when I say that digital cameras have a ways to go. This is a tourist trap location, and a typical digital camera can't get the pic? WTH?

BTW, I am not against digital, I am against wasting money on a camera that can't take basic pictures of everyday life events.


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## paulr (Jun 29, 2010)

You can get rid of most of the p/s digicam shutter lag by pressing the shutter button partway down to prefocus, waiting for the fish to do its thing, then pressing the button the rest of the way down at the moment you want to take the picture. Alternatively if you don't mind much lower resolution, just put the digicam in video mode and shoot continuously for as long as it takes, then go over the video afterwards and pull out any interesting frames.

DSLR's start in the $500 range with lens these days. You can get older ones on craigslist for less, of course. Anything less than 5 years old should be fine.


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## will (Jun 30, 2010)

HarryN said:


> I don't get the negatives printed nor the low res scans on the CDs. The CD scans are nearly garbage. I scan them at home with much better image quality and much cheaper than $15 / roll. Few of my shots are printed, most just stay on the computer.
> .



Didn't know you could scan at home. Sorta the best of both worlds. 

( but - given both images of the same thing, the one taken with a digital camera generally looks better, )


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## derangboy (Jun 30, 2010)

McGizmo said:


> If you plan to shoot a dog named spot in backlit conditions and candlelight then you can dial to this position and set the framistat framer to option B.



Unfortunately, they do not have a "cat on fence post, background blurry" mode :nana: The amount of time it takes to switch modes to "SCN" then scroll through to "Portrait" is excruciating! Much prefer to zip the aperture ring wide open.

One of the big sticking points for me is the current cost of full frame digital cameras. I'm hoping the micro 4/3rds cameras might be "analog" enough to suck me in!


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## bstrickler (Jul 1, 2010)

HarryN said:


> I don't get the negatives printed nor the low res scans on the CDs. The CD scans are nearly garbage. I scan them at home with much better image quality and much cheaper than $15 / roll. Few of my shots are printed, most just stay on the computer.




Yeah, I've dealt with getting them scanned before, and they're always garbage. I ended up spending $200 on a scanner (epson V500). I scan at 6400 DPI, and then use Photoshop to re-size the batch, after I fix spots, dust, and such (only takes about 10 minutes a picture). That doesn't include fixing the tones, though (thats another 10-30 minutes).



HarryN said:


> We got the picture with my trusty minox 35mm, took two pics, (second one for insurance really) and it was done, no goofing around, no frustration. Both came out fine, not pro, but we got our snapshot.
> 
> This and similar incidents are what I mean when I say that digital cameras have a ways to go. This is a tourist trap location, and a typical digital camera can't get the pic? WTH?



Thats because 90% of P&S cameras have anywhere between a 1/30 and 1/4 second delay, which is long enough to kill/ruin the picture. Film cameras pretty much never have that issue.



will said:


> Didn't know you could scan at home. Sorta the best of both worlds.
> 
> ( but - given both images of the same thing, the one taken with a digital camera generally looks better, )



Yeah, you just have to look for a flatbed scanner that can scan 35mm film. Mine can scan 120 film, slides, and 35mm. I think it can also do 4x5, but I need to find the inserts again. It also splits each frame into individual images, and trims any black border off of the frames. The only problem is that if images are severely over/underexposed, it just skips them. If you have a 1/2 developed frame (the rest being clear, or full of silver), you will have to cut off that section, otherwise it will throw off all the tones majorly.


~Brian


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## will (Jul 9, 2010)

My scanning project is still going on. I have been putting all my 35mm slides and negatives on my PC using an Epson V500 flatbed scanner. 

A few observations with my negatives. 
I left the greater majority of them in the sleeves and protective films that came from where they were processed. 

Most are in groups of 4 negatives to a strip. The ones that have been stored in the sleeves that are like a 3 hole binder sheet come out of the sheets fine. 

Some of the processors would wrap each strip with a clear film, glued on the edge, front and back with with a paper index on one edge. Kodak did this for a period of time. Most of these peel off OK but I have a series (not by Kodak ) where the clear film has fused to the negative's emulsion side. Unfortunately, there are some bubbles and the film does not come off. Scanning them gives an uneven image. 

Also - much to my surprise - many of the negatives have faded. I am not sure if is by film type or by who did the processing. Epson V500 has a color restoration feature which does a good job getting the colors back to normal. 

There are some negatives where the emulsion has problems - the negative looks like it has lots of dust, but the dust does not come off. 

I have been scanning these at 3200 DPI, each image takes less than 2 minutes to scan. I tried going at a higher DPI, but it just goes way too slow. A lot of these images fall into the 'snapshot' category. If I want to get a higher quality scan, I can go back for those individual pictures. 

My goal for all this - give my kids DVDs of all the images of them growing up. 

Anyone thinking of scanning their negatives and slides - do it as soon as possible. Film, whether slides or negatives, degrades over time..


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## Colorblinded (Jul 9, 2010)

Improper processing can yield accelerated degredation (if it isn't thoroughly rinsed clean) as can improper storage. Cool, dark places are a good place to start for storing your film.

I also personally moved the majority of my film (35mm, medium and large format) to archival sleeves in storage boxes as I was shooting & getting them processed. I haven't personally had any major issues with fading for film I care about although I have plenty of film which was just random junk that hasn't been stored as carefully and there's no telling how that looks.

Of course even with fading film you can get an image off it. When CD-Rs begin to degrade... good luck. One reason of many why I don't use CD or DVD for backup storage.


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## will (Jul 9, 2010)

Colorblinded said:


> Improper processing can yield accelerated degredation (if it isn't thoroughly rinsed clean) as can improper storage. Cool, dark places are a good place to start for storing your film.
> 
> I also personally moved the majority of my film (35mm, medium and large format) to archival sleeves in storage boxes as I was shooting & getting them processed. I haven't personally had any major issues with fading for film I care about although I have plenty of film which was just random junk that hasn't been stored as carefully and there's no telling how that looks.
> 
> Of course even with fading film you can get an image off it. When CD-Rs begin to degrade... good luck. One reason of many why I don't use CD or DVD for backup storage.



The film that seems to be the worst was processed in a local drug store chain. 

Backup - OK - I am a little nutty here, prime storage is on the laptop, second is an 500GB external USB drive, third is a Desk PC with a 500GB drive. I also have some of it backed up on USB thumb drives..


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## sween1911 (Jul 9, 2010)

Interesting thread. I've been keeping tabs on this subject because I still have my dad's old 35mm Nikon F SLR that captured most of my life from birth up to college graduation. It's such an amazing piece of technology, but my little Nikon Coolpix digital camera does it all. Seems such a waste. I keep wondering what, if anything, could be done with it. If someone made a digital housing that the camera body snaps into, one could make use of the telephoto lenses and such, and also have the digital convenience... pretty much making it a DSLR. Does anything like that exist?


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## SemiMan (Jul 9, 2010)

Will film die? Completely .... maybe not. For all intents and purposes ... likely. Who has bought a record lately? I own an expensive turntable... I bought it somewhat recently. Why? ... it's art... truly beautiful. I really do not care if I ever put a record on it, thought I can.

I own a few digital SLRs, D80, D700 and an F3 Nikon Film. The D80 was bought to get into digital. I fully expected to keep using film. I am not sure I have even once used that F3 since I got the D80.

Let's face it, photography is NOT about the technology, but about the results. It is all about the picture. You do not need exceedingly great resolution to take an amazing picture. You need great composition and lighting and yes, color comes into play.

The reality is that my digital SLR makes it infinitely easier to ensure I can get a good picture. Even fully auto, on average I think I end up with less "failed" pictures than my F3 .... the magic of variable ISO and auto color balancing. That said, if it is not right, I just take another one. Are digital cameras more complex? ... not for 99% of what you would normally use:

- ISO
- Program AE
- Aperture Priority
- Shutter Priority

Those were all things we had in the film days. Do I use spot metering, push or pull the exposure, etc. Yes. That lets me have a near perfect picture right out of the camera.

How long does it take to learn this? ... maybe an hour! ... you spent 1/4 - 1/3 of that reading this thread. Lazy is not an excuse to stick with old tech.

Film does have more dynamic range, but that is not linear, hence while a lab can fix poor exposure, the results are often grainy and can not be enlarged properly. No issues like that with digital.

Looking at my old negatives, most of the time the limitation was the lens not the camera... so the issue has not changed too much. I would put most point and shoots up against low end film SLR/lens combinations for resolution.

Funny, the one "advantage" of film was not mentioned here ... which I do not see as resolution, color, ease, etc. It still has a bit better shadow detail, though again my D700 and its dynamic range, I am not sure I would even claim that any more. I would need to go side by side. That will disappear as well as sensors get more features.

To the comment about camera size. CCD\CMOS sensors are quite sensitive currently across the visual spectrum. There really is not huge room for improvement in this area. There is room for improvement in read out noise for the sensors which will allow better low light. However, it will not increase signal to noise ratio for bright images. To this end, to get a good picture, you need a reasonable amount of light which requires a good sized lens. That is not likely to change. Yes cell phone cameras has puny lenses, but they also have poor real resolution, high noise and low signal to noise. They also require somewhat bright light.

Again, coming back to the basic premise of photography, "The Picture" ... I believe digital in 90% of cases for 99% of people, will result in the ability to come home with the best picture. That is what photography is about. That is why film is pretty much "dead".


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## ElectronGuru (Jul 9, 2010)

sween1911 said:


> If someone made a digital housing that the camera body snaps into, one could make use of the telephoto lenses and such, and also have the digital convenience... pretty much making it a DSLR. Does anything like that exist?



There was such a thing, call Digital Backs. Kodak, ironically enough, was the leader in these. You bought your body and lenses from Canon or whoever, then installed the Kodak digital back to complete the system. This was before folks had even heard of a DSLR. But they were expensive specialty equipment, treated as like, and sold as like. 

Kodak had the digital camera market in their hands and let it slip away...


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## paulr (Jul 9, 2010)

ElectronGuru said:


> There was such a thing, call Digital Backs. Kodak, ironically enough, was the leader in these. You bought your body and lenses from Canon or whoever, then installed the Kodak digital back to complete the system. This was before folks had even heard of a DSLR. But they were expensive specialty equipment, treated as like, and sold as like.
> 
> Kodak had the digital camera market in their hands and let it slip away...



Digital backs (that you can buy as a camera accessory) exist for medium and large format cameras, but are quite expensive. I don't think they have ever existed for 35mm SLR's. There was something advertised called Digital Film, that went through a few different marketing incarnations, but that never actually shipped, and was basically useless (1.3MP tiny sensor that would purportedly pop into your 35mm SLR like a roll of film). Kodak made high end professional DSLR's based on Nikon and Canon 35mm SLR bodies, but AFAIK none were "backs" that you could buy and attach to your own camera. Kodak bought the chassis from Nikon or Canon, added their digital stuff, and sold you the complete Frankenstein-like camera, which was permanently digital--you couldn't swap it between digital and film. The fancier ones had price tags well into the five figure range and were enormous compared to today's DSLR's. Here is a review of one, a 3+ pound, 6 megapixel camera that cost around $20,000 when it came out:

http://www.outbackphoto.com/reviews/equipment/Kodak_DCS_660/Kodak_DCS660_review.html

They did sell something called the DCS Pro Back but it was for medium format.


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## will (Jul 10, 2010)

Info on a Kodak digital camera back for a Nikon N90S

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camera_back


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## McGizmo (Jul 11, 2010)

HarryN said:


> .....
> McGizmo- I tried some of the P+S cameras. The incident that really tipped the cake was when I had my 10 yo with me at an aquarium in SF. There were some fish swimming around inside of a cylindrical tank, and occassionally opening their mouth. As hard as we tried with various settings, we could not get a picture of those silly fish with the digital camera we had (nominal $250 camera). Later we were told by two camera shops that this was in fact very difficult with any digital camera under at least $ 1K.
> 
> ......
> ...



HarryN,

My bad for forgetting about the damn shutter lag!! I can't tell you how many incredible whale breaches I saw and captured only their splash! :green: 

paulr has addressed this issue in his post. I have been shooting DSLR now for a few years and the lag is a non issue. Some of the point and shoots have come a long way in reducing the lag as well.

I suspect that in the near future we may be shooting video even if the final outcome sought is a still image.


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## ElectronGuru (Jul 11, 2010)

McGizmo said:


> I suspect that in the near future we may be shooting video even if the final outcome sought is a still image.



I was just looking into that. Looks like we'll need to add another letter: SLR -> DSLR -> HDSLR

Basically, the latest crop of SLRs are able to hold the shutter open and feed data into a continuous stream, with sound. Combining an SLR lens with even a crop sensor, gives (film) full frame equivalent recording that can rival expensive HD cinematic cameras. The season finale of House MD, for example, was shot entirely on Canon 5DII's:


dialog about the process
http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=3472&fromTips=1

unrelated 5DII example
http://vimeo.com/10570139?hd=1​

I have no experience shooting video but am looking forward to adding the capability to my repertoire.


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## blasterman (Jul 12, 2010)

> Film does have more dynamic range, but that is not linear, hence while a lab can fix poor exposure, the results are often grainy and can not be enlarged properly. No issues like that with digital.


 
Uh, let's get specific.

Color NEG film, aka Print film, has more dynamic range than conventional digital capture. It can do this by packing in increasing light levels into a decreasing density range which ends up looking like an integral. An example of this were the moron wedding photogs I used to print for that would over-expose by 4 or 5 stops because they had no meter in their MF camera. Given sufficient print time I could get an image off those negs.

However, good luck getting a scanner to chew threw through that density, and even if you could, the profile on the scanner would have to match the exact density curve of that film. A big reason commercial drum scan operators detested print film. So, the non-linear nature of film you describe is very evident here. This is also why plastic disposable cameras come loaded with cheap print film and not slide film.

Slide film on the other hand is much more linear, and this is why it has less dynamic range than print film and is typically easier to scan. However, Fuji slide films have historically cheated a bit more than Kodak films. Astia for example has a lot of roll-off.

Also, thank for the 'lab' comment. This is my single biggest annoyance with glorifying 35mm film. Basically, most people who still shoot it have to rely on a lab to think for them, which is also the reason they failed with digital - they have to think. If you take a role of 35mm color neg film of identically made test shots to three different labs, you'll get three sets of pictures back that look totally different. However, if I send a digital file to Walmart and my pro lab (both use digital Fuji Frontiers) I get a pretty similiar picture back. 10 years ago an analog 16x20 print from film could take you half a dozen times to get it to look decent from a lab. Today, it's as good as your monitor calibration.

As for video, there are still some problems with dSLRs doing both roles. The biggest problem is vertical ripping due to how a dSLR dumps data from it's sensor vs a dedicated video cam. I find this very annoying in dSLR videos hyped as being pro quality, but everything else is superb. Just shoot Kubrick style and never pan the camera 

I used to shoots sports professionally for the local metro paper, so I know all about lag. My 10D has lag, but so did entry level film SLRs once they were entirely electronic based. However, I've used several enttry level dSLRs from Nikon and Canon lately, and all are pretty much instant and as fast as my old F3s. So, yet another straw horse for film shooters in their attemp to turn the issue away from actual picture taking/sharing and into a gear debate.


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## Colorblinded (Jul 12, 2010)

blasterman said:


> Also, thank for the 'lab' comment. This is my single biggest annoyance with glorifying 35mm film. Basically, most people who still shoot it have to rely on a lab to think for them, which is also the reason they failed with digital - they have to think. If you take a role of 35mm color neg film of identically made test shots to three different labs, you'll get three sets of pictures back that look totally different. However, if I send a digital file to Walmart and my pro lab (both use digital Fuji Frontiers) I get a pretty similiar picture back. 10 years ago an analog 16x20 print from film could take you half a dozen times to get it to look decent from a lab. Today, it's as good as your monitor calibration.


I have seen this a lot lately, mostly among people who seem relatively new to film photography and approach it with a snobby "film is superior" attitude without the knowledge of the differences and why such a thought process is so silly. Many of them hated the "digital look" and could never get a good image out of digital supposedly, but with film their prints look "great." They blame the poor scan quality they have when they upload them online on the lab rather than on their poor exposures.

Funny thing, they are all shooting print film (color neg) basically and some B&W. In either case you're getting some generous latitude from most films of those types. I've seen quite a bit of frustration from those who I suggested try slide film when they run in to the intolerance most slide film has for screwing up exposure. When you try to use that to teach them and help them learn exposure sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't.


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## DM51 (Jul 12, 2010)

A few years ago (~5) I was talking to a pro photographer who does high-quality ad posters and such work. He said digital hadn't quite caught up with film, but he had already moved to digital despite that, because of the time factor. Processing was so quick (i.e. instant) and he could email proofs to a client and turn in the finished product in no time at all.

I saw him again a year later. In the space of that year, he said digital had caught up and overtaken film in every respect. It must be quite a long way ahead by now.


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## ElectronGuru (Jul 12, 2010)

DM51 said:


> high-quality ad posters and such work.



Yeah, the key factor there is resolution and this has been steadily increasing. The more pixels you have, the bigger a print you can make and still look good up close. 5 years ago, cell phones were .5MP (megapixels), point/shoots were 3MP, and pros were 8MP. Now cell phones are 2, point/shoots are 7, and pros are 15-25. 

21MP, for example is about 5500 x 3500. This is quite close even to $10K professional drum scanners. A least of 35mm film.


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## Lawliet (Jul 14, 2010)

DM51 said:


> In the space of that year, he said digital had caught up and overtaken film in every respect. It must be quite a long way ahead by now.



Definitly. Even the dynamic range advantage has been taken by the last generation sensors. At least if you know how to use it on a screen that can't display it.

But a while the whole thing has shifted from APS-C/35mm vs 35mm to 35mm vs MF, and the story goes on. :thinking:

Yet film remains popular for some artistic purposes.


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## brh (Jul 19, 2010)

I only quit film (and interchangeable lenses, and a lot of other photographic habits) because my life and my lifestyle shrank. I can't fit a darkroom in my apartment (and if I could, they'd probably confuse it with a meth lab…) though I have recently found a (sort of) nearby communal darkroom. I may get back into film one of these days, but if Ilford ever gives up the game, I'll probably be gone… But I guess anything's possible - I thought I had given up on my SX-70s until Impossible Project came along…


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## Black Rose (Jul 31, 2010)

While going through my old camera bag looking for some film canisters to use for putting D26 drop-ins in, I found two rolls of unexposed Kodak Ektar 25 (12) and a roll of unexposed Kodak TMX-100 (36). 

I have no idea how old it is or whether they are any good now since they weren't stored in the fridge.


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