Attack of the Luddites

Is it just us, or does this continued fetishism of film products reek of bourgeois nostalgia to anyone else? First there was Anthony Lane's gushing love letter to Leica in this week's New Yorker -- "Even if you don't follow photography, your mind's eye will still be full of Leica photographs." And then there was the AP story in the NY Times yesterday about how two-thirds of professional photographers surveyed said "they still prefer using film for certain tasks." (That survey, not surprisingly, was conducted by Eastman Kodak which certainly has an interest in film's survival.)

At any rate, without going into our personal theories about how anyone who still self-identifies as a film-loving Luddite just hasn't spent a weekend with a digital camera before, we're curious how many photographers out there still use film on a regular basis. (Not, as the survey states, just for "certain tasks.") Furthermore, we'd like to know if photographers really feel that film adds "an almost organic quality to pictures" as the AP story states, or whether this mythical "organic quality" we keep hearing about is just horse manure.

Since this is, obviously, not a formal survey, a simple response to this post with your thoughts would be sufficient.

Comments

[Pachuco]

I use Tri-X and an M3 all the time but have nothing against digital. I just like the workflow and (IMHO) think the look is better. Just my two cents, I do love some of the digital work I see.

[Wright-Steel]

Still cranking through film, yes there is a far more organic quality to the image. As far as I am concerned film is for the craftsman and digital for those who have fallen victim to the immediacy of the world of consumerism and currency, superfluous plastic accents and faux realism.

My opinion, digital is hackish, no chance for a fuck-up that cannot be chimped and reshot. learn the craft and you will not need that god for saken low quality LCD to guide you.

[William Ash]

Yes, I still use and perfer film.

Could PDN have phrased the question in a less condescending way? Why are you so bent out of shape about the Lane article which is no more than sentimental consumerism and nothing to do with photography. How is the Kodak survey biased? Do you think it will convince people to buy film? And you seem to imply you would like it if Kodak stopped producing film. Why?

I wish PDN was about photography for photographers. It obviously isn't. It is just another gear mag sitting on one side of a percieved digital/film divide. Try being inclusive.

[john mcd]

If digital is good enough for Jay Maisel to forsake film then for me the discussion is pretty much over.

In my experience all I see is digital getting better and better(similar to how film improved greatly over time). There are now virtually no occasions where I would choose film over digital, a choice which I assure you has nothing to do with a need for immediacy and everything to do with quality.

[Nick Trop]

I went back to using film cameras - after using digital for several years, because I think digital cameras absolutely suck. I see no advantage to them, and lots of disadvantages. We're not the luddites - you're the lemmings. Just because a technology is new, doesn't make it better - that's what digital taught me. Know who digital cameras benefit? The manufacturer, since these are cranked out on fully automated assembly lines - no human labor required. Manual camera were precision hand-crafted works of art (many of them).

I like having a high-rez "full frame" sensor (aka a frame of film), no worries about "crop factors" turning my 50 into a portrait lens, no worries whatsoever about "charging my batteries" - a watch cell lasts over a year and most of my cameras work without any battery anyway. I like the fact that my SLR (as one example) cost $100 on sale new in '92, and it looks and works as well as the day I bought it. No need to chase megapixels around. I like my lenses like my transmission - manual. I have good eyesight and all my digits, so I don't need "autofocus" for the same reason I don't need a wheelchair. Why don't you auto-everthing clowns all get wheel chairs? Because your legs work perfectly fine?

I like the fact I can put slide film in my camera, an array of great print films and look subtly different (not the same sensor with the same look - each and every shot) real black and white film and develop the negatives, I can (and do) get very nice high resolution scans if I want them - and always have a negative. No need to "power up". I can leave a film camera with film in it on a shelf for a year and it's "on" booted up and ready to go.

As for the looks? Never say a digital camera whose prints look as pictures taken with Kodak UC professional... Even my wife (and others have commented) who aren't interested in photography notice the film prints are "better".

Geez, I wonder why most dramatic television is mostly still shot on film, and DV left for cheap "reality TV". For that matter, why are movies still shot on film? Why not just shoot on digital, and convert it for the release prints? 'Course, they still have to do that because that tiny 35mm movie film frame sure looks "stunning" when enlarged to the size of a huge movie screen. How would digital look? A little "pixelated", I bet. Answer to my original question? Dramatic TV and movies are shot on film because these pros regard digital as a cheap capture medium. Unemotional, inorganic, uninvolving, and prosaic. They would rather spend 100,000 of thousands of dollars than shoot "digital" because they don't want their product to have that crappy digital look.

But this is just "consumer 35" that digitals are trying - unsuccessfully, to match. I prefer medium format film. When will digital be able to give me the look of a 6X6 frame? What will it cost?

But to each his own. Enjoy your cheap capture medium and your way over-priced cheaply made crappy "photo-computers" (I don't even consider them cameras) that either break or are obsolete in a few years. Enjoy paying for those endless Photoshop upgrades and working with cumbersome "RAW" files (the format d'jour - to be replaced by????), USB2 cables (until they're obsolete), finicky printers, and costly printer ink, spare battery packs, "shutter lag", extra ram, (the list is endless!!!)

Me? I'll drop off a roll of beautiful Kodak UC Professional, taken with say my wonderful Pentax 50mm 1.4 Super-Takumar (yes they really did make lenses this fast - f1.4 once upon a time before the days of cheap, crappy SLOW and expensive auto-everything 3.5-5.6 digital zooms) and for about $9 bucks get as many prints that would cause my "Warning Cyan Low" pop-up to cause me to run to Staples to shell out $75 for another set of inks.

Me, my camera, and a roll of film. Alls I need. Rather liberating. Enjoy chasing your digital "tail" (technology) around.

[photoburner]

I started out in the 1960's with film, had a darkroom. Went thru the color revolution. I waited until after 2000 to join the digital world and haven't looked back since then.

So far as I'm concerned there is nothing you can do on film that cannot be done easier and mostly better on digital. Anyone who spent hours doing a unsharp mask in the dark room cannot but appreciate CS3.

IMO, most of the people yearning for the old days never worked in a darkroom or made prints. They took their shots, removed the film and dropped it off at a lab and a few days later the prints magically appeared. They had to 'make the print in the camera" since that is the only contact that they had with the process. They are film hippies who are devoid of the technical skills to either do darkroom work or use a digital darkroom. They existed for a brief time in the history of photography, from the 70's to 2000 or so and they are bitter their time flashed by and is gone.

And if these people want to continue with film, then my hat is off to them. Just like it is to people doing Tintypes or Calotypes.

I did take that Kodak survey, they sent out emails asking people to take it. And I recall thinking that the question and answer sets were peculiar. Like a push poll essentially. You had a hard time not answering that you missed the film days.

[Nick Trop]

PS Know what? The profile of the average digital photo-computer "buyer" (They're not really photographers, and this applies to all digital photo computer users. If you actually liked photography, you would be using film. Film = photography) is not someone who enjoys photography. They're gadget chasers whose pictures usually suck. Photo computer buyers actually /like/ the endless upgrade cycles of the hardware, the software, the file format. Gives them something to "chat" about and spend their $$$ on. Wonder how much money your average "photo-computer gadget chaser" spends on books on photographic composition relative to upgrading "everything" every year or two? Hell, I bet they spend way more money on pop photo rags reading the ads--er "articles" about the latest hardware/photo-computers than they do on subjects like lighting and composition (unless it's articles on quick ways to compose and light subjects using a Photoshop plug-in).

Not that I'm chastising these folks, their money their time. I mention it to illustrate where the priorities are set of your average digital photo-computer hardware chaser typically is...

[Nick Trop]

IMO, most of the people yearning for the old days never worked in a darkroom or made prints.
---

Nope - wrong.
-----------------

So far as I'm concerned there is nothing you can do on film that cannot be done easier and mostly better on digital.

Like say shooting slide? Or /real/ black and white? Digital might be catching up to 35mm film, but at what cost? Here's an interesting read:

The First Digital Camera Better than Film
http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/articles/popularp/index.html

"According to tests done by Popular Photography, Canon's new 16.7 megapixel EOS 1Ds Mark II took better pictures than a regular SLR camera..."

So I need to buy a 16.7 megapixel camera to match what I can get with the $100 film camera I bought circa 1992 with my $40 used 50mm Tak.

And the cost? Amazon lists this photo computer:
at Amazon.com $6999.99

Come again with "why we're Luddites"??? Or that we're "harkening back to the old days...blah, blah, blah..."

Please...

- We're not "luddites" you're the lemmings.

- We enjoy photography not the geeky thrill chasing around an endless technology upgrade cycle on 1/2 dozen fronts from hardware to software to file formats.

- Oh - and $100 for a film camera that preforms as well as a $7000 digital that's "the first digital that's as good as a film camera"...

I would say - most of all, we're not STUPID.

[Nick Trop]

Correction:

- Oh - and $100 for a film camera - PURCHASED AROUND 15 YEARS AGO - that preforms as well as a $7000 digital that's "the first digital that's as good as a film camera"...

I would say - most of all, we're not STUPID.

[Rob Skeoch]

I'm on my 8th generation of digital... and I was looking at Canon's latest model just today. I'm sure I'll buy one because a segment of my work is done on digital.

To me digital shots starts to look the same rather quickly. Everyone is using the same lens and same camera. Everything kinda looks the same.

Now I've gone back to film for more and more shoots. I still use a lot of 8x10 black and white. I've recently bought a Zeiss Ikon rangefinder because the photographs have a certain look.... and the Rollei GX that I bought last week should arrive tomorrow. I plan on shooting b&w portraits with it this week.

If I was doing production shots, you know the type of work where you just bang out more and more of the same type of thing I would shoot digi. I'm not putting that work down either since the volume helps pay the bills.

But for me I think I'll shoot more film down the road than I have the last few years. I want my magazine work to have a unique look to it and I feel film offers me the most choices.

I don't see myself as a high volume photographer and I've always loved the time in the darkroom... as long as you don't want high production.

Although others would disagree, I feel that just because something is faster doesn't make it better.

[photoburner]

If you want a balanced comparison of film vs digital then take a look at clarkvision.com

He says that Velvia 50 was/is the equivalent of about 12-14 MPixels, Kodachrome 64 was only about 8 MP and Ektachrome about 4-5MP. So with the exception of the Velvia digital surpassed all of those years ago. And of course that was limited to ISO 50. As soon as you ramp up the ISO speed film just cannot compete.

The newest models, The Canon 1Ds Mk 3 is 22 MP and the new Nikon D3 reportedly works with acceptable noise up to ISO 12600 and higher.

The most irritating thing about film users is that many of them just cannot live and let live. I have never heard a digital user rail and rant about film users. But film users even go to the extreme of trying to block digital photos from contests and art shows. They are afraid to compete on a level field.

[Wright-Steel]

It is about craft, from the skill of loading a M body, to properly exposing using experience, to composing and focusing without the 22-point AF crutch, to processing the roll, to printing, dodging, burning, etc. to presentation. It is all about craft.

Digital is great for photojournalism, and deadlines, Medium Format digi is great for high volume commercial work, but celluloid is the darling of the committed purist, the craftsman.

Like in any other capitalist system, money is key, and efficiency and productivity rule the roost. So, if money is your aim, then I would never shoot film, too time oriented and painstaking.

But ahhh, to see that roll come out of the can, to smell the soup, the time spent, the darkness, the organically natural unexpected outcomes...man....

[Wright-Steel]

It is about craft, from the skill of loading a M body, to properly exposing using experience, to composing and focusing without the 22-point AF crutch, to processing the roll, to printing, dodging, burning, etc. to presentation. It is all about craft.

Digital is great for photojournalism, and deadlines, Medium Format digi is great for high volume commercial work, but celluloid is the darling of the committed purist, the craftsman.

Like in any other capitalist system, money is key, and efficiency and productivity rule the roost. So, if money is your aim, then I would never shoot film, too time oriented and painstaking.

But ahhh, to see that roll come out of the can, to smell the soup, the time spent, the darkness, the organically natural unexpected outcomes...man....

[Michael]

Whenever possible, whenever a client will give me the time or the money I prefer to use film. Hands down, every time.

[Nick Trop]

I'm on my 8th generation of digital... and I was looking at Canon's latest model just today. I'm sure I'll buy one because a segment of my work is done on digital.
--

Having fun chasing technology around?

---

- clarkvision.com

First off, don't trust "clarkvision". Just a website whose so-called tests haven't been replicated and certainly aren't unbiased. Like others, overstates the effects of "film grain". I've seen comparisons where the pro-digital clowns tout digital's lack of grain, overlook the plastic-y look caused by in-camera noise reduction alogrythms that totally "smudge out" fine detail and is obvious to anyone, and overlook that digital noise is always horrid to look at, and grain simply is not - sometimes even adds, and that the detail smudged out by the noise-reduction algorythms is gone forever, but that film grain usually "disappears" when viewed at a normal viewing distance on a print and the detail remains.

- I have never heard a digital user rail and rant about film users.

See title of this very thread:

Attack of the Luddites

Is it just us, or does this continued fetishism of film products reek of bourgeois nostalgia to anyone else? First there was Anthony Lane's gushing love letter to Leica in this week's New Yorker

--

Heaven forbid! Someone writes a favorable article about the use of film Leicas to do street photography in New York, and the digital photo-computer gadget buyers seemed to start to immediately "rail"... seems to me.

[Seth]

Call me crazy but I still prefer the mystery, anxiety and uncertainty of not seeing my images the same minute, hour or day I make them. Also, there is something to be said about the exposure latitude capabilities and tangible qualities of the film work flow, but for time sensitive work it is nearly impossible to work with these days.
Seth

[Scott Dickerson]

Well this is fascinating. I've really enjoyed the heated comments on this topic.

I'll put my perspective in here: I'm 24, been shooting commercially for 5 years and have only shot one roll of film that entire time. I learned to photograph the the darkroom, but soon tired of spending endless hours in there, now I spend endless hours on a computer, but it's nicer than a dark room, I have a view out my windows and no chemicals in the air.

I really enjoyed the black and white with the manual processing, but I wouldn't trade my digital SLRs (I've had 7 in the last 5 years) They have allowed me to do work that was well beyond my skill level because I could tell if I was screwing up, and make changes. That's invaluable to someone like me.

I also really like not having to change film when shooting fast action.

cheers,
-Scott

[Benedicte Kurzen]

I have been using films almost a year after I started professional photojournalism at all.
I am working 6X6 and I am also in the process of printing on my own. It became a real lightmare to find color chemical.
My logic is simple : using film is a matter of personal choice , I am not proselit about it and no flag carrier. and I prefer film because it is a slower process, just like a digestiv system that works well with my way of being. the technical progress is here to give us choice not to force us to move onti it. I think choice is the real progress.

[Daniel]

Boring...

I use pencils, does that mean i'm a luddite?

Seriously now, does it matter what people use?

[b davidson]

I use film when I do not wish to expose the Canon cameras to excessive dust or dirt. Or, when I am traveling to a forth-world country (ie, Haiti).

Shooting with my M4 feels good. I prefer the camera and viewfinder to my M8 bodies.

Kinda hard to shoot digital with my old Rollei TLR. I leave it in my truck with a small tripod for personal projects. It is not a big deal to process the film and scan the selects.

I know of a photographer who still shoots Kodachrome (plus digital) on Leica's. Wayne's Photo Lab in Kansas is the last place to process Kodachrome in North America.

Someone commented on another forum that if digital is good enough for Jay Maisel than it is good enough for him. Alex Webb still shoots Kodachrome and that is a pretty compelling reason to consider occasionally shooting a film with a distinct look.

All of this is good for discussion. The reality is: are your images compelling. That is far more important than a film versus digital debate.

[Bill Putnam]

I've been following this discussion and wanted to bring something up, something I haven't heard yet.
Is film your preference because you "know" it? Or is it really that much better?
I still shoot film and, truth be told, sometimes I wonder why. Sure, I love holding a Tri-X or Plus-X neg strip in my hand. Scanning is great. Printing in a darkroom is even better. But I ask philosophically: why is this better than digits? The answers might be might multiple: archiving and personal taste come to mind. That's all good in the end. What really matters is images are captured. Who cares if its analog or digital?

[Ryan Pyle]

My name is Ryan Pyle. I use film for almost all of my work in China. I wouldn't have it any other way. My two cents.

[Bill Crandall]

I shoot BW film w/Leica when I can and when it matters (like personal documentary work). It just looks better - sharpness, contrast, tonality... more importantly a kind of 'dimensionality'. Not just looks better, but has a 'look' that could be called more organic, soulful. Maybe it's a subtle and subjective difference, but it's there.

[Bill Crandall]

PS - and I have to say, what's with the attitude/tone of the original post?

[Antonio German]

It's horse manure.

You can keep going back and back throughout photographic history and claim that the new technology (tintypes, for example) just didn't have the organic quality of a daguerrotype. Lucky for us, technology advances yet beautiful imagery is made regardless of the technique.

A contact print from an 8x10 negative has a look that is remarkable; but I also have to admit that my digital camera has produced remarkable images. If we get hung up on the technology we've lost sight of what we're trying to accomplish as photographers.

I have made beautiful prints using digital files, made inkjet prints on watercolor papers and scanned 4x5 negatives that were unprintable using traditional darkroom techniques.

I don't miss film; I'm glad that I can continue making pictures, printing and creating.

[Sarah]

I have nothing against digital photography. I shoot with a D200 and make thousands of images every year but I still love to shoot my Hasselblad. I probably shoot a few packs of film per month and it is expensive. However, there's something about that process that I believe makes me a better photographer and honestly the images I make with that camera are much more timeless than the 20,000+ images living on my hard drive.

[Benedicte Kurzen]

If I can add something !
I don't see any romantism in shooting film. I am not a nostaligic of the old "good" days.
But to answer Daniel, I think it is still an interesting question to raise. It is a bit naive to say that it does not matter. Don't we all know the enormous changes that occured when digital arrived on the market ! You should read Andre Rouillé "photography"; or any semiologist or philosophers of images, basically all of them, write about the relationship between the medium and the practice............................................

[Damaso Reyes]

I'm shooting a whole long term project on film! It is more organic and anyone who is a serious shooter knows that film is the better choice in certain situations, especially if you are shooting low light. We are not Luddites at all...

[Nick Trop]

Enjoy your crappy photo-computers and the flat life-less "image captures" they produce. Have fun chasing your "technological tails" around and enjoy your hobby of buying new digital photo-computers, software, hardware, printers (the list is endless) every couple years. Your hobby is "photo-gadget buying, and yapping about it" NOT photography, and with your photo-computers you make a lot of life-less "image captures". Haste makes waste.

Here's in interesting recent read from those "professional" Luddites.

Could you even imagine how great Ansel Adams prints would have been if he had a Nikon D70 and a modern inkjet printer instead of some ancient film camera and an enlarger?

Film Still Popular Among the Pros
By BEN DOBBIN – 2 days ago

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — Photojournalist Chris Usher usually relies on digital technology. When he wants something special, though, he reaches for a film camera.

"I shoot just as much digital as the next guy out of necessity," Usher said. "I use film probably a third of the time, on personal projects 100 percent of the time. There's a richness and a depth of field that becomes more prevalent when you're shooting film as opposed to digital. It has a tangible feel to it."

Even as the digital revolution is transforming photography, more than two-thirds of professional photographers in a survey released Wednesday said they still prefer using film for certain tasks, praising its ability to add an almost organic quality to pictures.

Eastman Kodak Co., which surveyed 9,000 U.S. photographers who earn their livelihoods freeze-framing news, weddings, nature, fashion and other worlds, will draw some comfort from its findings.

Putting the finishing touches to a drastic, four-year digital makeover, Kodak is still betting that film, its cash cow for a century, will continue to generate enough revenue to see it through the most painful passage in its 126-year history. Kodak's work force will slip to 34,000 at year-end, half what it was five years ago.

Even while its chemical-based businesses shrink, Kodak remains the world's top maker of silver-halide film, and the storied product — which George Eastman launched in 1889 — retains an ardent following.

"If a client gives me the choice, I'm going to shoot film," said Matthew Jordan Smith, a fashion and celebrity photographer in Los Angeles. "With digital, there's this whole thing of, 'Oh, it looks good enough to get by, it's fine, it'll do.' You didn't have that with film. Was it good enough? It was great!

"Digital will continue to get better and better and better," Smith said. "Maybe film will become an art thing, who knows? But there will always be those who want to shoot film."

The survey was mailed in mid-August to more than 40,000 of the nation's estimated 64,000 full-time and part-time professional photographers, and 75 percent of the 9,000 who responded said they will continue to use film even as they embrace digital imaging.

Sixty-eight percent said they prefer film over digital for a variety of applications. Many cited its superiority for shooting larger-format and black-and-white images, the adaptability of color film to a wider range of lighting conditions, and film archives being far easier to store than electronic ones.

Usher, a freelancer who covers the White House for both Newsweek and Time magazines and is coming out with a book illustrating hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, isn't surprised his colleagues expressed a lingering loyalty to some of the old methods.

"Film by its very physical nature is layers of grains of different colors," he said. "It's hard to describe, but it does actually have a micro three-dimensionality that you can see in that weird way."

By contrast, he said, "digital pictures look very flat, and even the prints. ... Digital looks literally cut-and-pasted.

"Probably the biggest disadvantage of digital — I think if you ask most photographers, at least the ones that are honest will admit this — is you end up spending more time behind the computer than you do behind the camera. If you're shooting raw, you still have to go in there and adjust the images, tweak 'em, tone 'em and get everything just so. With film, there it is."

While "digital is here to stay," Usher expects film's fortunes will someday brighten once more.

"In fact, now that the honeymoon and the infatuation is starting to run its course," he said, "I think that in the next five years you're going to see almost a retro backlash because of the things that film gives you that you can't get with digital."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jramztYcBS1pb7J-80lTgj8hwDSw

[Peter Helenius]

I have spent most of the last 20 years shooting film, mostly with Leicas. I have for the last year or so been shooting Digitally as an experiment. There are some points I would like to make.

1)Cartier Bresson shot many of his classic photos with ASA 25 speed film. How many of us could match his photos with either a digital or film camera with that kind of a speed restraint ?

2)The use of chemicals has not been eliminated, it has been shifted. There ar

[Peter Helenius]

I have spent most of the last 20 years shooting film, mostly with Leicas. I have for the last year or so been shooting Digitally as an experiment. There are some points I would like to make.

1)Cartier Bresson shot many of his classic photos with ASA 25 speed film. How many of us could match his photos with either a digital or film camera with that kind of a speed restraint ?

2)The use of chemicals has not been eliminated, it has been shifted. There are incredibly toxic chemicals used in the production of silicon chips and batteries.

3)When sitting in front of the computer you are not moving very much. Darkroom work is more physically invigorating.

4)A Leica can be focused by feel(the focusing knob lets you know where you are)and does not have to be turned on, making for much quicker shooting.

5)Josef Koudelka has stated that some of his photos were shot while not looking through the viewfinder. He knows what his camera can do. No preview screen necessary.

6)Alex Majoli shoots with $500 digital cameras.
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-6468-7844

7) On the level of physics. You are actually capturing some particles of the person and things you are shooting on film. Digital is all 1s and 0s.

Good Shooting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mark]

I find that those who obsess over what equipment they have usually don't have much more to offer than the equipment itself. This is especially true with the newest or latest cameras or lenses. It's as if the latest thing has somehow made you superior.

Truly creative people will make great images regardless.

if your insecure about your abilities or purchases, don't blame everyone else by pointing your finger and exclaiming that we are all luddites.

[mark]

forgot to mention....did anyone else notice that ALL of the still life photographers in the July issue shot film?

it's so nice that pdn so freely insults not only the readers, but also those whom they interview....

[ndjambrose]

I have a Leica M8, and D80 and a Hasselblad digital back. I use them all - regularly, and for certain tasks. But for everything else, and especially my personal work, I like film more. It does have a different set of characteristics, and, if you don't yet recognise that, I might conclude that it says more about your lack of knowledge of film than it does about the 'bourgeois luddites' lack of knowledge of digital :-)

[Mike the Photo Snob]

Film for me, thanks. If I don't care about the shot -- composition, lighting, the need to make prints -- and am just taking "snapshots" to post online or email to someone, I'll take them with a 1MP Sony DSC U10 with no zoom.

If I give a damn about the shot, if I'm composing the shot, want to make prints of it, etc... if I'm working on The Next Great Shot, I use film.

I wrote a rather lengthy blog post about why over here: http://mactactoe.com/blog_files/318b634456516934775cf4ed8e61c114-6.html

[luca]

to equal medium format image quality, I need to spend what 8 grants for a medium format digital camera?

if you guys (PDN folks included) can come up with a digital camera that can equal medium format quality (film) without me having to spend more than 3 grants (of uk pounds) i’ll buy it straight away and also i’ll buy you a dinner.

that’s a promise.

[hans dieter]

What's all this hooey about film vs. digital anyway?
It's like arguing about oil vs. gouache. They're just different and both have their quirks.
I'm tired of all the smug digital freaks declaring film dead and I'm tired of all the film LUDDITES (yes, it's actually an apt description - look it up on wikipedia) boasting about how they spent $100 for a camera in 1975 (and how much have you spent on film, processing, printing, and delivery of your work in the past 32 years???).

The fact is that if you take a lot of pictures, as most professionals do, digital becomes more COST EFFECTIVE. Not necessarily better in the qualitative sense.

Digi-freaks are not just fetishistically pursuing the latest gear (although they need to stop freaking out every time a new camera is released) - many photographers need to keep up with the latest technology to stay competitive. It's hard to charge top-of-the-market rates, when you're still working with a 6MP camera (once considered top of the market).

Anyway, that's my tirade. Face it - it's just economics so everybody needs to stop taking it all so personally.

[luca]

i use both digital/analogue, and i'm honestly trying to produce everything on digital from now on, but i can't,
i can't find a substitute for my medium format film camera,
unless i spend 8 grants and go for the ZD.

with 8 grants to be honest i can pay for my films/processing for the next 7 years!!

[Nick Trop]

I'm tired of all the smug digital freaks declaring film dead and I'm tired of all the film LUDDITES (yes, it's actually an apt description - look it up on wikipedia) boasting about how they spent $100 for a camera in 1975 (and how much have you spent on film, processing, printing, and delivery of your work in the past 32 years???).
----

This argument about how much was spent on print is illogical and a non-starter. A print "costs what it costs" regardless if it's made from a negative or a jpeg. If you want a print, you gotta pay the print maker. And I like prints. I like to hand someone a "print" or an album - so they don't need $1000 worth of electronic gear and high-speed Internet to view a pic.

In fact, digital photo-computer people come in two flavors:

1. Soccer moms with their shiny pocketable point and shoots. I have no quibble with these folks by the way.

2. Digital photo-computer equipment masturbators who "love" - fall hook, line and sinker, for the constant upgrade cycle resulting from the billions spent by the consumer electronics companies to brainwash them ... and can't wait for that new "8 megapixel" camera to come out. They just bought a perfectly functional "6.1" megapixel photo computer not two years ago, but somehow this is inadequate...

... and the tell-tale signs of digital photo-computer equipment masturbator???

-> They never ever make prints! All their pics are posted on the Internets or their hard-drive, so if you want to see their crappy pics made with their latest $1500 ten megapixel photo-computer they just upgraded to, it will have to be on a computer monitor.

... -> for which, we all know, you need less than a megapixel for!!!<-

Then the photo-computer equipment masturbator who isn't really into photography...

... if they were into photography they wouldn't be further degrading their crappy photos using that cheap, slow zoom lens and giant flash to compensate for the crappy zoom lens's slowness resulting in blinding their subjects with every one of their unnatural "posed" shots. (Candids? What's a candid?)

... they just like buying shit, will "justify their illogical purchasing decision" by pointing to film users and saying "Yeah? well what about all the money you spent on prints?"

Which I find an f'n "HILARIOUS" argument.

[Michael JN Bowles]

What a waste of time.

FIlm is one weapon as digital is another.....oil v's acyrlic in the world of painting.

All that matters is making/ capturing the image and the content....not how many pixles, how much grain but rather the emotion....in't that what it's all about ??

[hans dieter]

Actually, Nick Trop, part of the benefit of digital for a professional is exactly that one DOESN'T need to make any prints. That's why I included "film, processing, printing, and delivery" in my list of expenses when using film. To be fair, many pros shoot chromes, and digi-photographers need computers and hard drives, but I could have also easily included Polaroid and scanning as well, since these days it all ends up electronic anyway.

By contrast, although one may pay $10K for a top of the line Canon 1DS (whatever the latest Mark is) and a lens or two, the cost of shooting ends up being maybe 6¢ per frame.*(see below for methodology)

My point is that, yes, that yashicamat you bought in 1975 may still click away now, it doesn't do much good without spending some money every time you hit the button. By my estimate, it comes in somewhere around 55¢ per 35mm frame and $1.66 per 6x6 frame just to get to a contact sheet stage. Not including any printing costs, which are inevitable if you plan to deliver artwork (also not free) to a client.

Not to mention, if I showed up on set with a 1975 yashicamat (or Minolta or Nikon or whatever), my clients probably would question my professionalism and I wouldn't get hired again. Unfortunately part of business is a bit of marketing and showing-off.

Compare this with the 6¢ digital frame (no processing costs, delivery via email, etc.) and there's no plausible argument that film is **economically** better from a simply profit-making standpoint.

In fact, it speaks well of film that it's even still used at all for commercial purposes, notwithstanding large format or huge reproductions (ie: I recently shot a digital billboard with a P45 and it looks every bit as good as anything I've shot on film). Obviously it DOES have some aesthetic qualities that some people still like (or at least it has the perception of having some aesthetic qualities) which differ from digital. Otherwise, why pay $1.66 for that billboard frame instead of 1¢ or 6¢(to accurately reflect the price difference between a 1DS, my baseline above, and a P45, which costs approximately 4x as much).

So you see, there really is NO way to effectively argue that film is a better economic decision (which is what was argued above with the I-paid-X-for-my-camera-30-plus-years-ago post).

Your argument is "illogical" and resorting to expletives doesn't really strengthen it. It just makes you look stupid, which as the case may be, may just be quite accurate (in my opinion).

Speaking from personal experience, having shot many, many jobs on both film and digital, I can say that, as a business decision, digital is extremely smart and profitable. My business profit quintupled when I switched to a fully-digital workflow 4 years ago.

Economics aside, I also said (if you had actually READ my post) that this is all a bunch of hooey, like arguing Oil vs. Goache in painting (I've also had experience painting with both). They are just different media with different quirks and distinct aesthetic properties.

*In the interest of methodological standards (which have been pretty badly eroded by the informality of the internet), my math is as follows:

$10,000 / 150,000 actuations (my DS is up to half that already) = 6¢

$5 per roll + $15 processing & contact = $20
$20 / 36 exposures = 55¢ per 35mm frame
$20 / 12 exposures = $1.66 per 6x6 frame

[hans]

oy vey.... you boys need a break. don't be so angry.

[Dennis]

By the way, if you look at Dan Havlik's work, you'll understand why he likes digital. Who needs high quality if you're shooting stock?

[Justin]

No matter what format photographers shoot, the main problem is they don't charge enough. So every argument regarding this versus that makes no difference. Photographers seem more concerned with saving the client money then charging enough for their labor. I've found whether you shoot digital or film both take time to do right. I'm interested more in delivering quality work no matter what type of equipment is used. But quality takes time to produce and time and effort should be rewarded, not given away to feed an ego. I doubt if most photographers even know how much in real dollars it costs them to put the key in the door of their studio everyday. And regardless of what you think, the market will determine what will be used and how it will be used. We live in an environment of "it's good enough". Which generally translates to lazy photography.... no matter if it's digital or film.