UKH

As per the title, does anyone here still regularly shot film? If sh, what format and why do you choose film over (or in addition to) digital?

In reply to tehmarks:

Yes in all formats, from 35mm to 5x4.
The choice of emulsions nowadays is fantastic, and the quality has never been better!
Have a dig SLR too.

In reply to tehmarks:

I use 120, Large Format and also Digital. Really depends on what I'm working on as to which Format I use. Currently about to start a new Academic year teaching LF Colour, Black and White Film / Printing and also alternative processes which is nice and good fun.

In reply to tehmarks:

Now and again. 35mm with a Cannon AE-1 Program. The lens on it seems better than the one on my new Pentax K30.

I do think it looks better than digital, for whatever reason...

I have quite a backlog of climbing pics on undeveloped/scanned 35mm rolls.

Ever since people stopped using 35mm slide film, photography has lost it's magic. It used to be a good social thing, having a slide-show, and photos looked better blown up on a big screen.

In reply to tehmarks:

Interesting. I'm thinking of broadening my horizons, if the right deal on eBay appears. Either 645/6x6/6x7 or 4"x5", although I'm leaning towards medium format for technical and practical considerations.

In reply to tehmarks:

Hell yes. I started shooting film as old film camera's were the only things I could afford as I was a horrendously poor student. I'm now significantly less poor, but film still holds a special place. Olympus OM's are way underpriced for the quality of shot you can get with a bit of patience. And they are so cheap, you can buy two so you can harvest one for parts when the mirror mechanism breaks!

In reply to tehmarks:

I've been shooting climbing on 645 for years and still do. Coupled with a fast standard lens you get a look you can't achieve on smaller formats - essentially shallow depth of field with a wide angle of view. I might one day by a digital 645 back, but the prices are high.

I shoot most of my landscape/ detail stuff on 4x5. I resisted 4x5 for years but figured I should experience it whilst it was still practical. I regret not starting earlier now as I could have stocked up on Quickload before it was discontinued. There aren't any digital view cameras I'd want to use or could afford, though the Cambo actus looks fun.

I'd disagree with Dek - most films have been discontinued in the last few years and there is now a reduced choice at inflated prices. I shop around a lot more for film now and buy mainly short-dated deals or out-of-date film off ebay. Processing is a bit more than it used to be but not unreasonable. On the plus side the hardware is really cheap now - you can get a great MF setup for a few hundred quid.

Bottom line is I prefer the colours you get with film and the way of working. When I started with digital I hated the colours and used to always take a film shot for reference. Striving to get it right in camera without knowing whether you've succeeded makes the process more satisfying for me, though there's an argument it makes you more conservative. And the magic of getting the film back from the lab never fades.

In reply to tehmarks:

I would do if you could still get film. I've still got my old Pentax SLR but I just can't find the 100 ISO film I used to use anywhere. Would be delighted if anyone could tell me where to order it. I'm not at all keen on these modern point and shoot digital cameras but have been forced into using them in recent years.

In reply to Rylstone_Cowboy:

i picked up some film on amazon recently, i am sure you could get what you want there.

In reply to tehmarks:

I recently bought a 6x6 medium format camera, and at themoment I'm shooting solely 120 roll film after leaving my dSLR on the side. I made the switch to become more involved in my composition and to learn more about the photographic process through shooting and development.

In reply to Rylstone_Cowboy:

Gerry, 7dayshop have a reasonable selection of film.

http://www.7dayshop.com/camera-film-supplies/filter/show/all

Also http://www.discountfilmsdirect.co.uk/
http://shop.silverprint.co.uk/Film/catalogue/171/ and
http://www.photouk.co.uk/index.php are worth checking.

In reply to tehmarks:

Yes, in several formats 35mm. 645, 6x6 and increasingly 617.

My interest is in building cameras as much and taking pictures. Film, particularly 120 film suits the scale of engineering and technology I use to build them. I had a DSLR for a bit but lost myself in computer files and Lightroom and found no joy.

I use an iphone for snaps of work stuff but anything I care about is done on film. Looking at a 617 transparency from a camera you built yourself is pretty sweet.

In reply to IPPurewater:

Also:

http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/
http://www.processuk.net/
http://www.thedarkroom.co.uk/

In reply to SidharthaDongre:

Thanks for those additional links.

In reply to tehmarks:

I used to use Zorki 4 (35mm) with Jupiter 50mm F/2.8 lens for travel/mountaineering photography. However, I am now more than happy to use Olympus E-PL5 with few primes, Lumix 20mm F/1.7 and Sigma 60mm F/2.8 (have only few decent shots with it as it's less than week old!). I really wanted a viewfinder at least, but as I wear glasses, it's way much easier to use a flipping screen. I prefer to shoot from waist level, though I never used TLR camera.

In overall, film camera produces more mental satisfaction and that waiting for the perfect shot is so different from digital shooting... However, my current camera makes better quality pictures. At least I think so! I got tired of spending money on expensive films and developing.

In reply to PPP:


Is it? Is it not a case of the perfect shot still being as elusive as ever...but we're more willing to take poorer photos because pressing the shutter button is now effectively free?

(Caveat: I've never shot film, but I find the perfect shot to be incredibly elusive, and my ratio of good shots to turds confirms it!)

In reply to tehmarks:

Well, imagine a situation. You have a nearly perfect conditions which do not last long, i.e. mountains covered in clouds, sun positioning, your own position if you are moving. You end up asking yourself such questions like:
* Will the loch look better this evening or next morning?
* Is it better to move uphill to take the shot of the valley?
* Are clouds going to move?
etc.

The usual answer is "I don't really know". Maybe professional photographers are more experienced at that as I shot about 40 films in my life (well, I am 21 and had a DSLR for half a decade). Even so, you can't make sure the next morning will not be misty, etc.
With film, you sometimes have to rely on luck or take several similar shots. With digital camera, you can just take photos as many times as you want. .

In reply to PPP:

I see what your saying - yes, very good point.

In reply to tehmarks:

Yes in all formats 35mm, 120 and 5x4

Colour I use Kodak Portra 160

B+W FP4 or Pan F

Hill People was shot on 120 Portra on a Mamiya RB67 - http://www.henryiddon.com/Hill-People

A Place to Go on 5x4 Portra - http://www.henryiddon.com/A-Place-to-Go

To get to a real sense you'd need to see the hand prints - but even scanned film shots viewed online have a nicer 'feel' for certain subjects in my opinion.

In reply to tehmarks:

Having a bit of a hiatus due to the demands of parenthood, but have a darkroom and kit for everything up to 5x4.

Preferred formats - 6x7 on 120 (RB67)and 5x7/8x10 with a Sinar Norma.

Why film? Apart from a masochistic enjoyment of lugging big cameras around, my preferred method of printing is lith, which I don't think you can do convincingly without 'proper' paper and some interesting chemistry.

In reply to tehmarks:

Oh I should mention I've also been shooting with a 10x12 previously used by the Abraham brothers.

Some FP4 was made on special order by Ilford.

In reply to Armadillo:
...


Absolutely agree.

Scanning film will produce different results to a digital camera's output but in reality all you are doing is taking a digital photo of a film photo. Which is daft, really (IMHO).

In reply to tehmarks:



Yep; mostly 35mm with a bit of occasional 120; I like the physicality of it all...

In reply to JDal:




Indeed. Another factor is that I have never lost the sense of 'magic' that comes with watching a print begin to emerge in the developer. That's even more the case with lith, where dev times can be in the order of tens of minutes. The fun/risk is that you then have to gauge by eye when to pull the print!

In reply to JDal:


You would be taking a digital scan of an 2D film image that a digital sensor wouldn't have rendered.

Equally you may drum scan a hand print produced from a film negative. Which would be entirely different from what a digital camera would have reproduced of the original scene even if that image had been manipulated in photoshop.

Does a live concert reproduced on vinyl mastered by a human being sound different from the same live concert reproduced on CD having been been auto balanced by a computer?

Discussing Nadav Kandar's exhibition at Flowers East http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/14/nadav-kander-dust-flowe... Sean O'Hagan says

"Digitally printed to a degree of verisimilitude that the darkroom could never produce, Kander’s images possess a hyper-real aspect that to me makes them seem oddly unreal."

The important thing about shooting film and hand printing is that it allow an element of chance into the process, no two images / prints are ever exactly the same.

In reply to Henry Iddon:

Oh perfect. Well done, Henry.

In reply to Henry Iddon:


I said "Scanning film will produce different results to a digital camera's output". Why did you quote it and then ignore it?

You may or may not prefer one way to another, that's subjective. Either way a scanned image is a digital image recorded on a sensor.

In reply to JDal:
Yes it is - maybe I misinterpreted your point. Apologies, but you seemed to suggest it would be daft to shoot a scene on film then scan it resulting in a digital file. When you would shoot on digital in the first place.

The point I was making, and we may agree, is that a person may shoot on film, then scan it ( for a variety of reasons) because the end result is a look they hoped to obtain that couldn't be achieved by shooting the original scene using a digital camera.

Whats daft about that?

In reply to tehmarks:

I put a roll of Kodak through my Pentax MX a couple of weeks back, a very gratifying experience that has been far too long since I last did it.