Will film cameras make a comeback like vinyl?

Ask my wife, she is shooting B&W film.

 

Nahhhh..........I'm a retro guy, I play vinyl and even record on Reel to Reel, but with photography its different.

Taking pictures today is part of daily life, with the posting on social media, and sending them to friends and family and all that.
Its GOT to be instant.

My Samsung S8 ( 2 days old) takes GREAT pictures, in all different resolutions. It even takes 4K videos.

Who wants to take a picture on a film camera and then have to mail the roll to get it developed, have to wait a week, and then have to PAY on top of that? I didnt like doing it in 1990, and I'm sure not going back to that.

 

no

want to buy a $1000 yashica film camera with multiple lens?

we can't even give it away to our local university, nobody wants it, nobody.

 

I work for a woman who does estate sales, and she routinely has to dump film camera collections off at Goodwill after they didn't sell.

 

it's really a shame, as my wife had put a lot of time and effort into that camera (multiple lens', filters, and other accessories) when we bought her new digital camera we tried to trade it in, it was at the same store where we bought it, they wanted nothing to do with it, said to call the local university, they politely declined.

it is just sitting there, probably forever, worthless for all intents and purposes. sad really and a big waste of of a lot of money.

 

Some Micro 4/3 cameras can adapt to existing lenses, so that might be a way of getting some value out of the existing kit.

 

I'm amazed at how good digital has gotten, and how quickly it did so. I have been a halfway serious photographer for decades, and my LG G4 cell phone takes pictures that are comparable to what I get from my Rollieflex TLR. But when you consider how much cheaper it is for a film studio to shoot digital rather than film, the economics will dictate the switch.

An old film camera, though, is a good cheap introduction to the principles of photography. While cell phones and point-and-shoot digital cameras can take surprisingly good images (considering how effortless it is), anyone who wants to advance beyond that level needs to learn about apertures, depth of field, etc. If you want to pursue that, you might look for a used 35mm rangefinder like the Konica Auto S2; you can get them on eBay for a song.

You could make an analogy between electronic keyboards, the best of which are very good, and are terrifically convenient for working musicians--versus a finicky Steinway which needs to be tuned and regulated. The more convenient mode will usually win out in the marketplace (VHS beat out Beta, remember?), but there probably will always be a niche for the old school stuff.

 

It's not surprising. It's like comparing 8" floppy drives to the latest solid state memory storage. With digital cameras, the fight was over many years ago. Film is inferior in every respect.

 

Since the vast majority of photography is consumed through digital media, the compelling reasons to print from film is limited. There is a case to be made for framed prints or printed media in general but that is very limited.

There will always be people that like to churn their own butter but not enough for the butter churn industry to make a comeback.

 

Except in dynamic range, especially when it comes to retaining brightness and colour information in the highlights. Any professional photographer who's tried photographing the moon and its surroundings at night or a bright sunset will know what I'm talking about. We'll get there in a few years though. Professional film camera (like the Alexa) already are pretty good at this, better than digital stills cameras.

 

but it is very hard to find someone who interested in giving a "fair" dollar value for it.

we don;t expect anything near what we paid for it, but to give it away just seems absurd.

 

I don't think so. Digital camera HDR is pretty damn good and is in fact a big selling point. Also HDR post production/editing is pretty common these days.

 

HDR is just the photographic equivalent of brickwalling.

 

Yeah, the patents to the real stuff is tied up in a legal clusterfudge (I think the owners were laundering drug money), while the replacement stuff is exorbitantly expensive AND doesn't work worth a damn. You have to immediately put it in a bag or lay it face down for half an hour to get it to develop, and even then, it's very washed out. More like early 70s Polaroids rather than the level they had reached before they went under.

 

Someone said: "Film is not a format, it is an artistic choice"... and I agree with that.
The same image, shot both on film and on digital, will have a different impact on the viewer, even if the viewer doesn't have much of a clue; it goes into the subconscious.

I have a Contax G2 35-mm camera that was given to me in like-new condition. It is superb, and my local store is ready to pay good money to buy it if I don't want it, but I do want it.
Put 100-ASA film in, and watch the Zeiss lenses perform....and when I want to, I pick up my Nikon DSLR and work with that. I just don't expect the same (or better) results.

Art, in my book, was never about 'perfection', it is about beauty and emotional and intellectual impact. Digital imaging fits our age: way too much of it is clinical, with no mystery, instantly consumable.

On film, things look interesting and organic just because they are on film. The pics may be poor, but they will have "life". On video/digital, things tend to look sterile until you work to correct that.

We have a Mamiya 6-by-7 that produces the most astounding images, full of texture and mood, partly due to the large negative. It is slow and deliberate to shoot with, and you get your rewards for that.

There is a bad habit in society that because we get something new, what came before is not only supposed to be "useless" but it is being actively slandered as such, usually by people who in many cases have never used said gear or who have a vested interest in seeing "the new" win as quickly as possible. Film is on the receiving end of this kind of treatment.

 

I'm old school,and love cameras,I still have and old Brownie in the closet..for you youngsters the Brownie was a popular camera made by Kodak back in the day.Oh and I still have my old Polaroid too.

 

No, it's a tool and a very useful one. That horrifying HDR "look" was in fashion for like 5 minutes a few years ago, and I die a little inside when I still see it used by hacks online. Subtle HDR is great for preserving highlights and shadows. It should be unnoticeable.

dan c

 

Hipsters

 

I have to disagree. Shadow detail with modern digital still cameras is outstanding. Shoot RAW and it's easy to pull in highlight detail if you don't go over too much. A few years ago I decided to shoot a story using Ektachrome. I was able to trick my newspaper into paying for it (would never happen now). I knew the conditions would be right for slow-speed film, and I wanted those subterranean black blacks that chrome film produced. It's gorgeous in the right circumstances and if you know how to work it. However, digital cameras have saved my bacon now for years when it comes to working in contrasty situations and uneven light. Even with B&W, where we had a lot of control in processing and printing, retaining shadow detail took some skill and practice...and often luck. I love film, but digital makes photography so much easier.

Of course one could argue that is one thing killing photography as a profession and art form, but that's whole 'nother can-o-worms...

dan c

 

I totally agree with you. However, I was talking about the highlights, not the shadows. Digital still has problems with highlight clipping, even when shooting RAW and on very good cameras. But like I said, we'll get there. I love digital and I have been using it exclusively for the past 10 years as a professional.

 

As long as there's film to shoot on, folks will be shooting on it. Check out Jonathan Canlas's Instagram feed. He's one of the people at the vanguard of the Film is Not Dead movement and the affiliated theFINDlab. He mainly does wedding/family portraiture, a small bit of which is admittedly a little trite, especially if you look at enough of it, but overall his work is amazing, and his snapshot photography is incredible as well. He shoots mainly medium format, a lot of Rolleiflex and Pentax. Some of his most interesting images are a shot with custom lenses from the bokeh factory, which if I have my way I'll have one or two of someday.

If you start with his work as an entry point and branch out (e.g. check out thefindlab's IG feed) from there, you'll see a range of the great images being caught on film. Not to say that people aren't getting great digital images too, but it does give you a sense of what's possible with the medium at this point in photography history.

 

Recording to analogue tape then mastering for digital is not uncommon, so I suspect shooting to film then mastering for digital will be a thing. In fact, didn't they do a lot of shoot on film, edit on videotape in the 1980's?

Or are we talking about consumers and I've completely missed the point?

 

I have to agree. The general public will likely never embrace film photography again. There will always be a niche for film photography among professionals, artists, and hobbyists, but the total lack of convenience will keep most people from ever going back to film again. There are so many advantages to digital that people don't want to give up:

1. Once you've purchased a digital camera, a battery, and a memory card, taking photos is "free" after that... unless one wants to make prints, of course. Buying film and paying for developing is something that the public will never embrace again.

2. With digital, you have instant results. You can make adjustments on the fly to make sure you're getting good results. With film, you don't know the results until after it has been developed and money has been spent. (I still recall many disappointing trips to the photo shop and seeing results that didn't meet my expectations.) At that point, it's usually too late to go back and re-shoot your photos. Digital also helps one to become a better photographer, as one can instantly see the results of changes to aperture and exposure (assuming one has a camera with some manual settings). You can afford to take many more photos and cherry pick the best of the bunch.

3. The ability to edit photos using computer software makes digital more flexible. Sure you can scan your film negatives and edit them as well, but that's another step that requires another piece of equipment. Again, more cost and less convenience.

4. Most people have no desire to carry a separate camera anymore. They want their camera built into their phones for ultimate portability and convenience. And while a phone isn't an ideal device for taking photographs, the improvements in phone cameras in the past 5 years has been remarkable. I have to imagine that phone cameras will only continue to improve in the coming years.

One can also argue whether there is an aesthetic advantage to using film. I think, in the right hands, film can still be superior with some types of photography. But for the majority of photographers and most types of photography, digital has the overall advantage.

 

You are terribly mistaken. HDR is the opposite: giving visual images more dynamic range without any limiting. Blacker blacks, whiter whites, more accurate color.

Even the #1 motion picture in the world right now, Wonder Woman, was shot on 35mm film negative and finished completely in the digital domain. There are advantages to a hybrid approach, and there are some things that film capture can do that no digital camera can still touch. The problem is, it costs roughly $2 million-$4 million or so for film stock, scanning, dailies, and so on, which is a problem if your budget can't afford it.

On a $200 million film like Wonder Woman, $4 million is roughly the catering bill, so it's not a big deal.

 

While I love the ease with which I can snap photos nowadays, I do miss being able to print out nice looking clear photograph prints at a local photo shop or supermarket. If I take my phone to the supermarket or Walgreens or wherever today and hook it up to their machine to print off a number of pictures, I'm generally disappointed with the quality of the prints. They almost always end up looking a little blurry and digitally compared to the pictures from back in the 80s and 90s in my old photo albums.

Perhaps there are better places to take my phone to get photos printed than the places I've tried, but back in the day, I'd take that little Kodak roll out of the camera and drop it off at just about any supermarket and the results were always much better than the quality these machines are printing out today.