Will film cameras make a comeback like vinyl?

Definitely! And if the lens isn't of high quality/resolution you won't take full advantage a high-res/high megapixel image sensor. The sensor can be 4K but a cheaper lens won't have the resolution to fully utilize it. I've always put my money into high quality glass and optics; the sensor is often the limiting factor. A 36 megapixel sensor coupled with a cheap, kit lens is a 'waste' of that sensor.

On the flip side, a stellar, top quality lens can also out resolve an image sensor if the individual pixel/photo receptor site is not of a minimum physical size. Coupling a very high end lens with a 12 megapixel sensor isn't going to show you what that lens can really do.

 

Totally agree. While vinyl can have significant sonic advantages if all the stars are aligned right, there is just no reason other than nostalgia for film to come back, or cassettes, well, for any reason...lol. It's fun though for people that do want nostalgia, and I'm glad we can all make that choice on that reason alone. Used cassettes were barely starting to sell but my local store, who has a lot, just told me they stopped buying them and that no one is interested in any at this point. There is a thread going about this and most seem to have great decks and mainly make their own tapes. Nastalgia indeed....fun stuff.

 

That reminds of when photographers were howling with rage on camera sites/forums when they all upgraded to the first 36 megapixel cameras/sensors that just hit the market but were still using their medium quality/kit lenses. Many of them saw no perceptible increase in resolution/sharpness (noooo, my pictures are not instantly wayyyyy better ) and, in some cases, their images looked worse (ie: softer/more blurry/less sharp at 100% viewing size). The sensor out-resolves the lenses.

Also it's interesting to note that lots of guys who did have top quality lenses also were having problems getting the expected sharpness/resolution and couldn't take full advantage of the 36 MP sensor since the high resolution lenses and image sensor exposed all sorts of shooting issues/bad techniques of the photographer (precise focus problems, vibrations and blur from the camera not being absolutely immobile, etc.). High res lenses/sensors are very revealing of poor technique...

 

So you're saying this is a bad idea:

 

It looks like crap, since to me it's not a deliberate part of the image that the director intended. All of those things are distractions and gross imperfections. It's not so much "life" as it is somebody hitting you in the head from behind with a hammer, preventing you from enjoying the film.

I would agree that a pristine print on a pin-registered film projector (like a Kinoton) can look fine. But we never get those. What you get is a 20- or 30-year-old beat-to-hell print that's missing 2 seconds here, 3 seconds there, throughout the whole movie.

 

I can still remember the magic of that first print appearing in front of my eyes when I was a kid with my father in that bathroom turned darkroom years ago. Phones and social media will continue to propell digital for the mainstream. I shoot my share of digital photos now but consider them more as "snapshots " than photographs. I've kept all my film gear and the darkroom in my basement in hopes of returning to some B&W film photography in retirement when a job no longer gets in the way of my personal life. I agree that audio vinyl and film photography attract the same type of person. However, I think both "digital " and "analog" folks can be equally invested in their own way if so driven. Back in the day the "non-invested snap shooters" used instamatic & Polaroid cameras.

 

I've made the exact same point before in another thread about the 'superiority' of film vs digital. If your eyesight was grainy, you'd go to an optometrist to have it treated! When I transcode a movie with noticeable grain artifacts, I always apply a gentle filter to minimize the grain noise as much as possible without drastically affecting the rest of the image.

I think the same type of psychology applies to vinyl music lovers who point to static/pops & squeaks (also an artifact of the recording process) as some kind of a virtue.

 

You are so right. I don't really notice normal pops and clicks as the good outweighs the bad, but I could see how a newbie couldn't stand it. Grain in film never bothered me either, nor minor glitches in a gently worn movie.

 

That's about akin to people that hold up their iPads at an event. Both look ridiculous to me!

 

I consulted the mighty Oracle that is the Magic 8 Ball for guidance in this matter and it replied "Signs point to yes". So, yes, I'd have to say it's a bad idea

A wacky gadget for sure....it's like a $150 'audiophile' AC power outlet, where installing one 'deepens the sound stage', 'enhances separation and the clarity of high frequencies', 'tightens and focuses the low frequencies to avoid smearing', and 'adds detail and nuance not present in the original source material'...heh.

 

I sometimes see young 'uns in cafes writing Their Great Novel using a typewriter, so a film camera revival would not surprise me.

--Geoff

 

There are some things I miss about The Old Days, but typewriters are not among them.

 

I have a friend with an expensive antique typewritter. It's fun and nice looking for personal correspondence but screw writing a term paper much less a novel on one of those.

 

I can recall back in the day when I owned a Selectric in the 1970s where I'd have to write an article or a paper for school and I'd literally cut and paste the document and scotch-tape the pages together. Once I was all done editing, then I'd have to retype it all from the first page so I had a pristine copy to actually turn in. Once I bought a computer in 1980, I stopped doing that, since everything was now printed out electronically.

 

It's too bad that we are seeing the passing of such a historical technology that many people were so immersed in. It was an entire culture of experts that knew how to master all the ins and outs of a very complicated medium. I hope the professionalism that paralleled the existence of film does not die out also. The video camera had historically spawned substandard work and substandard thinking. Hopefully, the film culture will stay intact.

 

The patents have to have expired for all of Polaroid's IP years ago.

 

I think we had a conversation about this topic on that thread, so I'm probably repeating myself by saying that, as someone who earns 100% of his living from photography, I have to disagree with you -- at least to a point. If all you want are pristine snapshots, then sure, do what you like. This rush toward clarity and perfection is a very commercial mindset too, and Henri Cartier-Bresson's famous comment about sharpness being a "bourgeois concept" plugs into that. What is commercialism if not bourgeois? For a commodity like advertising, or a thing for everyday use as photos have become, that perfection makes sense. It has its place.

But for the sake of artistry, I think it has drawbacks. I see a lot of people making "fine art" actions for Lightroom and Photoshop, to make their digital images look even more like they came out of a computer, and the photos look like plastic to me, completely devoid of life.

Think of it like this: do you complain about seeing brush strokes in a painting? That's how I often feel about grain in a photograph. Sometimes, yes, the grain can be distracting, or the result of poor technique, or annoying if you just want a good clear picture of your dog and have no other aspirations for the photo. But there are also times when it adds to the effect of an image. Look at this, for instance:

http://blogdescalada.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/atitude-campeo-1.jpg

Would this be a better photo if it were sharper with less grain?

How about this one?

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/r...8VRyUfMDTicUF3vtRqPCp8Zz1wu2Rl6=w1360-h1360-c

Would no grain make it better? Or does that grain add to the effect?

I can argue for the other side too. There's a little grain in this Herb Ritts photo, but it's pretty clear and clean and striking:

https://www.herbritts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/DD-22-01.jpg

To the point someone made above about film and nostalgia, that's certainly driving some of this. But if you've ever printed a photo in a darkroom, you'll know there's also a process involved, a craft, that I think still has value. To me, making something with your hands is far more interesting than sending something to a printer, and I encourage people to buy darkroom prints of my work as opposed to inkjet prints. It's more work for me, but because of that I can also charge more, and I feel better about charging more because I've made something, start to finish.

 

Then I don't understand why the knock off film sucks so badly.

 

Because patents aren't enough.

I'm confident half of the stuff Land and his engineers thought up wasn't disclosed in the patents, but remained trade secrets...and died either with him, his company or the last engineer who worked on the original film formulas.

The idea of a patent is that it should be comprehensible to someone "skilled in the art" not any random schmoe.

Dr. Land had chemists and physicists literally designing molecules to order, and one of them was a substance that could be transparent, then opaque, then transparent again - and it doesn't sound like anyone has figured out how Polaroid managed it.

 

I bought a $5000 turntable recently and I think it's the same thing. Boy do I now hear the limitations of some of my recordings that used to sound pretty good on my $700 table. It really does bring out the bad recordings...there is no place to hide. But with good material it's just stunning! I think the better the hardware, the more it gets out of the way of whatever it is that it's supposed to produce.

 

The Gene Siskel Film Center showed a 35mm print of The Princess Bride a few years ago. There was a repaired splice right during Inigo's final meeting with Count Rugan, just as he was ready to deliver the coup de gras...

I have sworn off film prints ever since.

 

No! Man, that's horrible. I don't even like it when there's a tiny splice and a piece of a word is missing. To lose the most memorable line in the film is unforgivable.

 

"Hear that sound? That is the sound of ultimate suffering. My heart made that sound when that splice happened."

...and:

"I want that line back, you son of a bitch!"

 

The new Impossible Project (rebranded Polaroid since IP bought the name) film looks very good, both the black and white and color. It still takes a while to develop, but it's more at 15 minutes than 30. They're making progress, and the price has dropped a few dollars now as well. I feel pretty good about buying it these days.

 

I loved using my Olympus OM-2n for years...I sometime miss using it. BUT, I cannot escape from the wonder of digital photograph with the wonderful convenience it brings....instant gratification!