Will film cameras make a comeback like vinyl?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Ghostworld, Jun 5, 2017.

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  1. thegage

    thegage Forum Currency Nerd

    My 15-year-old son dug out my old Canon film camera and lenses and has been having a great time with it. The most difficult part of it for him is the developing side since he's not into doing it himself. Options have become very limited, and the results often pretty crappy. In my limited knowledge of the current status of the market, until the developing side gets better film cameras won't make a comeback like vinyl (where it's very easy to get decent playback and access to LPs), but I'd love to be proved wrong.

    John K.
     
  2. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Beautiful shot!

    I can understand the nostalgic impulse behind shooting film, but it is no longer superior to digital in any manner.
     
  3. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer

    Location:
    The West
    Nicely done.

    Modern DSLRs can practically see in the dark. I'm shooting with a Canon 5D MkIII and don't think twice about cranking it well past the formally terrifying 1600 ISO mark. The newer models are even better in low light.

    When I was learning photography in high school, Kodak introduced P3200. I remember the absolute thrill we journalism photo nerds had when we got our grubby hands on some rolls. The pictures were grainy disasters, but it was still incredibly fun. Great photographers like Sabastiao Salgado exploited P3200's drawbacks to his glorious advantage. These pictures are stunning.
    Kuwait: A Desert on Fire, by Sebastião Salgado

    He shoots digitally now too, outputting his digital files to negative and having a master printer make traditional photographic prints.

    The first digital camera I used in 1998, the Kodak DCS520, topped out at 1,600 ASA but anything over 400 was covered in gruesome blue digital noise. Less than two decades we have digital cameras that out resolve and out see film.

    But guess what...I still love film. :shrug: I appreciate its drawbacks and strengths as much as I appreciate a good DSLR's strengths. They're tools.

    dan c

    BTW, here's the "best of 2017" I put together for my new job at a hyper-local news feed. The low light photos were shot at pretty high ISOs, including some over 6,400.
    Oil City's Year in Photos: 2017 - Oil City News

    Over at my previous job at the newspaper where I worked for nearly 19-years, they were kind enough to include a few of my shots from earlier in the year, including one I shot on Kodak Tri-X with a vintage camera. :agree:
    Photos: The year in Casper and Wyoming, as seen by the Star-Tribune photographers
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2017
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  4. Chip TRG

    Chip TRG Senior Member

    Then there are those rare few of us who are still shooting 16mm. I rarely go out without my Bolex by my side, fitted with a Canon zoom lens originally made for an 80's TV video news camera.

    Here's a quick example of how anachronistic 16mm can look. It was my first time shooting with color negative stock, and it was a really cruddy day, so that was two strikes against me, but it still has a beauty to it. If it weren't for the cars and the smartphones, you'd think this footage was a few decades old.

     
  5. Solaris

    Solaris a bullet in flight

    Location:
    New Orleans, LA
    Technically, you're correct. But if it's a question of sitting in front of a computer all day or being in a darkroom, I would at least like the option to have the darkroom. Some people like making things by hand, and I hope that never changes.
     
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  6. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    I did see a woman who was doing amazing things in a darkroom. She used a large format negative, and a combination of lights, gels and filters to paint with light directly on film.
     
  7. clayton

    clayton Senior Member

    Location:
    minneapolis mn
    Kodak hope so, other than them what's the point, expensive when you develop a bunch of picture that you don't want.
     
  8. Rick Bartlett

    Rick Bartlett Forum Resident

    I prefer this kind of print over any digital shot. It's like watching an old Technicolour film.
    Good Stuff!
     
  9. ggg71

    ggg71 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Great shot!

    No denying the technical merits of digital.

    It’s like typewriters vs. computers.... For work, there’s no choice, but for a note to a friend the typewritten letter is much more personal.
     
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