Cameras and Photography

There are a lot of things that digital phtography can do that film photgraphy can't do. But that doesn't mean film photography is dead. Far from it. There is a thriving culture - you might call it a subculture - of film photography out there. Just for fun I built a DIY film camera this past year. The cost was $30. I gave it to a friend who loves retro stuff. I also bought some B&W film for an old SLR I still have. I'm waiting for fall/ winter which is a great time of the year to shoot in black and white. (I also have a DSLR that I use most of the time.)

Check out some websites like:

https://www.lomography.com/

http://www.holgacamera.com/holga-cameras/

https://www.lomography.com/magazine/34351-recesky-twin-lens-reflect-camera-diy

I think there will always be a film niche, or film prudes if you like....

"Of course, high-minded ideals about creative control and specific minutiae of costs are primarily professional issues. What inspires the everyday film photographer is something quite different; something difficult to define, but easy to see.

“Film has a quality that is unique; a beauty and tonal warmth that digital cannot match. Like the vinyl versus MP3 debate, there is something inherently different about a physical process compared to a virtual one,” said Rothwell. While digital camera manufacturers have made photography a question of megapixels, a growing number of people understand that quality cannot be expressed in figures.

Ken Rockwell, a prominent advocate of film photography, expressed this point well, writing: “Non-artists misguidedly waste their time comparing meaningless specs like resolution and bit depth, when they really should just stand back and look at the images.”

As well as the choice of medium, such considerations also influence the choice of camera for many photographers. Lomography’s Diana camera has extremely limited controls, uses a deliberately low-sharpness lens, and purposefully allows light to leak through the body and onto the film, and yet it is astonishingly popular, as the final images have a unique, dreamlike quality that simply cannot be recreated with any amount of computer processing."...

http://petapixel.com/2016/08/19/film-photography-making-stunning-comeback/

Haha exactly....

"like the audiophile who's hearing goes from 0 - 1+ MHz with a -10,000 dB sensitivity"

Despite this, sales of vinyl have rocketed recently. In the UK they have re-introduced the top 50 music chart for vinyl sales. I'm sure there will be a similar market for film, if only to be different.

You can tell your Mr. Ken Rockwell that, had he asked, I would have told him right up front that I am a 'non-artist' and that I am keenly aware of it. But if I want to look at camera specs, which I have done before, I'll study the damn things until my eyes blur! Seriously, although I have no artistic talent, I do appreciate good (not necessarily fine) art.

OK, I will bite. How many digital cameras are you aware of that have all the adjustments of the old view cameras used back in the 1940-2010 at least for advertising photography, landscapes with perspective control.

How many of you even know what perspective control is?

Tsk, tsk!

And the gauntlet has been thrown!

Is perspective control what we experience when we stifle the urge to choke the living $hit out of some idiot for asking a dumb question?

I have a Minolta around here, somewhere, with all that stuff. Never use it any more.

And unless you are printing high resolution paper glossies you don't need it. Your computer screen controls your resolution these days.

Perspective control is the ability to effectively remove the convergence of lines that actually are parallel, for the purposes of presenting architecture the way it should be seen by the human eye, not the camera lens. OK?

Please resist the urge, I know I am F.O.S., but choking the living sh$& out of me, just leaves the dead sh&* sitting there.

Thanks.

I was not thinking of you when I made the choking joke.

You have never asked a stupid question.

At least not one that 99% of everyone here would already know the answer to, without even thinking hard.

I learned something from this thread already, even though I used to be a top notch film photographer, and now know very little about the digital cameras out there. I am somewhat surprised by the current sophistication of these, and image processing that can be done. We used to have to darken and lighten areas in paper enlargements with masks, wands with circular ends, etc. It was an art in the truest sense, not a science.

One of my brother-in-laws studied under the likes of Ansel Adams out in L.A. area (I think it was Art Center. The scariest shot I ever helped him with was peering over the inside top balcony at Pennzoil Plaza in Houston, with the 8x10" film view camera hanging way out over the edge, and somehow still being able to set up the shot (using mirrors) without falling over, and plunging about 20 stories. That is my recollection, some facts may vary.

All the adjustments of the old view camera are available digitally depending on the time and money you have available.

http://www.megapixelsdigital.com/digital-backs-on-wooden-field-cameras-fun-in-the-sun/

This is an interesting article that explains it.

I will have to look into that. That you for the link. I know at least one buddy other than Lyn that needs it.

Funny you should mention in camera PC, last week I purchased a shift tilt lens for my Nikon. Not as elegant as an enlarger lens and a bellows but still allows me to move my focal plane to where I want it. Still working on visualizing starting tilt amount in my head but getting better...

Way to go! May all your photographic endeavors be happy ones.

Film cameras have a couple of drawbacks. Digital pictures are essentially free, you have instant feedback (and instant gratification), and picture storage is no problem. This is undoubtedly why digital has taken over.

Every so often there is a rumor that someone has developed a digital cartridge that can replace a roll of 35mm film, so that the big dollars a lot of us spent on camera gear is not wasted. I know there would be a demand for it.

AFAIK, only Hasselblad makes a digital back for their cameras. WAY out of my price league.

This came out about a year ago, but it was just a joke.

I used Bronica, I sold all my kit just before the bottom dropped out of the 2^nd hand market.

I borrowed a Hasselblad with a digital back from my wholesaler, when I returned it the obvious question was “how much”. He took hold of the camera and told me to sit down first, I think I went in to a state of shock.

I’m surprised no one has made a digital back for the Bronica, the Zenzanon PS lenses were on a par with Hasselblad.

Film photography is mostly dead and the reasons are simple.

1. Digital is cheap and easy to use; no darkroom required.

2. Instant results allow the photographer to re-shoot as needed.

3. Our cellphones now let everyone be a photographer anywhere-anytime.

4. Send pictures to anyone almost instantly.

These are the obvious reasons film is dying out and there are some reasons that some feel that film is better though not many. I still feel that it has a better color and tonal range, but not enough for me to go back to film. Anyone need my darkroom equipment? I can't even give it away.

Agree...The HDR capability of Digital is one of my favorite effects, like bracketing but the ability to have the image immediately. Also, in -camera processing is cool, with instant delete available. I hated having to go through TSA and Customs lines, pulling out my film boxes, taking the canisters out and then removing the film itself, for scanning. After 9-11, I started shooting Digital as I traveled a lot. I still have my Nikon FM and FM 2, (Favorite easy to use , simple, travel film cameras ), as well as lenses, all due to the fact I have a huge box of old film in the fridge, that cost me a fortune...." One of these days..."

I hear film cameras are still used to photograph buggy whips.

Like tcmtech said there will be some purists who insist that film is superior.

My MOTO X2nd gen takes fine pictures for my 69 year old eyes.

My iphone sees better than I do....I use it to take pictures of stuff I want to examine closely, it picks up the smallest details....sees things you just can't see looking at it....

Always an oddball around.

The paradox is that the corporation that invented the digital imaging went bankrupt because of its invention. Yes, Kodak.

I think that such happen not so soon. It just impossible. Cameras and phones do not stand still technology is constantly evolving and moving forward. Today we have various adaptations for phones and cameras such for example as selfie sticks gimbals glidecams. I think that gimbal technology improved the quality of shooting so that they still long will in trend, more about gimbals here https://gimbalgarage.com/best-gimbals-for-mirrorless-cameras/. I am sure we have an interesting technological future ahead of us. At least I want to believe.