Comments on: The Death of Film

By: dbram

dbram — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:46:31 +0000

Please don’t forget that Kodak is not the only film maker. There is still Fuji and Ilford, both of whom are very invested and dedicated to film users. Hell, Fuji is toying with the idea of a medium format rangefinder.

I am lucky enough to have my own darkroom. I shoot only black and white. If I did not have my darkroom, I would shoot film and then scan and print digitally. But digital black and white still has some work to do to catch up with the darkroom.

But I too ponder the digital side of things. I get real excited about it, I want to get some new gear and start working this way, and then I see the price tag. Remember when you bought a Canon AE-1 and used it for 15 years? Can you do that with a 1ds Mark II ?

I doubt it.

By: mike

mike — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:03:20 +0000

Eggleston – color
Evans – b&w
Annie – film

Film or digital. They each have a place.

For commercial or news purposes, digital is king. It is the most versatile media in terms of light gathering ability and workflow speed. The quality is there, especially with medium format backs.

However, when it comes to producing personal work, film still rules. When I have tried to shoot digital for myself, I was left feeling empty and the images seemed generic and lifeless. When I shoot film there is a feeling of being grounded. It’’s expensive and I tend to be way more choosy as to when I trip the shutter. I

t’s the difference between reading a book and a pdf or word document. A book is tactile and real, you can see it and feel it in your hand, like film it is tangible in a way that a digital file is not. For me, the look of film is what a photograph is supposed to have; grain, details in shadows and highlights, and dimensionality.

That being said, a scanner to convert the film is a far more efficient way to produce images than any darkroom, even b&w film, for me. If film ever goes away, and I think it might but not soon, I’m sure that I will find a way to cope without it. Hey, some horse and buggy types were sure that the automobile would never catch on. Humans are an adaptable bunch, we’ll get over it.

By: softfreak

softfreak — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:16:41 +0000

I wouldn`t get too pessimistic about film.
as you have written, digital sensors are far
(maybe a decade?) away from delivering results
you can get even with an old pentax645 on a 100asa;
forget digital b/w, looks ugly to me…

at the time when I started photography 3 jears ago,
it was clear to me that I wanted to have the
opportunity to choose from different cams.

btw. fuji is not polaroid :
they put up http://choose-film.com/
to promote the analogue way of living, bringing
new films to the market….

my digital stuff http://www.robertalexander.ch

By: leeclack

leeclack — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:23:29 +0000

These debates will just run onto new technology as it appears. Digital slr’s replaced film in the photojournalists hands. This will soon be replaced by stills taken from hd digital video cameras which is happening as we speak. Both has its place but photography is produced by a chemical reaction to light. Digital is a simulation of this not actually photography. Some people will disagree with that statement but technology is advancing so fast there is already the means to do away with aperture and shutter speeds on cameras so will it still be photography when this aspect of the taking is gone.

By: christian harkness

christian harkness — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:09:30 +0000

This is an interesting point with which most of us are wrestling, I think. After working with film for decades, I honestly don’t know. By that I mean I don’t quite know which way to go in my own photography. The main point, which I think is often overlooked, is not whether film survives, but how our vision of what an image is, is being changed by digital. Since digital is a construct, one that up to this point, has been trying to mimic film and paper, I am curious to see what happens as the collective memory of film, prints, and slides fades, and people will no longer insist, for example, that their digital black&white print look like an “Ansel Adams, or their color one like an Eggleston. I really do think that it behooves us to think of this whole issue as a philosophical and not technical one.