Hungover From Film?

[IanGibson]

I've been using SLRs since the 70s and was a fairly late digital convert, but I've noticed that my shooting workflow hasn't really changed all that much at all.

 

I treat SD cards as if they were film.  When they are full, I put them away and start a fresh one.  I don't believe I have ever re-used a memory card.

 

Back in my film days, I was always concious that each exposure cost money, (I suppose that, given the above, it still does cost some money, just not very much). So I never got into the habit of using the shutter release like a machine gun; I always preferred the SAS "double-tap" method.  And I still do, even though the cost of each exposure is minuscule.

 

Another hangover for me, is that, until the last few years, I never used a zoom lens, I had only ever owned primes.  I now use a wide angle zoom and a 24-105 lens (35mm equivalent), but I always zoom them to the extreme focal length and move around to frame the image - I never stand in one place and zoom in and out.

 

I'm not suggesting that my way of doing things is right or wrong, or even best practice, but does anyone else do things now in a way that's become a little out of date?

[spacecadet]

You never got to see what was on the film straight away anyway, and I doubt I ever took as many as 50 polaroids, so I don't chimp.

[ReeRay]

My shooting style is definitely "old style".and I'm still shooting film. I use a Leica M240 and a Leica M6. I set the ISO manually, the exposure manually and only have manual focus. You can't get much more retro than that!

[Matt Limb]

Interesting thoughts and points.

 

One I can concur with is the zoom issue; in film days I had just one zoom 80-210 2.8 plus a bag full of primes - and i mean a bag full from 12mm (I think) to 300mm - today I have four zoom that do the same and no primes!

 

What do I miss most?  Trying new film in an old battered body.  Today, I change the body more often than I would have change the brand of film back then, and a body went on ... and ... on ... and ... on!!

[Phil Crean]

For me the biggest hangover is in the digital darkroom!

I find that my processing in Lightroom and Photoshop is strongly influenced by what I used to do under the enlarger.

 

Phil

[Matt Limb]

For me the biggest hangover is in the digital darkroom!

I find that my processing in Lightroom and Photoshop is strongly influenced by what I used to do under the enlarger.

 

Phil

 

Totally agree - I still regard the file out of the camera as 'the negative' and all others as 'products' of the negative, and LR plus PS as the darkroom environments to generate the products.

 

Fell that way in the very early digital days when everyone was scratching their heads and has served me well

[Colin Woods]

I am suffering the opposite. I just bought an superb Nikon F100 and am shooting Tri-X again, just for the fun of it, and I find that I try to chimp way too often. Or think - "too much contrast? easy life- just pull up the shadows a bit in PS". My negs look OK though and I do like the smell of D-76.

[Martin P Wilson]

I am suffering the opposite. I just bought an superb Nikon F100 and am shooting Tri-X again, just for the fun of it, and I find that I try to chimp way too often. Or think - "too much contrast? easy life- just pull up the shadows a bit in PS". My negs look OK though and I do like the smell of D-76.

I keep thinking I will do similar with my Canon T-90 but I would probably use XP2 as I no longer have a darkroom or an enlarger. That said I have the tanks so I could process the film.

 

From time to time I think about rebuilding a darkroom but then common sense prevails. I know it would not be justified as I would not make enough use of it. I wasn't keen on the darkroom at the best of times...

 

I might use colour neg and a local lab though just for the fun of it.

[ReeRay]

I think the manufacturers are film hungover. The amount of software available to replicate the film look is never ending, and every newly launched digital offering now has film pre-sets as its main selling point.

 

If films dead, it's sure taking its time to lie down!

[Allan Bell]

Yeah! I used to have lots of fun in the darkroom. But we can't go into that here.  

 

Allan

[ReeRay]

 

I am suffering the opposite. I just bought an superb Nikon F100 and am shooting Tri-X again, just for the fun of it, and I find that I try to chimp way too often. Or think - "too much contrast? easy life- just pull up the shadows a bit in PS". My negs look OK though and I do like the smell of D-76.

 

I keep thinking I will do similar with my Canon T-90 but I would probably use XP2 as I no longer have a darkroom or an enlarger. That said I have the tanks so I could process the film.

 

From time to time I think about rebuilding a darkroom but then common sense prevails. I know it would not be justified as I would not make enough use of it. I wasn't keen on the darkroom at the best of times...

 

I might use colour neg and a local lab though just for the fun of it.

The local lab should be able to dev the XP2 as its a chromogenic film and not confined to BW processing. It's also the easiest film to scan IMHO. Couple the above above with its adjustable mid roll ISO and its win win all around.

[John Mitchell]

I'd say that the only real hangover I have from film days is that I still think there is something to be said for waiting for "the decisive moment" rather than firing off dozens of  shots hoping for one good one.

 

Other than that, can't say that I miss film photography much. It was expensive and cumbersome, plus darkrooms were smelly places.

[MDM]

I've been using SLRs since the 70s and was a fairly late digital convert, but I've noticed that my shooting workflow hasn't really changed all that much at all.

 

I treat SD cards as if they were film.  When they are full, I put them away and start a fresh one.  I don't believe I have ever re-used a memory card.

 

Back in my film days, I was always concious that each exposure cost money, (I suppose that, given the above, it still does cost some money, just not very much). So I never got into the habit of using the shutter release like a machine gun; I always preferred the SAS "double-tap" method.  And I still do, even though the cost of each exposure is minuscule.

 

Another hangover for me, is that, until the last few years, I never used a zoom lens, I had only ever owned primes.  I now use a wide angle zoom and a 24-105 lens (35mm equivalent), but I always zoom them to the extreme focal length and move around to frame the image - I never stand in one place and zoom in and out.

 

I'm not suggesting that my way of doing things is right or wrong, or even best practice, but does anyone else do things now in a way that's become a little out of date?

 

Not sure it's a hangover but I love printing my images on a high quality inkjet printer. I was an early adopter of digital in that I had access to an early Nikon slide scanner in the mid-90s and I discovered that it was possible to create a reasonable colour inkjet print on a basic Epson inkjet printer. Compared to real photographic prints, they were poor quality but they got me going in that direction. The prints I made then look pretty awful now - they have not aged well. However, I have generally kept up with the technology (inkjet printers have a limited lifespan which enforces upgrading) and the prosumer inkjet technology has now surpassed chemical printing for the most part with a huge range of papers and excellent, archival inks available.

 

I have to say I'm surprised at Ian using SD cards like film as this is an incredibly expensive way to store images given the cost of SD cards in comparison to hard drives. I suspect that they may not provide very archival storage as they are not designed for this purpose but that is based on speculation and not on any hard fact. An interesting workflow indeed.

 

Overshooting is all too easy in the digital age and I definitely shoot way too much so that It drives me mad sometimes culling my images from a shoot or a trip. But it pays off too sometimes - a slight change in position, light, focus, depth of field, a nuance of expressionand so on can make the difference between a good shot and a great shot or maybe an acceptable shot and nothing at all.

[Ed Rooney]

I shot film for 36 years, the first 12 mostly B&W.

 

I never liked D-76. Shot Tri-X and souped it in Acufine at ASA 1,000. That's not a push. Acufine is a high-energy developer that produced a small, even tight grain, not clumpy like D-76. I still have a lot of my film cameras and lenses, but I have no sentimental attachment to film at all. There was nothing good about traveling with 500 rolls of Kodachrome. 

[Alexandre Fagundes]

I still try to take that one shot right, the diference now is that I check the histogram after shooting and sometimes take the shot again with a better exposure.

I also bracket a lot nowadays to make HDRs if the light contrast is too high on the scene.

And I use much higher ISOs if needed

[Chuck Nacke]

I came late to "high-end" digital.  I worked my way up, the hard way, from 2.1MP $35,000 DSLR

bodies to $1,500 36MP.  My favoiate  DSLR, with good light, is still the old

NIKON / Kodak DCS-460 a $30,000 6MP DSLR, with no screen (LCD).  With modern NIKON D800's

if I can see it I can shoot it.  Not only that, but I can shoot it at 3,200 ISO and get the same quality

that I use to get from PKR at + 2.5 or 640 ISO.  No more +30 Magenta filters.

 

I LOVE modern DSLR's and HATE having to sit at the computer processing digital files, rather be

sitting at a bar drinking martinis and looking at Polaroids.  I have not bought a pack of Polaroid (instant

film) in a decade.

 

The bottom line is that I shoot a lot,  It is easier to deleate an image then it is to create it again.

[John Mitchell]

I shot film for 36 years, the first 12 mostly B&W.

 

I never liked D-76. Shot Tri-X and souped it in Acufine at ASA 1,000. That's not a push. Acufine is a high-energy developer that produced a small, even tight grain, not clumpy like D-76. I still have a lot of my film cameras and lenses, but I have no sentimental attachment to film at all. There was nothing good about traveling with 500 rolls of Kodachrome. 

 

... which reminds me that I have a drawer full of lead-lined film bags. Is it possible to sell those things? They would make good sandwich bags for anyone travelling to radioactive areas.

[spacecadet]

Re the lifetime of SD cards- flash memory does have a finite life if used as intended. The jury is out on what happens if you write to them once and leave them in a drawer, although I certainly couldn't afford to do it- the file management would be a nightmare. It's also unnecessary- I haven't lost a file yet due to a card error.

But the OP is mistaken if he thinks that memory card files are as durable as processed film.

[wiskerke]

 

I shot film for 36 years, the first 12 mostly B&W.

 

I never liked D-76. Shot Tri-X and souped it in Acufine at ASA 1,000. That's not a push. Acufine is a high-energy developer that produced a small, even tight grain, not clumpy like D-76. I still have a lot of my film cameras and lenses, but I have no sentimental attachment to film at all. There was nothing good about traveling with 500 rolls of Kodachrome. 

 

... which reminds me that I have a drawer full of lead-lined film bags. Is it possible to sell those things? They would make good sandwich bags for anyone travelling to radioactive areas.

 

 

Maybe we can make hats out of them and sell as vastly improved tin foil?

 

The only film camera that has seen some action after moving to digital, has been the Sinar. And even that has been a couple of years.

Digital is simply a better hammer for me.

 

wim

[Allan Bell]

 

I shot film for 36 years, the first 12 mostly B&W.

 

I never liked D-76. Shot Tri-X and souped it in Acufine at ASA 1,000. That's not a push. Acufine is a high-energy developer that produced a small, even tight grain, not clumpy like D-76. I still have a lot of my film cameras and lenses, but I have no sentimental attachment to film at all. There was nothing good about traveling with 500 rolls of Kodachrome. 

 

... which reminds me that I have a drawer full of lead-lined film bags. Is it possible to sell those things? They would make good sandwich bags for anyone travelling to radioactive areas.

 

 

 

Credit card wallets?

 

Allan

[Michael Ventura]

I have to say that after shooting film for thirty years and then transitioned to digital in early 2005, I have not really looked back. Not one of my clients wanted film at that point and would not pay for film and processing. I wasn't exactly thrilled with my first DSLR, a Fuji body that used Nikon lenses. Once I bought my first Nikon D700, I felt like I could do a lot more than I ever could on film. I am much more productive and the workflow is more streamlined! So no film hangover here.

[Ed Rooney]

Those lead-lined bags caused me more problems than they solved. I wonder if they'll accommodate a Glock G43?

[John Mitchell]

Those lead-lined bags caused me more problems than they solved. I wonder if they'll accommodate a Glock G43?

 

A rhetorical question, I trust.

 

Lead bags caused me problems as well when going through airport x-ray machines, where they showed up on the screen as ominous-looking blobs. Sure wouldn't want to have to pack them in my carry-on bag these days.

[Alex Ramsay]

At least half my editorial work is still shot on medium format transparency. And I still like rollfilm FP4 (now FP4 Plus) in ID-11

 

Alex

[IanGibson]

You never got to see what was on the film straight away anyway, and I doubt I ever took as many as 50 polaroids, so I don't chimp.

There's nothing quite like that slight trepidation when you finally get to see what you shot hours or days after you pressed the shutter. I'm using a camera with an EVF so I get a brief glimpse of the shot in the viewfinder after releasing the shutter. I guess it's reassuring, but it's disconcerting at first to see a still image in the viewfinder when you know your moving the camera. I think I once looked over the top of the camera to make sure the world hadn't stopped.