Anyone use film still?

Cornell2012 · Sep 15, 2014

Recent leaps in digital cameras (and cell phones, for that matter) have made it much less common to see people carrying around older film cameras.

Anyone on here still dig out the 35mm (or medium- or large- format) camera and get some shots?

Even if you don't actively use film, I'd be curious to see some of you post scans of your analog photos. The last couple "show us your pictures" threads have had some excellent shots from the HT crowd and I'm hoping this forces some of you to dig up some older memories.

MT_elk · Sep 15, 2014

Sorry, all digital for me.

smarandr · Sep 15, 2014

I know a professional who swears film stock is better than digital (I'm sure this is debatable), but for an amateur like myself, I can't think of a single reason you wouldn't use digital.

starvingoutdoorsman · Sep 15, 2014

I have 2 film cameras. Started using them and they got a digital before I could even get anything developed. Its getting harder and harder to find a place to do it in town anymore.

HighDesertSage · Sep 15, 2014

What is film?

Wyatt G · Sep 15, 2014

What is this film device you speak of....all digital for me

jryoung · Sep 15, 2014

I use to shoot a lot with my 35mm, I spent a lot of money shooting high grade slides and processing, and honestly miss the sensitivities because when you nail a picture, you really nail it. Some of these are okay, between the scanning of the slides and the upload to photobucket the integrity gets lost.

Cornell2012 · Sep 17, 2014

jryoung said:
I use to shoot a lot with my 35mm, I spent a lot of money shooting high grade slides and processing, and honestly miss the sensitivities because when you nail a picture, you really nail it. Some of these are okay, between the scanning of the slides and the upload to photobucket the integrity gets lost.

Some of these are much better than okay. I especially like the canyon bottom and the snowy pictures. I have a Canon 35mm body that takes the same lenses as my DSLR and I just received some (nice-ish?) film in the mail. There is a fair amount of hype over it online, so I hope I can do my part to get some decent shots.

I'm excited about actually playing with film again. For me it is very much a different mindset from digital as I often play the "do a test shot, look at it, fix settings, try again, repeat as many times as necessary" game, and you can't really do that with film.

I shot one roll of expired Kodak college-bookstore-special back in 2011. The pictures weren't great and the scans butchered them even further. Not sure what went wrong as the prints turned out decent.

Anyhow, here is one that I'm not completely ashamed of. Taken from a park on the outskirts of Bozeman.

jryoung · Sep 17, 2014

I had to jump over to B&H Photo to see what was still available. Holy crap it's been a while, but most of what I shot is still available Fujichrome Velvia 50, Provia 100F....I use to shoot some Kodak products too but it doesn't look like they are still around.

I can remember the excitement and anticipation when I would drop off rolls to be developed. Then you'd get them and look at them on the light tray, but still you didn't get to really see how good they were. It was such a long process, a lot of fun though, and the patience required was a huge part of it.

jryoung · Sep 17, 2014

There were a lot of painful moments too, like when I moved from Seattle to Connecticut and 6 rolls of film between Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Zion, Bryce Canyon and Arches were ALL under exposed and look like total poop.

Come to think of it, that was my last major effort with my camera (2001), digital soon started hitting market and I no longer could really afford to shoot a lot since I was paying for my own education at that point.

Corax · Sep 17, 2014

Tremendous pictures. Thanks.

Cornell2012 · Sep 17, 2014

jryoung said:
I had to jump over to B&H Photo to see what was still available. Holy crap it's been a while, but most of what I shot is still available Fujichrome Velvia 50, Provia 100F....I use to shoot some Kodak products too but it doesn't look like they are still around.

I can remember the excitement and anticipation when I would drop off rolls to be developed. Then you'd get them and look at them on the light tray, but still you didn't get to really see how good they were. It was such a long process, a lot of fun though, and the patience required was a huge part of it.

I guess I need to relearn patience. Digital has spoiled me.

How difficult is really to work with slide film? I'm jealous of how nice the pictures from slide look, but I have heard it is very unforgiving exposure-wise and I am pretty sure I would need to send it to a lab somewhere to be developed. I'm giving the Kodak Ektar 100 a try. It is supposed to have some slide-like qualities with the forgiveness and convenience of negative film.

jryoung · Sep 17, 2014

I don't think it is too terrible, you get use to it, especially if your camera has a decent built in metering system and programmable ISO to whatever film you are using. You have to compensate if you are running a polarizer or similar.

Some of the biggest challenges are making sure you take several shots adjusting the exposure, and more importantly remembering what you did. So often I wouldn't take notes and had no idea what I did for exposure so I could develop a more intuitive eye as to what exposure would be best.

I have no idea who does E-6 processing anymore. So many local camera chain shops (Ritz, Kitz, Wolfe) are all gone. When I was in Seattle we had a professional processor downtown (Ivey Seright) and they did E6 in an hour....it was awesome. My guess now, it it is likely you may have to send it out (personally) or a local shop will send it out for you.

jryoung · Sep 17, 2014

A few more

Here's what will drive you nucking futs about film/slides....you travel thousands of miles to a destination, and finally develop pictures when you are thousands of miles away only to find them brutally underexposed. Not to mention getting up at the butt crack of dawn to catch the sunrise. FAIL.

2rocky · Sep 18, 2014

My Daughter is taking a photography class in High School, and they are using film. I think it will be really good for her to experience what you are talking about.

They have a darkroom at the school and will be developing their own black and white pictures.

jryoung · Sep 18, 2014

I loved being in the darkroom, I took a class in middle school and another in college where we had a darkroom available to us. I loved learning about so many different techniques to enhance your photos in development. Holding highlights from overexposure, providing additional exposure to bring out the underexposed spots.

Same thing with the shooting part though, you really had to test what you were doing to get the best results. Certainly, not instant gratification like digital, but you had to be more "in tune" with what you were doing at all levels of the process.

Ben Lamb · Sep 18, 2014

I started out in High School with a Pentax K1000. Like JR says, it makes you hone your photographic skill set both with the camera and in the dark room. I sold off my last good SLR (Nikon F4) a few years ago and am down to a Nikon D5200 & my iphone.

I've been moving far away from presets on the D5200 and shooting like I would with film. I suppose if I had a dark room and a ton of money I'd still shoot 35MM, but since it's much more cost effective, I'm just shooting digital.

Cornell2012 · Sep 18, 2014

I've always wanted to take a real class and I have not yet been able to. Same with trying to develop my own film. Someday perhaps I can fix that.

The experimentation that digital enables is the only reason I am not just outright terrible at photography. I probably won't ever give up digital for that reason, but the mechanical sounds and feel of my film camera are just so...satisfying. And let's be honest here - it is very unlikely I will ever move beyond doing all of this just for the enjoyment of it. There are times it is worth a few dollars for film and processing just for the change of pace.

Cornell2012 · Sep 26, 2014

Well I just got my first roll of film developed and I think there is something wrong. I was hoping some of you guys could point me in the right direction. I'm really hoping that they messed up when they printed and it isn't something systematically wrong with my camera or that roll of film.

There is this blurry line about 1/3 or so of the way from the bottom of each picture. On every. Single. Picture. Doesn't look like something that would really happen optically but could you give me some thoughts please? Attached is one of the more obvious ones, alone with a close-up of the issue and also one of the ones I like best from the roll.

I can get some reprints from film tomorrow (from a different place) and see if they exhibit the same thing. Is there anything that could be wrong internally with my film camera to cause this? I still don't know enough about film to figure it out on my own.

Thanks all!

kansasdad · Sep 26, 2014

If that was a dental X-ray I would say it was the processing machine rollers squishing the emulsion on the film backing. Does the anomaly stay the same orientation when a vertical image is exposed? If it does then it is film or camera/lens and not the processing.

Anyone use film still?

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