I miss film, but...

[mr chris]

Having moved from 35mm to medium format and finally to digital (purely a timesaving exercise - sorting a shoot out no longer takes me several days of scanning and cleaning), I'm finding that digital photography seems a bit... lifeless.

 

I miss choosing a film from the 30 or so rolls I'd have at any one time and knowing exactly how it might affect the scene I'd be shooting. Still, I've found the next best thing!

 

Dx0 filmpack. I got my copy free with a subscription to the British Journal of Photography, but for £60 it's not a bad deal, to be honest. Especially if you're a social photographer (the black and white simulation is fantastic).

[jezzyjj]

Digital needs developing, just like one did with B+W to get the best out of it, it's only 'lifeless' as it's not developed. DxO filmpack effectively develops digital images to replicate film looks. I have various actions I've written in PS to simulate film or to do things not quite like film too.

I do not miss scanning in film, an awful + tedious process.

[*_ash_*]

 

I miss choosing a film from the 30 or so rolls I'd have at any one time and knowing exactly how it might affect the scene I'd be shooting

 

When I studied photography at college, this was one of the main things. I had my Nikon 401 (or was it 601, forgotten now). And loads of different films, colour (4 or 5 ISO's), b+w (more) and trans.

 

I'd forgotten that until you mentioned it. Now, I snap away, and just change things on the pute.

 

(it's just too much easier than spending time now)

 

Just checking that site out now.

[Phanerothyme]

I miss the resolution and dynamic range of film, but digital is slowly catching up. But 50 megapixel 32-bit images are going to need some serious storage space, and something a leetle faster than firewire or usb2 to move them about in.

 

In terms of space and energy requirements, I think film is still a more efficient form of image storage than digital. It isn't half as convenient though, and that is clearly where digi wins through. Like music, people aren't too fussed about the quality, provided there is near instant gratification/

[jezzyjj]

Actually I think we forget how poor quality film was at times.

I was just looking at a scan of a 35mm neg and the quality compared to my 5D is pretty awful.

That's the 5D at 1600 ISO compared to 1250 ISO [i think] with the film.

'Better' quality does not mean better images though.

 

Part of the reason people perceive film to be better quality is they rarely, if ever saw big enlargments from 35mm. Even if you don't print posters, you can easily look at your image at 1:1 on screen and see the pixels in all their fine detail with digital and realise it's not so nice close up.

 

 

Digital - near instant gratification, I wish. Finding specific images in terrabytes of data is a real challenge, unless you've spent many weeks of effort labelling and indexing your images.

And browsing through them all is painful at times. Effing useless Adobe software!!

[jezzyjj]

But 50 megapixel 32-bit images are going to need some serious storage space, and something a leetle faster than firewire or usb2 to move them about in.

My 35mm neg/slide scans come in at 122Meg and then with layers can easily get up to 750Meg. So digital has a bit to go yet.

USB3 [not here yet] and Firewire 800 are faster.