I started photography around1959 with a camera which took photos 1 inch square. Then instalation, kodak. Quickly onto slr. I miss the excitement of waiting for the films to be processed, and would love to go back to 35 film cameras. I'd even go back to cameras which needed no batteries, so that would rule out automatic focus. Anyone else think like this.
I hate digital
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My last film cameras were F series Nikons (F2As, F2SB and F3) and I had my own complete darkroom for developing and printing everything including transparencies. The range of films and the necessary kit and consumables was vast, but it's very limited today.
I now have Leica digital cameras, which are very good, but when I look through my film prints, contacts and slides, they all seem better than today's work. Perhaps that's because of the discipline needed to take good photos, the effort to process them, and the inability to shoot hundreds of cost-free photos.
A big problem with vintage cameras, now not very expensive secondhand, is getting hold of batteries for onboard exposure metering. Then it's back to handheld meters.
I now have Leica digital cameras, which are very good, but when I look through my film prints, contacts and slides, they all seem better than today's work. Perhaps that's because of the discipline needed to take good photos, the effort to process them, and the inability to shoot hundreds of cost-free photos.
A big problem with vintage cameras, now not very expensive secondhand, is getting hold of batteries for onboard exposure metering. Then it's back to handheld meters.
I have an old (ish) digital lumix gf5. Micro Four Thirds.
I'm not anywhere near a decent photographer. But I have to say I like the fact that I can view and edit my pictures on the fly. If you have a half decent phone and an OTG adapter you can move you pictures to your phone edit them in raw via light room or some other editing software and put them on social media (if you wish) .
If I went back to 35mm film. I think I would waste far too many exposures trying to get the focus or lighting right.
Here are a few of my recent pictures....
I'm not anywhere near a decent photographer. But I have to say I like the fact that I can view and edit my pictures on the fly. If you have a half decent phone and an OTG adapter you can move you pictures to your phone edit them in raw via light room or some other editing software and put them on social media (if you wish) .
If I went back to 35mm film. I think I would waste far too many exposures trying to get the focus or lighting right.
Here are a few of my recent pictures....
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Do you really hate digital?
If you're missing the excitement of the wait, you could always set your camera on full manual, disable photo preview, use manual focus and shoot raw and make a computer your darkroom. Then if you needed them, you could have them back in a minute.
Might be close enough to make it fun for you.
+1
It all depends why you hate digital. Most digital cameras can really challenge your technical knowledge as a photographer in full manual mode.
The single and only way you can get better as a photographer is by taking more pictures. And digital has helped a lot with that from a cost point of view. Last month when I developed a roll I was unpleasantly surprised to see how much it now costs. (last time i did that was 10 years ago).
I'll only use film occasionally.
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I did exactly what Slapo said. Bought a little Fujifilm X10 because it looks like an old rangefinder, has an optical viewfinder, has full manual control, shoots RAW and has respectable Fujinon glass. You can use LR or Photoshop to 'develop' the RAW which also allows you to fix wrong exposure. But it also will shoot JPG in full auto if capturing the moment is more relevant than setting up the shot. The X10 is a great camera that fits in the pocket. It's discontinued now but I'm sure there must be a similar model in the current offering.
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I think that small cameras like the X10 that "punch above their weight" are succumbing to the phone onslaught. I had an X30, now with my son, and then an X70. That camera was discontinued very soon after it arrived, perhaps because it had everything bar an EVF that its big brothers offered.
Where I jib a bit with digital is the post-processing aspect. It was always possible to "improve" film images, but not to the "silk purse, sow's ear" extent now available. Creative photography begins with the making of the image and all that involves, and not its subsequent manipulation with computer software. Nothing wrong with snaps, and never was, but using someone else's algorithms to make them something different detracts.
Fifty-five years ago I was an art school student on the Dip.AD painting course, which included a photography element, using Pentax Spotmatics and Rollei cameras. I then worked in advertising with major agencies, where I was fortunate to run into photographers such as Cotier, Argent, Donovan and others on the 70's scene. I had a lot of influences, mostly good, on how to approach photography, and although the gadgetry is very different, the basic principles are unaltered.
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55 years ago I was in the womb and there wasn't much to take pics of, lighting was terrible and everything would have had a red filter! And now I'm also in advertising but not mixing with top photographers alas.
Indeed, a photographer makes the image not the software, no argument from me there. I'm simply "+1"ing Slapo's suggestion for someone who misses the days of having a wide choice of films and the fun of developing them but balks at the price of it now. I'm certainly not a proponent of the "take a crap snap and fix it in post" school of photography! It's more important to have an eye for composition and spotting great images before they're taken than to have such and such a camera/lens/film/paper whatever. I used to shoot medium format monochrome and develop it myself 35 years ago but now I can't even be bothered to carry the X10 anymore because it means downloading to my laptop and nobody ever seeing the pictures. A phone takes lesser images for sure, but you can take them, edit, share or show/view them all on a thing in your pocket so in that much I totally agree with you.
Indeed, a photographer makes the image not the software, no argument from me there. I'm simply "+1"ing Slapo's suggestion for someone who misses the days of having a wide choice of films and the fun of developing them but balks at the price of it now. I'm certainly not a proponent of the "take a crap snap and fix it in post" school of photography! It's more important to have an eye for composition and spotting great images before they're taken than to have such and such a camera/lens/film/paper whatever. I used to shoot medium format monochrome and develop it myself 35 years ago but now I can't even be bothered to carry the X10 anymore because it means downloading to my laptop and nobody ever seeing the pictures. A phone takes lesser images for sure, but you can take them, edit, share or show/view them all on a thing in your pocket so in that much I totally agree with you.
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I don't think there's anything we disagree about here, and I'm +1 on the cost and limitations of film today. On that, we had some heady times at the end of the 70's and into the 80's, when a certain Nelson Bunker Hunt had cornered the silver market, thus incidentally increasing the cost of film.
I count myself lucky to have been in the advertising industry in those times, when agencies were built on their own merits and what they did. The photo shoots were great fun, people were really up for doing the work, however humble it might have seemed, and I was able, in those days, to get someone like Pete Arthy, who worked on "Yellow Submarine", to make me an animated cinema commercial for an Italian restaurant in St. Martin's Lane. That changed with the Sacchis, and their eminence grise, Ron Rimmer, when takeovers, rather than winning clients, were the thing to do, to build the business. I worked in several big agencies, some now gone and the rest all changed, before I went to "The City", and in all those years, not once did I leave the same agency I'd joined; merged, demerged, taken over, whatever.
I have a very old phone, and its main uses are for 2FA and taking "before and after" pictures of things I'm taking apart or trying to put together again. On a good day, I can almost make out what they show. The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth camera to computer applications almost always fall short in some regard (won't transfer RAW files, for example). Every so often, I stick the SD card in and upload, followed by a brutal cull.
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I spent my formative years working in the film finishing industry, prior to moving into IT. I devoted a lot of time to film photography in the late 70's and 80's and i have to disagree a little with some of the points about the "simplicity / purity" of film.
I say this because i knew back then many keen photographers who would spend an age using filters to get the desired effect (including yellow, green, red and UV filters for B&W). They would also spend a lot of time at the print stage (or we would) dodging and burning to get the desired output.
For that reason, my personal opinion, FWIW, is that we are in a golden age of photography or which phone cameras are one small miraculous part.
I sold all my SLR and DSLR gear some years back and just use my phone and a Sony RX-100 these days .
I think photoshop and lightroom are so much easier to use and give better results at the end. HDR gives much better results that the limited contrast range of film. The only thing missing, for me, is the ability to properly reproduce the Kodachrome colour pallete digitally to give that lovely punchy retro look - i havnt ever seen digital match it properley
Film photography is lovely and tactile as an experience, as are vinyl records, but there is no going back for me !!
Have to say i am a bit biased tho, as i spend too many years fiddling with parallel shift and tilt base enlargers trying to fix things and the ever present checking for that whiff of ammonia which meant the dev tanks had become tainted with fix and needed emptying and cleaning .....
All the above is just my thoughts - its neither right nor wrong
I say this because i knew back then many keen photographers who would spend an age using filters to get the desired effect (including yellow, green, red and UV filters for B&W). They would also spend a lot of time at the print stage (or we would) dodging and burning to get the desired output.
For that reason, my personal opinion, FWIW, is that we are in a golden age of photography or which phone cameras are one small miraculous part.
I sold all my SLR and DSLR gear some years back and just use my phone and a Sony RX-100 these days .
I think photoshop and lightroom are so much easier to use and give better results at the end. HDR gives much better results that the limited contrast range of film. The only thing missing, for me, is the ability to properly reproduce the Kodachrome colour pallete digitally to give that lovely punchy retro look - i havnt ever seen digital match it properley
Film photography is lovely and tactile as an experience, as are vinyl records, but there is no going back for me !!
Have to say i am a bit biased tho, as i spend too many years fiddling with parallel shift and tilt base enlargers trying to fix things and the ever present checking for that whiff of ammonia which meant the dev tanks had become tainted with fix and needed emptying and cleaning .....
All the above is just my thoughts - its neither right nor wrong
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An interesting thread - with some very good points made - I tend to fall into the 'we've never had it so good' as photographers category. We can mix and match old tech or new. I've returned to 'the tools' after a two and a bit year hiatus. I'm doing editorial stuff for a magazine - print first use, then online - 90% portraits and couldn't face dragging a huge bag of Nikon DSLR's around any more - I don't need to - I'm not a press snapper now. My way forward is the above - a Sony full-frame mirror-less body that will take pretty much any bayonet lens mount you care to mention via an adapter. I can use all my rangefinder glass with dig. for the first time! The results are sparkling - they have the 'leica' otherworldly quality - they pop from the printed page in a way that no modern zoom glass is going to - no matter the price. I can also now recover my Zuiko and Nikon manual focus primes - the adapters are cheap - there's some classic lenses in the collection. Granted I do have the modern professional 70 - 200 as well for the Sony - rangefinder lenses mostly stop at 70mm - I need the flexibility. One of the best aspects to the Leica/Sony setup is that you hear the camera's brain screaming as you mount the lens - it loses 90% of its input data. Ha ha ha ha. That's me back in charge! Pretty much everything stops working apart from the basics - which is all you need. Back to a light tight box with some nice expensive glass in front of it. Which is all photography has been, and will remain about, in essence. Good times. The best camera is the one you have with you, and use. Cheers - I.
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To be honest, I don’t miss film. I sold my Leica M over a decade ago and have been digital ever since. With some care and thought, even an iPhone can give very good results.
I still like to make pinholes on photo paper with converted tea tins and old boxes. That’s fun to me and easy to process because all that’s needed is a room that can be darkened and a safelight. For developing basic Rodinal can be used or even a selfmade brew from instant coffee.
I still like to make pinholes on photo paper with converted tea tins and old boxes. That’s fun to me and easy to process because all that’s needed is a room that can be darkened and a safelight. For developing basic Rodinal can be used or even a selfmade brew from instant coffee.
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You make an interesting point about filters. In my film days, I was, for a while, seduced by filters, and had a number of Wratten and Cokin filters, mainly for use in landscape photography. They were useful, but an extra thing to lug around and think about, and eventually I decided that the right speed film, plus A and S settings, were sufficient for my own needs. I think most of what they do can now be achieved in PP, but I'm still wedded to the idea that I want to achieve a particular result in-camera and with the minimum of tinkering thereafter. Nowadays, it's mostly denoising, sharpening and sorting out the vignetting that always happens if I use an APS-C lens on a FF camera, which is a new challenge for me, as I never had a format mix before.I spent my formative years working in the film finishing industry, prior to moving into IT. I devoted a lot of time to film photography in the late 70's and 80's and i have to disagree a little with some of the points about the "simplicity / purity" of film.
I say this because i knew back then many keen photographers who would spend an age using filters to get the desired effect (including yellow, green, red and UV filters for B&W). They would also spend a lot of time at the print stage (or we would) dodging and burning to get the desired output.
For that reason, my personal opinion, FWIW, is that we are in a golden age of photography or which phone cameras are one small miraculous part.
I sold all my SLR and DSLR gear some years back and just use my phone and a Sony RX-100 these days .
I think photoshop and lightroom are so much easier to use and give better results at the end. HDR gives much better results that the limited contrast range of film. The only thing missing, for me, is the ability to properly reproduce the Kodachrome colour pallete digitally to give that lovely punchy retro look - i havnt ever seen digital match it properley
Film photography is lovely and tactile as an experience, as are vinyl records, but there is no going back for me !!
Have to say i am a bit biased tho, as i spend too many years fiddling with parallel shift and tilt base enlargers trying to fix things and the ever present checking for that whiff of ammonia which meant the dev tanks had become tainted with fix and needed emptying and cleaning .....
All the above is just my thoughts - its neither right nor wrong
I use software other than Lightroom and Photoshop, but there does seem a desire to mimic the look of the films of old, and not just Kodak. Apart from the evergreen Nik, the various Fujifilms, Kodaks, Agfa etc. are catered for in LUTs and Fuji cameras make a decent job of emulation in the settings. However, and as you say, the digital renderings mostly do lack something, and the "filters" on some cameras are just OTT.
My bugbears in the film processing era were getting the timers set right for each process stage, and the ferocious heat in the small darkroom, with thick blackout curtains and a feeble extractor fan.
I'm a Luddite when it comes to phones, and if I bother to take one out with me, it's an old Nokia dumbphone. By contrast, I always take a camera, and it's a shame that the Sony Rx1R II is discontinued, as I think that might have been a "better than" replacement for my pocketable Fuji X70, which is also discontinued, and in my case, that's due to being irreparably broken.
Have you tried pinhole on a mirrorless camera? I've been playing with it, but it's a bit complicated to get the settings just so. The upside is that a poor result can be discarded and another attempt made, with the cost being the electricity to recharge batteries.
No, I’ve never tried pinhole photography with a digital camera. I think the main problem is battery life and the fact that any sensor dust will show up on the files.
In the past I did use old camers with m42 threads that require no batteries to operate. Think old Soviet Zenit cameras. They worked great with a body cap converted to a pinhole. Because no batteries were required, I was able to put them in ‘B’ mode for as long as I wanted. I even shot pinholes handheld. I got very ‘dreamy’ results on b/w film. Great fun!
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I still have my dad’s old Zenit-E with original lens. Made in 1978. Still works great.
The clever thing about them is that they basically copied the Leica rangefinder curtain shutter and put it in a camera with another copied idea, the pentaprism.
They’re not refined like a Leica, but just keep on going. A bit like Lada’s that still worked at -40 somewhere in Siberia.