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The Future of Film Photography
I have recently changed career and now work in the photographic industry in London. I am also studying for a foundation degree in photography and the title of my extended study essay is "What is the future of film photography in the 21st century digital age?" Personally I am in the film camp, and I am about to indulge myself into the world of large format (I also use a Nikon FE, Hasselblad XPan and Mamiya 7). I am therefore canvassing opinion on the following questions:
1. Is image quality really better with digital photography?
2. Has film technology been curtailed too hastily, and are there technologies in emulsions and chemistry that we could be yet to benefit from?
3. What are the real benefits of film? Are we 'film enthusiasts" simply photographers who refuse to be swept along on the wave of digital technology, wallowing in nostalgia and traditionalism, or are there real qualities to film that digital photography simply cannot replace?
4. What is the driving force behind the digital market? Is it that camera manufacturers are simply exploiting the modern consumerist culture of today, or is there a real and tangible benefit in 24mp cameras and hugely expensive zooms etc...
5. Will film photography have a role over the next 30 years, and where will film photography fit into the digital revolution?
Any responses and thoughts to this will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
If I use digital cameras I start to miss the movements of a LF camera (ooh yes, there's photoshop but it's not the same). I and many other photographers cannot afford a digital back for our LF cameras. On an esthetic level I personally prefer the look and feel of film and fibre based photographic papers.
There is also the storage issue. My negatives will also outlast any digital file of my images. I have a CD that is seven years old and won't open.
There are also many photographers who take the hybrid approach. Capture on film, and then scan in the negative and print out on inkjet... or make digital negatives for alternative processes, like I'm trying to teach myself.
There will still be film in the next thirty years. The niche may be smaller but it'll still be there. If it does go away tomorrow, I'll start coating glass plates like some people do here and over at the apug site.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Hopefully Kirk Gittings will give us his perspective. Kirk is a professional working primarily with digital while maintaining a high degree of large format talent.
For me, I like the idea of producing something tangible with my own hands and brain. I also own several lenses with a unique signature that are either impossible or very expensive to use in front of a digital sensor. For the moment I must print my negatives with an inkjet printer. I do aspire to a real darkroom when time and space permit.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
GPS
Yaawn..!
The difinitive response. ;) :D :cool:
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
I'm not sure if your question is inadvertently phrased incorrectly, but image quality is not currently better with digital. There are some digital film backs which rival 4x5 film, but aren't demonstrably better, and there isn't one that is acknowledged as good as anything larger than 4x5.
It's virtually unchallenged that digital can rival anything analogue technically, so there will come a time when image quality will be better than film, however economics may come into play more than technology. To rival my Crown Graphic (which cost $500), one would have to spend something on the order of $30,000 in digital equipment. It'd be nicer, but there's no way I'm spending that kind of money. So ultimately it becomes an economic argument, not a technical one. In the short term, film has a place because it is superior quality for a far smaller price. In the longer term, film can only survive if it has critical mass, which may continue to be true for a while if there isn't sufficient demand to push electronics down the price curve.
Understand - there is NO inherent advantage in film that cannot be overcome digitally. People will argue that film has a different look, or different quality; if those qualities are in sufficient demand, they can be created digitally. Again, the question is more one of economics than technical.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
If you are considering a career in photography, then I think your first step is to define what it is that you want to do with photography. If the answer is sports or photojournalism, then your typical ultra short deadlines will dictate your equipment. If you want to get into the wedding and portrait realm, then you need to factor cost and delivery choices. It really is more about running a business, and many factors are beyond a simple comparison.
I do commercial photography in the corporate and advertising realm. Projects can take up vastly more time in meetings than they do on location actually using camera gear. There is an aspect of planning and control that I enjoy in this realm. The choices I have made have been partially technical, partially ergonomic, and always with an eye on profit potential. Sometimes that means renting gear, though obviously a good core package of equipment makes life much simpler and easier.
Notice that I have not mentioned specific gear yet, because the business factors are really the things you need to consider first. If you don't get into a business mindset about everything you use, and your work practices, then you will have a rough, and potentially short career. So keep that in mind when you consider options.
To me the perfect camera is one that does not get in my way. It should function in a way that is ergonomic, and become an extension of my vision. Obviously that could be more than one particular camera, depending upon the creative solution presented to me and the challenges of a location. Sometimes that means a particular film camera, though then delivery to the client means scanning, because no clients I work with accept film, nor would I want to hand over film. Once you scan, the rest is digital, and you can do whatever you want to your film scans in Photoshop.
Anyway, to answer your questions:
1. It depends upon the perception and taste of the viewer;
2. Kodak Ektar 100 and Fuji 400X are examples of new film technology, though the more advanced technology ends up in motion picture films. To be fair, most ISO 100 films are really quite good, and would be a typical choice for commercial photography;
3. Each film choice offers a different colour palette. Yes, you could mimic that in Photoshop, but then you spend more time at the computer (and that might be tough to bill out to your clients). Those who shoot B/W films can achieve a realm of shades and develop an interpretation of a scene without spending lots of time in post processing on a computer. In a way, it is about spending more time behind the camera than in front of the computer. The other reason is that it is a creative choice to use film, because one wants the "look" of film;
4. Manufacturers want to sell newer gear to continue profits. Giving the perception to consumers that photography is "easier" than ever before, and each new camera is "better" than the last, they can create a cycle of buying. Also, if you mean the D3X, it is quite good, though definitely not a consumer camera, though I still don't like the command dials for settings;
5. I think the fact that one can get platinum, cyanotype, palladium, and other alternative materials from the dawn of photography, indicates that there will be some enthusiasts willing to use whatever is available. Much like those who want to oil paint can still find paint and brushes, those who want to use film based photography should always have some choices. I glance at the stock market, and the fact that both Fuji and Kodak have bonds due in 30 or more years, indicates that the management of both companies expects to be around then, though obviously what films they make, if any, is not something that can be answered now.
Just a side note on this: I have over 15 years experience with Photoshop, yet in the commercial realm I choose to streamline and minimize the time I spend in front of a computer. Just like my scanners, Photoshop is a tool needed to make deliveries of image files. Your greatest limit will be your imagination, not your tools.
Ciao!
Gordon Moat Photography
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
When they make a digital 8x10 at under $1000, I will switch immediately.
Until then, nothing beats 8x10 for color photography. Nothing. So in my opinion, film is still the more powerful technology.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Ian,
Welcome to photography and especially welcome to LF. I will weigh in with my wholehearted agreement to the responses you've gotten to your questions (except, I'm afraid, the 'Yawn'.) I think the topic of your essay remains important and interesting.
I very much appreciate Andrew's reminder that, if push comes to shove, we can always make our own negatives. I can only add an item of possible interest. Handcrafted negatives aren't limited to glass plates. Coating large format film is as easy as coating paper. I'm the first one to hope that high quality commercial film will always be available (and I believe it will), but there is no need to fear that committing your career and gear acquisition to analog will become a dead end.
d
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
I think this link is appropriate: HERE
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Speaking from a committed amateur perspective, the general perception (not shared by everybody) that digital will inevitably gain on film due to improving technology is premised on an assumption that film processing technology has ended. But has it? That assumption could well be overturned if, in addition to new film emulsions, manufacturers came up with much improved small scanners, which is surely not unfeasible technically (maybe financially).
Even with what is available, for modest sized prints, say up to 8x10, the results from a Leica 35mm neg scanned on the old Minolta 5400II producing up to 100MB files and printed on a capable inkjet are superb, and it makes me really happy to know I can keep using my old mechanical film gear with great results, scanned or wet processed! Likewise, 200Mb files from my Pentax 67 negatives are pin sharp to 16x20, the biggest I've printed, and probably beyond. I'm just starting in LF, and I look forward to very satisfactory results going hybrid and scanning on my V750. Just imagine if there was a V1750, or a Nikon 12000? Who knows what will happen? But the 'given' that film is at the end of the line may become untrue.
I have to admit that underlying this post is my innate unease with going wholly digital, and working with cameras which have become computers, and placing my entire photographic estate at the mercy of changing technology. For pros making their living out of it, they have no choice. I do.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
or are there real qualities to film that digital photography simply cannot replace?
Archival storage of images and data cannot be guaranteed by any digital media (yet). If you want to preserve images or data (microfiche) for 200-500 years, then digital will not fill the need.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
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Originally Posted by
theBDT
I think this link is appropriate:
HERE
And the music is superb, really fits the purpose! :D
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
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Originally Posted by
John Jarosz
Archival storage of images and data cannot be guaranteed by any digital media (yet). If you want to preserve images or data (microfiche) for 200-500 years, then digital will not fill the need.
With digital, it is not the media that guarantees data continuity, it is the procedure.
Just like the car does not react to whip...
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
venchka
Hopefully Kirk Gittings will give us his perspective. Kirk is a professional working primarily with digital while maintaining a high degree of large format talent.
Thanks Wayne. I'm afraid film is largely dead for commercial work except for the odd concept piece. Since everyone just wants files the workflow of film no longer makes any sense. This is especially true in towns like mine where there are no longer any E-6/C-41 labs. While the equipment is far more expensive (to me anyway I used cheap ancient view cameras for commercial before digital) the savings in Polaroid alone easily pays for it.
IMHO.......Speaking in pre-recession terms......I am frankly more profitable with digital even with the equipment expenditures, because charges like for film and processing are now digital capture fees and stay in house. Cash flow has improved for that reason too. For quantity commercial imaging, I can turn around a far better product digitally than I could scanning film and 21mp cameras produce a file size that exceeds 98% of my clients needs.
In terms of image quality. I don't shoot digital MF-I can't afford it and it exceeds my clients needs. A good DSLR is all I need for commercial work and an occasional stitched image produces a file that even meets my personal standards for making a fine print. BUT I prefer working from 4x5 for fine prints even though I don't print large. The LF workflow lends itself to serious imaging and with single exposure capture it doesn't have the problems of stitching in the field.
With the advent of the new glossy papers by Harmon etc. digital b&w printing rivals traditional silver. Can't speak for color. I don't do color fine art prints and no commercial clients want prints anymore.
Frankly I think for the most part it is all good right now. I wouldn't consider going back to film for commercial work and have no desire to do my art work digitally. I think we have the best of both worlds at our fingertips. But unfortunately I think film will continue to lose ground in terms of available products and services.
As per archiving? I have lost improtant negatives through flooding. There was no backup for lost or damaged 4x5 film negatives. But I have multiple backups for film scans and digital capture images on site and off. I feel safer than ever before with digital archiving.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Greg Gibbons
Again, the question is more one of economics than technical.
That's the short of it. I might say that it has to do with the intersection of the technical and the economic.
What you can get for how much is constantly changing. What makes sense for you might be different than what makes sense for me. What makes sense tomorrow might be different than what makes sense today.
Working styles are another difference to consider. Fundamentally, digital and analog are names that we give to workflows, not specific technologies. There's personal preference involved ... you might love/hate working in the darkroom, or love/hate working at a computer. And each workflow has a different set of conveniences and inconveniences. A DSLR is faster and more spontaneous to use than a view camera with film. But a view camera with a scanning back, tethered to a computer, might be more cumbersome than both.
You get the idea ... the realities are dependent on the specific technologies you compare, and they're constantly evolving.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
What the pictures look like doesn't count in the long run. Digital picture making can, or soon will be able to, replicate the surface appearance of any medium; film, paint, pencil, whatever.
If you want to look pictures that have the same relationship to subject matter as film based pictures then nothing touched by digital technology is worth looking at.
A film based photograph happens when a physical sample of subject matter travels across space, penetrates the sensitive surface, and occasions picture forming marks where it penetrates. If you want this then don't bother with "digital." But why would you so want?
A film photograph is physically, necessarily, and materially bound to its subject in the same way as a graphite rubbing, a footprint, or a silicone rubber cast. It is a straight line case of a substance direct on substance action. There is no virtual component. If this is what you want then don't bother with digital.
The film photograph is utterly powerless in depicting subjects that do not exist. The film photograph is a certificate for the existence of subject matter. Physical subjects are a necessary prerequisite for the possibility of a film photograph. If you want pictures of unicorns then you have to go digital. Film won't help you.
Successful pictures in film photography require that the subject and the film have to be in each others presence simultaneously and that they have to be directly and physically connected at the same (relativistically adjusted!) moment. An actual film negative of the Eiffel Tower cannot exist without the film itself having made a trip to Paris. If this is what you want then don't bother even looking at digital. Remember, a digital picture of a dinosaur is possible without a trip back to the Jurassic.
Film photographs can do nothing about subjects which may have existed in the past. If you want scenes from ancient Rome or portraits of Jesus then digital can deliver them. But don't presume they are equivalent to film photographs.
The future is similarly a closed book to film photographs. Photographs can only be exposed in the implacable present moment. Try as you might you won't get the Star-ship Enterprise on film, it hasn't been built yet, but digital will deliver you a whole Star Trek movie.
No film photography can go into landscapes of the imagination or into the topography of dreams. Digital does this easily. All one needs is a computer, a few image files, and some nice software for pushing pixels. Remember, hallucinations don't register on film.
Film photography cannot address subject matter which full well exists but is momentarily blocked from sight. If you want pictures of something you missed then digital is your only recourse. Whether anyone would believe such a picture is a moot point. A digital picture offered under oath is a mighty suspicious thing except to the terminally naive. A film photograph requires no oath. It is true to subject although that in itself is no guarantee that the casual observer won't muddle what they see.
The sole source of energy for a film photograph is the subject and the internal chemical potential energy of the photographic materials. External energy sources, electricity for example, are not at all required. My film camera, film, and chemicals would work just as well in Shakespeare's day or the distant future when dark energy has long replaced electricity.
Digital of course delivers "appearances" and that can be entertaining but if you need a refuge from a world where "seeming" is indistinguishable from "being" then film photography is one such refuge.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kirk Gittings
Thanks Wayne. I'm afraid film is largely dead for commercial work except . . .
"Well said!"
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Dear Maris,
Sorry, and I do not mean to be rude, but could you tell me what you just said in twenty-five words, or less... :)
jim k
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maris Rusis
The film photograph is utterly powerless in depicting subjects that do not exist... If you want pictures of unicorns then you have to go digital. Film won't help you.
You can't be serious. What about every movie ever made before 1990 or so? Take for example the attached image of a unicorn from Blade Runner.
Quote:
Try as you might you won't get the Star-ship Enterprise on film, it hasn't been built yet, but digital will deliver you a whole Star Trek movie.
What about all the Star Trek movies made before CGI? What is the difference in the "truth" between a miniature model of the Enterprise shot on 35mm film, and a digital model rendered using CGI? They're equally "true" or "untrue!"
Quote:
No film photography can go into landscapes of the imagination or into the topography of dreams.
Ludicrous!
Every photograph, whether it's captured by a digital sensor or an analog one, is a lie. The camera always lies. Even (especially?) documentary/photojournalist photography, which has pretensions of neutrality, often distorts and misleads, whether intentionally or not.
All photography, whether digital or analog, is the product of someone's imagination or dream. The photographer imagines making the image, and then makes it. It doesn't matter whether it's staged or spontaneous, or whether it takes two years or 5 milliseconds; at some point, the photographer has the idea to make the image, and some time later, the shutter is released.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Dear Ian,
If you are fishing for some answers to your question, you will certainly get a variety of qualified answers from this group, and few expletives thrown in for colour balance... :)
That said, I use a film negative, and although I do not use a digital camera, I marry the analog environment, and the digital environment together through a quality scanner. For the moment, I prefer this marriage. I plan to reestablish a silver fiber based print medium back into my image making process, created from a scanned digital file, whether it is a digital negative assigned to contact printing in the darkroom, or a digital file managed by a digital enlarger. If you have a moment, maybe you could review the following article, written by a great American image maker, since you may require an additional perspective, from a non member too.
The article is located here: http://www.barnbaum.com/Thoughts_-_article.html
I hope you are successful in your schooling...
jim k
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Ian,
If you want to write a legitimate paper on this subject, you might start by taking a hard look at the wording of your questions, because the wording is loaded in favour of film.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ian Williams
1. Is image quality really better with digital photography?
2. Has film technology been curtailed too hastily, and are there technologies in emulsions and chemistry that we could be yet to benefit from?
3. What are the real benefits of film? Are we 'film enthusiasts" simply photographers who refuse to be swept along on the wave of digital technology, wallowing in nostalgia and traditionalism, or are there real qualities to film that digital photography simply cannot replace?
4. What is the driving force behind the digital market? Is it that camera manufacturers are simply exploiting the modern consumerist culture of today, or is there a real and tangible benefit in 24mp cameras and hugely expensive zooms etc...
5. Will film photography have a role over the next 30 years, and where will film photography fit into the digital revolution?
I'll be weird and just answer the questions.
1. Saying that digital is better or worse than film is like saying that acrylic paints are better or worse than oil paints. Many classicists love the look of oils, and insist that oils have something the acrylics don't have, assuming that something is important (which is a rather grand assumption). I doubt many non-painters would be able to tell without a side-by-side comparison at a technical level, which is somewhat outside where the appreciation of art for art's sake might live. Even using oil vs. acrylics is an unfair comparison. I don't know painters who believe acrylics look better even if they still use them for practical reasons. But I do know credible photographers who say, format for format, digital supports larger, more beautiful prints. I don't think I could refute that based on my own work.
But since most photographers are amateurs (as are most painters and musicians), we please ourselves. So, in the 21st century, film will be relevant as long as there are people willing to pay for it and put up with it. Those people will do it to please themselves. I doubt there will be much commercial relevance, if indeed there is much even now.
2. Film technology has followed the market, and is moving from a mass-produced product used by millions of consumers to a niche craftsman product used by thousands of dedicated artisans. The R&D going into film isn't how to make it better, but how to make it in small quantities and still maintain a reasonable cost model (in addition to meeting quality expectations which often required the consistency resulting from large production quantities).
3. The real benefit of film is that it is an affordable path to large formats, and large formats are an affordable path to levels of image quality and (most important!) image control and management beyond what smaller digital solutions can attain.
4. I get annoyed when "consumerism" is described as thought it is some form of dread disease. And I think that comment presents my answer to the question. If people buy the stuff, the manufacturers are doing what their stockholders expect of them. I doubt anyone could persuade me that any compact digital camera is a worse solution than a Kodak Instamatic or Pocket 110. The consumers are really getting much better image-making potential for their money now than they used to.
5. I play music using a hunk of brass, by blowing raspberries into one end. My newest tuba was made in 1991, and my most-played tuba was made in 1970. Any synthesizer is better in tune. But there is some value, I think, in human imperfection when making art. I suspect electronic tuba simulators, which sound fake even to a casual listener, will get better and better to the point where even tuba players might be fooled. But there will still be tubas, because the act of playing it, and the satisfaction that comes from spending decades to become merely mediocre doing so, feed the souls of those who do it.
Here's a non-artistic example: Amateur radio has seen some substantial declines. But even those who work in the IT industry, thinking of ways to move gigabits of data at light speed around the globe, still spend time in their basements trying to log contacts made with others, using only a radio and an antenna and no intervening infrastructure.
There is a thrill in doing difficult things, even if we are purposefully inefficient in doing so. I was once asked why I wasted time playing with old-fashioned radio transmitters, and my response was to ask the person questioning me why he rode a bicycle. He said that the bike provided useful exercise, and the satisfaction of having worked for the accomplishment of arrival. Yup.
Some will define that difficulty in terms of using film, even if they have to coat their own emulsions. Others won't. For those who do, however, then it is still relevant and important. So, film photography will fit into the digital revolution as a niche art for those who would rather do things the old-fashioned way, just because it is more difficult to do so. For them, the challenge of overcoming that difficulty brings personal satisfaction.
Rick "for whom the challenge of digital photography is thinking of ways to make it hard" Denney
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maris Rusis
A film photograph is physically, necessarily, and materially bound to its subject in the same way as a graphite rubbing, a footprint, or a silicone rubber cast. It is a straight line case of a substance direct on substance action. ...
Maris, you're talking about the semiotic nature of photographic materials. This relationship you describe, where the sign is a direct imprint of the thing signified, is called an indexical relationship. I happen to think this type of relationship between subject and image is a fundamental characteristic of photography.
But I disagree with you on most of your points. I don't believe that an image formed on a digital sensor is any less indexical than one formed on an analog one. And I don't think there's anything about a medium's capability of recording straight, indexical images that guarantees straight, indexical results.
In other words, film, while it can record a direct imprint of a real world subject, is not bound to doing so. For 150 years, photographers have been photographing things that don't exist, removing things that exist from photographs, and fundamentally changing the form of things through their photographs. All with film.
Digital media are not different in this regard; they can break the indexical relationship with the subject in all the same ways. They just happen to make it easier to do so.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Marko
With digital, it is not the media that guarantees data continuity, it is the procedure.
Just like the car does not react to whip...
With 20 years working in computers, both technical and consulting, far more examples of media have disappeared from the industry than currently remain. Even many early CD and DVD products cannot now be read in current drives. And now we are embarking on storage on solid state (magnetic) media????? God help us!
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kuzano
With 20 years working in computers, both technical and consulting, far more examples of media have disappeared from the industry than currently remain. Even many early CD and DVD products cannot now be read in current drives. And now we are embarking on storage on solid state (magnetic) media????? God help us!
Well, I have spent about the same amount of time working in publishing of some sort or the other, old fashioned media and electronic alike. A significant part of my job at most of those places was making sure that working data remains safe and accessible at all times. So, yes, I am very well aware of that. Just as I am aware of how many negatives vanished over the last 80 or so years in attics, basements, shoeboxes, cupboards and such. Burned, soaked, molded, scratched, lost or simply discarded.
That's exactly why it is the procedure that matters and not the media itself. Any physical media is short-term temporary storage only and liable to damage of some sort. With digital storage, data loss per se does not matter, it happens all the time. What matters is the loss of the only copy of data.
The point being that no data worth saving should ever exist in a single copy on a single physical medium and in a single physical location. If you don't understand this, you are in the wrong business.
FYI, Solid State Drives are strictly electronic semiconductor devices, they have no moving parts and no magnetically or chemically reactive parts. Magnetic or optical media is NOT solid state.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
1) Is digital better? I think that digital has surpassed 35mm in sharpness and color when coupled with Photoshop. I have a Flickr account, and I look around at other photographers' works. Folks put some astounding imagery on there. Photoshop and Absolute Fractles give the digital shooter some powerful tools. I would put my old Minolta XG-1 and, certainly, my Hasselblad up against any digital camera and win for image quality, but only until the digital image hits the computer and gets a makeover.
Here are some exceptions: 1) a film camera and photoshop are equally horrible in the hands of someone who has no freaking idea what he's doing. 2) Digital still has trouble with black and white. I don't know why, but I find the tones of digital B&W to be harsh. 3) Scanning film gives the film photographer the same tools, with the added benefit of having the analog negative. What digital really gives the photographer that film can't is instant gratification. Polaroid is gone, as far as their professional products are concerned. The instant films may return next year, but we aren't likely to get the high quality films back ever, so digital only will be able to deliver decent quality images in moments.
2) Film technology has certainly been curtailed too hastily, but only because the marketing departments at Kodak and the major camera manufacturers made the choice to abandon film in order to move the comsumer market to digital. The ultimate goal of technology and consumer product companies is to get everyone to replace everything every few years, and the best way to make something obsolete is to make everyone forget about it. (also my answer to question # 4)
3) The real benefit of film, I believe lies in the process. Instant gratification leads to sloppiness. This is why machine guns were invented. Thowing a wall of lead down range allows the amature almost the same chances of hitting the target as the seasoned sniper. With data cards that hold thousands of images, the average photographer can create a whole army of slop, out of which can come a few good images. There is no way even a 35mm shooter can carry a few thousand images worth of film the way a digital shooter can. I liken film photography to a sonnet. The sonnet is a poetic form that focuses the poet's energies by restricting them to their basic essentials. I shoot everything from 35mm to 8x10", and as I move up in size, my shots get more careful, and better planned. Like the sonnet, I am forced to be more thoughtful about the process. The medium influences the art.
5) There will be film in 30 years. Artists will use it. Non-comformists will use it. At least in the USA, just about everyone who is likely to move to digital has already done it. The big question is: will the next generation of artists and non-comformists embrace it. Will today's teens ever realize that it's even out there? I assume that many of them will eventually want a better image than a cell phone can make.
--Gary
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
I shoot with Kodak Portra 160 VC color negative film and print using RA-4 papers. Here are some things to consider:
1. The new Kodak Portra 160 VC color negative film has a dynamic range of 14 stops using standard development. The characteristic curve shallows out a bit at Zone XIII and XIV which means that the contrast is softer, but detail is still recorded at those Zones. In comparison, I think the best digital sensors today are only capable of six stops.
With a 14 stop dynamic range, I do not use GND filters. If I can see it, I can shoot it. With a 14 stop dynamic range my yields in the field are far greater than other media. With a 14 stop dynamic range I do not shrink from bold brilliant light, but rather embrace it. So when a beam of light punches through the clouds and splashes upon the land, I simply expose for the shadows without concern or regard for the highlights, and I am there.
2. Color negative paper produces amazingly rich creamy tones that cannot be matched with injet printers. I print my work on glossy Fuji Crystal Archive papers, and the tonality is like no other media.
3. I print lots of large stuff and for big prints RA-4 is very cheap. It cost me around $7.50 to print a 16x40 print and that includes the price of making test prints and chemistry.
So I have not chosen film and darkroom because of my love for for tradition or complexity, but rather because I realize significant advantages that I cannot achieve with other media. It is my belief that my entire body of work is a statement of failure because it falls far short of what I actually witness and experience. The processes I have employed by far gives me the best approximation of the actual experience.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gary L. Quay
At least in the USA, just about everyone who is likely to move to digital has already done it. The big question is: will the next generation of artists and non-comformists embrace it. Will today's teens ever realize that it's even out there? I assume that many of them will eventually want a better image than a cell phone can make.
--Gary
I read an article the other day on how the art of writing letters has been literally extinguished between email and twitter. Same thing could be said about handwriting in general.
Nobody (in statistical terms) writes by hand any more. Nobody has the time, to begin with and even if we did, email is so much faster, not to mention IM, and computer keeps copies of all the letters you wrote. The few of us who still cherish our fountain pens mainly use them only for nostalgia purposes. Even if I wanted to take the time and write a letter in longhand, on some nice, hand-picked paper, chances are the recipient would not even recognize the gesture, much less appreciate it and would scoff at having to decipher my handwriting.
While a few of us may be worse for the loss of coherent, educated writing, all of us are much better for the tremendous gain in communication tools and abilities and that more than makes up for the loss.
And it's been only about 20 years since email started entering the mainstream.
So to answer your question, and it is a very good one, most of today's teens will never see film for what we see it. If for no other reason, than because they grew up in a different world, with totally different comfort zone. Some of them may eventually discover film, but only as a historical process. Just like most people born after 1980 do not really have a full concept of a vinyl record. Sure, some may even know what it is (was), but the phrase "skipping like a broken record" will never ring the same connotation for them as it does for those of us who grew up with all the crackling, hissing and skipping.
In general, it takes a generation for a new technology to completely replace the old one. Not because technology is slow, it isn't as we all can see, but because it takes a generation for all the dinosaurs to go away and stop resisting. We are now in the latter half of this change.
It's as simple as that. All the theories about big companies conspiring to get people to embrace digital and forget film are just that: conspiracy theories. Which companies exactly are we talking about? Kodak? Polaroid? Fuji? Agfa? Surely there are better and more efficient ways to commit suicide, don't you think? ;)
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Did film photography have a meaningful past?
I am referring to the actual use of film by typical consumers. Their pictures probably haven't lost much in the transition to digital, because they weren't aesthetically significant before; I believe film offers superior possibilities to the sensitive and discerning photographer, but for someone taking snapshots of children in the backyard or the family at Disney World, I don't think the capture medium makes much difference.
In my opinion the truth is that film was once ubiquitous simply because there was no other choice. We shouldn't mislead ourselves into thinking amateur photography (amateur as in practiced by people with only slight interest in the craft, not in the strict sense of the word) was somehow better or more valid before digital cameras became widespread.
That consumers had almost no attachment to film for its aesthetic qualities is clearly shown by their almost immediate flight to digital cameras once they became affordable.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
HUH? film? :confused: what is film?
never heard of it..................
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Marko
Even if I wanted to take the time and write a letter in longhand, on some nice, hand-picked paper, chances are the recipient would not even recognize the gesture, much less appreciate it and would scoff at having to decipher my handwriting.
I've done that a million times. The response is almost always an e-mail message that begins: "Got your letter..."
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
1. Is image quality really better with digital photography?
Images have many qualities. Originating photographically on film is one such quality. Which quality were you asking about?
Quote:
are there real qualities to film that digital photography simply cannot replace?
See above.
Quote:
When they make a digital 8x10 at under $1000, I will switch immediately.
When they make a 75984 gigapixel camera that costs $10 and takes the pictures for you, I still won't care.
Quote:
What the pictures look like doesn't count in the long run. Digital picture making can, or soon will be able to, replicate the surface appearance of any medium; film, paint, pencil, whatever.
Thank you for understanding this. It matters little how close digital imaging can mimic photography. There's nothing it will stop at, whether it's fake film borders, fake grain, gaussian blur to appear like a lens swing, whatever. It doesn't bother me; imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Digital imaging is virtual photography. Saying that it can replace photography "when it gets good enough" is like saying that when music synthesizers get good enough, nobody will 'need to' learn to play guitar. Please, please note that I have no gripe with digital itself. In fact I have great respect for it, and I feel that if anything it comes closer to the classical painted portraits and landscapes, which can be made to the imagination. Digital can look like anything...including photography. The other side of the coin is that the medium itself doesn't actually look like anything.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Currently it takes about 33 minutes for a 384 megapixel LF BetterLight scanning back to download 1.1G of data. On the other hand it takes but a fraction of a second for a sheet of 4x5 film to capture 1.5G.
Which is "better"?
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tgtaylor
Currently it takes about 33 minutes for a 384 megapixel LF BetterLight scanning back to download 1.1G of data. On the other hand it takes but a fraction of a second for a sheet of 4x5 film to capture 1.5G.
Which is "better"?
Your point is mainly valid but, lets compare apples and apples. You would still have to scan the film with a first rate drum scanner to get the best out of the film. Add that to the films capture time if you want to compare apples to apples. And where did you get that number for BL scanning backs download time? As I read it their documentation states capture time at between 100 seconds (1.5 minutes) and 2000 seconds (33 minutes) for a 1.1 GB file. Maybe Jim Collum can chime in to share his actual experience with BL backs.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kirk Gittings
And where did you get that number for BL scanning backs download time? As I read it their documentation states capture time at between 100 seconds (1.5 minutes) and 2000 seconds (33 minutes) for a 1.1 GB file. Maybe Jim Collum can chime in to share his actual experience with BL backs.
Kirk, you're correct.
-Betterlight user-
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kirk Gittings
Your point is mainly valid but, lets compare apples and apples. You would still have to scan the film with a first rate drum scanner to get the best out of the film. Add that to the films capture time if you want to compare apples to apples. And where did you get that number for BL scanning backs download time? As I read it their documentation states capture time at between 100 seconds (1.5 minutes) and 2000 seconds (33 minutes) for a 1.1 GB file. Maybe Jim Collum can chime in to share his actual experience with BL backs.
Kirk,
A first rate scanner - or any rate scanner for that matter - can only capture what's on the negative. If it's not on the negative, then it's not going to be in the scan. If it is, then it's an artifact from the scanning process. Which begs the question: Which is capable of capturing the most truedata: the scanner or the negative?
I interpretated the BL capture times as cited above as dependant upon the size of the chip and the amount of data captured. So to capture the max, you need to use their biggest chip (384mp) for the full 33 minutes.
Finally, note that the capture times, weight and prices are comming down to where mere mortals such as I will be able to afford them in the not too distant future. In the meantime, keep shooting that big negative.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Only a few years ago, there were debates on this site about whether people should even be allowed to discuss digital technology.
Over the last year, I've been to two workshops run by a highly reputable organisation, one on lighting and one on digital printing. In both cases, the other participants, with one or two exceptions, had never used a film camera, and in both cases I was the only person shooting film.
Marko has this right. This is like listening to people debate the merits of tube amps vs. solid state amps and vinyl vs. compact disks. Believe me, there are plenty of esoteric websites where people actually spend time debating those questions. But the debate, whether it is about the alleged merits of tube amps, vinyl records or film, is irrelevant, because the vast majority of people have moved on, and they are not going to turn back. The photographic technology that they have opted for (and in the case of just about anyone under, say, 30, the technology they have been brought up with) may be different, but it will offer its own advantages and limitations. And so the world goes.
A question for those of you who grew up in the 60s, 70s and 80s and are fighting digital. When you were in your late teens or early 20s and putting together your obligatory killer audio system, did you buy a tube amp or a solid state amp to go with the Tannoy or B&W or Acoustic Research (or if you were really hip with dollars to spare, Quad) speakers?
P.S. I am writing this while listening to the Edgar Meyer/Mark O'Connor/Yo Yo Ma CD Appalachia Waltz on a solid state CD player through a tube amplifier that I built to the specifications of a French sound engineer named Yves Cochet.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tgtaylor
Kirk,
A first rate scanner - or any rate scanner for that matter - can only capture what's on the negative. If it's not on the negative, then it's not going to be in the scan. If it is, then it's an artifact from the scanning process. Which begs the question: Which is capable of capturing the most truedata: the scanner or the negative?
I interpretated the BL capture times as cited above as dependant upon the size of the chip and the amount of data captured. So to capture the max, you need to use their biggest chip (384mp) for the full 33 minutes.
Finally, note that the capture times, weight and prices are comming down to where mere mortals such as I will be able to afford them in the not too distant future. In the meantime, keep shooting that big negative.
My mistake on the capture time which can take anywhere from 100 seconds to 33 minutes for a full 1.1G scan. Below are the specs copied from the BL website. Note the "Megapixel ratings."
Model 6000E-HS* Super 6K-HS™ Super 8K-HS™
Native Maximum
Resolution @ 100%
(48 bit RGB File)
Image Size @ 300 ppi
6000 x 8000
(274 MB)
20" x 26.7"
6000 x 8000
(274 MB)
20" x 26.7"
8000 x 10600
(488 MB)
26.7" x 35.5"
Megapixel Rating 144 Megapixels 216 Megapixels 384 Megapixels
Enhanced Maximum
Resolution @ 150%
(48 bit RGB File)
Image Size @ 300 ppi
N/A
9000 x 12000
(618 MB)
30" x 40"
12000 x 15990
(1.1 GB)
40" x 53.3"
Number of
Resolution Options 8 12 18
Internal Hard Drive
(in Control Unit) 80 GB 80 GB 80 GB
FAST Pre-Scan Time 4 seconds 4 seconds 6 seconds
Minimum Scan Time
at Full Image Size
35 seconds
for 274 MB scan
53 seconds
for 618 MB scan
100 seconds
for 1.1GB scan
Adjustable ISO Range
(1/10 f-stop increments) 100 – 1600 Daylight 200 – 3200 Daylight
(new 2X CCD)
125 – 2000 Daylight
(new 2X CCD)
Suggested User Price
with Standard Warranty
$9,495 U.S.
includes 2-year warranty
$14,995 U.S.
includes 2-year warranty
$17,995 U.S.
includes 2-year warranty
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Here is an interesting tidbit on the Megapixel fudge factor:
As with other Better Light camera models, the resolution up to 100% is pure, “native” RGB pixel data. At resolution levels above 100%, the long dimension (scan direction) will remain as pure pixel information, while the narrow dimension will use minimal interpolation to complete the image. By utilizing a linear (one direction) redistribution of the original CCD pixel data, the resulting images will have more detail than is the result from resampling a smaller file in Photoshop to the same pixel dimensions. In the worst case (150% res), this technique uses data from 2 pure pixels to create 3 pixels
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
r.e.
A question for those of you who grew up in the 60s, 70s and 80s and are fighting digital. When you were in your late teens or early 20s and putting together your obligatory killer audio system, did you buy a tube amp or a solid state amp to go with the Tannoy or B&W or Acoustic Research (or if you were really hip with dollars to spare, Quad) speakers?
Mine was Thorens TD 160 through Acoustic Research 94 on a Marantz at home, OM-1 and Rolleiflex 3.5 outside.
Good old times. :)
Middle of the road Pioneer home theater system with Polk speakers today. Totally unremarkable, does a decent job of reproducing noise that passes for entertainment today. Works well with my Mac over Wi-Fi.
Digital Rebel, a G10 and a handful of 4x5's (which I'm currently trying to consolidate into one).
All put together, I'm not sure if I had better time then or now. I was younger then, I have more resources now. It balances out, I guess. At any rate, I enjoy doing things now I couldn't do then much more than I enjoy remembering things I did then and couldn't/wouldn't now.
After all, these are going to be someone's good old times too twenty or thirty years from now. Why spoil them with pointless whining and grumbling?
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kirk Gittings
.........lets compare apples and apples. You would still have to scan the film with a first rate drum scanner to get the best out of the film....
So does this mean that Ansel, Edward and everybody else were never able to "get the best out of the film" because the scanner didn't exist? How can that equate to comparing apples to apples?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Marko
In general, it takes a generation for a new technology to completely replace the old one. Not because technology is slow, it isn't as we all can see, but because it takes a generation for all the dinosaurs to go away and stop resisting. We are now in the latter half of this change.
And that comment with a few words changed, could have come out of the mouth of any 1950's era fast-food industry proponent, because after all, why on earth would anyone bother with something as obsolete and inconvenient as actually COOKING FOOD for themselves, when there's a whole new technology that can do it so much better and so much quicker? Have you noticed yet which direction the world has actually moved in the past 10 years though?
As someone famous said "The recently published news of my death is much premature", or words to that effect.
Most of what exists now in the field of digital photography is going to look as irrelevant and obsolete as Beta, videodiscs and electric carving knives in a short while.
Try even _giving_ away a Mac "Classic" nowadays.
Deardorffs and Dagors may by then look much like, well, Deardorffs and Dagors.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rodney Polden
Most of what exists now in the field of digital photography is going to look as irrelevant and obsolete as Beta, videodiscs and electric carving knives in a short while.
"Irrelevant and obsolete" to the people that grew up with them - "cool and retro" to the next generation. Young moviemakers nowadays scour the Dreaded auction sites for old video cameras and recorders for their weird look.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
In both cases, the other participants, with one or two exceptions, had never used a film camera, and in both cases I was the only person shooting film.
The analog and digital media are more different than popularly understood--they are superficially similar but fundamentally different. Their practices are also largely alien to each other. A practitioner of strictly one or the other will realize this more often than those indifferent or those that do both. Strictly digital practitioners are common and everywhere. Hybrid workers are somewhat less common, but make up the bulk of film users probably--most of the hipsters that shoot holgas and put their images on flickr, for example. Strictly analog workers are rarer, and are often old people. A strictly digital photographer is likely to be utterly helpless at achieving analog photography, and vice versa.
There is an informal group of (digital) photographers at our church. The things they talk about--software, software editing, software tools, file sizes, raw converters, noise, full-frame, stitching, color spaces, printing profiles--are completely lost on me, sound horribly complicated, and most importantly, I don't care to learn them, because I don't need to know them...they are not relevant to me and my work at all. I stopped hanging out with them when I realized just how little we actually had in common. They know as little about (film) photography as I do about digital photography, so my own concerns were unmet.
I personally know professional (and profiting!) digital photographers that have never loaded film into a medium-format camera, much less loaded it on a developing reel. That don't know what "pushing" is, or what "bracketing" is and asked me what the heck I used a thermometer for. That have never used a dedicated exposure meter and don't actually know what a contact sheet is, having never seen one, and having no real understanding of what a contact print is. A girl at work literally did not know how (analog) photographs are made, at all. To them, these things they call photos come out of computer printers.
And it's not just those that make the art. It's those that consume it as well. They expect that a professional photographer will give them hundreds of images--soon, or instantly--and they expect them in digital form so they can put them on Facebook. They expect that Uncle Bob can be erased from their wedding photos. Anyone working strictly analog, has no choice but to literally try to convince clients that they should go elsewhere, considering their expectations. Doing nothing else but what for decades was called simply "photography" is now considered "Special/weird/niche/expensive/inflexible photography".
The divergence of (analog) photography and digital imaging will become even more apparent as time goes on and fewer and fewer adult-age people grew up in a world that was transitioning between film and digital, much less one where film was the only thing available.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
This and a few other recent threads really got me scared that APUG suddenly went away.
I checked and it is up and running, thank God.
So what's up with all this ludditte whining and squealing lately? Why not take it to the warm and cozy place where it belongs?
:rolleyes:
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rodney Polden
As someone famous said "The recently published news of my death is much premature", or words to that effect.
If I remember correctly he still died in the end.
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rodney Polden
Most of what exists now in the field of digital photography is going to look as irrelevant and obsolete as Beta, videodiscs and electric carving knives in a short while.
Try even _giving_ away a Mac "Classic" nowadays.
Hahaha. I actually have (not had, still have) a Beta, videodiscs, electric knife and a "Fat Mac".
And I have a 4x5 camera. Uh oh....:D
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Marko,
It's hard to avoid thinking the phrase, "I think he doth protest too loudly." Why are you so determined that all traces of film disappear? It and its vocabulary have been Photography for a long time. What all would be lost if you got your wish?
I look forward to all the new technological additions. Most of us do. I work all the way from ULF film cameras to the cutest little Nikon Coolpix p&s. Photography is more alive and creative than ever in its history precisely because we have managed to preserve and to keep up-to-date all the historical processes while pulling new technology into our workflow.
Here's a bull-baiting question: Can it be that you really do know that a handcrafted print will almost always command a higher prestige and often a higher price than a one-of-a-million identical inkjet knockoffs? If all those annoying one-of-a-kind prints went away, you'd face a lot less competition.
And a bull-baiting observation: I suspect many of the most vocal 'film is a Luddite sin' folk will scream bloody murder when the next technological breakthrough puts their 2-d, static cameras and inkjet prints out of business, especially if the new tools cost 10x what the current digital tools cost.
Photography is a marvelously big tent with room for us all. Can't we please celebrate it as such?
Proud Hybrid,
d
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
I can resist one misquote in a thread, but not two on the same page! Blame my mother the ex-copy-editor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rodney Polden
"The recently published news of my death is much premature"
The popular quote is "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," but the actual Mark Twain quote is "The report of my death is an exaggeration."
Quote:
Originally Posted by
dwross
"I think he doth protest too loudly."
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." - The Queen, Hamlet
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Re: The Future of Film Photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bensyverson
I can resist one misquote in a thread, but not two on the same page! Blame my mother the ex-copy-editor.
The popular quote is "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," but the actual Mark Twain quote is "The report of my death is an exaggeration."
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." - The Queen, Hamlet
:) Curses on those folks who take and adapt lessons for the present from the classics of history. Take a stand, people! Discard history altogether or talk like a pirate every day.