The hopeful future of film photography

[Nathan67]

Don, I look at it this way. If I as an artist do not feel comfortable entrusting my artwork to digital for long term storage, then there must be others thinking the same way. If I were doing weddings, I would worry about sales today, not 1 year from now (unlikely to happen with everyone owning a flatbed scanner). For them digital is the cats meow. My DVD failure last week keeps confirming this belief.....except this time it was a only movie. I don't trust Gates, I already lost all my old files on 5.25 floppies from 20 yrs ago, but I still have ALL my films in perfect shape ready for printing traditionally or to be scanned from 40 yrs ago. Five backup copies on DVD/hard drive, or whatever does not make me feel any safer....5x0 is still 0. When I see proof, then I will switch, but not if it takes $40k (digital film) that does the same as large format film for a couple $'s. Fine artists don't work in high volume, so film costs are not an issue. Printer and paper companies have gone a long way with respect to archival issues, but computer mfrs can't even spell archival.

Also, if you need very big prints, nothing touches film, especially when it comes to affordability. Data storage companies, mfrs, are all realizing historical data must be backed up to film. If it is happening to them, with people paid to maintain it (were more likely at home to get lazy or forget), then the average person with images important either for personal or sales will be sadly disappointed in the next few years. Often we can't even get the image from CF card to computer, while with film I know I will come back with something. One roll might be lost or damaged at a lab, but not all of it, and once I have it at home and stored in polypropylene pages I don't have to ever worry about it again. When I need it for the next sale, I am confident it will be there. If your selling editions of 100-1000, you can be confident your image will not be lost due to operating system changes, media failure, file protocol.

You make many valid points here, but you simplify the problems with film.
Now once again I want to say before I go further that I am not anti-film, I still love and use film whenever I can. Especially for personal projects and family shots.
Now you say that once the fil is in its sleeves you never have to worry about it again.

What happens if your place of storage burns down, floods or otherwise is raised to the ground?
Theft? what if someone steals your negs?

I back up my negs digitally, but then it is just a copy, if I lose the original then its gone.... when I back up a digital file then it is the same as the original... and can be backed up at multiple locations.

As far as losing info and not trusting Microsoft, well every time there has been a format change I have managed to copy my archive from the old to the new... never lost anything to an old floppy, zip disk or scuzzi hard drive, and I use a mac

My files are backed up to 2 locations and 3 sets of drives. as soon as the next format change comes I will have to move and update it all again... but thats life.

Fine art can be made digitally AND with film, its the final image that matters, not the capture medium.

[Maris Rusis]

Photography is safe from electronically controlled picture fabrication only when the world realizes that it is a completely distinct thing. And the difference lies, not in how the pictures look, but in what they are.

Gathering the physical impressions that real things make in sensitive surfaces is not the same as using machines to draw pictures.

[Allen in Montreal]

[QUOTE=D. Bryant;429135]

Fuji and Kodak both reported decreases in film and related consumable sales for '08 to be markedly down. This may also include Ilford products too. What mfrs are reporting increases?

Don Bryant

My camera shop owner claims to be selling more film in 2008 than in the three or four years previous.

[Kirk Gittings]

Film is the choice of fine artists (pros, amateurs), and digital the choice of pros (wedding,news,magazine, sports) where smaller prints are the norm and digital has no issues with print sizes needed or archival issues.

This is waaay to broad a brush.

[JBrunner]

This is waaay to broad a brush.

I agree, as pro film as I am, I don't think labels are appropriate. I do think you will find most photographers that are using film do it for aesthetic. I know I do. I find arguments about jigapixels and "quality" and other technical things to be largely pedantic, useless really to any serious photographer. I use film because of what it does, how it looks, and the fact that I personally like those qualities, and the ease at which it delivers them. Use something because you want to, because it works for you, because it delivers what you desire, so you can stop worrying about process and get on with doing. That's the hard part, figuring out what you really want to do, and then strapping on the dealios to do it, not jumping from magic bullet to magic bullet.

[Nathan67]

Kirk, your right, I made a mistake. The way it reads it suggests you need film to be a fine artist. What I really meant was film is preferred by fine artists who often are faced with needing very large prints. Most of my friends are not into photography and prefer oils. Standard sizes for them are easily 40-50 inch lengths for gallery showings, etc. Also many photographers are offering landscapes up to 70 inches or more. Film is the choice, it doesn't run out of pixels like a p45 (limited to 27 inches approx at 300ppi). You get the point when you see the prints sizes Ken Duncan offers....30/40/50/60/75 inches. But if you want to shoot a p45 in the rain, money no issue, you got to have one....no one is stopping you. But far more popular is large format film simply because it is affordable. Frankly, all this talk about high end digital, yet none of us here have the $, so it is rather pointless. For those that need it, we don't need to tell them what they need....they know.
Both the artists below are into HUGE prints. Theirs your market for film, something digital cannot do well (I don't consider a scan back suitable for landscapes).


http://www.kenduncan.com/gallery.php...n=prod&id=1903

http://www.tomrissacher.com/seascapes.html

That last link is a painter..... not a photographer

Now there are plenty of photographers still using film, but plenty that use digital.
Stitching with digital backs and or digital slrs is not uncommon, providing HUGE files for printing, you yourself mistakenly linked to such a stitched "large format" (the websites words not mine) image.
Now generalising that film is the only way to go for large prints is not really looking at the big picture (pun intended), for you maybe, but I think that you will find that most professional photographers will look at the assignment/project/job and choose the tools that best fit the job. I know I do.
In a pro situation its very common to hire/rent equipment for a job, so If I need the latest phase one or hassy back, I just ring my dealer and he sends me the gear, that expense I pass on to my client.
I may use my 1DsmkIII in the studio and on location everyday as my general workhorse, and for some jobs I may need "only" my 1DmkIII, but then for some jobs I may need to ring and rent a hassy with a 50meg back. Or I might even pull out my hassy and film backs or one of my 5x4 cameras and shoot some film for a specific look... or just for the pleasure (yes even working photographers hoot for pleasure now and then)

Regards, Nathan

[rodney@theloughroad.com]

I just have to jump in on this one.

Fuji Film has begun using a number of my images, originally shot on 8x10, for display at their trade booths during conventions. During one of the many conversations I'd asked the likelihood of special ordering additional 8x10 Astia (IMHO the best landscape film ever made.) At this time, they are not able to do it. I have yet to press the issue, and wonder if "not able" means "not going to." The last time i ordered this exact film I had to purchase about $18k worth (yes, that's the right number) in order to get them to do it. Maybe that's what it will take this time as well. After all - they say if you throw enough money at something......

On Stitching:
One of the images that they will be showing is a 35x93 inch panoramic (printed on Flex) that i stitched from 3 horizontal 8x10 transparencies. The final file size is over 4GB. The detail is stunning.

In the past I had simply cropped from the horizontal of an 8x10 to get a pano; it was always larger than 120 roll film and the results were very good. However, they pale in comparison to what I just did with this piece.

I knew in the field that I'd wanted a pano, but the detail of the flowers, grass and trees would not be as sharp if i simply cropped from the 8x10 film later; hence stitching came to mind. I was lucky with the light, nothing moved, and I am amazingly happy with the end result.

It is a technique that will work in many situations, but not all, especially where things move, but on rare occasion it is one that I will employ again.

[Eric Leppanen]

One of the images that they will be showing is a 35x93 inch panoramic (printed on Flex) that i stitched from 3 horizontal 8x10 transparencies. The final file size is over 4GB. The detail is stunning.

In the past I had simply cropped from the horizontal of an 8x10 to get a pano...and the results were very good. However, they pale in comparison to what I just did with this piece...

Not to hijack this thread, but there are several instances where I've been thinking about stitching several 8x10 transparencies/negatives as well. How did you do it? Did you use a large coverage lens and use rear shift (to avoid any parallax)? Or did you rotate the lens around its nodal point?

And what stitching software did you use that handles such large files? How much memory on your PC was needed? Any insight you could provide would be very helpful, thanks!

[rodney@theloughroad.com]

I rotated the lens around the nodal point. With the Arca-Swiss it's fairly easy to set this up. Shot a 300mm Fujinon with a forward tilt, panned left to right overlapping each shot apx 1/2 (just to be sure.) The toughest part was the set up.

I used CS3 to stitch, Mac dual 2.7 with 8 gig. The process was fairly straight forward as I am sure many could explain far better than I. 8x10 scanned on my tango at maximum resolution to achieve end result.

Hope this helps.

Rodney Lough Jr.

[John Louis]

I received an email informing me that there had been a new post on 23rd Jan 2009 by one Carsten Wolff to this discussion [The Hopeful Future of Large Format Photography]

Where is it?

What's going on?

John Louis