Why use color film?

[Brian Ellis]

Brian - the look is different. A digital print looks digital, an optical print looks optical.
I don't care which you prefer - it's a free country. But since film capture is itself optical I hope you can understand the connection without feeling threatened by it.

I don't understand. Because film capture is optical you hope I can understand what connection? And why would I feel threatened - and about what?

[Drew Wiley]

Brian, sometimes you remind me of someone who can't believe I go wandering off into
the mtns without a GPS, even though I have been doing it my entire life, long before
those things were invented. Just because something is the coolest new technology doesn't automatically make it practical. I understand your personal preferences, but
those of use who choose to print optically don't do it because we're backwards. It's
either personal preference in style or actual results. You see the world with a lens,
you shoot it with a lens, which puts it on film, then you enlarge that with a lens - it's
a largely optical pathway throughout, with certain chemical interactions in the process,
of course. Once you capture or scan something digitally, it's a different ballgame. For
better or worse, you've got an electronic file with a whole new set of parameters.
That's fine with me. I know the pros and cons. But the end result simply doesn't look
like a traditional photograph. I'm not implying it necessarily looks bad - it all depends
on the skill of the photographer and printer - but it does have a different look which
tends to have "computer" stamped all over it.

[Robert Hughes]

Oh that's right - "it's only real if it's on silver" - unless it's in color. In which case we're in inks and pigments again.

[Brian Ellis]

Brian, sometimes you remind me of someone who can't believe I go wandering off into
the mtns without a GPS, even though I have been doing it my entire life, long before
those things were invented. Just because something is the coolest new technology doesn't automatically make it practical. I understand your personal preferences, but
those of use who choose to print optically don't do it because we're backwards. It's
either personal preference in style or actual results. You see the world with a lens,
you shoot it with a lens, which puts it on film, then you enlarge that with a lens - it's
a largely optical pathway throughout, with certain chemical interactions in the process,
of course. Once you capture or scan something digitally, it's a different ballgame. For
better or worse, you've got an electronic file with a whole new set of parameters.
That's fine with me. I know the pros and cons. But the end result simply doesn't look
like a traditional photograph. I'm not implying it necessarily looks bad - it all depends
on the skill of the photographer and printer - but it does have a different look which
tends to have "computer" stamped all over it.

Drew - Sometimes you remind me of the person who was asked the time and who answered by explaining how to make a watch. All I asked was what the connection you referred to was and why/what I might be threatened by. I deliberately didn't dispute the notion that a digital print isn't a "real photograph" because there's no sense arguing with you or anyone else who seriously advances that claim. I just didn't understand the connection to which you referred or the thought that I might be threatened by something so I asked for clarification.

[Drew Wiley]

Robert - I've made thousands of color prints and not a single one contains either inks
or pigments.

[Drew Wiley]

Brian - some clocks use batteries, some have to be wound up; both can give you the
time, but if you don't know the distinction, neither will work very long. Personally, I don't use an alarm clock. I just wake up at the same time each morning; and if I want
to sleep in, the cat tickles me with his whiskers - he wakes up when the birds start
chirping. When I was a kid, never used a clock - just got up with the roosters - no
battery or winding required - seemingly old-fashioned but completely reliable until either a bobcat got it or we ate it ourselves.

[rguinter]

Obsolete? ROFLMAO!

It costs me about $5/sheet USD for processed C-41. A P65+ medium format digital back costs about $42000 USD. That's the equivalent of 8400 processed sheets. In a good year I shoot maybe 100 sheets of color film. That's an 84 year pay back on my investment....

Bruce: Right you are on all points. Except you forgot to mention that nothing being produced in digital equipment right now has even a 10-year life expectancy... much less 84! So essentially there is no payback. Bob G.

[Drew Wiley]

Perhaps I should have clarified something about teminology. In these current discussions, things tend to get phrased around "analog versus digital". But in the past it was basically phrased around photographic versus graphic reproduction techniques; and some of the nuance has carried over. For example, photolithographs
and color gravures were classified as graphic processes, even though they originated with a camera, while something like a dye transfer print tended to be
classified as a photograph itself, even though it was capable of serial reproduction,
because it used something analogous to film itself. There are no absolute rules in
any of this, of course, but there is quite a bit of precedent in photographic history.
By analogy, some of us might not choose to refer to an inkjet print as a photograph,
while we might call a darkroom print one. This in itself does not imply that one
medium is inferior to the other, but is just based upon a continuity of an existing
tradition which many younger workers seem to be unaware of. For there have been
many, many ways to make photographic prints other than the handful routinely
advertised nowadays. And pigments prints existed for decades before the commercialization of computers or software.

[srbphoto]

Using a 4x5 film camera slows me down (just like when I made the jump from 35mm to 4x5). Much higher percentage of good images. It makes me (maybe not everyone) a better photographer.

[Greg Blank]

In my opinion no. I wouldn't classify any color image as being a photograph. Because the silver is liberated on development. But that does not mean I don't like color imagery.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ink

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pigment

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dye

Nothing on these pages says for making photos.

Oh that's right - "it's only real if it's on silver" - unless it's in color. In which case we're in inks and pigments again.