Wondering why I still shoot film

[Gary Tarbert]

Hi Ken , It was not really an experiment from my point of view , Just an observation from this showing , i have done a shot on 5x4 and d800e and experienced the disappearing flowers you knew were there due to the fact they were there on the 5x4 , Wish i had not binned the digital ones , To be honest ken i think both Digital and Film are fantastic , my thing is landscape and Architecture are Film everything else Digital, I find most large format portraiture not spontaneous enough with subjects looking too camera conscious , But that is just me , And some Lf guys do portraiture well , But very few IMHO

[Fred L]

were they both b/w or a mix ? also same subjects or different ?

[Gary Tarbert]

Different subjects one colour one B&W the digitals were totally different subjects to the LF , one of the shots was a favourite location close to home which i have shot on several formats , the best one being the first (funny that )5x4 velvia.

[Willie]

Other than Xtol developer we don't see sudden catastrophic failure in the chemistry with film. We do see sudden catastrophic failure in computers and software way too often.

Why worry about which you shoot? If you like it, use it. If you don't, move on.

[Alan Gales]

Perhaps a more telling experiment would be to take the same photograph - using both sets of gear - and see if the public can distinguish between the two or prefer one over the other.

Ken, five years ago I shot my daughter and her old boyfriend dressed up for prom. We went to a local park and I shot them on the deck with the small lake behind them. Some of the shots I used a Nikon D300 and some I used a Hasselblad 500 cm.

When I had the 120 film developed I also had a disc made. I down loaded the disc and the D300 memory card (shot on Jpeg) to Lightroom and made no adjustments. We viewed the images on the computer screen and both my daughter and I preferred the Hasselblad images. My step-daughter stopped by and she preferred the digital images. There was definitely a difference in the "look" of the images. Which is better is of course personal preference.

[John Kasaian]

I shoot film because I enjoy it. I shoot 8x10 format because I enjoy it more. My rewards likely aren't as comprehensible to most people, but it matters to me and that's good enough. I do have a digi, 135, 120, 4x5, 5x7 and 12x20 and can't fault any of them---especially the digi which definitely has it's uses, but when I'm messing about with 8x10, I'm in my "Zone." If there were a digi with the resolution of an 8x10, I'd still be shooting an 8x10 because the journey is part of the story which every print whispers.
No film? Ha! I've got plate holders

[Alan Gales]

If there were a digi with the resolution of an 8x10, I'd still be shooting an 8x10 because the journey is part of the story which every print whispers.
[/I]

I saw a test (on my computer) with a Phase One 80 megapixel back and an 8x10. Under optimal conditions the 8x10 was sharper. Now there is a Phase One 100 megapixel back so digital may finally be as sharp as 8x10. You know how we buy used 8x10 film holders because they run $200 for new ones? Well the 100 megapixel back is like $40,000.

Ya also have to squint to see that there digital back unlike the huge view on the 8x10 ground glass!

[Tin Can]

I shoot film because it is so damn difficult. For me.

But when I make a good print, in my darkroom and I feel it is good, I always print 3, because magic is working.

I may be wrong and not like the print after dry down, but I will end that printing session with a very Zen-like equanimity. A feeling and mood I seek, even more than I seek the print.

The Art is in my head.

[Tobias Key]

I flicked through my copy of Josef Koudelka's Exiles recently. I first saw most of these pictures in the 90's, and we have gone through several iterations of megapixel growth and dynamic range improvements since I was shooting with T90 and Tri-X then. What struck me is a master like Koudelka was able to turn the limitations of fast 35mm black and white film and use them to his advantage. Blocked out shadows make this shot

https://robinlam.files.wordpress.com...rance-1987.jpg

and this shot

https://robinlam.files.wordpress.com...lka_rocket.jpg

Now here is the rub. If Koudelka had better equipment, and could drag a slider to bring out shadows or reduce grain would he have made these photographs? Furthermore would anyone brought up in the DSLR age of photography been able to visualise such a picture when they had never suffered a blocked out shadow?

Film's trump card is that it is an interpretative medium, it sees the world differently from how we do, and sometimes expresses things beyond what we see. Although it is just as likely to yield disappointment! Digital seems to be moving toward idealising reality, blue skies can be made bluer, skin can be made perfect, and we can take almost infinite exposures.

Digital remind me of the scene in The Matrix where Agent Smith explains that the early iterations of the matrix were rejected because the computers created a perfect world and the human mind couldn't accept it. We need the stench and pain of an imperfect reality. Digital has the same problem, past a certain point of retouched perfection I reject it as a photograph, and no matter how much technical skill is involved in an image's production, my mind seems to reject it and it just doesn't talk to me.

To be blunt I just don't believe it, and the unspoken contract between photographer and viewer is broken.

[jp]

Bonus points for a Matrix analogy! It's a thinking film perhaps more than an action film.