film users as a protected class

[cobalt]

Hi.
Perhaps film users should be a protected class. I made the mistake of going into a local (Dearborn, MI) camera store, the name of which I won't print (don't wanna advertise for them), and found myself badgered YET AGAIN by salespeople who clearly have nothing better to do than tell me that film is going away. Upon realizing I had just bought film for a 645 camera I just got, one remarked ..."nobody is making film cameras any longer..." "Those are film cameras..." said one, as if I were incapable of reading or recognizing the fact that I was looking at film cameras. It is as if I were looking at pornography or something. What is it with these people? I am not even remotely interested in a digital vs. film debate, especially when I am going to purchase film! I even got a private email from someone on this forum telling me how some new printer "outperforms" my Epson 2400.

What is the problem with these folks who seem to have nothing better to do than point out what I am doing wrong? Think I will stick to Freestyle for my film in the future, even if it means waiting 5 days.

[Brian K]

For some people the fact that others do not follow their same course makes them feel insecure or have doubts about their own choices. The fact that you choose to use film might be making them feel like what do you know that they don't?

[Dick Hilker]

If you'll notice the peachfuzz on their chins, you'll realize that their knowledge of photography is about as deep as the latest advertising from the folks who make the gear they're trying to sell. To them, film and the people who still insist on using it are historical artifacts of a bygone era. I guess we can't really blame them, for they "know not what they do."

Since so few retailers still carry more than consumer-grade films, the on-line sellers are the only realistic places to shop. When you think the neophytes behind the counter are acting uppity, try to remember that they're the ones behind the counter and you're the photographer making pictures. If they were as smart as they think they are, maybe they'd be photographers, too!

Dick

[Wayne Crider]

Write the owner a letter and mention that due to the fact that every time you deal with his store you have to put up with the b.s of his employees. Tell him you are taking your business elsewhere. Also mention that you have posted threads alerting others to the fact that his business is pro digital and anti film.

[Marko]

Apug down again?

[BrianShaw]

Write the owner a letter and mention that due to the fact that every time you deal with his store you have to put up with the b.s of his employees. Tell him you are taking your business elsewhere. Also mention that you have posted threads alerting others to the fact that his business is pro digital and anti film.

Why spend so much effort when one can more easily walk out and take ones money elsewhere. Whenever I hear this "FID" stuff from shops I simply ask "Do you have what I asked for, or not?" If I can't get an answer in one word I leave. Life is to short for ill-will, hard feelings, getting-even, or feuding.

[BrianShaw]

Apug down again?

LOL!!

[Marko]

Why spend so much effort when one can more easily walk out and take ones money elsewhere. Whenever I hear this "FID" stuff from shops I simply ask "Do you have what I asked for, or not?" If I can't get an answer in one word I leave. Life is to short for ill-will, hard feelings, getting-even, or feuding.

Right on.

We supposedly go to the store, any store, to do our shopping, not for ideological discussions. At least that's what the stores' owners normally expect, so they select their employees with an eye to a set of skills that facillitates selling/pushing what they have and not arguing about what they don't.

The technology-friendly among us use the Net for both, though. Shopping AND ideological rants. Saves both gas and taxes and keeps one's face dry. :D

[John Kasaian]

Go to Freestyle, Badger Graphic or B and H for film & spare yourself the frustration.

[Gordon Moat]

Forget advise from sales people. They get a better commission on the newer and more expensive gear. Canon also offer better commission opportunities in many market areas of the US, which is sometimes why Canon gear is pushed over other gear.

It is like many stores today. You really need to know what you want before you go, and then find it yourself, buy it, and walk out. Customer service is largely dead in all except a few places.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio (http://www.allgstudio.com)

[Brian Ellis]

Shortly after I retired I considered buying a pro camera store that the owners were selling and so I worked in it for a few months (before deciding the last thing in the world I wanted to do in retirement was own a camera store). We had three very knowledgeable and experienced salesmen who knew much more about photography than most of the customers and who used to regale me with their experiences with customers over the years - like the one who couldn't remember whether he had loaded b&w or color film and so brought the camera in with the back open to see if the salesman could tell which it was by looking at the film in the camera. And of course the favorite of all camera store personnel, which I experienced several times even during my brief tenure - the customer who comes in with the latest issue of Popular Photography opened to an ad for a mail order store and spends an hour asking a salesman to give him a demo of the various cameras he's circled in the ad, meanwhile complaining about the fact that the store's prices are higher than those in the ad. And of course then leaves without buying anything. So don't be too hard on the camera store sales people, they're a dying breed and they have to put up with a lot.

[Scott Knowles]

Thanks for sharing, and it's why I don't go to "those" store anymore. But then Seattle has a few good stores where photographers of all abilities and interests are well treated. But to show the opposite side of things, I went to downtown Tacoma after some errands looking for anything of interest to shoot with the 4x5. I normally walk around with a digital camera until I see something to go get the "real" camera (kidding). Anyway, I was taking some photographing with an elderly couple, each with a camera, walked by and we talked awhile. After seeing my camera and I seeing his, a Nikon FE2, he looked at me and said, "Traitor." I had to show him the film body in the camera bag and the baggie of film to prove I wasn't.

In defense of some younger people, I wouldn't assume anything from their looks or age. Several photography programs at colleges in Seattle start the students with film photography and require they work with large format photography before they pick up a digital camera. Many of the students work part-time in stores. Wait til they prove themselves stupid first.

[MIke Sherck]

Apug down again?

*Snort* Doggone it, I just cleaned this keyboard...

[Christopher Breitenstein]

This is always a fun topic to discuss. I love it when a digital shooter starts professing the superiority of there equipment. I have noticed that among both film and digital photographers who spend the majority of the time professing the superiority of their gear or technique the topic of composition NEVER comes up when photography is discussed. When you ask to see their work they are always hesitant or produce photographs that so weak and unoriginal you almost feel sorry for them.

Yours;

Christopher J. Breitenstein
http://christopherbreitenstein1.visualserver.com/

[Daniel_Buck]

When you ask to see their work they are always hesitant
a lot of folks shooting digital don't even print their photographs very often. This is their loss! It's so much nicer looking at a print! :)

[Kirk Fry]

I just ordered some Lilford HP4 4X10 film from Badger Graphic and it came in a week or so.
There is still hope.

K

[Vaughn]

Hi.
Think I will stick to Freestyle for my film in the future, even if it means waiting 5 days.

There is also Calumet in a state near you.

Vaughn

[Scott Knowles]

There is also Calumet in a state near you.

I've heard rumors about those wild lfers inhibiting and roaming neighborhoods and urban areas. Formerly restricted to wild and scenic environments, they've been spotted in towns and cities, and the digital police have been notified. The public has been warned about lfers disguising themselves as regular film and/or digital photographers, but their signature is when the open their bag. The public has been advised to verbally pummel lfers with stupid or seemingly innocuous comments and dumbs questions so they'll pack up and disappear into the landscape where digital pundits say they belong, out somewhere in the land where life-inspiring and well produced images are the norm and away from the quick and dirty world of digital photographers.

Sorry, too early on a Saturday with insufficient caffine to quiet the synapses.

[Wayne Crider]

Why spend so much effort when one can more easily walk out and take ones money elsewhere. Whenever I hear this "FID" stuff from shops I simply ask "Do you have what I asked for, or not?" If I can't get an answer in one word I leave. Life is to short for ill-will, hard feelings, getting-even, or feuding.

The fact of the matter is that there are less and less stores around close that deal professional caliber film, accessories (bags, tripods, used equipment) and top level cameras where you can see them and handle them without having to order. I can't remember the amount of times I needed film or an accessory for a last minute shoot and had to travel 25-30 miles one way to get. If there is something close it doesn't hurt to alert the owner in simple language that "I'm glad your around but...." Most business owners are interested in keeping business and will resolve situations so it doesn't happen again. It doesn't hurt to speak up and it certainly doesn't cause ill-will or hard feelings. You have to make your feelings known to get what you want. A lesson I've learned from alot of women who seem to have more balls then alot of guys.

[gr82bart]

What is the problem with these folks who seem to have nothing better to do than point out what I am doing wrong?Could be one of the following:

1. Many are 'new found' digivangelists. They weren't that good with film photography, frustrated and produced meh results. Digital has actually made them 'better' image makers. To them their renaissance is to be experienced by the rest of the photography masses and have no idea why you're not drinking the Kool-Aid.

2. Many have made HUGE investments in digital and feel the need to justify that action by putting you down as a Luddite.

3. Ignorance. They're lemmings to popular marketing and can't understand why you're not swimming with the rest of the crowd.

4. Trolling. I have recently been witness to people who purposely needle and jab film photographers. It's the new bullying for those who are otherwise impotent and cowards in their daily lives.

5. Just plain snobbishness. Some just like to put other people down just to make themselves feel better.

Human behaviour - particularly with us men who claim to be the logical ones - amazes me on a daily basis.

Regards, Art.

[gr82bart]

Go to Freestyle, Badger Graphic or B and H for film & spare yourself the frustration.Why? Seriously. Why should a film photographer be forced to go elsewhere? Is this akin to a new form of discrimination? Be proud of your artistic media choices and don't be scared away by goons.

Going to these places because they offer good service and product variety is one thing. Going there to avoid 'frustration' is accepting being marginalized.

Regards, Art.

[Robert Hughes]

Camera store people have always been used car salesman, since way before digital. Read the first chapter of Mortenson's The Negative where he rails for page after page about the practices of salesmen pushing inappropriate gear on the unsuspecting public, with the end result being that a lot of good photo gear winds up in the closet, too difficult to master and too expensive to throw away. But thankfully for us, that means a lot of auction house gear is still in pretty good shape...

[Marko]

Why? Seriously. Why should a film photographer be forced to go elsewhere? Is this akin to a new form of discrimination? Be proud of your artistic media choices and don't be scared away by goons.

That has nothing to do with film and everything to do with poorly educated, underpaid, unmotivated "warm bodies" working for close to minimum wage who just happen to prefer selling things to flipping burgers or washing cars. They could not care less about either film or digital, much less about "intimidating" or "scaring" anybody as some sort of sinister conspiracy.

You will likely experience the same thing if you walk in into any kind of store and ask for a (new) manual-shift Corvette new in your local Chevy dealership or try to buy a typewriter in a Best Buy. Or go to Circuit City and ask for turntable or (gasp!) vynil records at Virgin...

It's just free market at work - stores carry what sells and they don't what doesn't. That's all to it, really. They are too busy turning profit to worry or even care about conspiracies.

[rmd-photography]

This looks like a good place to add my .02.

To start off with, I am 30 years old and belive me, I get judged by my looks constantly! And here I have been into photography for about 12 years and shooting pro for about 4 years. I ran a studio for 2 years, have had many magazine spreads and a few covers in the Automotive scene. Currently I manage a camera store here in town and do magazine and private shoots on the side. I shoot all my pro stuff digital for the most part and shoot MF and LF film for fun mainly as it tends to slow me down and bring me back to the reason I got into photography in the first place.....fun! So please don't look at me as a huge digital advocate as I'm right down the middle.

Looking at it from the retail side in the store I know that film is dying.....sorry to disagree with you if you think its not, but it truly is. Looking back through the books film processing is drasticly down! The companies themselves that make the film are even changing thier gearing toward digital. Try going to kodak's site, or fuji's. Ilford just revamped thiers like 2 weeks ago. My point is, you have to search to find anything having to do with film on thier sites now. Fuji and Kodak are focused on their digital cameras, Ilford is focused on their Gallery line of Inkjet papers. And good luck finding any sheet film on any of them.

Also, out of the hundred or so cameras I carry, 5 are film......and we never sell them.Digital is not a fad, it is what people want and companies profit from.

Now I am not saying to run out and buy a dslr now because next year these companies won't be making film. But I tell ya, its in play and its a steady decrease of film sales and processing. Its going to start in the small cities, places like Walmart, walgreens, CVS....ect will stop developing and just have thier digital kiosks, afterall, why pay a lab tech to only develop half a dozen rolls a day if that. At the same time all the little mom and pop shops will no longer be able to keep thier prices at a profitable level so they will stop. The only places will be big city labs that will drop ship.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

This looks like a good place to add my .02.

.........Try going to kodak's site, or fuji's. Ilford just revamped thiers like 2 weeks ago. My point is, you have to search to find anything having to do with film on thier sites now. Fuji and Kodak are focused on their digital cameras, Ilford is focused on their Gallery line of Inkjet papers. And good luck finding any sheet film on any of them.



It would appear that Ilford has an entirely separate site for their photochemical products. Go here to see http://www.ilfordphoto.com/products/default.asp
You might also read their page about the future of film (from their perspective).

[jetcode]

Percy,

I never get that response. The folks I deal with are happy to make a sale and don't care what I'm buying, digital or analog. Some are young but none are arrogant.

I did however get greeted one early morning at the local restaurant with "what are you doing here??" and it had some venom behind it, "you don't usually come in 'till later", she was young and naive and no longer works there.

You could have some fun with it, ask them "just how do you load pixels into a camera?" and "how many pixels do you get in a roll?" or "how many pixels on a postcard?", tell them you "just had indoor plumbing installed last year and lust to develop film" or that you are "secretly addicted to the Schiemflug maneuver", see if they'll help you finance that new 39mp Hassy, "do you take credit cards? think I can borrow yours for a few hours?".

Most likely they don't know any better and you shouldn't be insulted by that.

Joe

[BrianShaw]

Most likely they don't know any better and you shouldn't be insulted by that.


They could not care less about either film or digital, ... It's just free market at work - stores carry what sells and they don't what doesn't.

Two of the truest statements in this entire thread. And thanks, Marko, for getting the grammar correct... it really bugs me when people say "could care less" when they mean "couldn't care less". That bugs me even more than camera shop lectures on why film is dead or dying.

[Marko]

Two of the truest statements in this entire thread. And thanks, Marko, for getting the grammar correct... it really bugs me when people say "could care less" when they mean "couldn't care less". That bugs me even more than camera shop lectures on why film is dead or dying.

LOL, it's the apostrhophies that bug me the most, down to writing "your" and "there" in place of "you're" and "they're". But come to think of it, we might be bothered by the same thing, after all, since "could care less" could've likely evolved from "couldn't care less" as a way to drop the bothersome critter. :D

[Andrew O'Neill]

My point is, you have to search to find anything having to do with film on thier sites now. Fuji and Kodak are focused on their digital cameras, Ilford is focused on their Gallery line of Inkjet papers. And good luck finding any sheet film on any of them.

Before you make ignorant statements like this, you should research more thoroughly first. There is tons of film and plenty of sources. But then again you just shoot LF for fun, so how would you know??

[Michael Graves]

The local Ritz in the Mall started carrying basic chemicals and paper again, as well as 120 film. I know they didn't do it just for me, so there must be somebody else like me in the Northern Vermont area badgering them about analog supplies. I was able to pick up 25 sheets of fiber-based Multigrade this weekend. They also had Dektol developer (which they'll never sell to me) and some fixer and stop bath (which they did sell to me).

I did everything in my power to conceal my amazement.

[Toyon]

Part of the problem seems to be some poorly educated nitwits who cannot seem to distinguish a shrinking market from a dying one. I personally have no doubt that film will remain available for hobbyists and professionals using alternative processes for many decades. There is clearly a market for it and producers will fill the niche. The German economist, Walther G. Hoffmann studied British industry from 1700-1950 in a now classic study. He found that when new technologies displace earlier ones, very often the older technology lives on (particularly those with dispersed and varied markets), and in fact have extraordinary long lives. He illustrated this with the long-tail phenomenon, whereby the bell curve of product sales has the typical bell shape on the left side, but an extremely long tail on the right, representing enduring, albeit low-level production. Among examples he used were the endurance of the cut-nail along side sales of the far more common wire nail. Of course, this is not an absolute phenomenon, as products sometimes become impossible to produce (e.g. whale oil) but it holds true with astonishing frequency.

[rmd-photography]

Before you make ignorant statements like this, you should research more thoroughly first. There is tons of film and plenty of sources. But then again you just shoot LF for fun, so how would you know??

Before you start calling people ignorant I think you need to open your eyes and do a little research yourself.


Film is gone, and single-purpose cameras are on their way out, too. cited from http://ce.seekingalpha.com/article/5568 .

My point is not saying that film is dead or gone like the CEO of Kodak said, but it is slowly dying.....or as the gentleman at the top of this page stated better..."the market is shrinking".

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Before you start calling people ignorant I think you need to open your eyes and do a little research yourself.

cited from http://ce.seekingalpha.com/article/5568 .

My point is not saying that film is dead or gone like the CEO of Kodak said, but it is slowly dying.....or as the gentleman at the top of this page stated better..."the market is shrinking".

I think Andrew had it right. Your Ilford statement is wrong, you can easily find their traditional line if you go to www.Ilfordphoto.com which is the reorganized site for the Harman/Ilford site and NOT the Ilford site dedicated to the Ilfochrome line, you should have researched this better before you posted. Your Perez quote is very old and has been re hashed to death in this forum.

The Kodak and Fuji sites have always been about selling their current lines, since most of their new stuff is digital it is no surprise that the first thing you see is digital. Lets face it, the most modern line of film for both Kodak and Fuji is at least 20 years old, there are no news in these fronts BUT the information about the films is readily available in both sites, all you have to do is type the film you want to know about in the "search" field and you get a slew of information.

[eddie]

what ever. i get the same response from my lab. they just tell me how film is dead and the wheels are rolling on and over me and film. yeah yeah yeah! i do not care. if capitalism is heading towards digital then fine....but why do i (or the original poster) have top listen to all the dribble? that may in fact be the case, but here is no reason that i have to be subjected to listening to more digital this and that. i do what i like to do and the next person is free to do the same.

the only thing i get from my local guy is expired film....for a song. everything else i order online (or drive to NYC.....it is only 90 miles south. so i guess i will always be "safe").

eddie

[John Kasaian]

I think Andrew had it right. Your Ilford statement is wrong, you can easily find their traditional line if you go to www.Ilfordphoto.com which is the reorganized site for the Harman/Ilford site and NOT the Ilford site dedicated to the Ilfochrome line, you should have researched this better before you posted. Your Perez quote is very old and has been re hashed to death in this forum.

The Kodak and Fuji sites have always been about selling their current lines, since most of their new stuff is digital it is no surprise that the first thing you see is digital. Lets face it, the most modern line of film for both Kodak and Fuji is at least 20 years old, there are no news in these fronts BUT the information about the films is readily available in both sites, all you have to do is type the film you want to know about in the "search" field and you get a slew of information.

True enough! Both Ilford and Fuji have forums supporting traditional photography and the Great Yellow Father in Rochester still has a wealth of technical info available through thier website. For most of us LF film has been a mail order deal for years---it is going to be a mail order deal for a lot more of us as the digis become more entrenched but so what? More products are available to us over the web than were ever stocked by all but the most uber-pro photo stores in NY, Chicago and LA. For example five years ago FOMA sheet film was unheard of in the US (at least I hadn't heard of it) and Slavich and Emaks paper were unknown, not to mention all the chinese stuff. Film isn't dead, it just takes some forethought to have what you want on hand & Badger and Freestyle can get it to you within a fortnight (in the US anyway.) I think the same will hold true for our MF and 35mm brothers before too long---hey, adversity breed character, right?

[Daniel_Buck]

next time they tell you film is dead, kindly ask them if they'll lower the price then ;-)

[Marko]

Well, looks like those endangered film-only users just got more to be protected from today.

;)