Film is Dead!

[J. P. Mose]

I have to agree with Steve...this subject appears weekly! Take it somewhere else. I have to believe film will be available for decades as too many people ENJOY photography with film. It may not dominate in professional circles anymore, but too many people have a passion for "doing it from scratch" to let it completely die. I don't have a problem with digital other than resistance and fear. I would hate for digital to KILL film altogether...but somehow I can't see this happening.

I became interested in photography in 1971. I instantly fell in love with large format, although I also had a Nikon for general use. Back then, everyone was debating over 35mm versus LF, over and over and over! If there was LF website back then, this would be the hot topic. I got so burned out on people telling me that large format was on the way out and perspective control would be incorporated into small formats...just you wait and see!!!! Thirty years later and large format is still alive. At somepoint along the way the dust seemed to have settled. A lot of the small format advocates took a different point of view and started to dabble in large format with amazement!

I am grateful to all of you on this website, along with others like Graflex.org for helping me keep my love for film alive!

J. P.

[Guillaume Zuili]

1)-I wouldn't have my child play on the computer and...ERASE all my pictures ! 2)-I keep my negative. Negative will never be changed on photoshop by somebody. Negative are negative (and solid, you touch them !), Digital pic are 1 and 0. Digital pic has absolutely No Value if you are able to modify the image endlessly. Even worse, you loose the last control of your image.

[chris jordan]

I wonder how much experience and skill Jon has with digital imaging of film-based originals. Anyone who says a 16-MB file outperforms film sounds to me like they don't know much about the limits of what can be gotten from film.

[Roger_235]

Film is far from dead. In Digital (Photo?) magazine, latest issue, they said that film sales were higher in 2001 than in 2000. Trying to ride on the coat tails of film, the writer theorized that the increase came about because digitial got everyone excited about photography again.

Digital prints look crappy compared to real darkroom prints. Digital has it's problems too: banding, high cost of digital backs, computer software problems, etc.

Commercial photogs have justification for digital. Most of the rest have a longer return on investment. Oh ya, and don't forget that next year the latest and greatest digital equipment will make all their current equipment obsolete.

My opinion from what I've seen is that most of the people shouting film is dead are younger types. Not all, but a lot of younger folks.

Can you see a digital wedding photographer with his Hasselblad and expensive digital back, trying to sell his pictures to the client, who already has been handed about a dozen disks of pictures taken by friends and relatives at the same wedding?

[Ellis Vener]

1.) "Film is dead"

Funny, but I haven't used living film in a very long tim

2.) "Film is dead"

Long live the Film!"

3.) "Film is dead"

Hey... wasn't that a Curtis Mayfield hit song from the "Superfly" soundtrack?

4.) "Film is dead"

No it just smells funny (apologies to Frank Zappa, who is indeed, quite dead.)

5.) "Film is dead"

Please don't tell Mother, it will break her heart.

[bill zelinski]

Film is'nt dead, it just smells funny. I like the smell..

[Steve Gangi]

Just had a thought (historic day). What if you get locked into one company's standard and some other standard comes out on top later (as in Betamax vs VHS)? What if greedy companies periodically change the standards and minimum requirements to make you keep buying more "stuff" (already happened with computers and their bloatware)?

[John Grunke]

Todays Digital... Tomarrows 8 track tapes. Todays Film.......Tomarrows National Meuseum of Fine Art Photography.

[John Grunke]

I'm sorry, Jon, 8 track tapes are a type of music recording medium that was the rage back in the 60's. Seen any lately?

[Mike Mahoney]

Film died for me some time ago .... my LF camera is on it's deathbed. What I cant' do with digital and computer perspective correction is very little. But then I'm a commercial photographer and cost and ease of use are strong considerations for me. My best and most enjoyable photographic moments were with a LF camera, and for many others on this site and around the world. For that reason, and also for the joys of printing your own work, film will live for others for quite some time yet.