Peace at Last (more or less)

[marcuspeddle]

I started photography using film and had two film cameras before the Nikon D70 was released. I put my film equipment in the closet and thought, "Yeah! Digital is the future!" So I spent a year or so shooting only digital. But the film cameras were calling out to me . . .
So I got out my film equipment and started shooting with that. But I missed digital . . . then I missed film . . . ad nauseum. Then I went to medium format and got myself a lovely Contax 645. Mmm, good stuff. But shot for a while and thought, "Damn, I want to shoot digital so I can send photos to Mom and Dad back in Canada." Ugh.
But something happened in my brain in the last month or so and my four cameras are each getting their share of time. Why? Because I've realised that different cameras are good for different things and the camera I want to use sometimes just depends on my mood.

Contax 645 - For photos when I want those inimitable Carl Zeiss colours and the amazing amount of detail that comes from a larger format. I also use this for black and white.

Nikon D70 - Great for regular colour photography when I'm willing to carry around a little bit of weight. It gets good results and I can upload them here easily and share them with friends and family. I want to upgrade next year to a D300 (or D3 if I get a lot of overtime this year )

Nikon FM3a - I usually put black and white film in this and use it for walking around. Although some people can get great black and white photographs from digital, I'm not one of them. There is still something special about a black and white print from film.

Fuji F11 compact - stays on my person at all times for snapshots, get-togethers with friends, interesting things I see on the way home, etc. It's lightweight and even takes movies (though I keep forgetting that).

So, no more torment about cameras.

Well, not quite. Now the problem is what to bring when travelling. I took the D70 to Australia and shot hundreds of photos. That meant many long hours sorting and editing photos back home (it took me a month!). The somewhat narrow dynamic range of the digital sensor also meant I had to be careful when shooting during midday. If I take another trip where I'm moving around a lot, I'm going to take the FM3a and negative and black and white film. Negative film can be bought and developed anywhere, it's cheap, has a good dynamic range, and the lab can do all the work.

Thanks for reading these midnight thoughts.

 

[Mike_E]

mmmmm, do yo have photoshop?

Edit and rank and distribute in Bridge and then batch and re-rank and then final production as needed.

 

[marcuspeddle]

I have Nikon View, Capture NX, and Photoshop Elements 5.0. I know how to use these programs but it's such a pain in the arse to go through that many shots. I have no problem with a single day's photographs but they build up after a month in another country.

 

[LaFoto]

If only that were true about the possibility to get a correct development of black and white film done everywhere! When I first wanted to teach my eye to "look for black and white motifs" (for you have to look differently, I think), I could not even find any decent regular black and white film. OK, that may be because I live in the country and not in a city. Things may always have been different (more varied, more opportunities) in the cities. But I was here, and there was only C14-film to be had. And the first batch of prints made from that C14-film did not make me happy at all and did not convince me and nothing looked like the "only-film-effect" ... the pics where flat, bland, had a colour cast and ... I was NOT happy.

Meanwhile even the little drugstores here in the country have returned to having basic Ilford film on offer, and the labs have returned to also processing black and white film. But the outcome, is, of course, depending on the settings of their machines, so unless you have a darkroom and have control over the process from beginning to the finished print, you are subject to their batch processing. And I don't have a darkroom (nor the knowledge, unfortunately).

And then my other problem is: if/when I want to share some of those black and white photos taken with my dad's Leica on film and all ... I have to digitalise them. On my flatbed scanner. And that thing (the third or fourth scanner I have meanwhile, mind you!) has always only disappointed me. The negative-scanning function has gone lost first, and as a flatbed scanner for prints the quality is also simply "un-presentable". A nuisance.

That is why my film cameras feel VERY neglected these days. Poor thems, but ...

 

[marcuspeddle]

I should have said, 'colour negative film is available everywhere'. I can only get black and white film through Internet sites or special order through a photo lab although I live in a city of 200,000 people. The same goes for slide film.

 

[Battou]

When I first wanted to teach my eye to "look for black and white motifs" (for you have to look differently, I think)

Yeah, you do, but it's hard to explain. I got what should be a great B/W today, I never would have seen it otherwise.

I should have said, 'colour negative film is available everywhere'. I can only get black and white film through Internet sites or special order through a photo lab although I live in a city of 200,000 people. The same goes for slide film.

B/W film is readily available in the majority of locations where film can be purchased, granted it's not all places but the odds of a retailer carying B/W is good enough to operate on the assumption it can be found, however developing is another story.

 

[itoncool]

Not just hard to find films these days, but a place that does good film processing and developing even harder to find. I don't self processing, so it's important to me.
I shoot film sometimes, I use my film camera (only B/W) mostly just for nostalgia reason, and B/W in film still has something that digital couldn't follow (not yet).

For colors, I'm being spoiled by digital, it's so convenient, and in term of image quality, digital is already in the same level with film (or maybe has surpassed film).