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How to Get into Film Photography (and Why You Should)

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Re: How to Get into Film Photography (and Why You Should)

#21

Post by MSFT_Edging »

jebarker wrote: post #14
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought an old prosumer point and shoot recently to take some more thoughtful pictures. It's fairly limited by the CCD sensor at 12MP. My phone, a GS22, takes sharper pictures, automatically does the cool aperture settings for a foreground focus, blurry background, and other fancy things. But when you zoom in, there's a ton of terrible upscaling blur that sorta degrades the overall shot. Additionally it just isn't t…

Not only do phones have the upscaling blur, there's also a telltale "painterly" sign of convolutional neural network based processing that I see everywhere now especially in Google products.

It honestly makes some photos lose detail. Something you could make out in pixelated form just gets destroyed in the CNN processing.

Re: How to Get into Film Photography (and Why You Should)

#22

Post by MSFT_Edging »

vel0city wrote: post #15
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought an old prosumer point and shoot recently to take some more thoughtful pictures. It's fairly limited by the CCD sensor at 12MP. My phone, a GS22, takes sharper pictures, automatically does the cool aperture settings for a foreground focus, blurry background, and other fancy things. But when you zoom in, there's a ton of terrible upscaling blur that sorta degrades the overall shot. Additionally it just isn't t…

> automatically does the cool aperture settings for a foreground focus, blurry background, and other fancy things. Its not actually doing any cool aperture settings, its faking it all with software. And depending on the software stack and the picture in question, it can do a pretty bad job at it. I do appreciate the effects at times and use them myself, but on many shots I'll notice the depth of field effects being u…

Yeah I'm just talking about this at a high level.

Its basically the same problem, so much auto-processing is done to make pictures generally look good, so that so many intentional pictures just look disappointing.

Re: How to Get into Film Photography (and Why You Should)

#23

Post by anta40 »

Film photography, for me, is the most affordable way to get into medium/large format photography. Not really excited with 35mm because full frame bodies are getting more affordable.

On the other hand, the price of used GFX (50S, 50R) bodies are also getting more affordable. Yes I know some people consider it only "slightly bigger than FF and not true MF". Well, more than enough for me. And of course Hasselblad XD or Phase One system is definitely not in my range.

Re: How to Get into Film Photography (and Why You Should)

#24

Post by canbus »

gabereiser wrote: post #13

Getting your film developed is why everyone moved to DSLR's and mirrorless. It's not so much that the newer digital cameras are better (they are), it's the fact that you don't have to wait 2 weeks for your photos. I have Nikon SLR's that have been sitting in the bag for 20 years. I have Cannon DSLR's that see light a couple times a year. I have a GoPro that sees the abuse that an ex-skater, ex-snowboarder, ex-surfer,…

developing it yourself reduces that delay! and no photo shop staff to look at your photos.

Re: How to Get into Film Photography (and Why You Should)

#25

Post by staticautomatic »

eschneider wrote: post #10

I still shoot a lot on film. I shoot a lot for publication and because of that, I really can't edit individual photos prior to using them, so a lot of what I do to get the 'look' I want comes down to film stock and how I use it. Honestly, it ends up being a lot more time efficient than fiddling around with images in Photoshop or Lightroom. :) Yes, definitely more expensive than digital, but you can get some pretty ni…

So much this. Some years ago I was deep in the post-processing rabbit hole (and printing - thanks, Nick Brandt) and at one point after spending like 5 hours in PS I thought “why the hell am I doing this?” and never looked back. There’s something very freeing about giving yourself over to your materials, framing, and exposure, and being delighted by the results even if they aren’t exactly what you expect. Digital post is like Ansel Adams level darkroom work, and I just don’t enjoy being so exacting.

Re: How to Get into Film Photography (and Why You Should)

#26

Post by ghaff »

vidanay wrote: post #6
tnecniv wrote: post #2

Film is a very fun hobby that I recently began enjoying. I’ve never been into digital photography — the instant feedback kind of removed the magic for me. Film forces you to finish the roll (or you’re throwing money away) and that helps keep me engaged. When you get the scans back, you get excited to get out and shoot another roll. I will say it’s expensive, but the real expense isn’t the stock or the gear but develo…

I shot nearly 40 rolls of 35mm film on vacation to China in 2001. I actually included development costs as a line item expense in my vacation budget.

Ordering the 25 or whatever rolls of slide film and processing envelopes was sort of a ritual for me before a big trip. The last time was in 2006. It was around the time that Kodak was winding down its processing operation and about half the rolls disappeared into the ether somewhere.As I recall, Kodak couldn't find them but they eventually appeared in the mail a couple months later. A batch of to-be-processed film presumably got misplaced somewhere in the course of transferring facilities.

Re: How to Get into Film Photography (and Why You Should)

#27

Post by ghaff »

staticautomatic wrote: post #25
eschneider wrote: post #10

I still shoot a lot on film. I shoot a lot for publication and because of that, I really can't edit individual photos prior to using them, so a lot of what I do to get the 'look' I want comes down to film stock and how I use it. Honestly, it ends up being a lot more time efficient than fiddling around with images in Photoshop or Lightroom. :) Yes, definitely more expensive than digital, but you can get some pretty ni…

So much this. Some years ago I was deep in the post-processing rabbit hole (and printing - thanks, Nick Brandt) and at one point after spending like 5 hours in PS I thought “why the hell am I doing this?” and never looked back. There’s something very freeing about giving yourself over to your materials, framing, and exposure, and being delighted by the results even if they aren’t exactly what you expect. Digital post…

>Digital post is like Ansel Adams level darkroom work, and I just don’t enjoy being so exacting.

Doesn't have to be though. You can go into Lightroom, apply some standard presets, maybe crop, see what autoexposure does and maybe tweak a bit, and maybe apply some effects preset, done. Maybe a couple minutes. (Yes, I sometimes spend more time but that's pretty much my good enough default workflow. Entering metadata and culling usually takes about as much time.)

I was mostly not that exacting when I was printing B&W either. The yearbook did use photos I shot for the paper but they didn't really want me printing because I just wasn't into the spending 4 hours on a print.

Re: How to Get into Film Photography (and Why You Should)

#28

Post by gabereiser »

canbus wrote: post #24
gabereiser wrote: post #13

Getting your film developed is why everyone moved to DSLR's and mirrorless. It's not so much that the newer digital cameras are better (they are), it's the fact that you don't have to wait 2 weeks for your photos. I have Nikon SLR's that have been sitting in the bag for 20 years. I have Cannon DSLR's that see light a couple times a year. I have a GoPro that sees the abuse that an ex-skater, ex-snowboarder, ex-surfer,…

developing it yourself reduces that delay! and no photo shop staff to look at your photos.

While increasing the barrier of entry. Not everyone has a dark room laying around.

Re: How to Get into Film Photography (and Why You Should)

#30

Post by zimpenfish »

gabereiser wrote: post #28
canbus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

developing it yourself reduces that delay! and no photo shop staff to look at your photos.

While increasing the barrier of entry. Not everyone has a dark room laying around.

> Not everyone has a dark room laying around.

You don't necessarily need one for just developing the film - dark bag to load the film onto the spool which is lightfast and bob is your photographed uncle (source: me, having done this in very un-dark kitchen twice.)

I suppose if you want to make your own prints, that probably needs a darkroom but you can get a film scanner cheap and print them on a colour laser, inkjet, or even one of those Selphy dye subs in lieu of that.

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