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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)

#71

Post by igouy »

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…

> the instant feedback kind of removed the magic for me.

Which instant feedback?

Sony SLT-A65 with "Auto Review" OFF means being shown what's in the frame, not what was in the frame last-time the shutter was pressed.

Instant feedback that I'm not holding the camera level — I love that!

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

#72

Post by igouy »

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…

Isn't that just a matter of using default camera jpg without bothering with post-processing?

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

#73

Post by igouy »

Compare:

A) I kind of think to myself: “Is this picture worth a dollar?”

B) I kind of think to myself: “Is this picture worth my time?” Is this picture worth stepping out of what we are experiencing and doing the photographer thing.

Compare:

A) There is also a surprise factor and time machine effect with film that is impossible to replicate with digital cameras (though some have tried). When I get a roll of film developed, I have essentially no idea what I’m going to get back.

B) There is also a surprise factor and time machine effect with digital. I don't preview or edit images on camera. Weeks can pass before I upload to a computer. When I upload a memory card I have essentially no idea what I’m going to see.

Compare:

A) And, again, because shooting film is so expensive, I usually only take a couple pictures on any given outing.

B) And, again, because being fully in the experience is valuable, once I've chosen to do the photographer thing I take as many pictures as that needs.

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

#74

Post by igouy »

load81 wrote: post #59

I grew up with analog photography. I still have my darkroom equipment (but haven’t used it in a while). I used to develop BW films and prints and even color slides. Here are some random thoughts: - yes, film shots, specially color film shots can be amazing “out of the box” it’s like a great lightroom filter that’s just there; some of my favorite shots were shot on ektar - developing film and prints is really a great…

> you can’t imagine what it takes to hike Yosemite with a LF camera!

No fool, AA built a platform onto the roof of his car, to support camera, tripod, and himself.

Plenty of famous AA pictures were made from roadside viewpoints in national parks.

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

#75

Post by jtriangle »

ghaff wrote: post #53
jtriangle wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I break out my TLR when someone has an interesting project that's well suited for it and I can bill them for it. My standing rate is 100/hr, one location, for film it's 200/hr. It's sort of a once a year thing nowadays, but, enjoyable. Takes me back to being a starving college kid doing this professionally, running around outside like a wild man capturing images for rent money. It's a good balance now really, because…

I think one of the keys if you're going to do burst shooting of sports, concerts, even speakers is that you really have to do a quick rough cull that deletes most of the photos. For these kinds of things I do find bursting really helps get the best shots. (Yeah, you need to be setup as best you can but with dynamic motion you can't help but have a lot of duds.)

Yes, I use the chase jarvis method, run though and star everything that's usable first, purge zero stars, then run through and 2 star a single image from a burst that is the best of the group. Purge. Then look at your keepers and pick your deliverables.

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

#76

Post by jtriangle »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #50
jtriangle wrote: post #36

If you're a serious photographer who's only shot digital, shooting film for some 'burner' shoots will improve your photography significantly. Film is a much more intentional process, you have to pay attention to light and composition at a very deep level before you capture an image. That practice improves technique that leaks over into the digital realm as well. Typically, when you go back, you take fewer photos but…

This is a bunch of retro-grouch reverse-snobbism hogwash. Buy a digital interchangable lens camera and make a conscious effort to both shoot a lot (and be willing to purge stuff, don't become a packrat) but also spend time experimenting and focusing on getting a particular shot or style of shot as best you can, technically first, and then artistically. People who lack the discipline to be "intentional" without being…

You seem to have missed the point of my post entirely.

You also seem very hung up on 'digital is superior' which, yeah, no shit, never even insinuated it wasn't, so I don't really know what you're on about.

Also I specifies the target group for this advice, which was not 'beginners', you made that up yourself.

Truth is, film is worse, and that makes it harder, and it makes it fun to learn. Sure you can do the same digitally, but you're not forced to do so, which means the temptation to return to old habits is very high.

Don't get me wrong, I bring a dslr with me on every film shoot, I use it as a light meter and as a failsafe. Intitially, I just brought a slide rule that I made for estimating exposures and I got very good at it. Nowadays, I can look at a scene and easily be within a half stop just guessing, keep/cull ratio is probably 1/4, versus before it was easily 1/40.

Call that 'retro grouchyness' all you'd like, it works, and it has worked for everyone I've convinced to do it so far, but by all means, build yourself a scarecrow and complain loudly that you disagree with someone on the internet.

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

#77

Post by zimpenfish »

gabereiser wrote: post #55
giantg2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I have done. 35mm bw and color developed in a dark bag. Then scan the negatives. So much cheaper than actually having it developed professionally. You also get to mess with the development conditions for various effects.

I hear you. My process is cheapest, doesn’t require chemicals, can be done in sunlight, and with some glsl knowledge, essentially the same. Only digitally and for $0.000000001 an image.

Yeah, I do that too but since I'd never really owned a 35mm camera, I thought I'd give it a go ("how hard can it be?" "very if your spool is wet, you fool") and I've enjoyed the experience of taking my PEN-EE around and developing its weird little half-frame outputs.

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

#78

Post by eschneider »

igouy wrote: post #72
staticautomatic wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Isn't that just a matter of using default camera jpg without bothering with post-processing?

Sure, one could do that, but that's not the look I'm aiming for, nor is it the look my editors are paying for.

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

#79

Post by jebarker »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #21
jebarker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's an interesting observation that human vision can make out detail from a noisy signal. Non-generative CNNs are typically going to filter noise due to the loss functions used. Generative models could in theory learn to recognize whatever signal in that noise humans are queuing on and guess at the missing content. I think there'd be resistance to generative models in photography pipelines though based on the "made-up pixels" argument.

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

#80

Post by igouy »

eschneider wrote: post #78
igouy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that just a matter of using default camera jpg without bothering with post-processing?

Sure, one could do that, but that's not the look I'm aiming for, nor is it the look my editors are paying for.

That was evident from your comment and the reason I didn't pose the question to you.

You are hardly "giving yourself over to your materials, framing, and exposure, and being delighted by the results even if they aren’t exactly what you expect."

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