Prest_400
Multiformat
Yes, many recordings are Digital sourced and then pressed. IMO the elephant in the room is the loudness war and sometimes pressing maximized masters to vinyl.
It's funny that Digital is supposedly technically better but in mastering for loudness, its advantages are just thrown out of the window. Thankfully many modern botchered CDs have proper vinyl masters.
I miss my stereo, although I use the computer as turntable. Got a vinyl setup from my father on the old family home.
It's curious that in Europe manual transmissions are the norm.
Jamie123
Mentor
That's mostly an American thing, though. Where I live, I don't know anyone who can't shift. (The reason being, that if you take the driver's test on an automatic you're just allowed to drive automatic afterwards whereas if you take it on a manual transmission car you can then drive both. That's why nearly everyone opts to learn to drive on a manual transmission.)
Roger Hicks
Mentor
creenus
Established
I have one of these sewn to my canvas bookbag:
https://shootfilmco.com/collections...-version-2-glow-in-the-dark-embroidered-patch
https://shootfilmco.com/collections...-version-2-glow-in-the-dark-embroidered-patch
bmattock
Mentor
I did not know that. Cool!
In the USA, or at least in the places I've lived here, having a manual shift car is unusual and becoming rare. It's to the point there are amusing Youtube videos of carjackers abandoning cars after ejecting the owner, jumping in, and realizing they have no idea how to drive it.
Sumarongi
Registered Vaudevillain
charjohncarter
Mentor
No, mine is a portable with a case to take on an airliner. But that is much cooler than mine.
Ted Striker
Well-known
Just say NO! to slush boxes!
30 years of car driving and never owned an automatic transmission.
If you don't row your own, you ain't driving. You're just pointing the car.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Some random thoughts of my own ...
I always dislike this "digital vs analog" discussion. It always ends up in the classic nonsense of "us vs them".
Some old things work very well, to the point that the new things which have replaced them are below that standard. This has happened on two bases: reduction of cost in manufacture so more profit to the people who make them, and increased access to the people who want them due to lower cost. Neither of these bases are bad things in themselves. The difficulty comes when people accept the new that are substandard and assume that is as good as it gets, "there's nothing you can do about it." That's the difficult thing. And of course the other difficult thing is when those expectations and the substandard qualities of the things become the norm and there is no impetus to improve them.
Some new things work very well, to the point where the old things that they have replaced are really and truly obsolete, irrelevant, to be avoided. Do you really want to go back to a day of high energy X-rays in every medical procedure for a film process to achieve a decent image of something ailing you instead of a far briefer exposure to dangerous radiation to get a better picture of the problem? I doubt it. That's just one example: There are many many many. And then there's the downside of new things, the huge substrate of information and knowledge it takes to understand, design, manufacture it, and the "hiding" of all the basic processes by which it works. That's the difficult part.
Old camera technology—film, developer, etc—has its cost. So does new camera technology—bits, bytes, chips, etc. Both have their plusses and minuses. Old*and new music recording technology: the same.
I've lived through this entire cycle so far. I don't cling to old stuff any more than I grasp for new stuff. I play with lots of stuff of both genera in the hope of understanding, of finding where it is advantageous and where it is not. And then I try to learn to get beyond it and see what I want to produce, what qualities am I looking for, to make my photographs and my art. I don't care, in the end, whether what I make comes from old or new, as long as I get to make what I want.
I just bought a nice old Leica R6.2, the last of the mechanical Leica SLR film cameras. I'm enjoying re-discovering and learning anew some of the things I like about film photography with it, and with my Polaroids, and with my other film cameras. I also bought recently a nice new Leica CL: I'm enjoying re-discovering what I love about digital capture, about flexible and repeatable image rendering, about the depth and range of how I can make prints with the new technology, and about how facile and capable this new technology is.
Neither is better than the other in every way. Both help me reach my photographic goals, together, as long as I remain aware, and work hard at it.
What more can one want?
G
I always dislike this "digital vs analog" discussion. It always ends up in the classic nonsense of "us vs them".
Some old things work very well, to the point that the new things which have replaced them are below that standard. This has happened on two bases: reduction of cost in manufacture so more profit to the people who make them, and increased access to the people who want them due to lower cost. Neither of these bases are bad things in themselves. The difficulty comes when people accept the new that are substandard and assume that is as good as it gets, "there's nothing you can do about it." That's the difficult thing. And of course the other difficult thing is when those expectations and the substandard qualities of the things become the norm and there is no impetus to improve them.
Some new things work very well, to the point where the old things that they have replaced are really and truly obsolete, irrelevant, to be avoided. Do you really want to go back to a day of high energy X-rays in every medical procedure for a film process to achieve a decent image of something ailing you instead of a far briefer exposure to dangerous radiation to get a better picture of the problem? I doubt it. That's just one example: There are many many many. And then there's the downside of new things, the huge substrate of information and knowledge it takes to understand, design, manufacture it, and the "hiding" of all the basic processes by which it works. That's the difficult part.
Old camera technology—film, developer, etc—has its cost. So does new camera technology—bits, bytes, chips, etc. Both have their plusses and minuses. Old*and new music recording technology: the same.
I've lived through this entire cycle so far. I don't cling to old stuff any more than I grasp for new stuff. I play with lots of stuff of both genera in the hope of understanding, of finding where it is advantageous and where it is not. And then I try to learn to get beyond it and see what I want to produce, what qualities am I looking for, to make my photographs and my art. I don't care, in the end, whether what I make comes from old or new, as long as I get to make what I want.
I just bought a nice old Leica R6.2, the last of the mechanical Leica SLR film cameras. I'm enjoying re-discovering and learning anew some of the things I like about film photography with it, and with my Polaroids, and with my other film cameras. I also bought recently a nice new Leica CL: I'm enjoying re-discovering what I love about digital capture, about flexible and repeatable image rendering, about the depth and range of how I can make prints with the new technology, and about how facile and capable this new technology is.
Neither is better than the other in every way. Both help me reach my photographic goals, together, as long as I remain aware, and work hard at it.
What more can one want?
G
ampguy
Mentor
I have never left, except for losing carbs back in the '80s. I've always had a turntable, tube amps, just getting back to using film, and listening to vinyl, and enjoying cassettes on the Nakamichi more than I ever did before. Still enjoy some technology. I got my second portable hi res audio player, and when it's not convenient to play vinyl, it's nice knowing I have a lot of high res files to listen to.
Filter Factor
Established
Your observations are accurate. Film use is on the upswing across all age groups! Processing labs are operating at full capacity and new ones are opening all over the world. New film emulsions are being introduced (and RE-introduced) regularly. Fujifilm offers an extensive line of Instax instant films for those who can't wait for or afford processing of regular films. That Fujifilm sold 6.6 million Instax cameras last year is no coincidence! The film resurgence has something in it for everyone.
Cheers, Robert
KM-25
Well-known
Film never left for a lot of us but back in 2004 or so I had an inclination it would hit a low and then return serve.
A lot of this had to do with not so much being “cool” but that a fair amount of young people were just not going to settle for what all the tech hedge funders and middle age label makers would have them believe is “The Future”. Increasingly, this has really played out and it warms my 51 going on 21 year old heart. All assigning labels to younger people does is make your spirt age faster. There was never a need to call people Hipsters, Millenials or any of that other crap that older generations seem to blind them selves with in not even trying to understand where younger people are coming from, what they are now up against and how much we all still have in common.
So lose the hipster labels, lose the millennial labels and lose the notion that young people can’t drive sticks….you are as old as the sh_tty labels and opinions you assign to people you don’t even know.
Back to film use. I started gearing up for a major darkroom build back in 2008 when the crash hit. I was getting equipment for peanuts if not for free. But it took a good ten years to find the space because I want to print BIG. Now I finally have that space and some $150,000 and a decade later, the 500 square foot space is done and prints up to 4x5’ feet. But the best part is how many people are sharing in this now, the passion, the respect for what the craft demands of you and the beauty of the results, regardless of age.
It was never about which was technically better, it is about what is the right fit for the individual or even the day or outing. It’s also a journey regardless of medium and sometimes you want to walk the path, other times you want to skate for a bit and feel a different cadence of that journey. And the journey *does* affect the destination or in the case of a photograph, the resultant image. The journey of film and darkroom printing inspires a different look and feel in my own work and has shown to do the same in others.
So here we are, late 2018 and not only is film still here, it is right where I thought it would be all along, living it’s own unique life amid a galaxy of creative choices with it’s warm voice permeating the visual world of photography.
Rejoice!
A lot of this had to do with not so much being “cool” but that a fair amount of young people were just not going to settle for what all the tech hedge funders and middle age label makers would have them believe is “The Future”. Increasingly, this has really played out and it warms my 51 going on 21 year old heart. All assigning labels to younger people does is make your spirt age faster. There was never a need to call people Hipsters, Millenials or any of that other crap that older generations seem to blind them selves with in not even trying to understand where younger people are coming from, what they are now up against and how much we all still have in common.
So lose the hipster labels, lose the millennial labels and lose the notion that young people can’t drive sticks….you are as old as the sh_tty labels and opinions you assign to people you don’t even know.
Back to film use. I started gearing up for a major darkroom build back in 2008 when the crash hit. I was getting equipment for peanuts if not for free. But it took a good ten years to find the space because I want to print BIG. Now I finally have that space and some $150,000 and a decade later, the 500 square foot space is done and prints up to 4x5’ feet. But the best part is how many people are sharing in this now, the passion, the respect for what the craft demands of you and the beauty of the results, regardless of age.
It was never about which was technically better, it is about what is the right fit for the individual or even the day or outing. It’s also a journey regardless of medium and sometimes you want to walk the path, other times you want to skate for a bit and feel a different cadence of that journey. And the journey *does* affect the destination or in the case of a photograph, the resultant image. The journey of film and darkroom printing inspires a different look and feel in my own work and has shown to do the same in others.
So here we are, late 2018 and not only is film still here, it is right where I thought it would be all along, living it’s own unique life amid a galaxy of creative choices with it’s warm voice permeating the visual world of photography.
Rejoice!
Ted Striker
Well-known
Wow.....I love film as much as the next guy but this above is pure fantasy. Processing labs running at full capacity? NO. My lab does a single run PER week. Every lab I used in Chicago has closed down. No new ones have appeared. E6 labs are almost extinct. Fujifilm discontinues still film emulsions every year.
Pioneer
Mentor
Sounds like the film revolution is stronger in the Northwest then in the Chicago area.
This is likely true across the world. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that some regions are seeing more film use than other regions.
I know that in my small neck of the woods cell phones dominate. At a recent high school football game the high school yearbook crew were using Canon digital cameras, I was using a film camera and everyone else that I spotted were using cell phones. This is pretty typical in my area.
Of course, even at a small town high school football game there is no way I can absolutely verify what everyone was using, so most of this would have to be attributed to anecdotal information, which probably isn't worth too much.
I can say that there are no local labs developing film anywhere in my area. If I don't develop it myself I either give it to Wal-Mart, who does not return my negatives, or I send it off to a mail order lab. I send off my color slide film, which usually isn't a lot, and develop the rest myself.
I can buy a very small selection of Fuji 35mm and Fuji Instax color film locally at Wal-Mart and a couple of drug stores. I used to be able to find some Kodak color film but I haven't noticed any of that on the shelves around here for awhile. So for all of you guys who like to run down Fuji, if it weren't for their consumer film stock there would be no film at all available in my small town in Northeastern Nevada.
JeffS7444
Well-known
There's no app for real-life experiences!
Virtuality has its place, but it's often subject to someone else's agenda.
I suppose it's not very hygge either.
Virtuality has its place, but it's often subject to someone else's agenda.
I suppose it's not very hygge either.
Ted Striker
Well-known
I'd like to see some evidence that labs anywhere are running at "full capacity". I won't hold my breath waiting.
KM-25
Well-known
I can't really say full capacity but very busy would be Blue Moon, Praus & Englewood Camera.
Besides, it seems to be your concern and yours alone to call this out, so while we are shooting film and getting the word out how good it is all going, you should put forth the effort to find out just how labs are doing and then share it with us.
Make sense?
Guth
Appreciative User
My intention was to discuss the rise in use of older, analog technologies in general and film photography specifically. I did not mean to start a digital vs analog debate. My apologies for any stress that I've created.
Eventually I plan to develop my own film. For the time being I've been taking my film to Citizens Photo here in Portland for processing. The first time I dropped film off with them a few weeks back I asked how business was going. The person I spoke with said at this point they are the busiest that they've ever been. That's quite notable as they've been around since the mid 1940's. I was very surprised by this, but when I stopped to think about it some more I realized that much of their increase in business probably has to do with the demise of other photo labs that they would have competed with in the past.
I'd be curious to know where do you see film photography in another 10 years from now? Same question once again, but 25 years down the road instead of 10?
KM-25
Well-known
If I answered this now, I think I would be doing us both a disservice by not truly reflecting on it so I will give a more considered reply later.
But I will say right off that one concern I do have for the darkroom based silver print part of it is drastically increasing water scarcity and it's effects on how much water is currently needed to properly wash fiber based prints.
I am really pushing both Kodak and Ilford to innovate even further in terms of chemistry and what it requires to do that and I am also working along those lines my self by installing re-circulating systems on all my print washers, recapture systems on my sinks, etc.
25 years is a long time for our world now and a lot can and will happen. Moore's law has seeped into more than just technology and affects society as well so that is a big and good question.
Guth
Appreciative User
That's cool and understandable. It's really just a curiosity on my part as I've put much more thought into such things as it applies to the world of audio and other areas rather than photography. Agreed that 25 years is a very long time for such a discussion. Perhaps breakdowns of 5 and 10 years out might be a bit more reasonable. Thanks!