Just wondering how many people still shoot on film, or if I'm the only film lover in the village.

Ilovefootball said he still does.

I don't any more, but I can see why people still do.

I still have my EOS 100 and all its associated lenses. I'm not going to get rid of it and plan to keep using it, although to be honest it will be more as a 'curiosity' than for anything day-to-day. A bit like my Mac Plus and eMate - I dust them off and fire them up when I'm feeling a little nostalgic.

But I also need to ask, Prof - why the fondness for film?

Batman's father has a Canon A1 and couple of lenses. He brought it into the Bat Cave last week, and it's in mint condition with all the boxes and paperwork.

It weighed a ton!

I'm wanting to get me a Canon EOS 30(V) at some point, just because film really intrigues me!

Edd

Sorry, thought I'd wander in here

Faye, my girlfriend, shoots in film, she has a Cannon SLR (and a DSLR which rarely gets used). She also has a small collection of oldish medium format cameras which she uses on a regular basis. At uni she has the luxury of a dark room so makes the most of free equipment and chemicals.

I should get her on here sometime perhaps, she's just finishing her degree and has a portfolio of old churches and ruins, if she gets funding we're going on a tour of Yorkshire, Scotland and Ireland for similar features I think...I'm tagging along to navigate and hold bags

Ben

Edit: Will do Mark

If you do make it over here, give us a shout. (8+)

Mark

That'd be cool.

A simple question with a reasonably longish answer, but I'll try and be brief -

I studied photography at uni as part of my course, and while I enjoyed it, I could never see myself doing much with it. I got middling marks.
Roll on to moving back home with the folks for my health issues, and digging out a Minolta SR-T101b that my father had recently won at auction, in an ally case with a selection of lenses.
Then you spend a lot of time on the beach, using photography as an escape, because there's nothing else to do.
So, what I love about film is the fact that I'm creating a physical item. Inside the camera is a strip of plastic with some light sensitive chemistry, and when I expose that, I permanently record something. And it's the only one that exists like it.
It's a mechanical process, and it can't be readily assessed, so you need to try and make sure that what you're taking is what you want. I'm getting better at doing this now - where I used to shoot a load of frames of the same thing, I'm now often shooting a single frame and being confident that I got what I wanted. This shot was a one take wonder, as the performer on the left really wasn't keen on having her photo taken when she was trying to relax.

Also, film prints are unique. They don't look like digital - to be honest, as nice and sharp as digital prints are, they tend to look a bit 'samey' to my eyes. Too crisp. Too sharp.
The format is part of the feel of the final article, and i do feel that with digital you're removing that element of it.
Yes, you gain a lot in terms of freedom to shoot as much as you like and delete the guff on site; shoot RAW and play in Photoshop.
However, there really is no 'original' with digital. That file stored on a card can be replicated to your hearts content, and in a lot of people's eyes, that devalues the worth of the image.

I'm going to have some lunch now, and I'll think further, but don't think I'm anti-digital. It's a great technology. If I could afford it, I'd be investing heavily in a nice body and a set of primes, but I'd still shoot film.

I'm sort of with Alex on this one. Alongside my digital kit, I'd love to have a medium format body to play with, but the costs are what get in the way. If I were making a living from photography then I wouldn't hesitate to get hold of some more film kit and go out and shoot. While I was using film (which, in fairness, was up until about 2 years ago) I found the thrill of receiving my processed slides back from the developer outweighed the knowledge that I'd just spent another tenner or so on 36 photos, but with medium format the costs would be even greater (including scanning etc).

Still, I do love digital - it gives you so much more freedom to experiment, and having all the camera settings recorded with each shot is a real help for me.

That doesn't change with digital - at least, I don't find it does.
I used to be exactly the same. I used to almost religiously check the image I'd just taken on the screen to see if it was what I actually wanted. Now, not only am I more selective about what I shoot, I'm also more confident that what I shot was good and I don't actually look at half the images I capture on the screen of the camera any more.
Growing in confidence and knowledge plays a huge part in your results, I find.
I've learned a tremendous amount by going out and taking images with other people, too. I haven't stopped learning either. Case in point was this past weekend when Mr. Miners gave me what I now count as invaluable advice on metering and exposure.
Forever evolving. (8+)

Mark

I'm by no means anti wet-processing, but I like being in control of the whole process.
Alex, how many times have you had your unique moments ruined by someone at your developing lab messing up your film?

Mark

Good answers all. I can see the attraction of film in the sense of creating something that can't exist anywhere else in the world. I'm also bit like Nick and genuinely like to use a medium-format set-up if I had the spare cash. Most of my photography falls into what I guess you would call 'reportage', but I'd really love a medium-format for more 'artistic' adventures.

Honestly? Never. I'd be gutted if it did happen. So far the worse thing that's happened is that the highstreet place I tend to use for 90% of my stuff has split the negs and trimmed a couple of mm out of the next frame. Annoying, but then that's why if I'm processing something more important (like the Herbie stuff - the driver mentioned he might buy some prints) then it's off to the pro lab where a man processes and scans it by hand.
FWIW, I've been watching some wet process kit on eBay lately, thinking about doing my own processing.

And yes, medium format - I've a stack of Mamiya literature at the moment, I keep tempting myself with their medium format bodies that'll accept their 21MP digital back.
Think about that for a second. I do, a lot.

I'd encourage all of you with a film body to shoot some for the sake of it. I can get a roll of 36 processed, printed and onto a CD for less than a tenner - yes, not pro quality, but good enough for sharing online.
Partly because if we don't keep using the labs, then the machines will be scrapped and then that's it for wet processing. Which would be a shame. If you shoot E6 slide film in Scotland, you need to send it to England for processing now. If we don't use it, we'll lose it. Which, in a way, makes those of us shooting film even more different and specialist.

EDIT - Also, one other thing to consider is how wonderfully cheap most manual 35mm SLR stuff is at the moment.
I can pick up a great 50mm for about £20. The more expensive stuff, like a 17mm or 19mm lens is still only £70.

I did take a couple of rolls of film in my old Olympus OM10 a while back. They'd been kicking around the camera bag for a couple of years, so I thought it was worth seeing if anything would come out.

http://gallery.me.com/heatherkay#100230 ... &view=grid

It was fun, I don't deny it. I made a conscious effort to make each frame count, and the old skills returned quite quickly - even the manual focus! However, apart from the actual look of the film (it was 400 ISO so had a good bit of grain) and the images looked the way I expected them to, I found the experience ultimately a little dissatisfying.

Let me explain a little. I have worked in the design and publishing world for years. I've done my fair share of scanning and spotting out of said scans. As Alex knows, I've been working with some of his negs for our Focal Point venture, and it's been a real trip down memory lane learning all that scanning stuff again. Over the years, I've managed to get some spectacular results from film scans, and I was satisfied: I knew my craft. I actually enjoyed sitting in Photoshop cloning out dust and scratches: I found it therapeutic.

With those films I ran through the OM10, once I got them back from the chemist I realised how much work was still to do if I wanted to share them. I didn't opt for the CD - I don't think it was even offered, amazingly - so I had to scan the prints or the negs. The prints were fantastic, but I realised they were actually digital scans of the negs and inkjet output at very high res. The colours were bright and vibrant, but I simply couldn't get a good clean scan from them due to the nature of the random dot pattern, visible under a loupe. I had to scan the negs, clean them up and colour correct in Photoshop. The results I got were nowhere near the lab's version.

Digital gives me a lot more latitude. Leaving aside the instantaneous aspect, there's actually less work involved for me to end up with something that can go to print. A bit of curves adjustment in Photoshop, apply a colour profile, and drop it into my page layout. Job's a good 'un. (Let's leave aside the issue of dust getting on my sensor which means I'm spending a degree of time still spotting out even now! )

I also quite enjoy the digital darkroom workflow. I like being able to adjust an image after the fact. While I endeavour to get the shot right when I press the shutter, I still like the idea I can push it further in software - just as many photographers did in the chemical days of old.

I enjoyed using film for a couple of decades, but to me it's like vinyl. Nice memories, something people still use, but not for me any more. That said, I'd hate to see it disappear completely, and applaud the resurgence of people using analogue systems again.

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