The intensity of film.

[luxborealis]

It's strange how much feeling gets projected into something that is only an intermediary stage. Unless you are viewing transparencies, no one actually sees the film; they see the final print, of course, which is true even with trannies most of the time.

I once bought into the idea that film slows you down, causing you to think more, but it isn't true. I understand that constraints often make one work harder to achieve one's goals, but really, it's one's individual approach that counts. I take longer to set up my 4x5, with lens choice! film holders and tripod, but I'm doing the same "looking" now when I hand hold my RX10iii. I just don't take the same " technical time" to make the photograph. There are PHD* options for those who "need" them or are unwilling to learn, but I can turn them off, too.

Where it really counts is the final print. I love the way I can process digital files into final prints, but also recognize that much of what I've learned came from my darkroom days. Can one be as good a printer without that darkroom experience? Definitely, yes, but I'm not sure I would be, given the temptation of all the push button options available in many consumer apps. Perhaps it's why I like Lightroom so much - there are very few PHD options. It works as well as you learn it.

*PHD = push here dummy

[Justinr]

Actually, serious digital started with the Casio 3000QV, in 2000. Here's a shot from my Casio in that year. The thing had 3.34 mpx, and it was enough unless you were after wall-sized photos. At the time it came out it was a revelation. It blew away everything else in the digital world. I do have a couple 16 x 20's from the Casio hanging on my walls. This is one of them. At this point film still could beat the pants off of digital. But if you were after color, film was a difficult operation unless you were satisfied with transparencies.

Casio, now there's a blast from the past! We had one come free with a PC we bought about 17 or 18 years ago and was about 0.65mp, yet it would take a photo that would print reasonably well at postcard size but it never really grabbed our interest, it might still be tucked away in the loft somewhere although I doubt that it could be used without software from a similar era.

[Justinr]

It's strange how much feeling gets projected into something that is only an intermediary stage. Unless you are viewing transparencies, no one actually sees the film; they see the final print, of course, which is true even with trannies most of the time.

I once bought into the idea that film slows you down, causing you to think more, but it isn't true. I understand that constraints often make one work harder to achieve one's goals, but really, it's one's individual approach that counts. I take longer to set up my 4x5, with lens choice! film holders and tripod, but I'm doing the same "looking" now when I hand hold my RX10iii. I just don't take the same " technical time" to make the photograph. There are PHD* options for those who "need" them or are unwilling to learn, but I can turn them off, too.

Where it really counts is the final print. I love the way I can process digital files into final prints, but also recognize that much of what I've learned came from my darkroom days. Can one be as good a printer without that darkroom experience? Definitely, yes, but I'm not sure I would be, given the temptation of all the push button options available in many consumer apps. Perhaps it's why I like Lightroom so much - there are very few PHD options. It works as well as you learn it.

*PHD = push here dummy

That will vary between individuals, I certainly took a lot more time planning and looking for shots when using film and people were a lot more patient because they appreciated the process. Not now with digital, it's all expected to be done and dusted in seconds.

[stamper]

That will vary between individuals, I certainly took a lot more time planning and looking for shots when using film and people were a lot more patient because they appreciated the process. Not now with digital, it's all expected to be done and dusted in seconds.

unquote Justin

I see a lot of posts stating this point but doesn't have to be that way? If someone has the patience to shoot film slowly then why don't they have the patience to shoot digital slowly? If you want to shoot digital slowly then get an old Canon G2 camera. Marketed about 11 years ago and a Raw image took 5 seconds to write to the card. That is slow?

[pegelli]

Not now with digital, it's all expected to be done and dusted in seconds.

I think it more depends on your style and the subject you're shooting.

For instance I attended a week long landscape workshop and shot from a tripod with a cable release. I framed and composed the images carefully, checked exposure, waited for good light etc. which all take time and certainly no shots were done and dusted in seconds.

On the other hand, shooting a wedding with film in "the old days" required you to be quick, have multiple bodies around and keep snapping to make sure you caught all the right moments. So the taking of pictures was done in seconds, only development and printing took more time.

[Justinr]

That will vary between individuals, I certainly took a lot more time planning and looking for shots when using film and people were a lot more patient because they appreciated the process. Not now with digital, it's all expected to be done and dusted in seconds.

unquote Justin

I see a lot of posts stating this point but doesn't have to be that way? If someone has the patience to shoot film slowly then why don't they have the patience to shoot digital slowly? If you want to shoot digital slowly then get an old Canon G2 camera. Marketed about 11 years ago and a Raw image took 5 seconds to write to the card. That is slow?

Not at all. For instance the picture of the cyclists above was in fact the Tour de France passing by, I had stumbled across it by accident and had plenty of time to plan a shot, over two hours in fact yet they took about ten seconds to pass! I got about five exposures of the actual race itself in that time.

I have noticed a big difference in wedding photography since the advent of digital, photos are so much part of everyday life nowadays that having them taken as part of the wedding day ritual is longer the big deal that it was and hanging around waiting for the photographer to do his stuff is just not as acceptable to guests as it once was, or maybe that's just Ireland.

[pegelli]

I have noticed a big difference in wedding photography since the advent of digital, photos are so much part of everyday life nowadays that having them taken as part of the wedding day ritual is longer the big deal that it was and hanging around waiting for the photographer to do his stuff is just not as acceptable to guests as it once was, or maybe that's just Ireland.

Is that digital vs. film, or is it just that life in general became a lot faster. I recently watched some TV series from 25 years ago that I remembered to be good. Now I find them slow with too long discussions and crawling to the plot.

[Rob C]

Is that digital vs. film, or is it just that life in general became a lot faster. I recently watched some TV series from 25 years ago that I remembered to be good. Now I find them slow with too long discussions and crawling to the plot.

Possibly you nailed the reason - perhaps it's also due to something else: today denies subtlety: in, do it, get the hell out. Maybe women could explain this better.

Rob C

[Justinr]

Is that digital vs. film, or is it just that life in general became a lot faster. I recently watched some TV series from 25 years ago that I remembered to be good. Now I find them slow with too long discussions and crawling to the plot.

Well yes, everything is quicker and instant and is expected to be so. One can read books of a hundred years ago and note how the authors were grumbling about mankind's pressing need for instant gratification and how things had  gone down hill since the good old days and so on. Everybody's idea of the golden era is the time before they lost track with progress it seems.

I caught a glimpse of a documentary on the box earlier, it was about the the lives of the Amazon dwellers and it appeared far from the simple idyllic existence that we might assume. The fellow who was telling us of life before the white man came explained how they often went without food for days, had to be always on the look out for snakes, needed to stay up all night to guard their women from other tribes and how a jaguar ate his grandmother! So when civilisation came a knocking it was a case of 'yes please, we'll have some of that' and now they have guns to shoot their dinner, medicines to cure their children and the means to ward off hungry felines and rapacious neighbours. I guess it's much the same primal spirit lurking within us all that pushes us to demand 50m pixels or more in our cameras, we are all seeking a better life.

[N80]

I can shoot digitally as slow as I have the discipline to do so. If I'm relying on how fiddly the medium is to give me 'discipline' that is unlikely to give me the discipline in a way that matters. So sure, film can make you slow down, but that is no guarantee that it is going to make you take better pictures.

I also seem to recall some Nikon autowinder backs that would hold something like 100 feet of film. That was hardly for contemplative photography.

So I don't think we can blame the digital format for making us rush through the process. It allows you to shoot quickly but it hardly forces you to.

[stamper]

I can shoot digitally as slow as I have the discipline to do so. If I'm relying on how fiddly the medium is to give me 'discipline' that is unlikely to give me the discipline in a way that matters. So sure, film can make you slow down, but that is no guarantee that it is going to make you take better pictures.

I also seem to recall some Nikon autowinder backs that would hold something like 100 feet of film. That was hardly for contemplative photography.

So I don't think we can blame the digital format for making us rush through the process. It allows you to shoot quickly but it hardly forces you to.

Agreed!

[N80]

Now this is a little OT but relates to what the OP talked about in the original post: time and pressure. He describes a vacation situation in which he had no pressure to produce anything and had time to shoot contemplatively.

For me having the time to shoot in an unpressured situation is the recipe for success. Unfortunately, for me, and probably a lot if us, this is a more costly commodity than equipment.

[RSL]

Contemplative shooting simply doesn't apply to the pinnacle of photographic art: street photography. On the other hand, contemplation for a fraction of a second may help.

[GrahamBy]

I think the 100' roll autowinders were used almost exclusively for sports. I remember a ski photographer writing about shooting races: he would focus on the crest in front of him, or a few feet past it, then when he heard the skis he'd hit the button. With good timing he'd shoot about 10-15 frames per skier, the roll was good for 250 frames, so he kept a stack of them inside his jacket. Outside on cold days, the film would become brittle, and the air was so dry that there would be static build-up on the film causing sparking as it was whizzed through the camera...

[Justinr]

Now this is a little OT but relates to what the OP talked about in the original post: time and pressure. He describes a vacation situation in which he had no pressure to produce anything and had time to shoot contemplatively.

For me having the time to shoot in an unpressured situation is the recipe for success. Unfortunately, for me, and probably a lot if us, this is a more costly commodity than equipment.

Most of my photography is done on a commercial basis as well which is why I decided to leave it all behind for a week and return to film just for the indulgence but I must admit I hadn't realised what a terrible crime I was committing in the eyes of the assembled digirazzi. I should imagine that 99.99% of image capture is done by digital nowadays and even if film use doubled tomorrow that would only bring it down to 99.98%! Oh well, so be it.

[Rob C]

Now this is a little OT but relates to what the OP talked about in the original post: time and pressure. He describes a vacation situation in which he had no pressure to produce anything and had time to shoot contemplatively.

For me having the time to shoot in an unpressured situation is the recipe for success. Unfortunately, for me, and probably a lot if us, this is a more costly commodity than equipment.

I found I reacted in quite the opposite way. I couldn't do much of anything when left to my own schedule, which perhaps explains in part why, though I did supply stock to a key agency for years, I didn't really do that much from scratch, mostly using out-takes from assignments. I simply needed something to push my buttons and make me do it instead of think about doing it.

Blessed with a muse almost at the very start of my career, I remember well spendimg most of a day driving randomly around bits of Scotland looking for locations, and her telling me that I was bloody useless without an assignment, that she knew I had to have the pressure. She had me sussed. That's why we worked so well as a duo: she knew me better than I knew myself.

And age and retirement changed nothing: for as long as my wife was still alive after I packed up the business, I hardly touched a camera. We lotus-eat. It was her moving on to prepare our new pad in the sky that forced me to stop, think and take photography seriously again. Therapy. It works. I just hope you have better reasons for doing it than mine are right now. But, the inertia remains. On the plus side, I realised that if you once had it, you can't lose it: neither the bug not the ability. You can indeed just start all over again where you left off. No, I'm not talking about business: that's gone for ever.

Rob C

[Telecaster]

I've long noticed that Casio makes really good performing & often innovative products in the early stages of a new thing, whether that thing is electronic photography or music synthesizers or whatever. Then after awhile they seem to lose interest.

My first good digicam was a Canon G2, bought in early October 2001. Got it at B&H in New York and used it the next day to document a computer hardware (and the contents of a safe) recovery "mission" in World Trade 5. We had a police escort and a strict time limit. I used that camera a lot for a couple years along with my film gear. Then I bought a Canon 10D…

-Dave-

[GrahamBy]

Casio make products that are too reliable. Next to my keyboard, I have a Casio scientific calculator (fx-39) purchased in 1978. I can date it by the endearments of my classmates ("Byrnes is a cock") and my school year scratched into the surface. It still works perfectly.

[Rob C]

Casio make products that are too reliable. Next to my keyboard, I have a Casio scientific calculator (fx-39) purchased in 1978. I can date it by the endearments of my classmates ("Byrnes is a cock") and my school year scratched into the surface. It still works perfectly.

Casio, Two Way Power, SL-807LB

It was given to me by my late friend with the huge boats. I think it came to him as a freebie from Time magazine. He went to his massive marina in the sky at least fifteen years ago. It still works today although I tend to use the one in the smartphone more often. The problem with the Casio is that it becomes illegible under strip lighting.

Rob

[Telecaster]

A Casio CZ-1 was the first proper synthesizer I got my hands on (c. 1986). A deep, powerful instrument. Thoroughly digital. Then I discovered analog synthesis and that was that. Kinda like some younger folks today who've grown up with electronic cameras but have now taken up film. (Though this is a flawed analogy in that tech development has made newer analog synths less expensive to make than in the past and more reliable too. The Moog Werkstatt-01 sitting on my writing desk packs an impressive amount of the classic minimoog's sonic character into a tiny package and costs ~US$175. Film isn't keeping up in anything like the same way.)

-Dave-