Is any one into film photography ?
I have kinda lost interest in digital cameras and digital photography so I am going back into film.
Anyone in the same camp ?
Yes, I still enjoy film photography, but so expensive develop and print.
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Occasionally, though done nothing this year. It’s been hard enough to go out with the digital stuff recently, never mind film.
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Still have a Nikon F65 and a couple of old Nikkor lenses (and a Gossen light meter) but I don’t think I’ll be going back to analogue photography because I haven’t space for a darkroom and if I did have one, I’d only want to use it for traditional high end traditional printing processes, say from quarter plate photos.
About twenty-five years ago I had an MA student who was already a well-established commercial photographer and au fait with analogue colour processing. He used his post-grad to explore digital editing of b/w analogue film by scanning negs into Photoshop and using the app’s separate RGB channels for tonal separations and adjustments , then merging the channels and outputting as large negs that could be contact printed as silver nitrate prints or other Victorian print processes. But to do that sort of thing you obviously need a much higher than average understanding of analogue and digital photography
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A darkroom is nice to have. Sadly in need of space, I gave away my enlarger, lenses, tanks etc some years ago.
Before I retired, I always had access to a darkroom, though latterly they were digital - lovely hi-end La Cie monitors, yet still contemplative spaces like a studio
I would like to, but processing costs an arm and a leg these days. I was always amazed at how expensive it was to get films developed here in France, compared to the UK. As a young adult I worked for Truprint in Stevenage in the film splicing and development units, so I’ve seen industrial film processing on a scale that probably no longer exists in most digitally oriented countries today.
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There’s very little present day point to most traditional forms of analogue photography. Technically it’s perhaps best regarded as a traditional craft and I think the only strong arguments for its continuance in other contexts than nostalgic amateurs are in high end quality printing of silver nitrate or platinum prints on primarily archival quality paper.
I used them all the time as did the family, good product and service and costs were affordable plus you used to get the main photo plus two smaller copies… I kept all OH Pentax camera and different lenses, couldn’t bear to throw out after he passed but have never tried to get film here since.
If you got any scratch marks on your negatives or prints, they weren’t the result of my work, honest 
Repairing wet film in the dark with a stapler is an art, I can assure you.
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Film photography is globally having a big renaissance. Espcially in France.
Pentax is rumored to be releasing a film camera.
I bought myself a 1960’s Olympus Pen FT. I have not used it yet but can’t wait get started. Its half frame so on a roll of 36 you get 72 exposures.
Thst is cool.
I think development costs will come down.
I’m bored with digital photography……it is too instantaneous. No romance.
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I’ll be getting some film for my 35mm Minolta CLE rangefinder camera, dusting away in a drawer somewhere, but only to see if it and its 3 lenses still work ok, a preliminary to selling on.
In my youth I processed & enlarged & printed & glazed films in a spare room and thoroughly enjoyed it. But not now, too finicky and I like the immediacy and ease of digital photography. But I understand what you say about the romance. For me, that romance is still there but it’s a different sort of romance, digitised, sitting/dreaming/critical in front of the computer.
You don’t have to take a multi-burst of shots and later pick the best out of the bunch. I spend as much time framing focusing etc now with a digital camera out in the field as I did back in the day.
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I agree. I do the same. My digital camera is always set to single shot and manual mode.
That said, I still think film looks better.
It is like the debate between vinyl and Cd’s etc.
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The Pen FT is a nice camera for it’s time, although you will have to love the ‘charm’ of low-res pics, even as 6X4 enprints, to enjoy it. I know some like their Holga cameras for a similar reason.
D&P costs are only going to keep increasing, especially as popularity grows for a niche rich man’s hobby.
I find this curious. Just like when I shot film, the negative was always the starting point rather than the finish, and I’d expect to work the image to have the print the way I wanted it. The only exception to that was transparency - when our first child was born I went home at 3.30am & processed the slide film I’d used to that I could show friends and family later that day.
So now, the raw file is always the start of the image, even if I only set levels and sharpen a little.
That why I bought it.
In the house I am renovating are albums full of photos taken in the early 20th century. All relatives of my OH.
They are fantastic. Pictures of the house with horse carts, and people dressed up for Sunday lunch. ….smiling and happy. They capture moments in history.
I have tried to recapture these moments of our family in the same house using a digital camera but does not work for me. Too sharp.
It is difficult to describe.
Yes you can post process….but I have no interest in that.
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Well, I hope it works for you in that case. Guess I’ve always post-processed, so being able to do it in the light without chemicals was a major boon.
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I know….but I want to create an album that can be dicovered in a grenier in 100 years time.
Not some photos that will be stuck on an apple or google sever……or some external hard drive that will no longer be compatible in 100 years time.
See my point ?
Actually many early photos are incredibly sharp because they had huge plates and can be scanned and enlarged to an enormous level of magnification.
Re post-processing I’ve always found great satisfaction in it and have been using Photoshop for over thirty years. And printing without toxic chemicals. Although now the important images I output are done through commercial printers on archival quality paper so should last longer than most traditionally printed photos.
Nevertheless, each to their own…
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You are typing that statement and processing your photos on a computer that requires an awful lot of chemicals to build it.
Then you need an awful lot of chemicals for the computers to design and then run the photoshop software.
Then all the chemicals to build the severs to store the photos….where 99% will be lost.
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