How To Get Into Film Photography Inexpensively.

I found it interesting. I have my Yashica camera and a Nikon plus a couple of Pentax K-1000's with film in them ready to shoot. What I learned from this is when you have a film camera you are much more in touch with your photography experience. Reason being film is expensive as well as printing negatives. So printing your own becomes a true craft.

Digital causes one to loose the craft of photography in exchange for computer technology.

Von

Equipment doesn't make up for lack of vision, skill or craft. There is no "exchange" between film and digital. Shooting film doesn't make one any better. That's like saying you can only achieve greatness shooting in manual mode.

The expense of film will force a slow down in process as one thinks about each shot more carefully but will also slow down the time between idea and capture and lead to less experimentation. Perhaps it leads to a less interesting result as the images are over thought. Like anything there are trade offs.

Agree with Edward. I got into photography in the late 90's. I was shooting film since digital was no available, latter too expensive. The learning process is very slow with the film. Digital made this a lot faster. As far as the craft of photography, it depends what you mean by that, to me it is mostly how I use the camera, how to set up a shoot, things like that, not so much post processing.

Personally, I find advantages and uses for both. I'm not looking to start a film vs digital debate. Frankly I don't find those useful. A person should use what works for them, film, digital, or a pointy stick. IMO, film and digital are not something that one needs to choose between but simply 2 broad choices. Note that in photography there are other analog choices as well. all are valid, if they are valid for you.

Had I posted about oil painting, would people show up and tell me why acrylics are better? (hummm... you know around here they might...) :)

Photography as a pursuit or art can be very expensive, and to a great degree the prevailing culture of photographers feeds that.

The presentation gives a person the basics of experimenting with photography using the medium of film in a way that doesn't need to cost a lot. It also gives a wide range of techniques that can be applied.

The ways you can use film are actually quite astounding and the newer film photographers are doing experimentation that would have been difficult for acceptance while film was mainstream. I find that rather fascinating myself.

http://exploratorius.us/

http://mrleica.com/

Here too are a couple blogs where they talk a lot about film photography.

Hope this is helpful to the discussion here.

Interesting links Frank. Thanks for posting those. Absolutely magnificent work on the 1st one.

Edward, the very deliberative nature of film is where the benefit comes in and sheet film is even better. It instills discipline because of the planning and pre-visualization necessary BEFORE making an exposure. Digital, on the other hand, allows for plenty of experimentation (as you mention) as well as a learning curve with little expense and instant feedback - both very valuable. A well rounded photographer will benefit from both film and digital but we live in an impatient age that doesn't value hard won skills developed by long periods of disciplined study so we let the machine do the work and claim all we need is "creativity". And, at the same time, our photographic machines daily make the professional's job harder because so much is done for us instead of by us.

The only film camera I still have is my 4x5 (and a Canon AE-1 that my wife values for sentimental reasons) but, as I work with my digital gear, I am always aware of how much I owe to early training with film and darkroom.

"Had I posted about oil painting, would people show up and tell me why acrylics are better?

lol...we already had that debate...oils won ;)

Question;
In line with film/digital comparisons...Do the different emulsions/coatings of the papers used for film printing give better/worse/same results as the papers we now have for digital printing?
thanks, just curious

I LOVE my toy cameras. I've used a Holga and Diana since the early 80's! I'm on a temporary hiatus since my landlord made my shut down my dark room but I can't wait to get back to them. I even have a Holga with a Polaroid back duck taped on. These things are so much fun.

I've heard of doing that. Sounds like a bit of fun to try. I only have a pinhole holga, but use a number of old film cameras of various makes. (Hummm... never tried Polaroid pinhole...where's that 4x5 back?) :)

Agree with Edward too, following this thought pattern one could argue the use of glass plates for negatives. Or that driving a model T makes one a better driver. Film was good in its day but for the most part it is history. I would never go back to film.

Again, this is not meant to be a film vs digital thread. It was started as information for those interested in film. If you are not, that is ok, but that's not what this thread is about.

Von,

You do realize you just labeled and defined most of the photographers here in YOUR little view.

Right now there is no way for me to afford film photography even if I wanted to.

Yes, it can be very expensive, or it can be comparatively cheap. It depends on how you go about it. These days, I develop my own black and white, which brings both control and thrift to the process. For developing that I send out, which is all color, I do some real comparison shopping. I find that some places cost literally double what others do. So far, cost is not a significant determiner in quality either, which is interesting and somewhat unexpected.