| Author | Message | ||
     Alex Rating: N/A |
The comparison with vinyl is interesting but I'm not sure its relevance can be pushed that far. Vinyl was always a playback-only medium rather than a recording medium, whereas film & digital are recording/playback media. Perhaps it's more appropriate to describe film as a record-once medium. Tape, however, was a recording and playback medium, and cassette tapes are still readily available, even in a world of hi-tech digital recording formats, albeit generally just in 90 minute size. Although I'd have to search it out, I can still get 127 film at affordable prices, and when was the last 127 film camera made? I'm therefore more optimistic about the continued availability of 135/120 film, and it is interesting to note the article in the recent issue of Amateur Photographer (6 May 2006) reporting a return by many dSLR owners to film, partly fuelled, I guess, by the discovery that high-quality film kit is available rather cheaply, and also because there's been a renaissance of interest in silver halide itself. Film is not going to return to its heyday in terms of buying and use, but perhaps more people are coming round to the idea that it's not 'either-or', it's whatever is fit for purpose. I will not be the only person on this forum who has a hefty dSLR in the inventory, and I use it when it makes the best sense (such as photographing sports), but I prefer film because I just like it. I like the different characteristics of different films. Photography is a recreation for me, not a living, so I can afford the time to take my time, and I think almost all photographers in the world are recreation photographers. My personal use of film has rocketed in the last couple of years, partly through the interest I've found in older and classic cameras (for which this forum must take a large part of the blame), and also because the easy availability of digital images for playing with on my computer has helped me think more about what I'm doing when I'm using film. I have a friend who's notorious as a gadget freak. He must have the latest of everything, and he really does use the gadgets he buys, it's not mere faddism (he runs a photo studio). A couple of years ago, he went 'all-digital', and announced he'd given up film for ever. He'd use Photoshop to take images from his Nikon D70 and then manipulate them to monochrome then put 'grain' effect on them to make them look like they'd been taken using push-processed Tri-X. I'd tell him I just use Tri-X for that.... One day a few months ago, Ben discovered the old Zenith he started with decades ago, in a storage box. Intrigued, he put a roll of Tri-X through it just for old time's sake, and had it processed in Rodinal (I did that for him), and discovered he really preferred the effect of real Tri-X. A Nikon film camera followed to partner the D70, then a Fed from an eastern European Ebay seller, and I had to point out with a wry grin that 'digital-only' Ben now owned more film cameras than digital. That's the sort of thing that makes me optimistic. |