When I was out shooting with my M3 recently, I met a man who knew my lenses by names, because he had a Leica iiic, and an M2 at home that he used to use, but stored them away; he was convinced that an Olympus digital camera and an Epson printer were better for him than the "inconvience" of film. Is there a lways going to be film and chemicals for the long run in asking about the future use of my M3 versus the predominant "digital revolution"?

-- Patrick Earnest (Ephotopat@aol.com), January 07, 2002

Answers

I think you can count on 35mm film being around for at least a few more years. Maybe. But hey, look at the bright side... at least you'll have plenty of advance notice allowing you to stock up on film as your favorite emulsions eventually fade away!

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), January 07, 2002.

This question comes up in every photo forum every month or so. There's no way 35mm film is going away anytime soon. Sure, some of the niche emulsions are already gone, but don't count on the more popular 35mm or 120 films going the way of the 8 track cassette. Heck, the major camera manufacturers are still coming out with new models, and they are still selling. When Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Contax, Leica, etc. DISCONTINUE all their 35mm camera lines, then I would say look for film availablity to become a problem maybe 10 years after that point.

Also, how about the inconvenience of short lived batteries, memory cards, funny looking digital artifacts, poor ergonomics, crappy finders, slow data transfers, hard to manage color balance, and the other host of nigling problems in imaging software, etc.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), January 07, 2002.

Things can exists side by side.

The digital watch did not wipe out the mechanical watch. The ball pen did not wipe out the fountain pen. TV did not wipe out radios. The camera did not wipe out oil paintings. Computers screens did not replace paper. Quality, workmanship and fine things will always have a place.

-- Yip (koklok@krdl.org.sg), January 07, 2002.

How's this for a digital "attitude"? Last fall I was out toying around with an old 1950s vintage Balda Super Baldina (moderately resembles a IIIg). I ran into a teenager who upon seeing my oldie commented, "Wow! Far-Out! Is that a new digital camera? How many megapixels does it do?"

-- Tod Hart (tghart@altavista.com), January 07, 2002.

Wow, what a coincidence. Very recently, in a fit of madness, I came dangerously close to trading my M6 for an Olympus E20. I got a Canon S300 digital camera a few months ago and absolutely love the convenience of being able to see your shot immediately after pushing the button. My wife of all people, talked me out of the trade. She said something like: "Digital photography may be convenient and a lot of fun, but it just doesn't seem like art." I'm don't know if I agree, but it made me think. Does something about the effort and permanence of film photography make it more akin to art than digital photography? I've read about similar debates at the turn of the last century pitting painting against photography. Painting is still alive and well. Here's yet another corny analogy: digital photography is to film photography as microwave cooking is to conventional cooking.

I do wish that Leica would come up with an M camera that could use something like the Contax N1's FE-1 digital preview viewfinder accessory. What a great idea, though I don't know how well it works.

-- Ken Geter (kgeter@yahoo.com), January 07, 2002.

Even if all the developed nations switch entirely to digital cameras, the change will take much longer in the emerging nations. Film will certainly be around longer than any of us will live.

Besides that, there will always be those of us who prefer film. We constitute a perfect niche market for a few small companies to serve profitably, even if the rest of the world goes digital.

We may not have the vast selection of films that are available now, but then, photographers of past generations did not have such a selection either. They managed to get by somehow, and to do work that endures. We should do so well.

-- Dave Jenkins (djphoto@vol.com), January 07, 2002.

""Digital photography may be convenient and a lot of fun, but it just doesn't seem like art." I'm don't know if I agree, but it made me think. Does something about the effort and permanence of film photography make it more akin to art than digital photography? "

Hahahahahahahahaha

NO.

I just spent the evening shooting portraits of a lovely young lady with my digital SLR. I worked just as hard as I would have with film. Except that I didn't have to waste the polaroid film I would have with a med format camera. And I got to show the model what we were shooting. And now, I've got a couple of hours of sorting through 200 digital files to find the keepers. In this way, I'd say that digital is more work than just using a loupe and a light table to decide on which slides to keep.

-- Josh Root (rootj@att.net), January 08, 2002.

Compare it with film, remember the 8mm film? Who is still using that? No, almost all consumers now use digital camera's, for whom they are good enough. Who are still using film? The "real pro's", that need a film to be presented on a large screen. Photography will probably go the same way.

-- ReinierV (rvlaam@xs4all.nl), January 08, 2002.

Ken, I like the cooking analogy. But consider: a TV dinner from a conventional oven doesn't really taste any better than a TV dinner from a microwave. Whether one oven is better than the other depends on what you're cooking . . .

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), January 08, 2002.

Regarding the 8mm film analogy: You still can buy 8mm films! And for how long now has the manufacture of 8mm cameras been discontinued? Digital will most probably replace films in the consumer market but films will still be manufactured - maybe by small companies - for a very very long time.

PS: I can't believe I actually got involved in such a bogus thread :)

-- Xavier Colmant (xcolmant@powerir.com), January 08, 2002.

Good analogy Mike. For consumer usage where convenience is paramount and nothing larger than a 4X6 will be required digital is great. But for pro, or serious amateur use (by this I mean the person who wants to print and display quality 16X20's on his wall), film will remain the best way to do so for quite some time. On the 8mm debate. Again as an amatuer medium video is far cheaper and convenient. But what do you think you watch at the theatre (film), made for TV movies (film), and even music videos (FILM - after shooting it is transferred to video for ease of distribution and broadcast).

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), January 08, 2002.

Another sign that will preclude that film availablity and use is going away is when one after another 1 hour labs (and the big ones like Kodak, Fuji, Mystic, etc as well)start going out of business from too low a volume of film coming in for processing. Of course we are only guessing as far as whether and when that will happen.

By the way, many pros are switching over to digital. Benefits include the ability to show clients immediately results, and the quality of the new high end cameras is good enough for color magazine work. With the new Epsom printers, very high quality enlargement work can be turned out as well. A Pro shooter said in Shutterbug that he can now finish a complicated shoot early when the client says they got the shots they wanted. Before with film, he'd have to shoot hundreds of extra exposures with changes in angles, lighting, etc trying to make sure he'd got the shot.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), January 08, 2002.

Actually Andrew it is another misconception that pros are switching to digital in droves. In very large centres this is happening to a degree but in Edmonton (where I live, a city of 750,000, one of a handful of cities, along with Seattle that adverisers test products in because it is so 'average) two photographers are using digital medium format backs. Apart from the two local newpapers there are a dozen pros using D1(Nikon) and another dozen using Canons. There are 7 pages of photographers in the yellow pages here, so a small number of pros have switched to digital. Don't be mislead by advertising and what digital 'gurus' tell you....

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), January 08, 2002.

Just to throw in my 0.02 - don't be mistaken: the film industry, too, is flirting heavily with digital as a future standard of movie * shooting* (Wenders, Soderbergh and Lucas, to name a few, have already adopted the media). It's faster to handle and less expensive in postproduction. But Sony and Fujinon are still struggling to achieve a look that is appealing to cinematographers. DOF and color rendition are quite different from conventional film aesthetics... so far. But there is going to be yet another cut to the film stock producing companies when high definition DVD and projection-on-demand via satellite will take over in the theaters and make movie copies obsolete.

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), January 08, 2002.

I drive a car with a manual gear shifter. I don't like automatic cars because there is no pleasure in the experience. However, I don't begrudge those who buy Porsche sportscars with an automatic gearbox. There is room for both types of people.

I wear a $30 quartz watch with an analog face, and shoot photographs with a $4,000 manual camera. A friend wears a $5,000 manual Swiss watch and shoots with a digital Canon S110 $350 camera. We are both happy. Choices are good, and so is competition.

Just because someone shoots photographs with a M6 doesn't make them an artist. Most of my stuff is average crapola and I don't *need* a M6, it just gives me a tremendous pleasure to use it, the whole process. Makes me wonder. What percentage of the Salgado's and the Bresson's were keepers? I bet you the number was very low.

Here's a competition they should have. I roll of 36 film, I hour. See how many keepers you have. Lucky if you have one.

Any fool can take 100 rolls and get one awesome keeper, which is the ratio in magazine photography.

-- Sikaan (Sikaan4@aol.com), January 08, 2002.

Film cameras are not going away anytime soon, or in the future. If you think about what you need to go digital, an expensive camera, a printer, a computer to edit the images....we're talking thousands of dollars...this would cut out the majority of people just shooting pictures at their 3 yr old's birthday party, with a $30 camera and a roll of film and an hour at the local CVS. What about the disposable cameras at the wedding tables? Don't get me wrong, I have a 3 yr old digital camera I bought to sell items on ebay, and it's perfect for that and for emailing a quick picture of something. However, I would need many thousands of dollars to get the technical quality I can get from 35mm or 120 roll film, PLUS I just plain like film!!! I want to hold the pictures in my hand...and then I can enlarge what I want...it also rubs me the wrong way for some reason the digitally enhanced pictures, I'm a tradionalist I guess, I want to shoot the picture - and if I captured some magic in that moment - so be it. I don't want to change, colorize, enhance, add people...whatever after I've tripped the shutter. Digital has a place and so does film - may they co-exist forever. Ed

-- Ed Hoey (ehoey@charter.net), January 08, 2002.

FYI, most (I would say 99.99%) of pictures you see of beautiful women on magazine covers, and inside, have been doctored using digital technology. The picture may have been taken with a film camera, but the digital darkroom takes care of scars, pimples, tatoos, or other natural features that the editors consider to be less than worthy to put to print.

If I had to put a vote in, I would say that I love my M6 (and Nikon F2AS), but I would like to have some form of digital darkroom because I don't have a dark room in my home. In addition, there is the issue of chemcals in the lungs.

Also, in Manhattan it costs $24.00 to process a 36-roll of black and white film, but only $10.00 for 36-color. When I was a child it was the other way around. So the pleasure fo film camera with the ease of a digital darkroom would be my choice of formats. RIght now I am not using black and white film because of the expensive processing cost.

Money is a huge motivator, and this year the 2.1 megapixel cameras have been flooding the market at a reasonable price. A month after I got my M6 I ended up buying a Canon S110 because it fits in my shirt pocket and is so easy to use anywhere. The digi is for quick docu- shots, pictures that I would consider a waste of time and money to take on the M6 (eg, the new baby, the new cat, the new car, the new apartment), but I won't give up the M6 and use it with pleasure(the new girlfriend).

-- Sikaan (Sikaan4@aol.com), January 08, 2002.

Sikaan - even though I sometimes have a looksee at all the beautiful women you talk about on the magazine covers ;-) I seldom find that they are particularily worthwhile or astounding photographs. As well if you check some of the work of photographers such as Sieff, Gibson, even guys like Hamilton or Bailey - wonderful photos that have never seen an airbrush or Photoshop filter........

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), January 08, 2002.

I thought compact discs would wipe away LP records and cassette tapes because the sound quality was so much better, but records and tapes are still around. But open reel tapes have disappeared.

Because digital is still relatively far below silver halide technology in image quality, and because 35 mm film is so well entrenched with photographers, I think it will remain available for the forseeable future. As has been pointed out above, 35 mm images can be scanned and manipulated electronically, allowing a blending of the two technologies.

As far as I am aware, 35 mm P & S cameras still outsell everything else on the photographic market, so I can't see film disappearing soon. I seem to recall a similar debate "raging" in photo magazines a few years back on whether the APS format would replace the 35 mm format: a moot issue today. It seems that 35 mm film just has staying power.

-- Eliot (erosen@lij.edu), January 08, 2002.

"...if you check some of the work of photographers such as Sieff, Gibson, even guys like Hamilton or Bailey - wonderful photos that have never seen an airbrush or Photoshop filter........ " -- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), January 08, 2002.

Bob,

I can't agree with you more. I don't particularly find the women of today to be beautiful in a natural sense of the word, they seem too artifically made up, as if fitting into some formula for universal beauty, whatever the word "beauty" means today, something meant to sell products. There is a sensuality that is totally lacking. The sensuality of Hamilton's pictures, which I had in the 1970's, is just not there anymore. The women of today seem very plastic.

You can see this phenomenon when you look at movies shot in the 1970's. The women were women then, and not gym-built cyber-chicks with plastic-surgery faces and breasts, and sometimes asses. Whatever has happened to women???

Thanks for the Hamilton memory. A lot of his photos had some sort of soft focus filter or something like that. Made them look more sensual, but not too far from innocent.

-- Sikaan (Sikaan4@aol.com), January 08, 2002.

Any fool can take 100 rolls and get one awesome keeper, which is the ratio in magazine photography.

You'd be surprised how many fools can't.

-- Peter Hughes (ravenart@pacbell.net), January 08, 2002.

I wish to thank you for all of your many insightful contributions!! I've never before recieved so much positive feedback since I started using Leica in my photography, that I'm now encouraged even more to continue with confidence in my darkroom and in my shooting. Using my C1 and M3 with 90mm, 50 and 35, and Leica's Prodavit slide projector and my v35 Focotar w/Autofucus. Thank you for keeping up the great thread!! I will be back with more, photos included. Patrick Earnest p.s. This thread isn't bogus:.)

-- Patrick Earnest (Ephotopat@aol.com), January 09, 2002.

As a school-day photographer for a family company that has been in business for more than fifty years, I frequent almost 150 schools each year (Fall + Spring ~300 shoots, not to mention Proms, graduations, Weddings and Dance Schools). I love film and the volume it can handle in short time, like a school semester. I also embrace the digital edge as in re-touch-ups for pimples, and happy moms everywhere.

-- Patrick Earnest (Ephotopat@aol.com), January 09, 2002.

Like Tod earlier on, a young guy asked me if my Leica IIIa (1935) was digital. Lots of young folk seem to think it's cool. Thing is, it's nearly 70 years old and still takes nice pictures. How many of today's digital cameras will be doing that in 70 years time? Or are we now such a throwaway society all objects have lost their value and permanence doesn't matter any more?

-- David Killick (dalex@inet.net.nz), January 11, 2002.

David: to back your point. Last week (where I work) a local journalist came in to order the new Canon EOS 1d. Brought in his old Canon DCS5 to trade in. This camera cost $9600.00 four or five years ago. He was quite happy with the $500.00 we gave him in trade. This camera is now of such outdated technology (1.5 meg and HUGE) that we'll never sell it. It was more of a goodwill gesture and we can put it into our rental department. Maybe working pros can afford this but I sure can't. My Leicas have retained most of their value and are just as capable of making good images as they were 40 years ago. Better in fact because film has improved so much. Apart from the convenience (and yes, I agree it has become a throw away society) I don't see the appeal of digital. So many are willing to give up quality if you have to do a little work to get it. Seems to me.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), January 11, 2002.

Sikaan

"Any fool can take 100 rolls and get one awesome keeper, which is the ratio in magazine photography."

Any fool can take 100 rolls of film and get 100 rolls of crap, actually. And most do.

As for the ratio in magazine photography, anyone with the ratio you suggest would last until his savings ran out and then have to start looking for a real job.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 11, 2002.