Film Photography Kicks Ass!

There are three questions which I am asked on a regular basis. I would like to definitively answer each of those questions.

1. Skippy, how can you be so amazing, intelligent, sexy, charming, funny and humble?

Answer: I’m from Texas.

2. Skippy, how is it that you are always right?

Answer: I’m never wrong.

3. Skippy, why do you still shoot with film?

Answer: I have talent.

Let me expand on that answer for you. It’s time that I go into great detail regarding exactly why I continue to use film in the digital age, even after dropping mega-bucks on the spiffy Canon EOS 7D digital wonder camera. The overarching answer concerns the confusion many have between technology and talent. It’s the ability of a human agent, channelled in a way we call talent, which leads to the creation of art. It’s not the technology. Technology is merely a tool. Like your brother-in-law.

Here is a story, as told at http://photomusings.wordpress.com/2007/04/, which makes the point.

It’s one of the things you’re guaranteed to hear when you start showing your work. People see the work on the wall, and they turn to you and say “Your photos are awesome! You must have a great camera”. They’re trying to be nice. They’re trying to say something positive and encouraging, but they’ve stepped on the land mine.

By now, we’ve all heard the story about the photographer who was told this by the hostess at a dinner, and at the end of the dinner got his revenge by telling the hostess, “That dinner was delicious! You must have wonderful pots and pans!” The problem with this as a general tactic, though, is that you’re forced to wait until an opportunity for turnabout comes along.

Recently, I heard a comeback that’s along the same lines, but offers an immediate response. (Sorry, I can’t remember where I heard/read this.)

When someone tells you “Your photographs are beautiful; you must have a really good camera!” you can reply “That’s a very flattering compliment. You must have a really good mouth.”

And if you are as crude as I am you can even ask if this person would like to put something in that really good mouth of theirs. You know what I’m talking about.

The point is that the camera has nothing to do with the final resulting picture. I’ve seen great photos taken with pin-hole cameras. I’ve seen utter crap taken with medium format digital cameras. It’s not the camera, it’s the person. I’ll say this about 7,364 more times in this series of essays.

At this point let me give you a run-down of the cameras I have and use:

The Topcon RE200 35mm SLR which I inherited it from my mother when she downgraded to a point and shoot. It’s gotta be at least 30 years old. The light meter doesn’t even work any more. Yet I can take perfectly good photographs with it. It even works without batteries. Yes, that’s right. Totally manual – except for the light meter which doesn’t work anyhow. No batteries needed. For those of you under 30 that means you don’t have to recharge it by plugging it into a computer. You don’t have to buy an extra battery pack for $60 if you want to shoot for extended periods of time. I have an assortment of lenses for it, but usually I use a 135mm f/2.8.

Staying in the universe of manual cameras I also have a Lubitel 166 medium format camera. It is made out of plastic with a glass lens and was built in the Soviet Union. The lens is f/4.5 75mm. This camera is totally fun. So much so that I might have to take it out to play this weekend. I’ve not shot with the Lubitel in over a year. I also haven’t updated the firmware. Oh wait, it doesn’t have firmware. It just works. On mechanical principles. How ’bout that?

Then there is my Ricoh XR-X 3PF 35mm SLR. The lens I use most often with this camera is a f/3.5 28-70mm. This is the camera most of the film photographs you will see on my site were taken with. I’ve had this camera for 15 years? More? Really I’m not even sure. In all that time not one problem with it. In fact, other than the light meter on the Topcon, no camera or lens I’ve ever had or have has ever broken.

The Ricoh is not an autofocus either. I am still mostly unimpressed with autofocus tho I acknowledge there are times when autofocus is useful and even superior to manual focus. And yet, with the 7D I find myself not only metering manually more often as I get to know the camera, but also manually focusing more often.

The Ricoh needs batteries to work, but it uses AA batteries. You know those things you can purchase at almost any store in the U.S. and around the globe in places like Mexico and England and China and South Africa. You can even find AA batteries in Third World countries like France and Canada and Oklahoma.

I have a Kodak EasyShare V1003 digital point and shoot. This camera is crap. Do not get one. Trust me on this. The only thing keeping this camera from being sold on Craig’s List is it’s small size which allows me to pocket it and take it along when I go trail running. This is also the camera I mount to my bike handlebars when I go trail biking. You can find some of my bike movies in the Zen Photo Gallery on the website (http://timeplacephoto.com/images).

Finally there is the Canon EOS 7D digital wonder camera. The camera which is already obsolete. The biggest of the many problems with cutting edge technology is that it isn’t cutting edge for very long. Still I’m happy with it so far. Unless it breaks and/or dies I’ll be shooting with this camera far into the future. So far in fact that one day I’ll have a conversation like this one:

Idiot: “Are you still shooting with digital? Does that camera even have a direct neural interface?”

Me: “Yea moron it’s digital, no it doesn’t have a neural interface and my other camera shoots film. By the way, did your mother have any children that lived?”

The 7D runs on sophisticated smart batteries that have to be recharged in a special charger. So instead of 4 AA batteries the 7D requires an expensive battery, an expensive charger and an electrical outlet of the correct amperage and voltage. I’m still trying to figure out how this is an improvement, especially as rechargeable AA batteries do exist. Oh but wait, the smart battery on the 7D will count the number of times the shutter clicks while using that battery. Serious, no joke. What I’m going to do with that information I don’t know, but there it is.

To dive back into the low tech side I also have what I call my 110 Spy Camera. I don’t know where I got it from, could have been from a cereal box for all I recall. It’s a small plastic camera that actually clips onto a 110 film cartridge. It doesn’t even enclose the 110 cartridge, just snaps onto it. For a viewfinder there is a small plastic frame that folds up and down. It has a shutter button and a film advance wheel. That’s it. No battery, no USB port, no high definition video. Most you don’t even know what 110 film is do you? Ilford make 110 cartridges of HP5+ though I’ve no idea where you would get them developed if you don’t develop your own film. I’m pretty sure any camera shop employee would consider you insane if you walked in with a 110 cartridge.

That’s my line-up. Now, having asserted that it’s the talent of the photographer, not the camera, that makes the difference the logical question is still “why do I use film?” After all, applying my own logic, I’d still get the same results using digital or film wouldn’t I? You are correct – I do have to justify my adversity to digital cameras with some evidence & ideas. Here are the reasons why digital fails to impress me.

1. Film technology is mature and established (unlike 53 year old men who live with their mothers). I know what results I will get from each chemical, film and paper. No guessing involved. I know it will work. I don’t need to figure things out, read instructions or take things back to the store because they don’t fit. Nor do I have to upgrade my software, firmware or operating system. I don’t need to upgrade my film developing canister to work with the latest 35mm film or the latest chemicals. My plastic funnel works with every developing and fixing chemical manufactured. With film technology you buy equipment once and use use it until it breaks. With digital technology you buy something and you use it until it become unsupported, and it becomes unsupported pretty quickly. That’s how Canon, Adobe and Micro$oft make money.

I do have to come clean on the fact that I’ve recently become hooked on Adobe Lightroom. Which cost money. And I’m not happy about the money part. Yet, for all my complaints about paying money for software I still recommend you get Lightroom. Version 3 is on the way. I’ve played with the beta and it looks good. I still hate Windows, just to be clear on that. I’m running Windows XP, but how much longer will Lightroom run under XP? And thus does the cycle of spending money begin. The question to investigate: Will Lightroom run under WINE/Linux. That’s an upcoming mission for me.

2. There is a satisfaction which comes from developing your own film and prints. Working with chemistry and using your hands to create something tangible is a great feeling. Copying a file to your computer from a memory card simply isn’t the same. The smell of the chemicals is like the smell of a long time lover; comforting, familiar, tempting, sensual, intimate. Sounds like I’m whacking off in the darkroom doesn’t it? I’m not. I don’t want to contaminate my chemicals.

If your computer is giving off scents, you have a problem. And I don’t want to know about your “intimate” activities with your computer. But you can send me any good links you have.

3. My Ricoh, body only, cost $250. I’m looking at the Canon EOS-1D Mark II N. It can do everything my camera can do and it cost $3999.95. But wait, there’s more. The EOS will be obsolete in 6 months, just as my 7D will be – or is already. My Ricoh is still kicking. It would be absurd to spend $4000 on a new camera. And no, I’m not going to “save” that $4000 in film and developing cost – especially since I also have to buy more batteries, accessories, lenses, computer, software, RAM and so forth. When I bought the 7D I also needed (okay, “needed” is a strong word, but you know what I mean) two lenses, three memory cards, a memory card reader and an extra battery. That literally tripled the cost of the camera right there.

Additionally there is a difference between spending $4000 now, probably on a credit card at 26% interest, on something which will be obsolete in 6 months and spending $4000 over years, not on credit, on materials used at or near the time of purchase.

What about all the other costs associated with digital photography? More memory cards? Another hard drive? Printer? Printer paper? Printer cartridges? Sure I need an enlarger and paper if I’m going to do conventional printing. I also need the chemistry. Yet none of these things will become outdated, obsolete or unsupported by Micro$oft. Nor do they cost as much as their digital equivalent.

Oh look, new version of Photoshop, gotta have it. Oh, new version of Photoshop doesn’t work with my version of Windows, gotta upgrade. Uh-oh, new version of Windows don’t work on my old computer, gotta get a new one. (How quickly the lessons of Vista are forgotten.) Damn, not enough RAM to use Photoshop, gotta get some more.

I use GIMP & Linux (Gentoo to be specific) and both are free (as in speech and as in beer). Both will work on older computers without any problem. Certainly they may be slow on older CPUs or boxes with low RAM, but they will work. You can’t say the same for Windoze and Photoshop. For the record GIMP does not read/write DNG format as of this time. I would hope and expect that they are working on that.

Meanwhile, all 35mm film works with all enlargers and all paper, both fiber and RC. There are no compatibility issues.

And, now that film is “obsolete” the price for the equipment I use for film photography is going down faster than your sister does in the boys locker room.

4. Resolution. My film camera has superior resolution in DPI to your digital camera. How can this be you ask? Simple, it’s called a scanner. In order to make the posters you will find for sale in my store ( shameless self promotion: http://www.zazzle.com/onthefly) I need a 300 DPI image which is 24×36 inches. That’s 7200×10800 pixels. Yet the afore mentioned $4000 EOS can only create an image that is 3504×2336. Not only that, but once you have taken a photo with a digital camera you are stuck with that maximum resolution. Can you resize an image to a larger resolution and keep the quality? Seriously, can you? I’m not saying it can’t be done. I am saying I haven’t seen it done.

With film I can make an image and scan it. If I later need the same image at a higher resolution I simply scan it again. When scanning technology gets better, I scan it again. Film & slides can be scanned over & over & over. Each time getting a fresh scan at whatever resolution I need. Digital? You can reduce resolution but there is no way to increase resolution and maintain image quality. Did you take a nice photo with your camera on the low resolution setting? You’ll never print that one in a large format.

5. Death of a hard drive. How many of you digital photographers back up your files? We all know you should back up, but people get lazy (myself included). If that hard drive dies or laptop gets stolen, then it’s all gone. And there are viruses. And there is the fact that Windows sucks. And there is the chance that you could accidentally format your partition or mess up the partition table. Now is this to say that physical negatives can’t be destroyed? Of course not. If your house catches on fire then your negatives are gone. Yet how often does your house catch on fire? Now how often does your computer get a virus? How often does Windows suck? Do you have Linux? I have Linux. You use Windows. Sucker.

Yes, some of you use Mac. You can laugh at the Windows users with me, but your computer can still break also. I’ve seen a dead Mac or two in my life. As an aside, my Apple IIc still works. How cool is that? I know you are jealous.

You can also accidentally delete things. Don’t say it never happens, and don’t trust the recycle bin. Many dumb-ass computer users have deleted files or folders with not a clue what they were doing until it was way too late to save them. As I’m doing my best to be even handed about this, in Linux if you accidentally delete something it’s really gone. Linux doesn’t mess around. If you are using Gnome or KDE they have a recycle bin like feature similar to Windows. If you don’t use those, and I don’t, a deleted file is pretty much a deleted file. Recovery is a zero chance option.

6. We will always be able to get prints from negatives, no matter the method. We can still make prints from the glass negatives taken by the earliest of cameras. Digital formats will probably be backwards compatible, hopefully DNG will be adapted and supported by everyone and solve this problem, yet at this time not all image formats are compatible with all software. I saved a TIF file in Photoshop and Lightroom can’t read it. Hello! Photoshop and Lightroom – both from Adobe – and they can’t talk to each other? And I paid money for this crap?

Media is another thing. Remember tape drives? Zip drives? CDs are being replaced by DVDs which will be replaced by something. The concept of external hard drives does solve this to a great extent, so admittedly this is only a minor irritation. If you archive and backup your photos on external hard drives that is.

Digital storage space comes into play. Digital photography takes lots of disk space, as I’m learning from experience right now. And hey, got those backed up in case your hard drive dies? Given the number of images I have in general and the number of high resolution scans of film images I have I’m gonna need at least three 1TB external hard drives in the very near future – as both primary storage and backup.

7. I keep all my negatives, even the crappy ones. Every other year or so I will pull ‘em out, hold ‘em up to the light and look for something I might have missed the first time around. Now I grant you that it’s just as possible to keep all of your digital images (even the crappy ones) and go back to look at them. Yet how often do people with digital cameras take a photo, look at it on the camera’s display, decide it doesn’t meet their standards, then delete it. Who knows, that could have been a masterpiece when viewed properly. Or when viewed a year later.

I came into the digital age with my 7D of the mind that I was going to keep all my images. Even the crappy ones. Because a year from now I’d look thru them and find a masterpiece. Or two. Yea. Right. That lasted about 5 weeks. Now I’m deleting files as fast as I can to save ever diminishing hard drive space. Why? Because I’ve got the infection that one contracts from digital photography. Spray and pray. Point the camera, push the button 100 times, hope you get a good photograph. If you don’t get a good photograph make one with Photoshop. Now I don’t do this all the time when shooting with th 7D, but I do find myself doing it often enough that I annoy myself.

A (not “the” but “a”) mindset of digital imaging is convenience & speed & quantity over quality. I know “photographers” who have told me they only get three good images out of 200 photographs. I know why this is. It’s because they aren’t actually looking in the viewfinder and thinking about what they are doing. These people just push the button over and over, hoping to catch something good by accident. I can shoot a roll of 36 and end up with 25 usable images. Why? I pay attention to what I’m doing. Digital photography caters to the “button pusher” mindset. Push the button over and over, maybe you’ll get something good. And hey, if you don’t get anything good, just fix it in Photoshop. I will be addressing this phenomenon in depth in a future essay.

Film is a finite resource which forces you to think before opening the shutter instead of after opening the shutter – which leads to my next point.

8. Using film adds to the challenge and requires skill plus technical knowledge plus talent. When using a digital camera you take the shot and you can see the shot, instantly. There are certainly times this is a good thing. But with film you have to know what you are doing. You must understand how the equipment works and how it will interact with light in order to predict the final result. Am I wrong about the final result sometimes? Of course. But there lies the challenge and the adventure, not to mention the mystery. Developing a roll of film is a process of anticipation. Are these 36 frames gold or garbage? Only time will tell.

Film requires that you have discipline in your actions, commitment to the results, understanding of the investment. Digital camera use is like a monkey pushing a button. If the photograph is terrible the monkey fixes it in Photoshop. Just thought I’d say that a third time in case you missed it the first two times.

The user of film has 36 opportunities, the digital monkey can press the button over and over and over . . . And they do. And yes, I find myself doing it too.

9. Digital photography sometimes puts too much emphasis on technology and technological tools. As a photographer, no matter what your tools, you have to be technically proficient with those tools. There is no denying that. Yet I see digital photographers paying too much attention to the technology and not enough to the art. Here’s an example of what I mean.

Exposure. My method with the 7D: Use light meter, not the one in the camera, the Gossen Digipro F flash/ambient light meter in my hand, to meter the light and set my camera accordingly. Then I take photograph and look at the display to make sure it’s looking the way I want it to look. If I don’t have the Gossen I use the meter in the camera in spot meter mode to get the exposure for the area I want “in the zone” and adjust from there.

Evidently I’m a freak because I’ve noticed the way to measure exposure for most digital photographers is to put the camera in automatic mode and assume the camera is smarter than the photographer. Maybe it is in some cases? Then if they check the exposure to see if it’s “right” they do this by looking at the histogram. Because if the histogram is even all the way across that means you have a good picture.

Really? I was told that by a fellow photographer. Seriously. Yes, the histogram has an understanding of my artistic intention and reflects that. Might the histogram reflect a photograph which is correctly exposed in a technical sense? Sure, I’ll give you that. Does the histogram say anything to or about artistic intention or interpretation? No. It does not.

Now, do I shoot the 7D in automatic exposure mode? Of course I do sometimes. There is a time and place for everything. But if I’m doing a model shoot or trying to make art, the Gossen is hanging around my neck and I’m running in manual. I don’t look at the histogram. Ever. A good image is one that tells a story or moves an emotion. Histograms do neither.

The technically perfect histogram does not automatically give rise to a great image. Technical precision is not art. The two can overlap, each has a time and place, but the one does not necessarily give rise to the other.

10. It’s not just the camera, it’s the film. Different films have different ways of rendering an image. Velvia doesn’t look like Astia. Velvia punches the colours up while Astia is specifically designed to render skin tones accurately. Ilford’s Delta 100, Delta 400, HP5+, XP4 and Delta 3200 all have different grain structure, they all handle contrast differently. Delta 100 will give you a sharp image with little grain. XP4 renders a sharp, grain-free image with a creamy texture to it. Delta 3200 is grainy and contrasty.

The Canon 7D has various settings you can change in order to replicate some of these effects. How effective this is remains to be seen as I’m still experimenting with it. The 7D gives you the ability to program Picture Styles. These allow you to pre-set how the camera records sharpness, contrasts, saturation and colour tone for colour shooting. For monochrome (black and white) you can control sharpness, contrast, filter effect (none, yellow, orange, red, green) and toning effect (none, sepia, blue, purple, green). With these settings one might be able to replicate the look of various films.

The first obvious problem is that you are limited to 7 Picture Style pre-sets. You can change any of these pre-sets at any time, but the more time I have to spend pushing buttons on a camera that are not the shutter release the more cranky I’m going to get.

The other problem is that grain simulation is not an option. Now I understand that many of you are seeking an end to grain. That is a legitimate artistic vision, but it’s not always my artistic vision. I like grain in some cases. Digital cameras do have noise the higher you crank the ISO setting, but noise and grain are not the same. Digital noise looks like nose no matter what. Grain looks different depending on what film you use. Delta 400 and HP5+ (also a 400 ISO film) and the Kodak T-Max 400 all look very different when you examine the grain structure.

Yes, I’m sure I can find a Photoshop plug-in to simulate grain structure. Or I can just use film.

11. The biggest reason I sometimes use film instead of digital? I’m an elitist snob. No really. I kid you not. Using a digital camera requires little skill and less talent. As digital cameras and related software tools fall into the hands of untalented people photography as a whole is going sink to a lower level relative to the skill set required to produce it. Let’s examine a parallel. The word processor.

Are you old enough to remember the days before word processors? Once you had to type a letter with a typewriter. Or, Gods forbid, write with your hand. On paper with a pen. If you wanted a flier, brochure, booklet, whatever – you had to pay someone to design and print it. A professional. With skill, talent and experience. Then along came Wordperfect (followed by the hideous Micro$oft Word). Now suddenly everyone thought “I’m a graphic designer.” People started to design things. With no white space. In unreadable fonts. With pictures behind the words which rendered the words unreadable. And other atrocities I’m trying to block out of my mind.

To this day every person with a computer thinks he can design, layout and publish a newsletter. Reality check: Just because you can insert some clipart does not make you a graphic designer. It just makes you an idiot who thinks that sans serif fonts in all capitals are great for the body text of your six page sales brochure and neon colours will get people’s attention.

Digital cameras will do (if they haven’t already done) the same thing for photography. Every bonehead with a camera now thinks “I’m a photographer.” No, really, you’re a bonehead with camera. Harsh but true. In the end film separates the poseurs from players.

When I go out with the Ricoh I have 36 chances to get it right. When I go out with the 7D I have 300ish chances to get it right, plus Lightroom and Photoshop. Still I maintain each has it’s place. The argument is not: “Photographers should not embrace digital technology.” The argument is “People with digital technology are not by default photographers.”

Now that I’ve done all this bitching about digital photography I’ll talk about the value of digital photography and how much I love it. Yes, it does have value. Everything has value in some way or another. Look for that essay in the near future.

Next essay titled: Digital Photography Kicks Ass!