Technology Climax.

[caelte]

Originally Posted by Brian SD

Well I was going to come in and type responses but it looks like TS beat me to the punch. I've used both analog and digital. The only people I know that use analog are those that never tried digital. I think people tend to think for some reason that true photographers aren't using digital - which is false, and that it's unlikely the great photographers of the past wouldn't be using digital were they around today (an impossible argument). TS perfectly summed up my feelings in that you can be a hobbyist and appreciate the beauty of vintage cameras and lenses, but to argue that analog is better than digital is simply absurd. I understand the attachment to analog (I still listen to vinyl myself - I like the sound of it), but I would never say that vinyl is superior to CD.
I don't think you can compare these technologies . Each has it's place. I use digital for all my commercial work-I don't have to hire a pro- because it is so amazingly easy for an amateur to achieve a pro result, but that's why so many post their fabulous shots on sites like Flickr. The question is, if it's so easy, how come there aren't more great shots? Most of the "good work" I see looks like artsy fartsy digital manipulations or stock photos for a magazine. Maybe analog photography produced so much really great work because it was so difficult to work with . Maybe the interaction with the analog medium produces a different kind of synergism. By the way, vinyl sucks, I'm thinking of selling my Thorens turntable.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by ATM

Until they stop producing it. Then it's goodbye to reliability.

Mass producers might not be making film in the future, but there are certainly various smaller factories and cottage industries that will spring up. Take a look at the bespoke pocket-knife and straight razor communities. How many people still use a straight razor? And there are people who make their living producing extremely expensive razor handles out of exotic things like gold or horn. Also, Eastern Europe has a fair amount of large factories that still produces film, film that is arguably of higher quality than what American companies might produce. Their films have a much higher silver content.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

A: Over the lifespan of the product it allows you to take more pictures of better quality than with film for less money. Film is marsupialedly expensive, darkroom chemicals or the photomat are marsupialedly expensive. You say $500 for Photoshop? Thats the price of buying and developing 40 rolls of film. ($2. a roll for 35mm film and 10 bucks a roll for developing at the photomat) Most of which will probably go unused. Which basically means you have just wasted both time and money. And its extremely easy to get PS for less than $100 through student or business discount or for free like everyone else does it.

Photoshop doesn't become "obsolete". They add filters to it, change the menus around, but its not like you can't still use Photoshop 6 when everyone else is using Photoshop 9. I do. So you object to improvement? You'd rather have a camera that's outdated now, than one that is outdated in five years, thats fine. But both the five year old camera and the 50 year old camera still take pictures, and the five year old camera is still more versatile and cheaper to use. Unfortunately, film is NOT just film either. Up until it became futile for the major manufacturers to do so (around the year 2003 or so), they were constantly improving film stock and film cameras. I fail to see the difference between that and the improvement in digital technology. You've convinced yourself that film technology reached its peak in the 50's and 60's? I beg to differ.
I don't necessarily see film as outstandingly expensive. You can make your own canisters with bulk roll film for about $30 which will enable you to make a large amount of canisters. Also, if you print your own stuff, it's not that costly either. You can mix your own chemicals and such which lowers costs. The way I see it, the inherent nature of digital is that it has diminishing returns in the sense of how much money you invest into it; it absolutely outdates itself in a few years whereas say, a Leica will not necessarily be rendered almost useless by new and improved technological advances. Who is still using those 2.0 megapixel digital cameras that came out 8 years ago? Most film technology did peak around the mid-century of the last millenium. The only thing that has seen some improvement is color film; black & white film was the best in the '50s and '60s, sort of a Golden Age.

 

[retronotmetro]

Of all the film and digital cameras I've had (which is more than a dozen, going back to a Canon A1) my favorite one to shoot with was the Cosina Voigtlander Bessa-R. It wasn't the best made, it clearly didn't have the best feature set. But it made you think and work for every shot, in terms of both composition and exposure. Most of my favorite photos were taken with my Bessa-R. But so were some of my most miserable failures--blown exposures, "someone blinked" shots, and even a couple where the lens cap was still on.

If I had the cash to buy an LTM or M-mount digital body, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I don't. So I am currently shooting with a Pentax K100D and a handful of prime lenses. I would not go back to film for general use, ever. Having the convenience and portability of memory cards instead of rolls of film is one reason, being able to set white balance and do my own color correction without the use of filters is another. And don't tell me that being able to review a shot to see if everyone had their eyes open isn't a significant benefit. Most of all, I don't have to deal with labs any more. Overpriced "pro" labs that still manage to scratch the negatives, drugstore minilabs with Fuji Frontier machines operated by kids who don't know how to override the automatic settings, or reliable but $20/roll money burners.

A digital rangefinder would allow me to get manual controls and the shooting style that I love without the PITA of film. Until the time comes when I can get one (which will most likely be never), a DSLR is my ticket.

 

[LabelKing]

There's the expensive Leica M8 but I wouldn't pay $4000+ for a camera that outdates itself when something new comes up.

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Your sentimentality for something you never even lived through in the first place is weird. Did you just roll a die to figure out which affectations you'd develop to make yourself stand out, or is there some sort of sinister abuse story behind it all?

Your misinformed opinions on digital photography are laughable. Bringing up the 2MP cameras of 8 years ago is like bringing up 16mm film. The current batch of digital cameras will be useful for a long, long time. Why? because they satisfy the needs of 99.9% of the consumers in the world. Aside from hobbyists, 35mm film photography is dead. Unless you are blowing images up to wall size an 8-10MP camera is indistinguishable from film at any standard size print.

Mixing your own chemicals for a darkroom is initially about 10x as expensive as taking it to the photomat, its messy, you need a place to store everything, and you need to take drastic measures to make sure your solutions don't go bad. Most photographers are never going to do it. Over the long run it is cheaper than taking your film to Costco or One Hour Film or whatever, but still isn't as cost effective as printing out your own on the computer. And it CERTAINLY isn't as time effective. You also have that wasted money problem, having to develop negatives of pictures you are never going to use.

My main problem in the last paragraph is that you think technology "peaks". It doesn't.

 

[caelte]

Some consider the best photographic process to be the daguerreotype. The surface is solid silver so there is no grain. To see the evidence of of the image requires an electron microscope. To look into one is the closest thing to looking into reality. It is becoming popular again among art photographers. This is a company that makes equipment. http://www.blackshadowyachts.com/centurydarkroom.html

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

Your sentimentality for something you never even lived through in the first place is weird. Did you just roll a die to figure out which affectations you'd develop to make yourself stand out, or is there some sort of sinister abuse story behind it all?

Your misinformed opinions on digital photography are laughable. Bringing up the 2MP cameras of 8 years ago is like bringing up 16mm film. The current batch of digital cameras will be useful for a long, long time. Why? because they satisfy the needs of 99.9% of the consumers in the world. Aside from hobbyists, 35mm film photography is dead. Unless you are blowing images up to wall size an 8-10MP camera is indistinguishable from film at any standard size print.

Mixing your own chemicals for a darkroom is initially about 10x as expensive as taking it to the photomat, its messy, you need a place to store everything, and you need to take drastic measures to make sure your solutions don't go bad. Most photographers are never going to do it. Over the long run it is cheaper than taking your film to Costco or One Hour Film or whatever, but still isn't as cost effective as printing out your own on the computer. And it CERTAINLY isn't as time effective. You also have that wasted money problem, having to develop negatives of pictures you are never going to use.

My main problem in the last paragraph is that you think technology "peaks". It doesn't.

I simply do not feel that certain aspects of modern technology offers any distinct advantage over what was considered technology in the past.

16mm film is primarily cine-film so I don't know why you are bringing that up in a discussion about photography. If at all, a more apt comparison would be 127 which is a 4x4 medium format film that is difficult to source nowadays. Besides, 16mm film is still used today for cinema purposes.

Perhaps surprising to you and some others, is that there are more of "us" out there than you may realize. We're like the insidious mice that the marketing departments never manage to catch.

Did your hate for Mac somehow verge into this animosity towards film? Why don't you aim at the pretentious Lomo-philes or Polaroid freaks?

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by caelte

Some consider the best photographic process to be the daguerreotype. The surface is solid silver so there is no grain. To see the evidence of of the image requires an electron microscope. To look into one is the closest thing to looking into reality. It is becoming popular again among art photographers. This is a company that makes equipment. http://www.blackshadowyachts.com/centurydarkroom.html
Also platinum prints which are especially striking when viewed in person. In print, they may appear to be the same as any silver halide item. http://www.dickarentz.com/ I've yet to see anything digital offer up that esthetic advantage.

 

[caelte]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

Perhaps surprising to you and some others, is that there are more of "us" out there than you may realize. We're like the insidious mice that the marketing departments never manage to catch.
...and I hope it stays that way.

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

I simply do not feel that certain aspects of modern technology offers any distinct advantage over what was considered technology in the past.

16mm film is primarily cine-film so I don't know why you are bringing that up in a discussion about photography. If at all, a more apt comparison would be 127 which is a 4x4 medium format film that is difficult to source nowadays. Besides, 16mm film is still used today for cinema purposes.

Did your hate for Mac somehow verge into this animosity towards film? Why don't you aim at the pretentious Lomo-philes or Polaroid freaks?

I understand that you appreciate the CHARACTER of 50's and 60's film, and the artists who used it, but to say that the technology itself peaked in the 60's is absurd. Basically that would imply that there have not been any worthwhile or useful advances in film technology since then, which is patently false. We all know you yearn to have been born in a different era, we can assure you that you've made that VERY clear to all of us. But if 1960's technology was better than that of today, why is it that people who earn their living in the field no longer use it?

The 16mm analogy was a cinema one, I'm sorry that it wasn't more clear. There are dedicated artists who work with 16mm because of the character that it imparts, but it is restrictive and is a dead technology. Digital imaging of any kind is much more streamlined, easier to use and edit, cheaper, more versatile, and can produce equally as good a picture as any analog format. Its the use, not the media that determines the final quality of any art. Indeed digital filmmaking can emulate 16mm film, 35mm film, and possibly 70mm/IMAX film. Moving to a format with the broadest possible potential makes sense to everyone except a handful of people who in some way or another, are either too stubborn to learn something new or like you and the unibomber, just rail against the modern era on principal.

My hate for apple has nothing to do with this.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

I understand that you appreciate the CHARACTER of 50's and 60's film, and the artists who used it, but to say that the technology itself peaked in the 60's is absurd. Basically that would imply that there have not been any worthwhile or useful advances in film technology since then, which is patently false. We all know you yearn to have been born in a different era, we can assure you that you've made that VERY clear to all of us. But if 1960's technology was better than that of today, why is it that people who earn their living in the field no longer use it? The 16mm analogy was a cinema one, I'm sorry that it wasn't more clear. There are dedicated artists who work with 16mm because of the character that it imparts, but it is restrictive and is a dead technology. Digital imaging of any kind is much more streamlined, easier to use and edit, cheaper, more versatile, and can produce equally as good a picture as any analog format. Its the use, not the media that determines the final quality of any art. Indeed digital filmmaking can emulate 16mm film, 35mm film, and possibly 70mm/IMAX film. Moving to a format with the broadest possible potential makes sense to everyone except a handful of people who in some way or another, are either too stubborn to learn something new or like you and the unibomber, just rail against the modern era on principal. My hate for apple has nothing to do with this.
Like the CE forum, I think we'll have to settle on that we're not going to convince each other. As for the final quality of the art, there are some that maintain that the process itself is emblematic of the final quality, and that it can neither be subtracted or added to. I'm reminded of Sofia Coppola and her movie, Lost In Translation, and which her father persuaded her to use a digital medium. Apparently she chose the analog version because of the emotive effect. I like that poignancy and bittersweetness that analog imparts--the same reasons why I like lonely luxury hotel corridors and the shuddering glow of a '50s car interior at night.

 

[Nick M]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

The way I see it, the inherent nature of digital is that it has diminishing returns in the sense of how much money you invest into it; it absolutely outdates itself in a few years whereas say, a Leica will not necessarily be rendered almost useless by new and improved technological advances.

Originally Posted by LabelKing

There's the expensive Leica M8 but I wouldn't pay $4000+ for a camera that outdates itself when something new comes up.

In terms of features, functionality and ease-of-use, a vintage Leica is almost useless when compared to a digital.

I don't understand your assertion that a new model of digital camera "outdates" the previous model - it's still a perfectly good camera. It doesn't stop working all of a sudden.

Originally Posted by LabelKing

Perhaps surprising to you and some others, is that there are more of "us" out there than you may realize. We're like the insidious mice that the marketing departments never manage to catch.

You're not insidious mice, you just happen to like the aesthetic of an old camera, and the process of developing. People who buy digital cameras aren't being tricked by marketing departments - they enjoy taking pictures without having to deal with what is, to them, the incovenience of changing film and time-consuming processing. They like being able to take a few pictures until they get it absolutely right. Why is your preference better than their preference?

Originally Posted by LabelKing

Who is still using those 2.0 megapixel digital cameras that came out 8 years ago?

Probably thousands of people, because the camera they bought suits their needs?

I think your dislike of digital comes from two sources: One, you don't like the idea that a technology that was formerly the province of artists and the jetset is now available to "common people"; and two, you've got some notion that if you don't have the absolute pinnacle of technology, the snobs are going to start whispering. Buy a Rolleiflex, problem solved.

 

[caelte]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

Its the use, not the media that determines the final quality of any art. .
I have a high regard for your opinion, TS. Is this idea about media your own opinion or is it one you find to be commonly held true?

 

[Manton]

James, Nick: really, both of you know better. That's all I'm going to say.

 

[LabelKing]

I'm a member of the Rollei Club and have a Rolleiflex poster specially shipped from Germany.