Is color film dead?

Joined: 15 Jan 2004 Posts: 376

I will accept the notion that BW film can do things that no digital camera and/or Photoshop can accomplish.

But is there still an argument for shooting on color film Vs. using a high end digital camera?

And I don´t mean using film for the pure love of it.

R.

Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Posts: 792 Location: St. Louis, MO

I think for landscapes, large format color film is still the way to go.

Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 268

Its not dead so long as some clients still ask for it. Its getting more rare, but it still happens.

Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 288

supergringo wrote:

I will accept the notion that BW film can do things that no digital camera and/or Photoshop can accomplish.

But is there still an argument for shooting on color film Vs. using a high end digital camera?

And I don´t mean using film for the pure love of it.

R.

For me, 35mm color film is dead. In my opinion digital is better by any measure. I still use medium format color transparency film because for me it is still better than digital in terms of image quality - even when scanned to digital.

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 7:53 am

I now use 35mm film only for the sheer pleasure of operating my K1000 or ME-F. If the objective is to take photos of something and have them work out well then I wouldn't take anything but my K10D.

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:07 am

I also shoot color film still. Mostly for my MF system but on occasion I'll push a roll through the 35 for fun. I will be learning to hand print color film this spring and I'm eager to try it out. Many fine art schools also require students to shoot film too as far as I know...Rob

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 10:09 am

Skin tone is still being rendered more subtly in color negative film than in digital format. It has nothing to do with the pixels or the color itself. It has to do with the way the transitions from dark to light are handled.

A lot of people will say, "I re-discovered the beauty of b & w film (or large format, or medium format)".

Some of us don't need to re-discover anything; we've compared and stayed with the analog version for the beauty of the skin tone.

Joined: 18 Jun 2006 Posts: 191

Hopfully film never dies, its great, just as digital is. I enjoy both, my wedding shots were done with a konica minolta Film SLR and the results were fantastic, and my friend also shot alot of pics with his 20D, and they were great too. the biggest thing with film is finding a good processor, I would like to have a dark room one day....

Joined: 04 Aug 2006 Posts: 28

whats film? :)

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 3:48 pm

Another point I would make,

if I'm going somewhere where I want to take photos and I wont get another chance I actually take my K10D AND K1000, ME-F or sometimes Z-50p

If the K10D battery runs down, thats it. If the K1000's battery runs down (which happens perhaps once in 5 years) it means I have to guestimate the exposure but I can keep on clicking.

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:48 am

... damned dupe post.

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:51 am

supergringo wrote:

I will accept the notion that BW film can do things that no digital camera and/or Photoshop can accomplish.

But is there still an argument for shooting on color film Vs. using a high end digital camera?

And I don´t mean using film for the pure love of it.

R.

I think I've come up with a good argument, based on recent experiences with my scanner.

Some saturated slide films (obviously velvia, but also ektachrome E100VS and maybe others) can give you a saturation level that you can't really get with digital, without blowing out colour channels and losing details. I need to mess with this a bit more before I'll totally believe it, but here's a comparison of roughly the same shot of Delicate Arch (taken within seconds of one another, the first is digital and the second E100VS slide film, I just swapped cameras on the tripod and took the other shot):

I don't think there's anything I could do with the first shot to match the saturation of the second without losing details or getting annoying digital artifacts. The visible grain in the sky in the second is a scanning artifact (I think I need to scan it again with the slide oriented properly - I had the emulsion the wrong way and I think the software over-sharpened in response).

There's also the format argument; that you can do things with large format that you can't do with small format digital (e.g. camera movements), and the fact that you can capture way more detail for your dollar with a medium format or large format film camera and a high end scanner. I can way outdo a 1Ds II in terms of resolution (100 megapixels of good sharp information is no problem, 200 doable in some cases) and dynamic range with my LF camera and scanner, and together with film holders, lenses, and all accessories, they cost a fraction of what a 1Ds II body alone costs.

Joined: 05 Oct 2004 Posts: 565 Location: Toronto

The shop I go to had to dig Pro 160S 35mm out of the back room, even though it's a fairly new film. I made a joke about "no one shoots film anymore" and they said that indeed, they don't sell nearly as much 35mm as they used to, but their market for medium format has changed very little, if at all.

Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 288

My local camera store no longer carries medium format transparency film. I have to mail order it now. So things have changed a lot at my store.

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:56 am

Here's another example:

4x5 ektachrome VS

And a digital shot in similar lighting:

There's nothing wrong with the digital shot (it's one of my favorites in fact) but it's about as saturated as I would dare go without the image totally falling apart. The slide film can get an extra edge while keeping a ton of detail and without getting noisy or chunky looking.

Film is becoming more of a pain to get a hold of though. I got my LF camera only 6 months ago, and there was plenty of transparency and B&W on the shelf then. Now those stocks have run out and the two main stores here have both indicated they would only get it for me on special order.

There are at least 10 or 15 active large format photographers that I know of in the city, probably more in reality, which should be enough to keep a small cache of velvia on the shelves. Go figure.