Film photography

[boxbrownie]

8 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

At least in film days, cameras were relatively easy to 'learn'. With only so many parameters to set, and variables that all made sense in terms of photographic theory, wasted shots could thankfully be few. Now the cost per shot is basically nil, but having exactly the optimum focus option set for capturing this or that subject is another matter. For most non-professionals the typical medium- to high-end camera these days is endowed with far more capabilities than will be used. Then there's video....

So true, as an old photog I miss the very basic options we had to choose from, my digital cameras even the Leica/LX100 has more options than I ever will need.

 

My favourite camera ever were the Hasselblads, set what you need and then take some time (even if it’s seconds) composing on a screen the size of the neg/pos and if you’ve done it before you know you have what you wanted on film.

And you didn’t have to sort through bloody hundreds of frames which are just milliseconds apart 

[Hroth]

38 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

At least in film days, cameras were relatively easy to 'learn'. With only so many parameters to set, and variables that all made sense in terms of photographic theory, wasted shots could thankfully be few. Now the cost per shot is basically nil, but having exactly the optimum focus option set for capturing this or that subject is another matter. For most non-professionals the typical medium- to high-end camera these days is endowed with far more capabilities than will be used. Then there's video....

 

In the good old film days, options were more or less fell into five* phases

1. Choice of film**.
2. Focussing and Exposure***.
3. Processing the film
4. Exposing the print
5. Processing the print

Most photography in the digital environment combines all 5 phases in the camera hence the plethora of modes, options and confusion. Some enthusiasts try to separate these out so that the digital equivalent of 3 - 5 take place outside the camera. I'll agree, A and S can be helpful in certain circumstances and you have to know why you're choosing those modes but for full control, M always trumps the rest. The rest is more or less snapshottery, though I'm not dissing it, it can be extremely creative.

 

In film days phases 3 - 5 had their own cans of worms to address that affected the final image.

 

* More or less three if using slide film

** Film sensitivity, Mono/Colour, Neg/Slide, and where some colour neg and slide stock were concerned, tonality.

*** Lets not get into Pre-Visualisation and Zone systems....

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Hroth
missed something out.

[Hroth]

25 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

My favourite camera ever were the Hasselblads, set what you need and then take some time (even if it’s seconds) composing on a screen the size of the neg/pos and if you’ve done it before you know you have what you wanted on film.

And you didn’t have to sort through bloody hundreds of frames which are just milliseconds apart 

 

Large format photography is even more restful than medium format... 

[Oldddudders]

OTOH, the megapixel race has provided us with far more opportunities to crop, which is useful when you actually didn't have a lens with enough reach on the day. 

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

OTOH, the megapixel race has provided us with far more opportunities to crop, which is useful when you actually didn't have a lens with enough reach on the day. 

And going half-frame (Micro Four Thirds) means I have a long zoom no bigger than the 12-60 kit lens, its a 45-200 which equates to a 90-400 in full frame but is an eighth of the weight. Attached is a fairly drastic crop on top of the full stretch of the lens. Taken from my bedroom window...

 

I could do it with one of my MX's, with the 200 and T6 converter but no darkroom so I'd need to scan the slide and probably not match the quality for printing to A4.

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[spikey]

12 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Large format photography is even more restful than medium format... 

 

And even more expensive

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, spikey said:

 

And even more expensive

Yes and no...

 

A modern LF camera and lens isn't any more expensive than a middle tier DSLR, provided you stick to 5x4.5. An 8x10 rig would be pushing it, though you would save on finding an enlarger...

 

And you'd save on media, all that pre-visualisation, fiddling with an exposure meter, juggling with the cloth over the head thing to set focus and camera movements, inserting  the film cassette, setting the aperture and shutter speed (after confirmation with the light meter) and remembering to pull the dark slide before clicking the shutter (and reinserting it afterwards...), means you're lucky to expose a piece of film once in 15 minutes!

 

Of course, if you use a LF camera like a box camera (f16/125th sec shutter speed/focus towards infinity) you can cut that down to about a minute a shot...

 

[EddieB]

3 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Of course, if you use a LF camera like a box camera (f16/125th sec shutter speed/focus towards infinity) you can cut that down to about a minute a shot...

 

Opening one's lens above f64? - heavens, no!

[spamcan61]

14 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

So true, as an old photog I miss the very basic options we had to choose from, my digital cameras even the Leica/LX100 has more options than I ever will need.

 

I think this is true of many 'modern' products, one size fits all maximises the number of marketing tick boxes and minimises supply chain logistics. Cameras, phones, TVs, dishwashers, washing machines all far more complicated than I (or anybody else I suspect) really wants. At least my cars (2004 & 2007 vintage) are relatively low tech.

Edited March 4, 2022 by spamcan61

[ejstubbs]

14 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

At least in film days, cameras were relatively easy to 'learn'. With only so many parameters to set, and variables that all made sense in terms of photographic theory, wasted shots could thankfully be few. Now the cost per shot is basically nil, but having exactly the optimum focus option set for capturing this or that subject is another matter. For most non-professionals the typical medium- to high-end camera these days is endowed with far more capabilities than will be used. Then there's video....

 

I'm afraid that when I'm using my digital camera in manual mode I still think in terms of the controls on my last 35mm SLR, a Pentax Super-A.  That said, even on 35mm SLRs, the control options were starting to extend way beyond straightforward focus/aperture/shutter speed by that time, though not within my price range (apart from the various forms of auto exposure, and a handful of TTL metering modes).

 

I actually bought two Super-As, but only because the first one was stolen not long after I bought it, when my flat was burgled.  I ended up selling it after a few years, having lost interest in fiddling with cameras and wanting to go back to simple point-and-shoot.  Nowadays you can basically have the best of both worlds.

 

I note that most digital compacts still display the lens "focal length" on the zoom display in terms of the equivalent in 35mm.

[Oldddudders]

12 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

And going half-frame (Micro Four Thirds)

MFT has finally passed 20MP, with the new Panasonic GH6 being 25. Again, more scope for cropping without loss of quality. Full Frame is heading for 100MP, although not necessarily this year. But the Sony A7RV, maybe due this year, is likely to have more than the 61MP of the A7RIV. 

 

Handholding technique needs to improve a bit too, if the sensor is so well-endowed. Nikon put out an advisory note about that when they released the D800 a decade back. And that was only  36MP!

 

The top full-frame pro mirrorless cameras from Nikon and Sony are 45-50MP, and cost £5.5k - 6.5k. Few of us may be investing in those, I suspect.

 

Noting boxbrownie's remark about lots of spare shots in a sequence, the Nikon Z9 can shoot at 120 frames per second - but only gives 11MP Jpegs at that speed. The original 1959 Nikon F could have a motor drive attached, and a huge 250-shot bulk feed film back. And mashing the shutter at max 3 FPS would give you 80 seconds of pictures, although I think you needed to lock the mirror up! But for sports you'd be using 400 ASA film, probably, and pushing that in processing, maybe to 500-640 or a bit more. Grain would be visible. The Z9, and contemporaries, continue to provide pics of good quality at 6400 ISO and above. 

[boxbrownie]

14 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

In the good old film days, options were more or less fell into five* phases

1. Choice of film**.
2. Focussing and Exposure***.
3. Processing the film
4. Exposing the print
5. Processing the print

 

 

You forgot the sixth and most difficult phase…….getting the money out of the client 

[boxbrownie]

14 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Large format photography is even more restful than medium format... 

Not when you have to carry a Sinar camera box, sheet film slides and tripod over a building site/up ten floors/on a bus/on a train etc etc 

[Dunsignalling]

MFT sensors (just) passed the 20mp mark a while ago, my Lumix G9 and its contemporary GH5 and GX9 models are 20.1!

 

I find that more than adequate as I only print to A4; my 12.4mp Lx100 and 12.6mp Nikon D5000 are easily up to that so long as I don't crop too drastically.

 

I rarely use the "motor drive" capability above 9FPS on anything even though both the Lumixes will go faster, the G9 much faster! 

 

A pal of mine (a pro back in film days, and a long-time user of the Mamiya RB-67) has recently offloaded his full-frame Nikon outfit and but kept his D7200 and DX format lenses on the grounds they do everything he needs and are a lot more "portable". He prints less than I do, but I think he was finding the editing time for big files on his laptop somewhat tedious!

 

John

Edited March 4, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[boxbrownie]

44 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

MFT has finally passed 20MP, with the new Panasonic GH6 being 25. Again, more scope for cropping without loss of quality. Full Frame is heading for 100MP, although not necessarily this year. But the Sony A7RV, maybe due this year, is likely to have more than the 61MP of the A7RIV. 

 

Handholding technique needs to improve a bit too, if the sensor is so well-endowed. Nikon put out an advisory note about that when they released the D800 a decade back. And that was only  36MP!

 

The top full-frame pro mirrorless cameras from Nikon and Sony are 45-50MP, and cost £5.5k - 6.5k. Few of us may be investing in those, I suspect.

 

Noting boxbrownie's remark about lots of spare shots in a sequence, the Nikon Z9 can shoot at 120 frames per second - but only gives 11MP Jpegs at that speed. The original 1959 Nikon F could have a motor drive attached, and a huge 250-shot bulk feed film back. And mashing the shutter at max 3 FPS would give you 80 seconds of pictures, although I think you needed to lock the mirror up! But for sports you'd be using 400 ASA film, probably, and pushing that in processing, maybe to 500-640 or a bit more. Grain would be visible. The Z9, and contemporaries, continue to provide pics of good quality at 6400 ISO and above. 

True, don’t forget this new fangled clever system of pixel shifting, I think the new Olympus OM1 can go to 80mp static and 50mp hand held!

 

Tri-X always got pushed to 1600asa when doing evening football coverage, normally just 400asa for general press stuff whe I used it, FP3/4 was for the arty brigade 

[Oldddudders]

Pixel-shift hasn't yet dawned at Nikon, but Sony will give you a 241mp image (19008 x 12672 pixels) file from the A7RIV. Your PC may find that needs a bit of digesting, though, not least because you have to stitch it together yourself out of the camera. As we've said, not all this tech is for everyone, and only a very small section among snappers will need that quality.

[EddieB]

To those who eschew the degrees of automation available in modern digital cameras - do you really want to return to using one of these (associated CC filters)?

 

Colour temperature, mired shifts, reactions of different films to fluorescent lighting - all covered in a little function called "white light balance".  Isn't technology wonderful!

 

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, EddieB said:

Opening one's lens above f64? - heavens, no!

 

Box camera users don't have a Manfrotto 055C as a support...

 

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

You forgot the sixth and most difficult phase…….getting the money out of the client 

 

Surely a constant for whatever mode of pro-photography (or pro-anything) endeavoured?

 

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

Not when you have to carry a Sinar camera box, sheet film slides and tripod over a building site/up ten floors/on a bus/on a train etc etc 

 

That is true.

And LF commercial photography operated under a different set of constraints to art photography. I'm glad I only did it for "fun"!

 

[St Enodoc]

On 02/03/2022 at 23:42, Wolseley said:

Here are a couple of photographs I took a while ago in the Queen Victoria Building

Either just before or just after you went to HobbyCo.

[boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, EddieB said:

To those who eschew the degrees of automation available in modern digital cameras - do you really want to return to using one of these (associated CC filters)?

 

Colour temperature, mired shifts, reactions of different films to fluorescent lighting - all covered in a little function called "white light balance".  Isn't technology wonderful!

 

Nothing wrong with carrying around a load of Kodak CC filters….well one thing wrong was you never had quite the right combination, but then you could always blame the assistant.

[Hroth]

1 minute ago, boxbrownie said:

but then you could always blame the assistant.

 

Thats what comes of employing Baldrick....

 

[boxbrownie]

7 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Thats what comes of employing Baldrick....

 

He has one redeeming feature, he is cheap.

[spikey]

This mention of assistants has me scratching my head trying to remember who the fashion snapper was who was famous for chucking cameras to his assistants when he wanted the back changing, and chucking them at his assistants when they screwed up.

 

Ref motorwinds, machine-gunning, point-and squirt, call it what you will:  the thing to always remember was what you were missing between those exposures.  That's one reason why in over 400 weddings all shot fly-on-the-wall, as-it-happens, fauxtojournalist style, neither of us ever used burst mode.

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, spikey said:

This mention of assistants has me scratching my head trying to remember who the fashion snapper was who was famous for chucking cameras to his assistants when he wanted the back changing, and chucking them at his assistants when they screwed up.

 

Ref motorwinds, machine-gunning, point-and squirt, call it what you will:  the thing to always remember was what you were missing between those exposures.  That's one reason why in over 400 weddings all shot fly-on-the-wall, as-it-happens, fauxtojournalist style, neither of us ever used burst mode.

My old boss was an assistant to Norman Parkinson, a bit of a proper gent apparently he was and my boss was a real character as well being trained in the late forties/fifties in fashion and advertising studios…….he went too soon  RIP John

 

re the motorwinds I didn’t like them at all on 35mm, all my press stuff was done without, much more chance of getting “that shot” if you can anticipate (and learn to) properly.

Edited March 4, 2022 by boxbrownie

[Oldddudders]

Sports photography can make good use of fast frame rates, particularly motorsport, of course, where the action is relatively predictable. This is where the move to digital was game-changing. A Nikon F5 SLR could rock along at 8 FPS, which meant your film lasted less than 5 seconds. Maybe alright on lap 1, when the field is tightly bunched, but less so as they spread out. 2003 was my first digital Le Mans, with a secondhand D1 - hey, 2.7 megapixels (thumps chest). But the utter joy, the morning after the race, of being able to examine all the pics on a laptop at our gite, was substantial. The next year we had just taken possession of our house but not moved in, so back to the same gite, and now I'd got a whole 4.1 MP from a D2h and f2.8 zoom.

 

Landscapes, portraits, perhaps product photos, all lend themselves to film even now - if you have the darkroom skills etc. But Fujifilm offer you emulations of their various film types - Velvia, Provia etc - on their mirrorless cameras, the nostalgic demand is obviously met. But for sheer availability in the moment, allied to relatively fine results for social media, the cellphone has the general public sown up.