One aspect to mention still is the joy of using old film cameras and gear. The estatics, the mechanical nature of handling is far more tangible as pushing on a touchscreen. Finally one could always wonder what a particular old camera has been through, what moments it has captured etc. I guess it is also feeds back to nostalgia.
Gabor Dobrocsi. Sure, experiment with 19th century lenses, make your own emulsions and do sunprinting on artists papers... I use a large format camera which I bought NEW in 1990. And the price of those cameras is pretty stable, even today.
Film, for me, has almost been like a rejection of digital life. I grew up in an analog world and entered adulthood as the digital revolution was taking hold. I started with a film camera and watched it become almost obsolete. I got sucked right in. Now 20 or so years later I'm starting to appreciate things I took for granted when they were common, film, typewriters, a telephone, a pen and paper.
I found a Polaroid in my girlfriends closet in 2015 and went to a camera store to find film only to find out Polaroid went out of business a long time ago, all that was available was impossible project. So I ordered some and shot it. We felt like kids! The excitement of seeing the imperfections and distortions made us so happy and excited to shoot because we never knew what to expect! Fast forward a few months and we were going broke buying so much film, the old man at the camera store told us it’d be cheaper to buy a 35mm and a few rolls. We bought a yashica electro 35, some superia and a strap. Every day was an adventure and we were both photographers, models and artists. After each outing we’d mail our film and wait excitedly like kids on Christmas Eve. I own a digital camera now, but I still get way more excited to see my film photos than my digital. I still feel like I did 6 years ago.
Found a Polaroid Impulse AF that I got second hand 15+ years ago when I was a kid, last year I dug it out and was shocked to find it still worked! Even after kid me (notoriously curious and prone to disassembly that I couldn't undo) handling it, been feeding it new Polaroid 600 film since and it's such a wonderful camera. Got a EOS Rebel Ti 35mm camera that uses the same EF lenses as my DSLRs since then which is rather nice to use casually, and a even weirder floppy disk loading Mavica FD75 which has been fun to get running as it's so entirely different from modern digital cameras
I bought my SLR film camera 2 years ago as my first camera since I couldn't afford a DSLR/mirrorless. Then I fell in love with it. Film photography made me learn so much about light, exposure, composition, and colors.
@@teocrawford It's great to get our hands on and learn so much from the earlier technology and utilize it in the modern world. And I agree with your statement that the authenticity of film photography is irreplaceable.
I'm an early 90s Millennial that remembers my mom, aunts, and grandmother using film cameras and because we weren't the most well to do when I was very young, remember my family using film well into the early 2000s until there was something of a consumer grade digital camera. I had some experience shooting digital, when I was in middle school my mom got a nice Canon DSLR and, because I had a steadier hand, I was the shooter for the family. Tbh, I didn't really care for digital, it was fun to take pictures but something just wasn't that satisfying to me, which is probably why I didn't really bother with it for so many years; fast forward to the months leading into Christmas 2020, a lady friend of mine told me she wanted a Polaroid, so I got her one, did some test shots with it and thought, "Man, this is really fun!" and jumped off the deep end from there. I started with instant photography and moved into traditional photography. You hit nearly every reason why I enjoy film in your video: forcing yourself to slow down and plan the shot, the tangible aspect of having a negative, the imperfections of film that give it character; really the only things I would add on are how affordable film is to start with compared to digital and the fact that a manual film camera isn't going to short out in 10 years.
Ahh what a great story, thanks for sharing!🤗 And yes, indeed - in my paper I also added that point, however in the video I left it out to keep it at a decent length haha :D
I do miss my old Nikon FM. If you retro warriors don't drive the prices up too far I may pick one up again with a few nice primes. Hope you have many years of analogue Zen.
I'm gen Z but my story is essentially the same, I grew up with film all around me because my dad was a photo journalist in the early 2000s, and a bit of a gear hoarder. Then I started with instant, loved it and moved to film negitives. When I shoot digital its out of necessity, and I never enjoy it nearly as much.
As a digital immigrant with 35 years of experience with film before moving to digital in 2004, I have come back to explore film photography again, not so much for nostalgia. More to your last point, I approach shooting differently than digital. The stripped down simplicity of the process and the inability to check my work as I go introduces a level of care and discipline that improves my creativity. I’ve been able to carry these learnings back when shooting digitally improving my photography overall
Well said. It gives me a look with color palette I love or black and white with contrast range and grain I love. But most of all, because of 3 letters F U N. Using 35 mm vintage or modern film cameras, 645, 66, 67 each have their idiosyncrasies that are a challenge and fun in their own way. And my photos don't look like every ones shots.
The biggest problem for some people is not buying or getting the equipment, but getting the photos developed in a serious lab that does quality work I live in the countryside, very far from a big city because it's my way of life, so it's much more complicated to get the photos developed
As cheesy as it may sound, film does really ground me and I find myself thinking more about what I want to capture...I still love my a7RIII for night stuff tho haha
I just started and I am all about the "photographic gaze"! Its very meditative. I always come back to life a better and happier person after shooting film.
Shooting film adds additional pressure on you to ensure your shots have more thought to them, as a result errors in the shot such as out of focus or under/overexposure can to a point be ignored depending on the story you are attempting to convey. Best way to shoot film is to remember each photo you shoot will cost $1, you’ll immediately put more thought into each shot and thats magic!
Film is natural. Digital is artificial. With literally everything in society being digitized, and the fact that compared with an analog photo, digital just looks - *fake* - Film cameras offer a different and more naturalistic format to capture life's moments. Analog photos have a more satisfying gratification to them.
My goodness. This is one of the best researched, analyzed and narrated video on photography TH-cam has. I am glad I didn't write it off as another gimmicky attempt to get views. I love the philosophical aspect of it and indeed do agree with the findings. Wish there were more productions like this. As a matter of fact let me rummage through your channel!
This was interesting. I am an old guy. I started photography back in 1969. Film photography is all we knew. In the early 1990s when I saw digital photography come on the scene I thought that this was just a gimmick. At the time film was so much better in quality. It was first a toy for the consumer. When the quality of digital started to be better than film many photographers jumped on it. I was late in getting into digital photography because of the cost. I first started scanning my film images in the 2000s, but it wasn't until 2008 I bought my first digital camera. Many non photo hobbyists would ask me why I don't buy one of those inexpensive cheap point-and-shoot digital cameras like they bought. I was saving my money to buy a quality digital SLR that would be similar to my film SLRs. My first digital camera was a Nikon D90 I bought around 2008. I have used many types of film cameras in my day. I also went to school for photography and used a variety of film cameras there. I remember my old home darkroom. I used to bulk load my own 35mm film. I even would buy 100 foot rolls of Ektachrome I would load in my own film cassettes. I shot roll film and I had a 4x5 view camera. When I was a freelance photographer I mostly used the view camera in my work. I did some commercial photography and mostly photographed for the hospitality trade. I miss those days of film, but digital is now a lot better. We have different ways of making a photograph now then back in the days of film. All those layers and masks in Photoshop, we used to use Kodalith film to mask and hold other areas back. Things have changed so much in photography. I miss shooting film. It was all I knew in those days. The other day I went to a camera store I saw a box of Kodak 4x5 Ektar for $65 for a 10-sheet box. That is crazy. Film used to be so cheap. If I do go back to film, I will not buy 4x5 film anymore--too expensive. I believe the best value and quality in film is to shoot roll film such as 120 size.
i always am taking photos of cool places and fun moments in life, so surprisingly when one of my classes was photography this year I wasn’t really excited. my parents said i really should take it since like i said, I am always taking pictures and think other people are crazy for not taking a bunch of photos while traveling and going cool places. my photography class is film photography, which I didn’t really know much about it at the beginning. the teacher i have is the sweetest teacher and i don’t know if I would like it this much without her being the teacher. since the film we use in class is b&w, i started researching more about color film, since i love to capture the real colors in the photo, even though photos can still look good with b&w it just doesn’t always capture the whole moment. my grampy had his old minolta srt-102 and a few lenses and gave it to me. when i tell you i was beyond excited i really was, I was dancing around my room with excitement. I finally know I’m going to major in photography in college and continue shooting on film because it is so much more fun to get your photos back a bit later than when you shot them instead of saying “ew i don’t like how I look in this, take another one”. so basically this year i found what i love and can’t wait to take more photos and see where life takes me :)
my parents are also always like “don’t waste your film on that!” in reality im not wasting it because i wouldn’t be taking a photo of a certain scene if I didn’t like that scene. im the only photographer out of my parents and siblings, so i kinda see the world in a different way than them.
Just got my first film camera, I've taken six photos so far, I got interested by it back in 2020, but instead I got a DSLR for my birthday, which now I think was fundamental for me to understand photography before going to a SLR. Anyways I think to me what makes it so appealing for people my age (16) is the fact that it's much more "human" as in easier to comprehend and be a part of, so us who grew up in digital have this need for analog. When you shoot digital you also have infinite shots, and having less makes each one very special.
I’m from the past (born in 63) and I have „learned“ photography with books from the 30th as I was 10 or 11 years old. In the 80th I sell cameras in a shop. In the end of the 90th I start with digital cameras again till today. And a few weeks ago I bought an analog 6x6 camera from Mamiya with a few lenses...a C220. I’m home again...
@@matneu27 So welcome... 😁 The 645 is an interesting camera that a classmate in 81 proudly had. In that time I was arrogant with a 35mm Yashica...🤣 Now I know better...
I definitely fall into the "authenticity" crowd. As much as I love digital, and use it 95% of the time, there is nothing quite like seeing your photos on a negative or a transparency, especially if you shoot medium or large format. Another reason I still shoot film is because I can't quite achieve the medium format look on a digital camera I can afford. Great video!
Shooting with Polaroid is also a lot of fun, you have an even more limited number of shots, limited controls, but that fun of the photo instantly getting printed and developing before your eyes. The Polaroid Impulse AF I use also has a wonderful viewfinder, no feedback or alignment lines, just a big clear square view of what the camera will (roughly) see
It is definitely relatable. It's amazing how good photographers express their interpretation of film and digital. It gives meaningful sense to Photography as a whole. I love this video Teo, informative and motivating.
DICCCKA, DAAANKE! hab mir das als Hausarbeiten Thema rausgesucht und bin jetzt über dein Video gestolpert... es ist sehr viel dabei was ich mir schon notiert hatte... perfekt noch mal zusammen gefasst und deine Bachelorarbeit wird mit safe noch einiges an Input geben! TOP VIDEO BTW!! Keep Them Coming!
I swear, this is my comfort video. Your voice has a remarkably soothing tone and the subject of this video-essay is something I love hearing about. And I think I talk on the behalf of all by saying, pleeease release more video-essays like this :)
My desire to shoot film isn't one particular thing, but the two biggest factors are 1, it takes me back to my childhood shooting on plastic point-and-shoot cameras, and 2, I got sick of scrolling through half a dozen pictures of the same thing.
Fascinating analysis. I'm prehistoric by comparison (63 years old), and I grew up with a box camera, then a Kodak Instamatic, followed by my dad's Leica M3. I didn't own an SLR until I saved my money and bought a Canon FTb in high school. I also finally went to digital in the early 2000s, but mostly for the autofocus. Now I'm back to shooting film almost exclusively. The reason for this is exactly what you describe in your video. Namely, it forces me to slow down, think, and stay focused and in the zone (or Zen, if you prefer). Instead of taking 1000 digital shots and culling through them to find one decent one. Ultimately, though, there is a very apt saying, that states that the difference between analogue and digital photography is that with film, you have to wait 2 weeks to be disappointed.
I think the main reason why more and more young people START shooting film, is simply "cause it's trendy". Not meant in a negative way, cause it's what most people do. We get isnpired by others, either by choice, or subconsciously.. However, I think the reasons you meantioned here, are great reasons to why people ENJOY shooting film :)
I honestly only started filmography because I had nothing else. I got a bunch of old cameras from my great-grandfather and my dad and just started using them because I couldn't afford a digital camera. And I think it's the best way to start! Actually having to think about what you are doing before doing it. I found for me I only really developed my photographic gaze through analogue photography.
Great video! I had a brief encounter with film photography as a child and when starting to use digital cameras, nothing had the same tactile nature as using a mechanical camera, and so eventually I started experimenting with film and now hooked. There is appeal of the organic nature of the output of film, but I think the main driver to keep using it is the experience when taking photos...you have to think ahead of what settings to use, you don't plan to edit later, it's all in the moment, and there is no chimping, no worrying about getting satisfaction from an immediate result...the result is delayed, and that re-experience of the original experience when film is developed is an added bonus digital doesn't quite provide. Keep up the great work!
This video is gold. I started shooting film a few years ago but in the past year it's more or less taken over my digital photography. I think the reason it is so special for me is because it feels so much more special when I take a film frame vs a digital frame. Your point about comparison is great, the less you have to compare to, the better one single frame of a subject becomes. Plus it is much less manipulated and more authentic or truthful. GREAT, great, video!
I was born in 1997, and the first 6-10 years of my life my parents shot film. I always loved flipping through the albums, and a few years back I noticed how I just LOVED the aesthetic of the film photos. It's more soft, the colors and the overall picture is just somehow more coherent, as if a painter actually deliberately chose the colors that would go well together. With digital I find that objects in the frame are somehow more separated from each other and that the colors don't speak with each other. So I bought an analog point and shoot camera to try and recreate the feeling in photos as seen in my childhood photos. Later I moved on to better cameras, and the pictures, in my opinion, are just much more beautiful, coherent and smooth compared to digital photos. It is as if digital captures the objective scene, whereas film also captures the atmosphere and the preciousness of the moment - a subjective photo :)) I enjoyed your video!
I'm glad you agree :) For the most part people think I'm weird when I say this haha... But I tried googling it, and it might have something to do with digital sensors having literally separate little squares to sense light and the individual pixel can only display one color, whereas film is chemical and therefore everything is more fluid and the things mix together a little bit. Sort of like paint. I don't know for sure, but I believe it's a good explanation :))
@@laer2873 35mm film cameras, lenses have a distinct personality. Digital to sharp, images look the same. Shooting film for 33 years. Digital a disposable medium, frankly.
Great analysis. I shot BW back in the analog days and did my own developing and enlarging. Enlarging my photos on photographic paper often the same day I took the shots was immensely satisfying. So I think if your shooting BW and not developing and enlarging your film yourself you’re missing out on a very rewarding part of the whole experience.
This was exactly my original motivation to pick up an SLR again....reviving my college skills+joy. 3-4 months and 100s of YTvids later and I dove in on C-41, E-6, curious about ECN-2, X-PRO and have a ImpulseAF I have yet to feed!! Oh ya, and I got that enlarger as I couldn't find a community-open darkroom near and available enough for me. *ITS AN ARTISINAL PROCESS*
This video is such a fantastic analysis of analogue photography. I’m very impressed. I’m in my mid 40’s and very much grew up with film. I’m one of those diehard film users (never migrated to digital photography entirely). I was searching why I’m inclined toward analogue despite I am aware of obvious convenience and speed of digital. This video explains some of the “why” points even I was not conscious but somehow feeling all along. Great job. This is fantastic.
It's too perfect. Finally someone said it! I've always been drawn to older movies and pictures, simply because they weren't perfect (or so I believe). Digital cameras are fantastic, no doubt, but something about the relatively unpredictable outcome of shooting film makes it the more attractive option for me. The physical manifestation of that one moment in time is also a huge plus for me... great video by the way!
I’m a digital immigrant. 20 years amateur film photography with my own darkroom, 20 years digital and now both film and digital. There are two questions: Why did we go to embrace digital? AND Why did we go back to film (now called analogue!)? They do provide something very different. As you say it is about process and outcome. The analogue process is mindful and the outcome is more like a painting. There is something emotional in the end result. With digital we can be mindful (go manual settings etc), but something about the technology makes us more prone to immediacy. The outcome tends to perfection, even if altered in photoshop. They both have a role. If I could only have one? My immediate response would be film, but think of all those moments we have caught on our digital phones! Great video. You got us thinking.
I'm also doing this topic for a university essay and found this video super helpful. :) A big thing with my friends and I (we have bought film cameras in the past year and now use them more than our digital counterparts), is that it's as much a break from the digital world. It's exactly the opposite of digital, it's not instant. I can't see the photo instantly, the process itself takes time. Same with scanning. It's the removal of the digital and the time spent. And the physical result, the tactility. Since we've grown up in the digital era we're looking for and craving physical items. It's a rebellion against the digital, the refusal to be completely consumed by new, ever evolving technology.
This was so interesting! I recently started shooting film after years of shooting digital because I want to fully understand how the camera works. I shoot in full manual when I'm shooting digital, but I don't completely understand how it all works, so for me it's about really understanding my craft and taking it to the next level. I also love how intentional I have to be with it.
This is such a great piece of content! Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge on the subject. For me, one reason for shooting film relates to anxiety. I'm very anxious and analog photo forces me to slow down a bit. When I'm doing the photo, I need that extra minute of thinking-through (because of the associated costs with analog photography) and I'm also tied to the waiting time before the film is shot-through and developed. This experience breaks the right-on-time way in which we usually interact with the contemporary world and it helps me to get less anxious
I’m enjoying your videos about film photography first of all. My reason for returning to film, in spite of owning a very expensive capable digital Nikon camera, is nostalgia. I am one of the “Digital Immigrants.” You spoke about. I recall using a film camera taking photos and taking them to be developed. I was always excited about waiting to see how they turned out. It puts me in touch with happier times of my past when I used a film camera. I am also returning to film to get a true understanding of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO using my Pentax K1000. Long live Film Photography.
I began very recently shooting film because i found myself taking too many photos on my digital medium and its been a pain to sort through thousands of pictures, I cant seem to stop myself taking several photos of the same subject on digital, as it triggers a certain perfectionism. So My choice to shoot analog a bit more now, is simply a step back from digital. I hoping to rekindle a certain presence with photography I feel I´ve lost with digital. I won´t stop using digital as for now though because I love the editing and the freedom in post, but I feel analog gives me a nice balance of mediums and styles of shooting, and Love the look and feel of the photos and the moment of taking them. Thanks for your all of your enlightening videos !
So glad to hear your words and your perspective, I did my master's thesis on photography about urban tribes and how photography preserves these identities and spaces. The term of "Aura" was one of the most important bases of my work. Thanks for sharing! Sorry for bad English :(
That was an interesting and well-presented analysis. You went much deeper than most in explaining this phenomenon. As an older photographer, who has no desire to return to film, I find that the one factor that's noticeably missing from this resurgence is the almost complete absence of an analogue final product - the print. Pre-internet we showed our work in prints that we usually spent a great deal of time (and money) perfecting. Now when a film photographer shows me their work it's invariably on a phone and the visual analogue effect is lost. But I don't see that ever being revived since people are used to much larger audiences than the few associates who would get to see your prints in person. Thanks for making this video.
After 10 years of digital photography, working with the cameras themselves has become so boring. Everything that made photography difficult has been taken away, but also the fun and the feeling of taking pictures. Analog cameras and the analog workflow are just so much more exciting. Wonderful video! 👌I wish you all the best for your university work. I'm just mad at youtube not to have suggested you earlier. 😁
Hallo, The Big Negative! I’m the brother of the guy how is admiring your work. Did you get his pdf thesis and if so can you share the link, PLEASE ? Best wishes from the Adriatic Coast / Croatia ! My brother is stunned the way you approach photography. He is spreading to the world your channel. Best wishes to our BEST FRIENDS, THE GERMANS.
Undoubtedly like a lot of us, I started to shoot film when my wife rediscovered her great-grandfather’s SLR. I haven’t even processed my first roll yet, but the entire approach to film photography is so much more deliberate and FUN than making sure you have “perfect” needle-sharp photographs
Very well said! I definitely relate to lots of what you said about the authenticity and wanting to bring back that nostalgia of my childhood. I hope you got a super good grade on that thesis!
Great video! I’m 65. When I was a kid in the mid 1960s we used the Kodak Instamatics. Late bloomer here. Got into photography around 2000, shooting digital. I still shoot digital but about a year and a half ago I discovered my passion for film photography. I love everything about it! Now I shoot primarily with 35mm film SLRs. It’s my newfound hobby! My collection, which I use in rotation are my: Nikon F (Photomic FTn prism head) Canon FTb QL Canon AE-1 Minolta SRT-303 Olympus OM-2 SP Nikon FA
I’m a young gen-x (early 40s) and was of the age of VHS, CRT, 8-bit consoles, cassettes, and the infrequent laserdisc or vinyl. The transitional age lived through some seismic shifts. Y2K compliance gave way to much faster cycles of obsolescence, and a lot of analog technologies like 35mm and super 8 were out of vogue for any but the semi-professional by the late 80s. Congratulations on your research, it definitely shows work and point of view. I think the popularity of film photography among digital natives have given rise to a lot of resources and outlets. It seems easier to star shooting super 8, 35mm, medium format, or whatever is your taste now than it had been for a few decades. Keep up the good work!
For me, I was always interested in photography. I started with my grandma's analogue camera when I was around 7 (I'm born in '99) and my grandma never moved into digital photography. For my first camera, I got my own little digital point & shoot. With puberty, I lost interest in photography for a long time, but last year, I traveled the balkans for 6w and had so much fun just shooting photos on my smartphone. But a lot of times after looking at the shots I took with it, I became somewhat dissatisfied with the results. Everything looked way better on my photos and not as the real scene I was trying to capture, mostly because every image you shoot with a smartphone nowadays gets "enhanced" by AI (turning up contrast, etc.). So to me, it felt a lot like "betraying" friends and family with my photos and contributing to the delusion that is Instagram by posting photos that looked way "better" and very inauthentic in contrast to what I saw with my own eye. Also, I took every photo 5 or 6 times, and that made the whole selection process tedious and exhausting for me. So I stopped shooting photos for a while and then, through friends, got reintroduced into film photography. So I first took out the old analogue point & shoot my grandma once gifted me (I never used it), got a roll of Kodak 200 and started rolling. And man, the feedback I got on the photos and the joy of the photos capturing reality more "authentically" than any smartphone photo ever could gave me so much joy. Now I recently also dig up my grandma's old Pentax SFXn and I'm just waiting for the battery to arrive to "really" get into film.
When I was a student, I spent many hours labouring away in a darkroom, dodging and burning and sloshing noxious chemicals about. I loved it at the time, and I am sort of glad that I have that experience, but I don't miss it at all. When I bought my first digital camera (5D!) it felt like moving up to medium format. I don't miss the waste, and I don't miss the expense, and I don't miss not being able to experiment effectively because the gap between pressing the shutter and finding out whether I managed to capture what I set out to capture. What I particularly don't miss, is having lots of film ruined because of my tricks of trying to swap films in my camera mid-reel. I'm obviously not the sort of romantic you're talking to :). The only thing I really miss is those little pots that the film came in. They were always coming in useful for something or other.
So happy to leave film behind 20 years ago - never wanted to go back, but still shoot carefully and selectively. That said I love the work many young analogue photographers are creating - beautiful imperfection.
I am finding these videos of yours two years after you posted them, but right off the bat I need to tell you that this particular vid addresses many of the quandaries I’ve had as I contemplate going back to my 1972 Canon F-1, which still seems to function well. The advent of digital photography took me out of the darkroom and into the Lightroom. I have a high-resolution mirrorless camera body that I have taken from Iceland to Bulgaria, and the ease of capturing landscapes in any kind of light without worrying about running out of film (just batteries) speaks for itself. Yet there is something about both negative and transparency film - and it’s not just grain - that seems to capture the equivalent of “harmonics” in music. The analogue signal captures a true continuum of light on the medium, but is subject to information loss in reproduction or age. Digital images, meanwhile, capture an increasingly close approximation of an analogue signal, with the benefit that there does not need to be information loss during transfer or realization (e.g. printing). Even so, my own feeling is that my eyes can tell the difference, in the same way that my ears can often tell the difference between LPs and CDs. And that difference does indeed translate into serendipity and feeling sometimes. So, blah blah. I just wanted to tell you how amazed and impressed I am by the insights from your investigation. I have now subscribed to your channel so an old dog can learn some new tricks.
That is a brilliant video with content not found on any other photo related site. For those of us that are older, with feet in both the digital and analogue worlds ,what is said here hits all the experiential points.
Just read your thesis as research for an essay I'm writing on film photography. It was beautifully structured and captured every aspect so well! Rewatching this video now with a deeper understanding of the ideas :)
Excellent analysis and video, dear Teo. As a full-hearted Digital Immigrant (I picked up working with the Macintosh in 1989 but kept shooting analog till 2001) I have to admit that Nostalgia was part of what drove me back to analog in2019. While the topic, 75 years of D-Day in Normandy, suggested itself for shooting film, the hard part was not the shooting with only 36 exposures on the roll, but the time it took to get good prints of them in the darkroom. Three years on I shoot my regular work digital, pet projects with my analog Nikons, and started analog Large Format with 9x12 sheet film. The dirt on my negatives, enhanced by a fifty years old condenser enlargers harsh light, I accept like the hiss and pops on my favorite vynil.
this was an amazing video and content! congrats on this work!!! I was personally born in an analog world, but really almost never shooted film, when I started working as a photographer was on digital cameras, now I'm going back to the roots and I recently started shooting film, I can't describe how happy that makes me! I relate the feeling of shooting film on an expression of freedom in a world of perfection, control, instant reward, and efficiency; shooting film embrace the mistake, the unknown, the craft, the time that you put on every exposure, the delay in the reward; it's kind of the opposite way to the actual world and its speed. Just kind of magical if we put some romance on it. Thanks again for this video and the topic!
Nice job, dude. Very well done. I'd fall into that "transition" generational phase. I really feel that you hit on all the major reasons why I shoot in film and even more that I hadn't actually acknowledged.
I'm born in '99 in a still "developing" country and I can still remember my mum's film camera which had a patch on it because the door wouldn't close. She used to take pictures of me since about 3-4 yo. Then, when the digital photography market grew, she received a tiny Fujifilm digital camera from a friend and that was the transition for me. So yeah, I am pretty much a "transitioner" as in our country all was developing slower. So was the case with the computers too. I remember the first time when I played the computer was when I was five. We were still watching television and cartoons and it really was nice. I still listen to radio from time to time. I think those times are about to come back, as many of us are nostalgic or feel overwhelmed by the digital era.❤
I found my uncle’s old Pentax K-2 and I realized how much I miss holding real photos. I grew up in the digital age but, I remember using disposable film cameras whenever I went on vacation as a kid. I miss the keepsakes that come from film photography. It’s so easy just to let pictures live on an SD card, a hard drive, or a phone that the family photo albums lay empty for decades.
I'm happy that you take pictures in black and white. It's something that's not so rampant and your pictures are kind of an inspiration to me who wants to venture into them. It's like The Team Adam Ansel, Assemble!😅
You give very interesting points. My wife used to work with old film and love the processing, I work with mirrorless digital with Sony a7r iv, we are both in our 50's, but now my wife who learns quickly with computer software, loves processing the digital photography using Lightrooms and Photoshop and now the images can become a cross between art and photography. Another dimension!
As you said, there is a sense of tactile-ness that comes with film photography, choosing a film stock, receiving the negatives and the vast choice of old cameras. Ironically, it is a completely new and exiting experience for the younger generation (like me). I also think analog photography forces us to focus on the fundamentals of photography, without the bells and whistles of digital cameras and the ability to transform images during the editing process, we must be more focused. Really thoughtful and thought invoking video
I grew up in a very rural part of West Virginia in the mid 90s. My dad was fond of telling me they had just gotten running water about the time I was born, and until my early teen years in the mid 2000s I had never actually seen a computer, let alone have any knowledge of the internet. Slide projectors and chalk boards were the norm in my childhood, as were film cameras and spring typewriters. All of this rapidly changed from around 2008 to 2013 by the time I graduated High School when I saw my first cell phones, smart boards, and home computers becoming common in my area. What amazed me, however, was coming into these technologies as an adult, with the technology already in an advanced state, and finding that I really did not care for many of them. They lacked a kinesthesis that the analogue provided, and whats more they often did not work without an expanded support network. When a series of power outages hit my college, my dad's method to help me finish my papers was to provide a mechanical typewriter he had repaired by hand using a few springs and a bit of ingenuity, further proving the durability of the manual over the capricious digital. When coming to photography, through your work Teo, I found that simple, kinesthetic, self reliant technology I had grown up with to welcome me into this new and fascinating hobby. My wife may have taken after your digital work, but for me a simple Pentax K1000 I found at an estate sale has more than sufficed to stoke the fire of my soul. May such fire also be blessed to any who try the joys of film photography..
There is a beautiful tactility to using a film camera which is perhaps my main attraction. The lack of a screen makes the film camera feel like a quiet and secretive companion which doesn't try to draw attention to itself or take you away from the moment to analyse your results. Digital has been excellent for honing my compositional eye because I can immediately view and work on my composition.
I started with digital. I have one of Sonys first mirrorless cameras. I just started because I saw how cheap film was and it reminded me of all those magical photos from my childhood. I picked up a Minolta-x700 and it was also much cheaper than any digital camera. Besides the price the whole experience of using an old film camera was so much more tactile. The camera buttons, the film crank, the rewind lever, all the physical switches just make me happy. It all feels so wonderful. Also the process is so much slower and more thoughtful. I like the viewfinders that actually show the reflection from the mirror, I like the pressure of only having 36 frames and making them count, I even like waiting a week in suspense for the film to develop. I think I cemented my love for film when I spent a year with access to a dark room. Not only did I fall even more in love with the film process, I also fell in love with black and white photography. Sadly it is getting a little expensive. All those cheap cameras I wanted, are all pretty expensive now. The film is like 3 to 4 times the price. I could get 3 rolls of Superia for 13$ at one point. Good luck with that now. Anyway sorry for the essay.
This is a really cool phenomenon occurring with the younger generation (myself included). although not necessarily photography related, I recently got hired as a digitizing technician for the archives at my local museum, after receiving a week of training - of course. My instructor said I was one of his most proficient students, and so this introduction into working with all types of film has surged my interest in this medium (and subsequently film photography). I am beyond happy to see this resurgence! It's very exciting
I agree. I photograph with both digital and film and have over 50 years of experience. I like to use the analogy of food. One can either buy a prepared meal (digital) where you can get consistency and expect a certain quality based on cost or you can create the meal yourself (analog) by going out and carefully selecting the ingredients, going through the process of meal prep, usually following a recipe or experimenting. With the latter there are often surprises in the results depending on how well you follow the recipe or if you introduce variations. Both can be satisfying in the end. To me I am often more fulfilled with the creating it from "scratch" approach but also loved the convenience and speed of buying the prepared meal.
Great analysis. I'm 40, so I used film through my undergraduate years. At that point I was mostly using the camera as an automatic point and shoot, even during a brief period when I had a consumer SLR. I didn't know anything about different emulsions or think to use an older mechanical camera with a better lens. A few years later an early dslr made it a lot easier to learn photography and manual camera controls and the low dynamic range forced us to be careful. I briefly get back into film in 2011, but the results we not great. I think I under exposed the film and ended up with crap photos. All of this is to say, TH-cam is a game changer. I've learned more about film photography in 6 months than I learned in years of shooting with film growing up. If you want to develop film at home, you can see how easy it is on a 15 minute video. You can watch videos about how to shoot porta vs ektar vs provia. Before you either needed a friend to teach you or you could take a class or read a dry book.
Enjoyed the deep dive on this man 👌🏽 being more selective and more present is why I shoot film. I don't have to look through 10 shots of the same moment to make sure I got 'the shot' which allows me to appreciate what I'm looking at and be more present.
Great content! I'm not in the digital native category, (born 1976) but have grown a real passion for film photography over the last few years and very much relate to the conclusions you have come to in your research. Loved your video.
Shooting film, I feel so connected to the world around me. I notice everything more intensely. No checking the shot I just took, but move on to the next. I used a light meter for about a year, but now I seldom need one unless I change film stock or move indoors. I still get nervous developing my own film, but that's okay. Just another reminder to focus and take care.
Thank you ! I am what you might call an analogue native ! I now shoot both but far prefer the film. There is something about it and I commend your comments and reasons as being pretty much spot on. There is another factor though which you have not mentioned. Until up to about 15 years ago, I received many requests from girls and their parents, to do portfolios of their daughters. I did this at no charge, as I actually enjoyed doing the pics and I got on very well with the subjects. When the portfolio was completed , I edited and cropped them to tighten the composition and had them printed. Then , for the portfolio , I had about 2 dozen enlargements made for the subject and also scanned them onto my computer and put all the pics on a CD for them. They were really grateful and one or two of them actually went on to become photomodels. Now..... here is the strange thing.....I still occasionally get some of these people asking me if they can have more prints , bearing in mind they have all the pics on CD . Turns out they want the actual photo from the neg or slide, not a print from the CD. They just claim that it is " more real " . I think it is more real ; something about it that turns a memory into a tangible reminder. Make of it what you will ! Thanks again for a most interesting article !
Film captures life in time, by light being burned onto an organic substance (film), while digital has to create an image of what it perceives the image of life is.
I agree with that (and thank you for doing such a great video). One of the things though, at least for me, is that film simply looks better and that’s why I shoot it. The colors you get from film are just beautiful and you can’t really replicate them on digital. As an example, I had a Leica Monochrom CCD which to my eyes when shot with vintage lens gave results that are so close to film that it’s hard to distinguish them, so I actually stopped shooting B&W film simply because I was happy with the output of that camera. But when it comes to color I haven’t found that to be true and that’s why I stick to film : ) In terms of experience, Leica has released two cameras without back screen that do replicate part of the experience of shooting film, and while that is a key part of shooting film, at the end of the day the shots out of a digital sensor just didn’t look as good, so it’s really the end result that makes me choose film. (Ok and I do love film cameras that are fully manual like the Leica II for example and that’s something that will never be replaced when shooting digital).
My buddy Fletcher Eidum shared this video with me. As analog photographers, we nerd out on stuff like this constantly. We’re going to reference this video in the next episode, so I’ll link it in the show notes. I’ll let you know when it’s uploaded. Great work, I’m going to look for other shows of yours to watch.
I'm a digital immigrant. My grandfather bought my first SLR for me when I was about 12-13 for my birthday In the mid 90s. I played with photography after that but it was the digital revolution that brought me back to photography. I bought some DSLRs and became an avid photographer. Then, film photography started to interest me and before I knew it I had built up to owning my own Leica M2 and a lens for each frame line. I processed my own black and while negatives and before I knew it I had sold all of my digital kit and became a film photographer. I even shot 2 weddings with a leica M2. Fast forward a decade and I no longer have my leica equipment (what a foolish financial move that was) and I maintain a shelf of great but cheaper film cameras my favourite of which is my OM-2n. The next shelf down has my olympus OMDs which I bought once they had depreciated to the point of excellent affordability and due to nostalgia - they were digital representations of my favourite film camera. I have taken a few things away from this experience - 1. Going from digital to film and back to predominantly digital photography, I now approach my digital photography as I do film photography - I remain selective on the field and don't shoot multiple copies of the same image. I have turned off auto preview and don't chimp unless I really feel the need to and I come away from any situation with the equivalent of a few rolls of film's worth of photos. 2. when I shot film predominantly and processed my own negatives, I then scanned them. All of my post processing was digital. The final media for me was digital whether I shot film or digital. And just like you, I tend to go for analogue features when I post process. I imagine that many people today when shooting film, end up with a digital resultant media. That when they process the film it is returned to them digitally. Then they share their images in digital platforms. So really, although there is a physical negative, can you say that there really is authenticity to the final product if it too only exists digitally?
Pick a film; pick a developer; figure out the film's speed in that developer so you do not lose the shadows. Figure out how long to develop the film so you can get the contrast you want and not lose the highlights. Learn what the film and developer combination does with grain and sharpness and what that means for cropping and enlarging. Be consistent.
I for sure agree with the last point of the video. I was in the transitional period, so we still had used analogue cameras when I was a wee lad, but up until about a year ago I'd never shot film beyond a disposable camera when I was little. I've been doing digital photography for close to a decade now, and kinda lost my excitement for 'art' photography a few years back, mostly focusing on cosplay and fashion photography, but since having picked up film my joy for it has been rejuvenated for sure. I haven't had as much fun with photography in eons, and it definitely forces me to have to get more creative given the limited exposures, and I've been shooting 120 film, so only 12 exposures a roll, and 6x6 negatives so square formatting instead of the typical rectangular. Really makes me have to look at things differently than I would w/ digital!
Such interesting findings. What is even more amazing that a digital native is doing this vid. Keep it up! It was during my uni days that I wss into film photography. And due to the pandemic, i got into instant photography in late 2020 bcos i felt the need to take more pixs that matter, instead of pixs of food and pixs to fulfil the needs of social media. As film for instant photography is expensive, I am selective and careful to the pixs i take, which results in pixs that are more memorable. Now im very much keen into film photography all over again. And i found this vid -which somehow sums up how i feel abt film photography. Nostalgic and authencity 🤩 it is satisfying to see thru the process of phototaking and get tangible pixs rite in front of you.
I am educated as Photodealer in the sixties, so I began photographing with film and have done so for many years. Around 2008 I bought a digital SLR and began mainly photograph digital. I did som until about 2 years ago when I went back to photographing with film. Why you may ask, I have sold all my darkroom equipment many years ago and do not have the room for a new darkroom with enlarger. But I can develop my own BW films and scan the negatives in high resolution. I really like to use my old analogue cameras, I take more time before I press the shutter to look at the motive and see if that is the best angle, just as you say in the film. I have to think more carefully if there are light enough, in the digital camera I just changed the ISO to a higher value, here I have a fixed value and have to think what combination of f-stop and shutter speed is possible. So I am glad I didn't sel my analogue camera, I fact I have got one more so I can have two bodies, one with BW film and one with colour film. Conclusion is that I think I take better photos with my analogue cameras then with my DSLR camera, despite I can use same lenses on both.
The substitute home 🥺. I was born in 1993 and endured a lot of abuse after my parents split when I was 8. But what I missed the most was not making/having any photo albums anymore. It felt like a physical object missing of my reality, happy memories and a safe home. I took up analog at 16 and decided to take a disposable camera with me on overseas trips. After crashing of SD cards, broken phones, I am very happy to have these physical touches of beautiful memories and it has been a very healing experience 💛
Great Video! I recently switched to film photography but I've had a pretty hard time explaining to others "why", - The "It has a certain feel that you just don't get with digital" argument doesn't always cut it. So whenever someone asks why I shoot film in the future I'll just show them this video, then they'll understand ;) I'm 19 BTW so your theses is absolutely correct.
I grew up in late 90s and early 2000s when the film photography was on the verge of its demise and I remember I occasionally took photos with a Fujifilm point and shoot camera from that time. In February 2022, 16 years later since the last time it used, I picked up that P&S camera that's kept in the shelf and once I put a fresh battery in it, it still worked perfectly fine. I loaded a film in it, started to take photos with it and I was quite pleased with the experience and result, so later on I decided to get myself a proper vintage camera that is a 1971 Canon FTb. Since then I enjoyed to do film photography more and more. The first behaviour change I immediately observed was, I had to slow down and think about the composition carefully. Not to mention if I bring cameras that don't have built in light meter whatsoever (like a Nikon F standard eye level finder), I also had to meter the exposure carefully although I know negative films have good exposure latitude. Meanwhile I simply enjoy using vintage cameras because of their (mostly) high build quality and mechanical feeling to it that's absolutely satisfying. In summary, film photography forces you to be a better photographer no matter what.
For me, it's several things. One is experiencing something so mechanical and analog. I use a Pentax k1000, which is entirely mechanical save the light meter. Taking a photo without the need for batteries is a cool feeling. Another is the perfection of the imperfect. Shooting digital, if a shot is blurry, or someone's eyes are closed, I take another one. For film, that adds life and depth to the photo. I find I take so much more time planning shots with film, having only 24/36 photos, every photo I take I want to be "the best photo I've ever taken". Also, being able to have full frame quality for so cheap is amazing. My point and shoot is a full frame yet easily pocketable, and cost far far far less than even a dated full frame digital.
I've been using film for 25 years before digital cameras were born. Nothing would get me back (except for the nuisance of having to scan thousands of slides and negatives). Reminds me of the nostalgia around vinyl records and driving century-old cars.
Great thought-provoking video. I'll just chuck in my two-cents' worth: I started taking photographs using "direct positive" photographic paper. This is because I like the idea that the photograph you hold in your hand was without doubt at the location depicted when it was created (exposed). The sun burned that image into the paper you're holding; it's totally unique and cannot be copied (except in the way that the Mona Lisa can be copied). Although this is also true of film negatives, it's not the case when the image is recreated in positive form when printed.
I enjoyed this analysis very much! In a similar vein, I have have heard a theory that since the physical light rays are in effect "burning" the image onto the emulsion, we are capturing a bit of the actual point in time the photo was taken. Perhaps akin to saving some sand in a bottle from a trip to the beach. While a digital sensor also "captures" this light, it is immediately transferred to the storage media, and the sensor is overwritten with the next image. In my mind, all of this points back to your remarks about the authenticity of film, just in a more roundabout fashion.
I'm 63 and I've used film cameras all my life. I appreciate how excellent, easy, quick and easily manipulated digital is but I have no interest in it. There's an excitement in waiting for my photographs to come back in the post rather than scrolling through a computer screen to view hundreds of almost identical images from which to choose the 'best'. Also, the (digital) camera is only half the story. The other half is the computer and software required which gets ever more expensive as pixel counts rise. That said, it'd be interesting to (hypothetically) know how Henri Cartier Bresson, Eugene Atget, Man Ray and all the other famous 20th century film photographers would have adapted to (or embraced) this new technology.
I really appreciate your mature and analytical treatment of this subject. Being an "immigrant" I tend to agree with all of your conclusions and assertions. While I have always strived to reduce as much as possible the imperfections that come with film, for me the key reasons are the permanence/authenticity and the value of each frame forcing one to slow down and be more deliberate. When I had a seasonal pro gig I looked at my digital gear as go-tools for the job, but my analog gear and processes were for my personal consumption and enjoyment. Nice job.
I was born in 1984. Grew up with film. First time seeing a digital camera was in like 2002. Got my own digital in around 2004. Since then all I've ever shot on was digital, I now own a Sony a7iii. I just recently want to get an old 35mm film camera just to have one and shoot occasionally with. Select my shots with it. I love the authentic look of film. The grain, lighting, color and imperfections that can happen. something physical to hold instead of just on a screen (unless I print it). Also that feeling of not knowing what the image will look like till you get the film developed. It's like a surprise or waiting for Christmas to open presents. I've been looking around for a camera, I just don't know what I want yet. Soon I'll buy one and get back into film.
One aspect to mention still is the joy of using old film cameras and gear. The estatics, the mechanical nature of handling is far more tangible as pushing on a touchscreen. Finally one could always wonder what a particular old camera has been through, what moments it has captured etc. I guess it is also feeds back to nostalgia.
Gabor Dobrocsi. Sure, experiment with 19th century lenses, make your own emulsions and do sunprinting on artists papers... I use a large format camera which I bought NEW in 1990. And the price of those cameras is pretty stable, even today.
35mm cameras last for decades. Lucky if Digital lasts 5 years with no issues.
@@arricammarques1955 The shops push digital gimmicks of little value but large format analogue cameras are used by artists.
Lucky if digital camera lasts 10 years with no issues.
@@arricammarques1955 What happened to 5
Film, for me, has almost been like a rejection of digital life. I grew up in an analog world and entered adulthood as the digital revolution was taking hold. I started with a film camera and watched it become almost obsolete. I got sucked right in. Now 20 or so years later I'm starting to appreciate things I took for granted when they were common, film, typewriters, a telephone, a pen and paper.
Hmm love that - appreciation for these is important🤗
Cost of repairing a sensor? Not worth the aggro!
My thoughts exactly.
Some people are missing the ability to work with mechanical things. Film cameras are one way to get back some of that experience.
I agree with you 100 percent.
I found a Polaroid in my girlfriends closet in 2015 and went to a camera store to find film only to find out Polaroid went out of business a long time ago, all that was available was impossible project. So I ordered some and shot it. We felt like kids! The excitement of seeing the imperfections and distortions made us so happy and excited to shoot because we never knew what to expect!
Fast forward a few months and we were going broke buying so much film, the old man at the camera store told us it’d be cheaper to buy a 35mm and a few rolls. We bought a yashica electro 35, some superia and a strap. Every day was an adventure and we were both photographers, models and artists. After each outing we’d mail our film and wait excitedly like kids on Christmas Eve.
I own a digital camera now, but I still get way more excited to see my film photos than my digital. I still feel like I did 6 years ago.
It seems Polaroid is back on business, check it out and enjoy it!
Found a Polaroid Impulse AF that I got second hand 15+ years ago when I was a kid, last year I dug it out and was shocked to find it still worked! Even after kid me (notoriously curious and prone to disassembly that I couldn't undo) handling it, been feeding it new Polaroid 600 film since and it's such a wonderful camera.
Got a EOS Rebel Ti 35mm camera that uses the same EF lenses as my DSLRs since then which is rather nice to use casually, and a even weirder floppy disk loading Mavica FD75 which has been fun to get running as it's so entirely different from modern digital cameras
That comment gave me goosebumps!! So pure and magical....#shooton📸
waiting for my film scans to be emailed, and like you said I always feel like a kid waiting on Christmas Eve because I can’t wait to see the images :)
I bought my SLR film camera 2 years ago as my first camera since I couldn't afford a DSLR/mirrorless. Then I fell in love with it. Film photography made me learn so much about light, exposure, composition, and colors.
Ohh sweet, I'm so happy we still have access to the older technology from the analogue days🤗
@@teocrawford It's great to get our hands on and learn so much from the earlier technology and utilize it in the modern world. And I agree with your statement that the authenticity of film photography is irreplaceable.
I'm an early 90s Millennial that remembers my mom, aunts, and grandmother using film cameras and because we weren't the most well to do when I was very young, remember my family using film well into the early 2000s until there was something of a consumer grade digital camera. I had some experience shooting digital, when I was in middle school my mom got a nice Canon DSLR and, because I had a steadier hand, I was the shooter for the family. Tbh, I didn't really care for digital, it was fun to take pictures but something just wasn't that satisfying to me, which is probably why I didn't really bother with it for so many years; fast forward to the months leading into Christmas 2020, a lady friend of mine told me she wanted a Polaroid, so I got her one, did some test shots with it and thought, "Man, this is really fun!" and jumped off the deep end from there. I started with instant photography and moved into traditional photography. You hit nearly every reason why I enjoy film in your video: forcing yourself to slow down and plan the shot, the tangible aspect of having a negative, the imperfections of film that give it character; really the only things I would add on are how affordable film is to start with compared to digital and the fact that a manual film camera isn't going to short out in 10 years.
Ahh what a great story, thanks for sharing!🤗
And yes, indeed - in my paper I also added that point, however in the video I left it out to keep it at a decent length haha :D
I do miss my old Nikon FM. If you retro warriors don't drive the prices up too far I may pick one up again with a few nice primes. Hope you have many years of analogue Zen.
I'm gen Z but my story is essentially the same, I grew up with film all around me because my dad was a photo journalist in the early 2000s, and a bit of a gear hoarder. Then I started with instant, loved it and moved to film negitives. When I shoot digital its out of necessity, and I never enjoy it nearly as much.
As a digital immigrant with 35 years of experience with film before moving to digital in 2004, I have come back to explore film photography again, not so much for nostalgia. More to your last point, I approach shooting differently than digital. The stripped down simplicity of the process and the inability to check my work as I go introduces a level of care and discipline that improves my creativity. I’ve been able to carry these learnings back when shooting digitally improving my photography overall
Ahh I see, this is great to read - thank you for sharing this!🤗
Well said. It gives me a look with color palette I love or black and white with contrast range and grain I love. But most of all, because of 3 letters F U N. Using 35 mm vintage or modern film cameras, 645, 66, 67 each have their idiosyncrasies that are a challenge and fun in their own way. And my photos don't look like every ones shots.
The biggest problem for some people is not buying or getting the equipment, but getting the photos developed in a serious lab that does quality work
I live in the countryside, very far from a big city because it's my way of life, so it's much more complicated to get the photos developed
As cheesy as it may sound, film does really ground me and I find myself thinking more about what I want to capture...I still love my a7RIII for night stuff tho haha
True! Well yes, digital has it's strengths haha🙌🏼
I just started and I am all about the "photographic gaze"! Its very meditative. I always come back to life a better and happier person after shooting film.
Shooting film adds additional pressure on you to ensure your shots have more thought to them, as a result errors in the shot such as out of focus or under/overexposure can to a point be ignored depending on the story you are attempting to convey. Best way to shoot film is to remember each photo you shoot will cost $1, you’ll immediately put more thought into each shot and thats magic!
True! It makes me much more careful🙏🏼
That wasn’t always the case, only now that the costs are so high.
@@tamDOTaudio Cost of film has always been the same. 20 bucks for 3 rolls of consumer grade film is the same cost as 8.99 back in the 1988.
@@tamDOTaudio 35mm worth the investment. Digital easier, prone to breakdown.
Film is natural. Digital is artificial. With literally everything in society being digitized, and the fact that compared with an analog photo, digital just looks - *fake* - Film cameras offer a different and more naturalistic format to capture life's moments. Analog photos have a more satisfying gratification to them.
My goodness. This is one of the best researched, analyzed and narrated video on photography TH-cam has. I am glad I didn't write it off as another gimmicky attempt to get views.
I love the philosophical aspect of it and indeed do agree with the findings. Wish there were more productions like this. As a matter of fact let me rummage through your channel!
This was interesting. I am an old guy. I started photography back in 1969. Film photography is all we knew. In the early 1990s when I saw digital photography come on the scene I thought that this was just a gimmick. At the time film was so much better in quality. It was first a toy for the consumer. When the quality of digital started to be better than film many photographers jumped on it. I was late in getting into digital photography because of the cost. I first started scanning my film images in the 2000s, but it wasn't until 2008 I bought my first digital camera. Many non photo hobbyists would ask me why I don't buy one of those inexpensive cheap point-and-shoot digital cameras like they bought. I was saving my money to buy a quality digital SLR that would be similar to my film SLRs. My first digital camera was a Nikon D90 I bought around 2008.
I have used many types of film cameras in my day. I also went to school for photography and used a variety of film cameras there. I remember my old home darkroom. I used to bulk load my own 35mm film. I even would buy 100 foot rolls of Ektachrome I would load in my own film cassettes. I shot roll film and I had a 4x5 view camera. When I was a freelance photographer I mostly used the view camera in my work. I did some commercial photography and mostly photographed for the hospitality trade. I miss those days of film, but digital is now a lot better. We have different ways of making a photograph now then back in the days of film. All those layers and masks in Photoshop, we used to use Kodalith film to mask and hold other areas back. Things have changed so much in photography. I miss shooting film. It was all I knew in those days. The other day I went to a camera store I saw a box of Kodak 4x5 Ektar for $65 for a 10-sheet box. That is crazy. Film used to be so cheap. If I do go back to film, I will not buy 4x5 film anymore--too expensive. I believe the best value and quality in film is to shoot roll film such as 120 size.
i always am taking photos of cool places and fun moments in life, so surprisingly when one of my classes was photography this year I wasn’t really excited. my parents said i really should take it since like i said, I am always taking pictures and think other people are crazy for not taking a bunch of photos while traveling and going cool places. my photography class is film photography, which I didn’t really know much about it at the beginning. the teacher i have is the sweetest teacher and i don’t know if I would like it this much without her being the teacher. since the film we use in class is b&w, i started researching more about color film, since i love to capture the real colors in the photo, even though photos can still look good with b&w it just doesn’t always capture the whole moment. my grampy had his old minolta srt-102 and a few lenses and gave it to me. when i tell you i was beyond excited i really was, I was dancing around my room with excitement. I finally know I’m going to major in photography in college and continue shooting on film because it is so much more fun to get your photos back a bit later than when you shot them instead of saying “ew i don’t like how I look in this, take another one”. so basically this year i found what i love and can’t wait to take more photos and see where life takes me :)
my parents are also always like “don’t waste your film on that!” in reality im not wasting it because i wouldn’t be taking a photo of a certain scene if I didn’t like that scene. im the only photographer out of my parents and siblings, so i kinda see the world in a different way than them.
Just got my first film camera, I've taken six photos so far, I got interested by it back in 2020, but instead I got a DSLR for my birthday, which now I think was fundamental for me to understand photography before going to a SLR. Anyways I think to me what makes it so appealing for people my age (16) is the fact that it's much more "human" as in easier to comprehend and be a part of, so us who grew up in digital have this need for analog. When you shoot digital you also have infinite shots, and having less makes each one very special.
I’m from the past (born in 63) and I have „learned“ photography with books from the 30th as I was 10 or 11 years old. In the 80th I sell cameras in a shop. In the end of the 90th I start with digital cameras again till today. And a few weeks ago I bought an analog 6x6 camera from Mamiya with a few lenses...a C220. I’m home again...
Greetings from a 5 year younger digital emigrant and ground glass viewer on a mamyia 645😉 back in analog time I found the C330 interesting too.
@@matneu27 So welcome... 😁 The 645 is an interesting camera that a classmate in 81 proudly had. In that time I was arrogant with a 35mm Yashica...🤣
Now I know better...
I definitely fall into the "authenticity" crowd. As much as I love digital, and use it 95% of the time, there is nothing quite like seeing your photos on a negative or a transparency, especially if you shoot medium or large format. Another reason I still shoot film is because I can't quite achieve the medium format look on a digital camera I can afford. Great video!
Shooting with Polaroid is also a lot of fun, you have an even more limited number of shots, limited controls, but that fun of the photo instantly getting printed and developing before your eyes.
The Polaroid Impulse AF I use also has a wonderful viewfinder, no feedback or alignment lines, just a big clear square view of what the camera will (roughly) see
It is definitely relatable. It's amazing how good photographers express their interpretation of film and digital. It gives meaningful sense to Photography as a whole. I love this video Teo, informative and motivating.
Ohh sweet, that's great - agree🙌🏼Thank you!🤗
DICCCKA, DAAANKE! hab mir das als Hausarbeiten Thema rausgesucht und bin jetzt über dein Video gestolpert... es ist sehr viel dabei was ich mir schon notiert hatte... perfekt noch mal zusammen gefasst und deine Bachelorarbeit wird mit safe noch einiges an Input geben! TOP VIDEO BTW!! Keep Them Coming!
I swear, this is my comfort video. Your voice has a remarkably soothing tone and the subject of this video-essay is something I love hearing about. And I think I talk on the behalf of all by saying, pleeease release more video-essays like this :)
Whaaa thank you!🙇🏻♂️ I'm so happy to read such positive feedback!🤗
My desire to shoot film isn't one particular thing, but the two biggest factors are 1, it takes me back to my childhood shooting on plastic point-and-shoot cameras, and 2, I got sick of scrolling through half a dozen pictures of the same thing.
Fascinating analysis. I'm prehistoric by comparison (63 years old), and I grew up with a box camera, then a Kodak Instamatic, followed by my dad's Leica M3. I didn't own an SLR until I saved my money and bought a Canon FTb in high school. I also finally went to digital in the early 2000s, but mostly for the autofocus. Now I'm back to shooting film almost exclusively. The reason for this is exactly what you describe in your video. Namely, it forces me to slow down, think, and stay focused and in the zone (or Zen, if you prefer). Instead of taking 1000 digital shots and culling through them to find one decent one. Ultimately, though, there is a very apt saying, that states that the difference between analogue and digital photography is that with film, you have to wait 2 weeks to be disappointed.
Congratulations, Teo, I wish more and more students would follow your path. Great work, fantastic video :)
Ohh sweet, thank you!🥺🙇🏻♂️
I think the main reason why more and more young people START shooting film, is simply "cause it's trendy". Not meant in a negative way, cause it's what most people do. We get isnpired by others, either by choice, or subconsciously.. However, I think the reasons you meantioned here, are great reasons to why people ENJOY shooting film :)
The level of quality in your videos are absolutely insane! Hopefully more people take note and your channel grows even further
I been using film since 1999 then went to digital in 2006 then back to film in 2014. Film is such an experience. I enjoy it and appreciate it.
I honestly only started filmography because I had nothing else. I got a bunch of old cameras from my great-grandfather and my dad and just started using them because I couldn't afford a digital camera. And I think it's the best way to start! Actually having to think about what you are doing before doing it. I found for me I only really developed my photographic gaze through analogue photography.
I’m speechless. A million thank-yous for this wonderful breakdown and investigation of this phenomenon! Cheers!
Great video! I had a brief encounter with film photography as a child and when starting to use digital cameras, nothing had the same tactile nature as using a mechanical camera, and so eventually I started experimenting with film and now hooked. There is appeal of the organic nature of the output of film, but I think the main driver to keep using it is the experience when taking photos...you have to think ahead of what settings to use, you don't plan to edit later, it's all in the moment, and there is no chimping, no worrying about getting satisfaction from an immediate result...the result is delayed, and that re-experience of the original experience when film is developed is an added bonus digital doesn't quite provide. Keep up the great work!
This video is gold. I started shooting film a few years ago but in the past year it's more or less taken over my digital photography. I think the reason it is so special for me is because it feels so much more special when I take a film frame vs a digital frame. Your point about comparison is great, the less you have to compare to, the better one single frame of a subject becomes. Plus it is much less manipulated and more authentic or truthful. GREAT, great, video!
I was born in 1997, and the first 6-10 years of my life my parents shot film. I always loved flipping through the albums, and a few years back I noticed how I just LOVED the aesthetic of the film photos. It's more soft, the colors and the overall picture is just somehow more coherent, as if a painter actually deliberately chose the colors that would go well together. With digital I find that objects in the frame are somehow more separated from each other and that the colors don't speak with each other. So I bought an analog point and shoot camera to try and recreate the feeling in photos as seen in my childhood photos. Later I moved on to better cameras, and the pictures, in my opinion, are just much more beautiful, coherent and smooth compared to digital photos. It is as if digital captures the objective scene, whereas film also captures the atmosphere and the preciousness of the moment - a subjective photo :)) I enjoyed your video!
Photographing with Pentax for 33 years. No issues what so ever. 35mm negatives don't crash!
I totally agree with what u said about parts of the image speaking to eachother, but I don't know why
I'm glad you agree :) For the most part people think I'm weird when I say this haha... But I tried googling it, and it might have something to do with digital sensors having literally separate little squares to sense light and the individual pixel can only display one color, whereas film is chemical and therefore everything is more fluid and the things mix together a little bit. Sort of like paint. I don't know for sure, but I believe it's a good explanation :))
@@laer2873 35mm film cameras, lenses have a distinct personality. Digital to sharp, images look the same. Shooting film for 33 years. Digital a disposable medium, frankly.
Great analysis. I shot BW back in the analog days and did my own developing and enlarging. Enlarging my photos on photographic paper often the same day I took the shots was immensely satisfying. So I think if your shooting BW and not developing and enlarging your film yourself you’re missing out on a very rewarding part of the whole experience.
This was exactly my original motivation to pick up an SLR again....reviving my college skills+joy.
3-4 months and 100s of YTvids later and I dove in on C-41, E-6, curious about ECN-2, X-PRO and have a ImpulseAF I have yet to feed!!
Oh ya, and I got that enlarger as I couldn't find a community-open darkroom near and available enough for me. *ITS AN ARTISINAL PROCESS*
This video is such a fantastic analysis of analogue photography. I’m very impressed. I’m in my mid 40’s and very much grew up with film. I’m one of those diehard film users (never migrated to digital photography entirely). I was searching why I’m inclined toward analogue despite I am aware of obvious convenience and speed of digital. This video explains some of the “why” points even I was not conscious but somehow feeling all along. Great job. This is fantastic.
It's too perfect. Finally someone said it! I've always been drawn to older movies and pictures, simply because they weren't perfect (or so I believe). Digital cameras are fantastic, no doubt, but something about the relatively unpredictable outcome of shooting film makes it the more attractive option for me. The physical manifestation of that one moment in time is also a huge plus for me... great video by the way!
I’m a digital immigrant. 20 years amateur film photography with my own darkroom, 20 years digital and now both film and digital. There are two questions: Why did we go to embrace digital? AND Why did we go back to film (now called analogue!)? They do provide something very different. As you say it is about process and outcome. The analogue process is mindful and the outcome is more like a painting. There is something emotional in the end result. With digital we can be mindful (go manual settings etc), but something about the technology makes us more prone to immediacy. The outcome tends to perfection, even if altered in photoshop. They both have a role. If I could only have one? My immediate response would be film, but think of all those moments we have caught on our digital phones! Great video. You got us thinking.
I'm also doing this topic for a university essay and found this video super helpful. :) A big thing with my friends and I (we have bought film cameras in the past year and now use them more than our digital counterparts), is that it's as much a break from the digital world. It's exactly the opposite of digital, it's not instant. I can't see the photo instantly, the process itself takes time. Same with scanning. It's the removal of the digital and the time spent. And the physical result, the tactility. Since we've grown up in the digital era we're looking for and craving physical items. It's a rebellion against the digital, the refusal to be completely consumed by new, ever evolving technology.
This was so interesting! I recently started shooting film after years of shooting digital because I want to fully understand how the camera works. I shoot in full manual when I'm shooting digital, but I don't completely understand how it all works, so for me it's about really understanding my craft and taking it to the next level. I also love how intentional I have to be with it.
This is such a great piece of content! Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge on the subject.
For me, one reason for shooting film relates to anxiety. I'm very anxious and analog photo forces me to slow down a bit. When I'm doing the photo, I need that extra minute of thinking-through (because of the associated costs with analog photography) and I'm also tied to the waiting time before the film is shot-through and developed. This experience breaks the right-on-time way in which we usually interact with the contemporary world and it helps me to get less anxious
I’m enjoying your videos about film photography first of all. My reason for returning to film, in spite of owning a very expensive capable digital Nikon camera, is nostalgia. I am one of the “Digital Immigrants.” You spoke about. I recall using a film camera taking photos and taking them to be developed. I was always excited about waiting to see how they turned out. It puts me in touch with happier times of my past when I used a film camera. I am also returning to film to get a true understanding of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO using my Pentax K1000. Long live Film Photography.
I began very recently shooting film because i found myself taking too many photos on my digital medium and its been a pain to sort through thousands of pictures, I cant seem to stop myself taking several photos of the same subject on digital, as it triggers a certain perfectionism. So My choice to shoot analog a bit more now, is simply a step back from digital. I hoping to rekindle a certain presence with photography I feel I´ve lost with digital. I won´t stop using digital as for now though because I love the editing and the freedom in post, but I feel analog gives me a nice balance of mediums and styles of shooting, and Love the look and feel of the photos and the moment of taking them. Thanks for your all of your enlightening videos !
So glad to hear your words and your perspective, I did my master's thesis on photography about urban tribes and how photography preserves these identities and spaces. The term of "Aura" was one of the most important bases of my work. Thanks for sharing! Sorry for bad English :(
That was an interesting and well-presented analysis. You went much deeper than most in explaining this phenomenon. As an older photographer, who has no desire to return to film, I find that the one factor that's noticeably missing from this resurgence is the almost complete absence of an analogue final product - the print. Pre-internet we showed our work in prints that we usually spent a great deal of time (and money) perfecting. Now when a film photographer shows me their work it's invariably on a phone and the visual analogue effect is lost. But I don't see that ever being revived since people are used to much larger audiences than the few associates who would get to see your prints in person. Thanks for making this video.
After 10 years of digital photography, working with the cameras themselves has become so boring. Everything that made photography difficult has been taken away, but also the fun and the feeling of taking pictures.
Analog cameras and the analog workflow are just so much more exciting.
Wonderful video! 👌I wish you all the best for your university work. I'm just mad at youtube not to have suggested you earlier. 😁
Aww thank you!🙇🏻♂️
And yes, indeed - film is simply so much fun🤩
Hallo, The Big Negative! I’m the brother of the guy how is admiring your work. Did you get his pdf thesis and if so can you share the link, PLEASE ? Best wishes from the Adriatic Coast / Croatia ! My brother is stunned the way you approach photography. He is spreading to the world your channel. Best wishes to our BEST FRIENDS, THE GERMANS.
Undoubtedly like a lot of us, I started to shoot film when my wife rediscovered her great-grandfather’s SLR. I haven’t even processed my first roll yet, but the entire approach to film photography is so much more deliberate and FUN than making sure you have “perfect” needle-sharp photographs
Very well said! I definitely relate to lots of what you said about the authenticity and wanting to bring back that nostalgia of my childhood. I hope you got a super good grade on that thesis!
Great video! I’m 65. When I was a kid in the mid 1960s we used the Kodak Instamatics. Late bloomer here. Got into photography around 2000, shooting digital. I still shoot digital but about a year and a half ago I discovered my passion for film photography. I love everything about it! Now I shoot primarily with 35mm film SLRs. It’s my newfound hobby!
My collection, which I use in rotation are my:
Nikon F (Photomic FTn prism head)
Canon FTb QL
Canon AE-1
Minolta SRT-303
Olympus OM-2 SP
Nikon FA
I’m a young gen-x (early 40s) and was of the age of VHS, CRT, 8-bit consoles, cassettes, and the infrequent laserdisc or vinyl. The transitional age lived through some seismic shifts. Y2K compliance gave way to much faster cycles of obsolescence, and a lot of analog technologies like 35mm and super 8 were out of vogue for any but the semi-professional by the late 80s. Congratulations on your research, it definitely shows work and point of view. I think the popularity of film photography among digital natives have given rise to a lot of resources and outlets. It seems easier to star shooting super 8, 35mm, medium format, or whatever is your taste now than it had been for a few decades. Keep up the good work!
For me, I was always interested in photography. I started with my grandma's analogue camera when I was around 7 (I'm born in '99) and my grandma never moved into digital photography. For my first camera, I got my own little digital point & shoot. With puberty, I lost interest in photography for a long time, but last year, I traveled the balkans for 6w and had so much fun just shooting photos on my smartphone. But a lot of times after looking at the shots I took with it, I became somewhat dissatisfied with the results. Everything looked way better on my photos and not as the real scene I was trying to capture, mostly because every image you shoot with a smartphone nowadays gets "enhanced" by AI (turning up contrast, etc.). So to me, it felt a lot like "betraying" friends and family with my photos and contributing to the delusion that is Instagram by posting photos that looked way "better" and very inauthentic in contrast to what I saw with my own eye.
Also, I took every photo 5 or 6 times, and that made the whole selection process tedious and exhausting for me.
So I stopped shooting photos for a while and then, through friends, got reintroduced into film photography. So I first took out the old analogue point & shoot my grandma once gifted me (I never used it), got a roll of Kodak 200 and started rolling. And man, the feedback I got on the photos and the joy of the photos capturing reality more "authentically" than any smartphone photo ever could gave me so much joy. Now I recently also dig up my grandma's old Pentax SFXn and I'm just waiting for the battery to arrive to "really" get into film.
When I was a student, I spent many hours labouring away in a darkroom, dodging and burning and sloshing noxious chemicals about. I loved it at the time, and I am sort of glad that I have that experience, but I don't miss it at all. When I bought my first digital camera (5D!) it felt like moving up to medium format.
I don't miss the waste, and I don't miss the expense, and I don't miss not being able to experiment effectively because the gap between pressing the shutter and finding out whether I managed to capture what I set out to capture. What I particularly don't miss, is having lots of film ruined because of my tricks of trying to swap films in my camera mid-reel. I'm obviously not the sort of romantic you're talking to :).
The only thing I really miss is those little pots that the film came in. They were always coming in useful for something or other.
So happy to leave film behind 20 years ago - never wanted to go back, but still shoot carefully and selectively. That said I love the work many young analogue photographers are creating - beautiful imperfection.
I am finding these videos of yours two years after you posted them, but right off the bat I need to tell you that this particular vid addresses many of the quandaries I’ve had as I contemplate going back to my 1972 Canon F-1, which still seems to function well. The advent of digital photography took me out of the darkroom and into the Lightroom. I have a high-resolution mirrorless camera body that I have taken from Iceland to Bulgaria, and the ease of capturing landscapes in any kind of light without worrying about running out of film (just batteries) speaks for itself. Yet there is something about both negative and transparency film - and it’s not just grain - that seems to capture the equivalent of “harmonics” in music. The analogue signal captures a true continuum of light on the medium, but is subject to information loss in reproduction or age. Digital images, meanwhile, capture an increasingly close approximation of an analogue signal, with the benefit that there does not need to be information loss during transfer or realization (e.g. printing). Even so, my own feeling is that my eyes can tell the difference, in the same way that my ears can often tell the difference between LPs and CDs. And that difference does indeed translate into serendipity and feeling sometimes. So, blah blah. I just wanted to tell you how amazed and impressed I am by the insights from your investigation. I have now subscribed to your channel so an old dog can learn some new tricks.
I also have a Pentax k1000 but have yet to shoot my first roll of film. this video makes me want to go out this weekend and shoot
That is a brilliant video with content not found on any other photo related site. For those of us that are older, with feet in both the digital and analogue worlds ,what is said here hits all the experiential points.
Ohh that's great to read, thank you!🙇🏻♂️🤗
I still use Film camera. I have one digital camera, but I never printed the photos, so I found myself going back to using film again. 80s kid
Hei Teo, one of the best and most detailed essays about film vs digital there is on the web. Well done!
Also: Maybe you should read about Wabi-sabi. It's the japenese concept for beauty in imperfection. Maybe it's interesting to you!
Just read your thesis as research for an essay I'm writing on film photography. It was beautifully structured and captured every aspect so well! Rewatching this video now with a deeper understanding of the ideas :)
Very good, thoughtful video. I love young people's curiosity and adventurous spirit. Long live film!
Excellent analysis and video, dear Teo. As a full-hearted Digital Immigrant (I picked up working with the Macintosh in 1989 but kept shooting analog till 2001) I have to admit that Nostalgia was part of what drove me back to analog in2019. While the topic, 75 years of D-Day in Normandy, suggested itself for shooting film, the hard part was not the shooting with only 36 exposures on the roll, but the time it took to get good prints of them in the darkroom. Three years on I shoot my regular work digital, pet projects with my analog Nikons, and started analog Large Format with 9x12 sheet film. The dirt on my negatives, enhanced by a fifty years old condenser enlargers harsh light, I accept like the hiss and pops on my favorite vynil.
Ahh interesting! I guess a mix of both is a great midground for today🤗
this was an amazing video and content! congrats on this work!!!
I was personally born in an analog world, but really almost never shooted film, when I started working as a photographer was on digital cameras, now I'm going back to the roots and I recently started shooting film, I can't describe how happy that makes me! I relate the feeling of shooting film on an expression of freedom in a world of perfection, control, instant reward, and efficiency; shooting film embrace the mistake, the unknown, the craft, the time that you put on every exposure, the delay in the reward; it's kind of the opposite way to the actual world and its speed. Just kind of magical if we put some romance on it.
Thanks again for this video and the topic!
Nice job, dude. Very well done. I'd fall into that "transition" generational phase. I really feel that you hit on all the major reasons why I shoot in film and even more that I hadn't actually acknowledged.
I'm born in '99 in a still "developing" country and I can still remember my mum's film camera which had a patch on it because the door wouldn't close. She used to take pictures of me since about 3-4 yo. Then, when the digital photography market grew, she received a tiny Fujifilm digital camera from a friend and that was the transition for me. So yeah, I am pretty much a "transitioner" as in our country all was developing slower. So was the case with the computers too. I remember the first time when I played the computer was when I was five. We were still watching television and cartoons and it really was nice. I still listen to radio from time to time. I think those times are about to come back, as many of us are nostalgic or feel overwhelmed by the digital era.❤
I found my uncle’s old Pentax K-2 and I realized how much I miss holding real photos.
I grew up in the digital age but, I remember using disposable film cameras whenever I went on vacation as a kid. I miss the keepsakes that come from film photography. It’s so easy just to let pictures live on an SD card, a hard drive, or a phone that the family photo albums lay empty for decades.
I'm happy that you take pictures in black and white. It's something that's not so rampant and your pictures are kind of an inspiration to me who wants to venture into them. It's like The Team Adam Ansel, Assemble!😅
You give very interesting points. My wife used to work with old film and love the processing, I work with mirrorless digital with Sony a7r iv, we are both in our 50's, but now my wife who learns quickly with computer software, loves processing the digital photography using Lightrooms and Photoshop and now the images can become a cross between art and photography. Another dimension!
As you said, there is a sense of tactile-ness that comes with film photography, choosing a film stock, receiving the negatives and the vast choice of old cameras. Ironically, it is a completely new and exiting experience for the younger generation (like me). I also think analog photography forces us to focus on the fundamentals of photography, without the bells and whistles of digital cameras and the ability to transform images during the editing process, we must be more focused. Really thoughtful and thought invoking video
So true! I guess that's why we are so drawn to it :)
Glad you enjoyed it!🙇🏻♂️
I grew up in a very rural part of West Virginia in the mid 90s. My dad was fond of telling me they had just gotten running water about the time I was born, and until my early teen years in the mid 2000s I had never actually seen a computer, let alone have any knowledge of the internet. Slide projectors and chalk boards were the norm in my childhood, as were film cameras and spring typewriters. All of this rapidly changed from around 2008 to 2013 by the time I graduated High School when I saw my first cell phones, smart boards, and home computers becoming common in my area. What amazed me, however, was coming into these technologies as an adult, with the technology already in an advanced state, and finding that I really did not care for many of them. They lacked a kinesthesis that the analogue provided, and whats more they often did not work without an expanded support network. When a series of power outages hit my college, my dad's method to help me finish my papers was to provide a mechanical typewriter he had repaired by hand using a few springs and a bit of ingenuity, further proving the durability of the manual over the capricious digital.
When coming to photography, through your work Teo, I found that simple, kinesthetic, self reliant technology I had grown up with to welcome me into this new and fascinating hobby. My wife may have taken after your digital work, but for me a simple Pentax K1000 I found at an estate sale has more than sufficed to stoke the fire of my soul. May such fire also be blessed to any who try the joys of film photography..
There is a beautiful tactility to using a film camera which is perhaps my main attraction. The lack of a screen makes the film camera feel like a quiet and secretive companion which doesn't try to draw attention to itself or take you away from the moment to analyse your results. Digital has been excellent for honing my compositional eye because I can immediately view and work on my composition.
I started with digital. I have one of Sonys first mirrorless cameras. I just started because I saw how cheap film was and it reminded me of all those magical photos from my childhood. I picked up a Minolta-x700 and it was also much cheaper than any digital camera. Besides the price the whole experience of using an old film camera was so much more tactile. The camera buttons, the film crank, the rewind lever, all the physical switches just make me happy. It all feels so wonderful. Also the process is so much slower and more thoughtful. I like the viewfinders that actually show the reflection from the mirror, I like the pressure of only having 36 frames and making them count, I even like waiting a week in suspense for the film to develop. I think I cemented my love for film when I spent a year with access to a dark room. Not only did I fall even more in love with the film process, I also fell in love with black and white photography. Sadly it is getting a little expensive. All those cheap cameras I wanted, are all pretty expensive now. The film is like 3 to 4 times the price. I could get 3 rolls of Superia for 13$ at one point. Good luck with that now. Anyway sorry for the essay.
Love the editing in this video, the time and effort spent into making this should as well count for your thesis
This is a really cool phenomenon occurring with the younger generation (myself included). although not necessarily photography related, I recently got hired as a digitizing technician for the archives at my local museum, after receiving a week of training - of course. My instructor said I was one of his most proficient students, and so this introduction into working with all types of film has surged my interest in this medium (and subsequently film photography).
I am beyond happy to see this resurgence! It's very exciting
I agree. I photograph with both digital and film and have over 50 years of experience. I like to use the analogy of food. One can either buy a prepared meal (digital) where you can get consistency and expect a certain quality based on cost or you can create the meal yourself (analog) by going out and carefully selecting the ingredients, going through the process of meal prep, usually following a recipe or experimenting. With the latter there are often surprises in the results depending on how well you follow the recipe or if you introduce variations. Both can be satisfying in the end. To me I am often more fulfilled with the creating it from "scratch" approach but also loved the convenience and speed of buying the prepared meal.
Great analysis. I'm 40, so I used film through my undergraduate years. At that point I was mostly using the camera as an automatic point and shoot, even during a brief period when I had a consumer SLR. I didn't know anything about different emulsions or think to use an older mechanical camera with a better lens. A few years later an early dslr made it a lot easier to learn photography and manual camera controls and the low dynamic range forced us to be careful. I briefly get back into film in 2011, but the results we not great. I think I under exposed the film and ended up with crap photos. All of this is to say, TH-cam is a game changer. I've learned more about film photography in 6 months than I learned in years of shooting with film growing up. If you want to develop film at home, you can see how easy it is on a 15 minute video. You can watch videos about how to shoot porta vs ektar vs provia. Before you either needed a friend to teach you or you could take a class or read a dry book.
Enjoyed the deep dive on this man 👌🏽 being more selective and more present is why I shoot film. I don't have to look through 10 shots of the same moment to make sure I got 'the shot' which allows me to appreciate what I'm looking at and be more present.
Great content! I'm not in the digital native category, (born 1976) but have grown a real passion for film photography over the last few years and very much relate to the conclusions you have come to in your research. Loved your video.
The discipline of film photography improves my digital
35mm negatives don't crash.
Shooting film, I feel so connected to the world around me. I notice everything more intensely. No checking the shot I just took, but move on to the next. I used a light meter for about a year, but now I seldom need one unless I change film stock or move indoors. I still get nervous developing my own film, but that's okay. Just another reminder to focus and take care.
The joy of using an object is important. Sort of like the expression ”it’s about the journey, not the destination”.
Thank you ! I am what you might call an analogue native ! I now shoot both but far prefer the film. There is something about it and I commend your comments and reasons as being pretty much spot on. There is another factor though which you have not mentioned. Until up to about 15 years ago, I received many requests from girls and their parents, to do portfolios of their daughters. I did this at no charge, as I actually enjoyed doing the pics and I got on very well with the subjects. When the portfolio was completed , I edited and cropped them to tighten the composition and had them printed. Then , for the portfolio , I had about 2 dozen enlargements made for the subject and also scanned them onto my computer and put all the pics on a CD for them. They were really grateful and one or two of them actually went on to become photomodels. Now..... here is the strange thing.....I still occasionally get some of these people asking me if they can have more prints , bearing in mind they have all the pics on CD . Turns out they want the actual photo from the neg or slide, not a print from the CD. They just claim that it is " more real " . I think it is more real ; something about it that turns a memory into a tangible reminder. Make of it what you will ! Thanks again for a most interesting article !
Film captures life in time, by light being burned onto an organic substance (film), while digital has to create an image of what it perceives the image of life is.
I agree with that (and thank you for doing such a great video). One of the things though, at least for me, is that film simply looks better and that’s why I shoot it. The colors you get from film are just beautiful and you can’t really replicate them on digital. As an example, I had a Leica Monochrom CCD which to my eyes when shot with vintage lens gave results that are so close to film that it’s hard to distinguish them, so I actually stopped shooting B&W film simply because I was happy with the output of that camera. But when it comes to color I haven’t found that to be true and that’s why I stick to film : ) In terms of experience, Leica has released two cameras without back screen that do replicate part of the experience of shooting film, and while that is a key part of shooting film, at the end of the day the shots out of a digital sensor just didn’t look as good, so it’s really the end result that makes me choose film. (Ok and I do love film cameras that are fully manual like the Leica II for example and that’s something that will never be replaced when shooting digital).
My buddy Fletcher Eidum shared this video with me. As analog photographers, we nerd out on stuff like this constantly. We’re going to reference this video in the next episode, so I’ll link it in the show notes. I’ll let you know when it’s uploaded. Great work, I’m going to look for other shows of yours to watch.
I'm a digital immigrant. My grandfather bought my first SLR for me when I was about 12-13 for my birthday In the mid 90s. I played with photography after that but it was the digital revolution that brought me back to photography. I bought some DSLRs and became an avid photographer. Then, film photography started to interest me and before I knew it I had built up to owning my own Leica M2 and a lens for each frame line. I processed my own black and while negatives and before I knew it I had sold all of my digital kit and became a film photographer. I even shot 2 weddings with a leica M2. Fast forward a decade and I no longer have my leica equipment (what a foolish financial move that was) and I maintain a shelf of great but cheaper film cameras my favourite of which is my OM-2n. The next shelf down has my olympus OMDs which I bought once they had depreciated to the point of excellent affordability and due to nostalgia - they were digital representations of my favourite film camera. I have taken a few things away from this experience - 1. Going from digital to film and back to predominantly digital photography, I now approach my digital photography as I do film photography - I remain selective on the field and don't shoot multiple copies of the same image. I have turned off auto preview and don't chimp unless I really feel the need to and I come away from any situation with the equivalent of a few rolls of film's worth of photos. 2. when I shot film predominantly and processed my own negatives, I then scanned them. All of my post processing was digital. The final media for me was digital whether I shot film or digital. And just like you, I tend to go for analogue features when I post process. I imagine that many people today when shooting film, end up with a digital resultant media. That when they process the film it is returned to them digitally. Then they share their images in digital platforms. So really, although there is a physical negative, can you say that there really is authenticity to the final product if it too only exists digitally?
My favorite is the surprise factor. I never fully know what picture I'm going to get and it makes the process very fun.
Pick a film; pick a developer; figure out the film's speed in that developer so you do not lose the shadows. Figure out how long to develop the film so you can get the contrast you want and not lose the highlights. Learn what the film and developer combination does with grain and sharpness and what that means for cropping and enlarging. Be consistent.
I for sure agree with the last point of the video. I was in the transitional period, so we still had used analogue cameras when I was a wee lad, but up until about a year ago I'd never shot film beyond a disposable camera when I was little. I've been doing digital photography for close to a decade now, and kinda lost my excitement for 'art' photography a few years back, mostly focusing on cosplay and fashion photography, but since having picked up film my joy for it has been rejuvenated for sure. I haven't had as much fun with photography in eons, and it definitely forces me to have to get more creative given the limited exposures, and I've been shooting 120 film, so only 12 exposures a roll, and 6x6 negatives so square formatting instead of the typical rectangular. Really makes me have to look at things differently than I would w/ digital!
Such interesting findings. What is even more amazing that a digital native is doing this vid. Keep it up!
It was during my uni days that I wss into film photography. And due to the pandemic, i got into instant photography in late 2020 bcos i felt the need to take more pixs that matter, instead of pixs of food and pixs to fulfil the needs of social media. As film for instant photography is expensive, I am selective and careful to the pixs i take, which results in pixs that are more memorable. Now im very much keen into film photography all over again. And i found this vid -which somehow sums up how i feel abt film photography. Nostalgic and authencity 🤩 it is satisfying to see thru the process of phototaking and get tangible pixs rite in front of you.
I am educated as Photodealer in the sixties, so I began photographing with film and have done so for many years. Around 2008 I bought a digital SLR and began mainly photograph digital. I did som until about 2 years ago when I went back to photographing with film. Why you may ask, I have sold all my darkroom equipment many years ago and do not have the room for a new darkroom with enlarger. But I can develop my own BW films and scan the negatives in high resolution. I really like to use my old analogue cameras, I take more time before I press the shutter to look at the motive and see if that is the best angle, just as you say in the film. I have to think more carefully if there are light enough, in the digital camera I just changed the ISO to a higher value, here I have a fixed value and have to think what combination of f-stop and shutter speed is possible. So I am glad I didn't sel my analogue camera, I fact I have got one more so I can have two bodies, one with BW film and one with colour film. Conclusion is that I think I take better photos with my analogue cameras then with my DSLR camera, despite I can use same lenses on both.
Excellent research and conclusions made here. You did a great job describing the various aspects of what brings me back to film photography.
The substitute home 🥺. I was born in 1993 and endured a lot of abuse after my parents split when I was 8. But what I missed the most was not making/having any photo albums anymore. It felt like a physical object missing of my reality, happy memories and a safe home.
I took up analog at 16 and decided to take a disposable camera with me on overseas trips. After crashing of SD cards, broken phones, I am very happy to have these physical touches of beautiful memories and it has been a very healing experience 💛
Great Video! I recently switched to film photography but I've had a pretty hard time explaining to others "why", - The "It has a certain feel that you just don't get with digital" argument doesn't always cut it. So whenever someone asks why I shoot film in the future I'll just show them this video, then they'll understand ;) I'm 19 BTW so your theses is absolutely correct.
I grew up in late 90s and early 2000s when the film photography was on the verge of its demise and I remember I occasionally took photos with a Fujifilm point and shoot camera from that time. In February 2022, 16 years later since the last time it used, I picked up that P&S camera that's kept in the shelf and once I put a fresh battery in it, it still worked perfectly fine. I loaded a film in it, started to take photos with it and I was quite pleased with the experience and result, so later on I decided to get myself a proper vintage camera that is a 1971 Canon FTb. Since then I enjoyed to do film photography more and more. The first behaviour change I immediately observed was, I had to slow down and think about the composition carefully. Not to mention if I bring cameras that don't have built in light meter whatsoever (like a Nikon F standard eye level finder), I also had to meter the exposure carefully although I know negative films have good exposure latitude. Meanwhile I simply enjoy using vintage cameras because of their (mostly) high build quality and mechanical feeling to it that's absolutely satisfying. In summary, film photography forces you to be a better photographer no matter what.
For me, it's several things. One is experiencing something so mechanical and analog. I use a Pentax k1000, which is entirely mechanical save the light meter. Taking a photo without the need for batteries is a cool feeling. Another is the perfection of the imperfect. Shooting digital, if a shot is blurry, or someone's eyes are closed, I take another one. For film, that adds life and depth to the photo. I find I take so much more time planning shots with film, having only 24/36 photos, every photo I take I want to be "the best photo I've ever taken". Also, being able to have full frame quality for so cheap is amazing. My point and shoot is a full frame yet easily pocketable, and cost far far far less than even a dated full frame digital.
This is the most in-depth, well presented video about the topic, that I've seen. Such a great job - well done!
Aww thank you!🙇🏻♂️🤗
I've been using film for 25 years before digital cameras were born. Nothing would get me back (except for the nuisance of having to scan thousands of slides and negatives).
Reminds me of the nostalgia around vinyl records and driving century-old cars.
Great thought-provoking video. I'll just chuck in my two-cents' worth: I started taking photographs using "direct positive" photographic paper. This is because I like the idea that the photograph you hold in your hand was without doubt at the location depicted when it was created (exposed). The sun burned that image into the paper you're holding; it's totally unique and cannot be copied (except in the way that the Mona Lisa can be copied). Although this is also true of film negatives, it's not the case when the image is recreated in positive form when printed.
I enjoyed this analysis very much! In a similar vein, I have have heard a theory that since the physical light rays are in effect "burning" the image onto the emulsion, we are capturing a bit of the actual point in time the photo was taken. Perhaps akin to saving some sand in a bottle from a trip to the beach. While a digital sensor also "captures" this light, it is immediately transferred to the storage media, and the sensor is overwritten with the next image. In my mind, all of this points back to your remarks about the authenticity of film, just in a more roundabout fashion.
I'm 63 and I've used film cameras all my life. I appreciate how excellent, easy, quick and easily manipulated digital is but I have no interest in it. There's an excitement in waiting for my photographs to come back in the post rather than scrolling through a computer screen to view hundreds of almost identical images from which to choose the 'best'. Also, the (digital) camera is only half the story. The other half is the computer and software required which gets ever more expensive as pixel counts rise. That said, it'd be interesting to (hypothetically) know how Henri Cartier Bresson, Eugene Atget, Man Ray and all the other famous 20th century film photographers would have adapted to (or embraced) this new technology.
My top reasons for shooting film:
1. The look of the result
2. Selectivness and more composition time
3. Authenticity/Physical original
I really appreciate your mature and analytical treatment of this subject. Being an "immigrant" I tend to agree with all of your conclusions and assertions. While I have always strived to reduce as much as possible the imperfections that come with film, for me the key reasons are the permanence/authenticity and the value of each frame forcing one to slow down and be more deliberate. When I had a seasonal pro gig I looked at my digital gear as go-tools for the job, but my analog gear and processes were for my personal consumption and enjoyment. Nice job.
I was born in 1984. Grew up with film. First time seeing a digital camera was in like 2002. Got my own digital in around 2004. Since then all I've ever shot on was digital, I now own a Sony a7iii. I just recently want to get an old 35mm film camera just to have one and shoot occasionally with. Select my shots with it. I love the authentic look of film. The grain, lighting, color and imperfections that can happen. something physical to hold instead of just on a screen (unless I print it). Also that feeling of not knowing what the image will look like till you get the film developed. It's like a surprise or waiting for Christmas to open presents. I've been looking around for a camera, I just don't know what I want yet. Soon I'll buy one and get back into film.
One of the best videos i've seen in a really long time, thank you.