Graflex.org

[troublemaker]

Hello everyone,
I am curious to know others' opinions on the availability of film in the future. My thought is that while film cameras themselves may not be manufactured in the near future, there are so many film cameras out there would it not be reasonable to think film should be available for some time? However, I have to wonder since rumors are flying, and some films have already been taken off the market, esspecially in larger formats. and what about developing and so on.
Could it be that some will have to go back to spreading light sensitive silvers on glass plates if they want to make real photos??? Just a thought...
What do you think, Freeze a bunch of film in a time capsule, or start devising a digital back for my Graphics???
regards,
Stephen

[primus96]

Did I just read a swear word on this forum.
Please refrain from using the 'D' word around here!!!
Seriously I am worried about Ilford UK, perhaps someone can tell me what precisely happened to them?
I have used a lot of Ilford stock and I am after some XP2 4x5 someone had in their freezer.
Im alright forB&W film for the foreseeable future but I don't keep a stock of col neg.
I wish I could get Fuji NPH 400 in 4x5 sheet but apparently not so I have to use NPS160, which is all I can get locally.
I wouldlike to use Vericolour Vivid Colour VVC160 and400. Are they still made in 4x5 sheet size?

[TimKean]

Personally, I'm not worried about the digital fad. IMHO, digital cannot realistically compete with film. Many, many people (myself included) do not (nor will I ever) own a computer. Plus, take a look at the longevity of the average person's prints from digital. Within a few years, they are faded out.

The way I see it, there are many factors that say that film is here to stay. The number of film cameras that are around and the resurgance of large format photography are a couple. Plus, keep in mind that the United States is only part of the global scene. The fact that several Eastern Europe companies still produce 127 roll film tells me that they still use 127 cameras in that part of the world. Will they be ready for digital any time soon? I don't think so.

Maybe I have a distorted perspective, or maybe its wishful thinking, but I don't think we have much to worry about. I'm not sure that we should worry about Ilford being in recievership. Is that not a method for keeping something completely catastrophic from happening? I say it doesn't hurt to have a box or two of your favorite film in the freezer, but I wouldn't worry about having a lifetime supply of it. Yet, anyway.

[djon]

The claim about fading digital prints is incorrect.

Both Epson and HP currently and cheaply produce gorgeous archival prints. Their only shortcoming, Vs traditional materials, is in glossy prints, but digital offers far more in the way of beautiful "art" papers than silver ever offered.

As a longtime traditional printer of color and B&W (I've got a beautiful Agfacolor print in front of me right now, I made it in 1970, Agfa was supposed to fade in 3 years but my buddies and I did something special...this one's intense and almost unchanged, a color-accurate portrait of two young women.

The current Epson technology readily produces BETTER photographic imagery than can traditional color technology, including dye transfer. Sharper, more subtle or more intense, more accurate.

Proper saving of the "negatives", digital records, are lossless with time...all one needs do is backup. CDs will be short-lived, DVDs even shorter, but cheap Sony Minidiscs, archival taping, not to mention archiving on sequences of hard discs, deliver eternal image recall (barring nuclear blasts and human mistakes or the intervention of yet-unknown deities).

Very few professional color labs still offer continuous processing of 120 and sheet film (they now process the reduced quantity of film in batches) because most serious professional photographers have already gone entirely digital. Amateurs are abandoning film too, just ask your local one-hour labs.

The medium format back from Mamiya, and the new smaller-than-Hassleblad medium format camera,. The well-proven Canon D1 is already the main tool of serious professionals and this new Mamiya will drive the final nail into the coffin of 120 for professionals.

The Mamiya and the Canon both cost about the same as current medium format film cameras, they're HIGHER resolution, and grainless.

Kodak, Epson, Agfa, and even Efke seem to have limited patience with the film business. The best way to be able to shoot it in the future involves our refrigerators and the dubious patience of China and 3rd world manufacturers.

I do know that some folks are buying baby Graphics to be used as cheap medium format digital camera bodies.

[Nick]

Ilford is supposed to be fine. Supposedly they sold off the chemical divison but other then that they're okay.

If you use commerical processing you might be in some trouble. Other wise I wouldn't worry about that either.

I think I said this in a different thread. I'm not worried about film. But I expect to be using a different film in the future. I'm resigned to doing more testing. Changing film with what's available. I'm also expecting to deal even more with mail order.

The nice thing with sheet film is they make it in one big roll. Nothing really stops them from cutting it to any size the customer might want. That makes LF more viable then if they had to make different film for each format.

[Nick]

Considering the worlds smallest pixel is larger then the worldest largest ever grain size how could anybody claim digital is grainless? Other then the fact digital averages everything to make it look smeared how could anybody claim digital is higher resolution? Those MASSIVE pixels make it impossible to even approach film resolution.

All the tests I've seen on digital life have been from paid sources. None from independent labs.

Digital companies are already cutting back. They aren't making any money. Odds are most never will.

Pros are switching to digital because of cost and because the customers want it. That doesn't mean it's better or even equal.

[RichS]

I'm sorry, but

"The current Epson technology readily produces BETTER photographic imagery than can traditional color technology, including dye transfer. Sharper, more subtle or more intense, more accurate. "

Is about the most absurd statement I've heard in a long time...

There is NO didgital technology today that could even be remotely assigned the word "archival" in the traditional sense. The proof is out there by private and government studies...

Quality, "sharper", "mopre accurate"? Digital in any form has less than 1/100 the detail available in traditional silver photography. If you don't have the details in the original, the print won't have them either...

When you start capturing raw 40 gigabyte images and have the technology to print them, you get close to silver quality! This proof is so simple it seems beyond anyone's grasp.

The difference is that people now have much lower expectations of what they see. And digital by it's nature, covers up the lost detail and tricks the eye into believing there's more there than there really is. Look at a digital print with a 10x loop and say it's better than a good silver print! Although color silver never did compare with B&W silver...

So now it's degraded into a silver vs. digital thread... Shame... And I added to it... I feel bad, really... But I sometimes just can't stand that ignorant PR garbage dumped out on us when some of us know better. And it does hurt everyone who's interested in real photography...

Luckily, and on topic, I don't think we'll run short of film in our lifetimes. There are just too many people using the stuff. There will always be some company willing to fill the market hole. It obviously wont be kodak and we may have to suffer through quality issues, but we'll have film for as long as we use it...


And a note on the gigabyte thing...

The eye can eaily see 2400 dots per inch. for an 8x10 print, that's 4,608,000,000 dots. To record that data digitally, you'd need that many pixels, 4 billion! Now to translate that into a data file, in color... 16 million colors at even just 256 shades equals 4 bytes per pixel. So 4,608,000,000 times 4 equals 18,432,000,000 or roughly 18 gigabytes of raw information in the data file. And 256 shades of 16 million colors is NOT the best in digital! And that's only for an 8x10. You can do the math for a 30 or 40 inch print! But don't bother till we all have those 4 billion pixel camera!

[djon]

The best conventional camera lenses and the best conventional film records around 300 lines per millimeter in 35mm. The dpi figures
that are cited above are invalid.

There is no current government standard for archival quality. If there was, it would inherently be twenty years behind the times, being taxpaid. Kodak does publish standards and they indicate longer life for good digital prints than for the best traditional prints, without commenting on dye transfer.

Most critics of digital work have avoided looking at large prints by top photographers, such as are seen increasingly in museums.

My scans (Epson 3200)match my Durst point light source prints in sharpness. No conventional condenser enlarger is as sharp as point source.

We should remember that there IS no grain in traditional color...those are mere blobs, similar to digital print blobs but blobbier and larger.

[djon]

... it's true that most current digital cameras are low resolution by comparison to film cameras...

...but the current wildly expensive Canon D1 and the new medium format Mamiya digital backs and cameras are literally historic turning points, like film Vs glass plates...they beat film of the same size in all visual respects.

Price drops fast in digital tech. The only remaining advantage for film is in the speed of motorized backs, and that advantage will be lost soon.

My current digital work is almost entirely from scans of negatives or prints. No sharpness or tone is lost from negatives or prints, while a lot of additional control is added to straight prints, particularly involving dodging and burning as well as local contrast and color control.

I think anybody who's played with moderately good digital cameras ($300) is either worried about the end of film or is planning to go digital. They've already gone, if they're professionals.

Kodak's not the only firm that's on the way out. Ilford and Agfa are too, as are the Eastern Europeans. Who knows about the Chinese? Maybe Malaysians will get into it.

My dream is that we'll soon be able to afford a digital backs for baby Graphics

[djon]

...one more reason film's dead: The dollar is tanking, thanks to the leveraged credit card mentality of the current administration.

Historic deep indebtedness has caused the dollar to drop suddenly during the past four years to about 75% of it's previous value Vs the Euro.

That is forcing European manufacturers to abandon the American market, which inherently means they'll abandon film. The Japanese and Chinese, by contrast, are tied or virtually tied to the dollar, so they'll export more to Europe and for the same reason they're our hope filmwise.

[RichS]

Yep, okay... What ever floats your boat. I'll stick with math, physics and what my eyes can see... When I get old enough that I can no longer see the difference between film and digital... neahhh, I still won't switch. No reason to...

[TimKean]

So, are you saying that after so many years of film, poof and its gone? I don't think so. Kodak may have ended production of certain film cameras, but it is by no means on its way out.

For about 20 years now, there has been a similar comparison between digital and analog as far as sound quality. If digital is so good, why do the audiophiles gravitate toward vinyl? Digital anything (image, sound, etc) is limited in the very way it works. Digital takes the original, breaks it into tiny bits, then reassembles the bits. When it reassembles the bits, though, it does not do it cleanly. The result is basically gaps between the bits that result in the eye or ear detecting that something is "not quite right". If you think about it, our senses work in analog, not digital. Also, in recording, why have people made digital effects to simulate analog equipment? Because analog has a certain something that digital can't replicate.

Digital is fine, and has its place, but it will not completely replace film. No way.

[djon]

I agree that digital won't entirely replace film, just like silver prints will never replace platinum and Planars will never replace pinholes.

But like those audiophiles who cling to vinyl, analog-shooters will become few and far between, will pay dearly for their hobby, and will vanish.

For that matter, famous classical musicians and jazzers have long said that no recording whatsoever is "music." How many angels dance on the head of this pin?

The ultimate question is economics. Labs are already quitting traditional business or reducing services. Check with the labs you dealt with in 2000, ask if they continue to deliver the same level of service on 120.

Color paper will soon become unavailable in sheets (ask your local camera store about their inventory) except on special, expensive order. Shazam, I have spoken.

Many of us will have no problem processing our own C41 and E6...it's not hard, and you can still get small quantity kits...though Kodak just discontinued theirs, of course.

B&W is another matter. Will I continue to be able to get my Rodinal, for example? For me, B&W boils down to film choice and processing subtlety much more than the printing.

I don't like the mushy new versions of B&W film (such as Ilford's Delta and the one-hour-lab-friendly junk) and I'm professionally skilled at color judgement...and as a skilled traditional B&W and color printer I'm ecstatic with my Epson 2200 prints...so it's easy for me to think about going entirely digital. I've already missed Verichrome Pan and Kodachrome II for decades, however.

[Jack5541]

[djon]

I don't mean to discount the fun and quality of analog methodologies. I play Django Reinghardt style guitars and shoot a Century, I'm not in love with this particular era.

But. I recall a survey by Eastman Kodak, long about 1977, in which they found someone shooting more than two rolls of 35 a year was a "heavy user" and that a typical roll contained Easter and Christmas, or Grand Canyon and New Car.

This at a time when I was shooting over 500 rolls of 35 a year (more than one a day for you math-types out there).

Kodak stated way back then that there was zero money in film processing, it was all in printing. But Fuji et all took that away from them via Noritsu systems. That's twenty years ago. It won't pay to keep a coating lane open in the most remote corner of Dhagastan in a couple of years.

The future of film has nothing to do with quality Vs digital, it's a question of simple economics. And since most 35mm SLRs are now dead in a drawer somewhere, there's no potential in selling to that installed base...which would be shooting film today if it wanted, since that film's available cheaply (Fuji close-outs mostly).

Digital photography is already beating film for 99% of the purposes (professional photography and snapshots).

Kooks like me will always love uncoated lenses and frozen stocks of HP4, B&O turntables and 1986 Blazer K5s.