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Anybody Use Film?


slicktop
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Hi slicktop,

 

There is no simple answer to your question, simply because there is no indication of the image size that all these megapixel are spread across.....nor is there any real comparison in the grain size of different types of films, often their slower rated films have finer grain - I rarely used more than 50asa films in my medium format cameras when I was working on landscape photography - but that meant you lost all control over action blur when photographing bikes.

 

However I have now swopped totally to digital and even at 40 megapixels I can spread an action shot to print far larger than I could ever use.

 

The camera you have seen is most likely a highly specialised unit for creating very large high resolution images such as might be used on huge outdoor advertising hoardings.

Edited by laird387
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Thanks for that perspective.

After asking the question, I deducted that there was no answer due to film having limited area to place and arrange the Halides and the amount of light needed to activate. Obviously an digital medium is not restricted in that manner and can use the availible light at any speed to produce a fine image that can be further lightened or darkened electronically.

Back in the day I printed murials and remember how hard it was to even focus the image, much less getting color balance, when projected against a wall, I guess thats a thing of the past now.

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I started with digital and now run mostly film for my own stuff. I can tell digital has EVERY advantage over film. Digital is all about specifications, mathematics, superficiality and numbers game: mighty sharp, loads of resolution, dynamic range etc. I run digital for making some additional income since public perception of the image "quality" is so twisted in the digital age and the "artistry" bar set so low that it's so easy to make an earning now. But ironically all my personal work, where I take things seriously from artist's point of view and don't think about money or income, is on film - don't get me wrong, with digital I get pitch perfect pictures, till I figure it's just "too perfect" for the lack of better world - too superficial, surgical/clinical, sterile and ultimately lifeless.

 

It's just the artistic rendering of the film that digital just can't touch no matter how radical post-processing I do and spend endless hours of editing my digital work. With film you need almost no post-processing, it's naturally organic looking with soul, life and art inserted, it is written in film's native "DNA". So while the digital may be superior in specifications I find lots of use in film even in 2016 and beyond. That's my personal opinion on the endless and totally pointless "film vs digital" arguments.

 

Just some random scans from my film frames:

 

 

15537610357_78cdcffd56_o.jpg

Within a Dream... by Margus Sootla, on Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

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Shades of Gray by Margus Sootla, on Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tunneled Reflections by Margus Sootla, on Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mt Pendil by Margus Sootla, on Flickr

 

 

Just me 2c.

 

Cheers,

Margus

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  • 2 weeks later...
 
  • 2 years later...

I actually just joined this forum as it is my intention to only take analogue pictures at Silsden on 1/2 September. However, the digital pros amongst you have nothing to worry about as I am a very amateur Lomo picture taker. While I will be giving my old Yashica FX-D a day out with colour film I will also be hoping to make use of my Diana and Spinner. If the weather is nice and sunny  I will also run a roll or two of 20+ year old colour film through my old 120 folding camera. I might even try a movie with my Lomo Kine, hand cranked at around 6 fps.

Hardest part of the weekend will be getting there. It is all up hill from where I live, and I can just see the moor from home.

While not a trials fanatic I do know what it is all about, a bit difficult not to living where I do! I think the last trial I took some pictures on was a Scott trial around 1992, 120 slides on an aged Rollie. Rode up from Bradford on my Honda 90 (looked like a bike, not the step thru version)

Finally I do not do analogue because I am a digital cave man. I do it because I enjoy using the older style cameras. A bit like being a classic trials rider on an older bike. Negatives are always scanned and edited on Photoshop elements. I do not miss the enlarger, I also do have a couple of small digitals, one a Sony bridge type that actually photographs large negatives rather well in macro mode. Use an old enlarger arm acquired at a boot fair and one of those cheap cinema type displays as the background. Useful for 120 as my flat bed film scanner only copes with 35mm. 120 has to be done in two passes and then stitched together using the panorama feature of Elements. Works well, cannot see the joint at all.

I have uploaded one picture of my MZ Skorpion, which I still have in Scotland about 12 years ago. I was on my way to Applecross after camping en route near Oban. TheSSDT was on that weekend, and the weather was as in the picture all weekend too.

 

 

026_24.JPG

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  • 6 months later...

Such a great topic... although I know I am bringing it up from the forum "grave"... I have been shooting for 30 years now and had shot film for quite a long while... (110, 126, 35mm, medium format, and 4x5)... I both collect and still have cameras that from time to time I shoot with... I even have a freezer full of film.... but the digital "trend" is here to stay and I now shoot with Canon gear (5D Mark III, 7D Mark II, and 6D primarily)... in the beginning the digital images were not the same as film... they lacked "soul" but as things have progressed they have gotten much better...

Basically I guess where I am leading this to... is if you are into film... shoot it... its still an amazing format and holds just as much water as digital... :) 

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