35mm: where to from here?

Roxy d'Urban wrote:

All this recent deciding on whether to swap some of my Nikon lenses for a
Leica M6 and Leica lenses had me a bit concerned over the future of 35mm
film processing. Will it still be around? Will I be able to purchase and
process it anywhere?

Judging by Fuji and Kodak, I think they will continue to sell E-6 films for
a while. I do think Kodachrome will be dead quite soon, due to expense and
inconvenience.

The one hour places want to deal with prints and negative films, not E-6.
However, if you live in a big city, there is likely to be at least one pro
lab do do E-6 processing.



I spoke to a friend of mine who owns a Konica mini-lab close to where I
work and asked him if he has seen any considerable diminishment of his
film processing work (i.e. enough to consider ditching film processing as
a service). His answer was an unequivocal NO.

That is similar to what I find in my location.



Most of the pros using his lab still shoot film, especially the wedding
photographers and while he doesn't sell a lot of 35mm cameras anymore,
there are still many people out there using their P&S cameras to take
snaps and have prints made from them. Enough to keep his processing
business thriving. What we fail to see as photographers who are on the
leading edge of the digital revolution, is that there are millions and
millions of people behind us, many of whom see no point in owning a
computer, let alone a digital camera. They are perfectly happy to use
their 35mm P&S cameras at parties, Xmas, etc.


Disposable one-time-use cameras are still selling by the millions.
Obviously, few of us would ever even consider using one of those, but lots
of others do.


A common gripe amongst those leading people who own digital cameras and
who use them prolifically, is that they just don't find the time to print
the photos they take. It's inconvenient to take your memory card to a lab
and have prints made. Then, if the print is lost in the future, there is
no negative to have a re-print made. Many of them are going back to using
their 35mm cameras when they want permanency.

The manufacturers have always pushed for having prints made. Unfortunately,
that pattern is only changing slowly, and the majority still do not print
their digital images.



This mirrors my experience with digital photography exactly. I hate the
work involved with it and it's why I have reverted to using 35mm for my
personal photography. My main concern in doing so was a fear that 35mm
would fall by the wayside in the digital age.

It was good to hear from somebody who deals with these things on a daily
basis and who believes that there is still a future for 35mm film.

What's the story at your local lab?

One local pro lab closed recently, which caused a flood of business at my
regular pro lab. They have also had more requests for prints lately, with
some prints from direct digital. I don't use one hour places, so I am not
sure how well they are doing. I did notice that another B/W processing
location recently appeared downtown to compete with another established
downtown B/W only place. That could be because too many photographers
complained about the older establishment, so perhaps it just looked like
another business opportunity.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com

In article ,
Roxy d'Urban wrote:
On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:27:27 +0200, Philip Homburg wrote:
In my experience, shooting print film requires much more (digital) work
than shooting digital. High-res scans are basically to only way of judging
shooting techniques and the quality of the film. Many frames that look
good on a 10x15cm print are not all that great when printed at a larger
size.

I disagree partly with this statement. In my view the work is transferred
to the lab. Most of the good labs have a scanning service and the people
doing the scanning tend to be knowledgeable about the film types they come
across, etc. In most cases I am using either Fuji Chromes or Kodak negs.
We don't get too many exotic type films in this neck of the woods.

I don't have a problem with that for slides (though I don't have any
experience with having slides scanned, there is a good chance that good
scans are not all that affordable).

With print film it is different. The advantage with print film is that you
can be sloppy with color balance and exposure. The dynamic range is often
big enough that you have quite a bit of exposure latitude. The down side
that that lab will have to guess what you meant.

The big advantage of printing color print film yourself (either analog or
digital) is that, like with B/W, you have complete control over how the
print is going to be.

(Another problem is that most affordable scanning services return 8-bit/ch
files. Hopefully, they got the scan completely right, because there will be
not much room for color and contrast corrections.


--
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
could believe what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard done
by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

In article ,
Roxy d'Urban wrote:
On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:27:27 +0200, Philip Homburg wrote:
In my experience, shooting print film requires much more (digital) work
than shooting digital. High-res scans are basically to only way of judging
shooting techniques and the quality of the film. Many frames that look
good on a 10x15cm print are not all that great when printed at a larger
size.

I disagree partly with this statement. In my view the work is transferred
to the lab. Most of the good labs have a scanning service and the people
doing the scanning tend to be knowledgeable about the film types they come
across, etc. In most cases I am using either Fuji Chromes or Kodak negs.
We don't get too many exotic type films in this neck of the woods.

I don't have a problem with that for slides (though I don't have any
experience with having slides scanned, there is a good chance that good
scans are not all that affordable).

With print film it is different. The advantage with print film is that you
can be sloppy with color balance and exposure. The dynamic range is often
big enough that you have quite a bit of exposure latitude. The down side
that that lab will have to guess what you meant.

The big advantage of printing color print film yourself (either analog or
digital) is that, like with B/W, you have complete control over how the
print is going to be.

(Another problem is that most affordable scanning services return 8-bit/ch
files. Hopefully, they got the scan completely right, because there will be
not much room for color and contrast corrections.


--
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
could believe what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard done
by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Benn watching this sort of posts for a while, so...

On 2005-04-29, Roxy d'Urban wrote:
All this recent deciding on whether to swap some of my Nikon lenses for a
Leica M6 and Leica lenses had me a bit concerned over the future of 35mm
film processing. Will it still be around? Will I be able to purchase and
process it anywhere?

How long do you expect to live? They said radio was dead when TV
entered the scene; they said B&W was dead when color film came on the
market. You can still get both quite handily. Same with film, I would
think.
snip

A common gripe amongst those leading people who own digital cameras and
who use them prolifically, is that they just don't find the time to print
the photos they take. It's inconvenient to take your memory card to a lab
and have prints made. Then, if the print is lost in the future, there is
no negative to have a re-print made. Many of them are going back to using
their 35mm cameras when they want permanency.

What does convenience have to do with art? Or do we no longer call
photography an art? If convenience is a major factor in your use of a
camera, perhaps you have some specific use parameters? Or is this a
case of expectation of instant gratification?

Used to be that the idea was to extract an image from our environment
that meant something, that had some significance, and that extraction
process only began with the camera. It was the print coming up in the
developer tray in the darkroom that was the real birth of that image
(negs were during gestation, I guess...).

Now, with a DSLR, the image is captured and immediately inspected on the
LCD screen. But that image on the screen is both similiar to and
different from a negative: it's the analogue of a negative, but it is
ephemeral, even when viewed on a monitor. For it to have physical
reality, it must be printed. And the process is not finished until the
print is made.

So, to that extent, there's no difference between the two mediums. I
seem to recall one contributer here used the term "snapshootery" as
opposed to photography. Crude but effective. To my mind, photographers
create photographs, and snapshooters produce snapshots. Photographers
are concerned with the creation of the photograph, where snapshooters
are not, at least generically.

In both mediums, the creation of a print is optional. I certainly have
tons of negs I would never waste material to print! I keep them because
one never knows when a review might reveal a potential image not
previously recognized. Same with digital image files. Print what seems
printworthy and keep the rest in suitable storage.

The issue of digital storage is, however, both relevant and timely.
Storage permanency is problematic. CDs are now found to have a much
shorter life than expected, although the most expensive versions seem
much more archival. Mitsui gold foil CDs are said to be safe enough
from substrate rot, etc. I presume the same applies to DVDs.

The issue of digital format is probably not that problematic. Earlier
less established formats have largely dissappeared, but tiff and jpeg
are both so widely used now that retrieval will very likely never become
an issue. Physical medium format for DVDs may well change before
becoming standardized, but that will occur in the near future in any
case. It merely requires that one pay attention. After all, storing
negatives in a hot and humid environment is likely to destroy them
eventually, a problem resolved by "paying attention"!

But then I'm an old curmudgeon, not unlike others here, I think

Longfellow
--
The fat lady sings only after the print is framed and hanging.

Benn watching this sort of posts for a while, so...

On 2005-04-29, Roxy d'Urban wrote:
All this recent deciding on whether to swap some of my Nikon lenses for a
Leica M6 and Leica lenses had me a bit concerned over the future of 35mm
film processing. Will it still be around? Will I be able to purchase and
process it anywhere?

How long do you expect to live? They said radio was dead when TV
entered the scene; they said B&W was dead when color film came on the
market. You can still get both quite handily. Same with film, I would
think.
snip

A common gripe amongst those leading people who own digital cameras and
who use them prolifically, is that they just don't find the time to print
the photos they take. It's inconvenient to take your memory card to a lab
and have prints made. Then, if the print is lost in the future, there is
no negative to have a re-print made. Many of them are going back to using
their 35mm cameras when they want permanency.

What does convenience have to do with art? Or do we no longer call
photography an art? If convenience is a major factor in your use of a
camera, perhaps you have some specific use parameters? Or is this a
case of expectation of instant gratification?

Used to be that the idea was to extract an image from our environment
that meant something, that had some significance, and that extraction
process only began with the camera. It was the print coming up in the
developer tray in the darkroom that was the real birth of that image
(negs were during gestation, I guess...).

Now, with a DSLR, the image is captured and immediately inspected on the
LCD screen. But that image on the screen is both similiar to and
different from a negative: it's the analogue of a negative, but it is
ephemeral, even when viewed on a monitor. For it to have physical
reality, it must be printed. And the process is not finished until the
print is made.

So, to that extent, there's no difference between the two mediums. I
seem to recall one contributer here used the term "snapshootery" as
opposed to photography. Crude but effective. To my mind, photographers
create photographs, and snapshooters produce snapshots. Photographers
are concerned with the creation of the photograph, where snapshooters
are not, at least generically.

In both mediums, the creation of a print is optional. I certainly have
tons of negs I would never waste material to print! I keep them because
one never knows when a review might reveal a potential image not
previously recognized. Same with digital image files. Print what seems
printworthy and keep the rest in suitable storage.

The issue of digital storage is, however, both relevant and timely.
Storage permanency is problematic. CDs are now found to have a much
shorter life than expected, although the most expensive versions seem
much more archival. Mitsui gold foil CDs are said to be safe enough
from substrate rot, etc. I presume the same applies to DVDs.

The issue of digital format is probably not that problematic. Earlier
less established formats have largely dissappeared, but tiff and jpeg
are both so widely used now that retrieval will very likely never become
an issue. Physical medium format for DVDs may well change before
becoming standardized, but that will occur in the near future in any
case. It merely requires that one pay attention. After all, storing
negatives in a hot and humid environment is likely to destroy them
eventually, a problem resolved by "paying attention"!

But then I'm an old curmudgeon, not unlike others here, I think

Longfellow
--
The fat lady sings only after the print is framed and hanging.

In article ,
Roxy d'Urban wrote:

What's the story at your local lab?

The guy at mine was telling me the other day (when I was picking up a roll
of 120 Provia 100F) that they're considering expanding their medium format
services.

In article ,
Roxy d'Urban wrote:

What's the story at your local lab?

The guy at mine was telling me the other day (when I was picking up a roll
of 120 Provia 100F) that they're considering expanding their medium format
services.

On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 19:12:05 +0000, Longfellow wrote:

What does convenience have to do with art? Or do we no longer call
photography an art? If convenience is a major factor in your use of a
camera, perhaps you have some specific use parameters? Or is this a
case of expectation of instant gratification?

I'm speaking specifically about the minions of people worldwide who take
pictures purely for posterity's sake and to whom the make or model of
camera is about as relevant as the colour of dog turds.

Most of the people I know who have invested in a digital P&S have no
prints to show for their efforts. Quite a few of them are saying they were
happier with the 35mm because they could shoot it and just drop it off at
the lab, come back later and see what they got.

Photographic enthusiasts are a different bunch altogether.

--
Be careful what you wish for.

On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:24:25 +0000, Mark Lauter wrote:

A common gripe amongst those leading people who own digital cameras and
who use them prolifically, is that they just don't find the time to print
the photos they take. It's inconvenient to take your memory card to a lab
and have prints made. Then, if the print is lost in the future, there is
no negative to have a re-print made. Many of them are going back to using
their 35mm cameras when they want permanency.

They never heard of DVD? Would they throw their negatives away? No. Why
through away their digital counterparts?

Maybe things are different where you live, but here only the kids have the
smarts to burn things like DVD's and CD's. My old man wouldn't use an ATM
until he had no choice (after my Mom died), and I really don't see him
buying a PC anytime soon.

Maybe it's a generational thing.

--
Be careful what you wish for.

On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 10:39:00 -0400, Paul Bielec wrote:

I keep a folder named "to print" on my PC.
Whenever, there is around 100 pictures in it, I burn them on a cd and
have them printed in a lab.
I had around 500 pictures printed last summer.

That's good practice. I wish I had the same discipline.

What I have taken to doing now with film is have it processed and scanned
at the lab. If I see anything I like I get them to print it out for me.

Digital? Geez, I wish I could find a product shot I did a couple of years
ago...

--
Be careful what you wish for.