Film demise in news today

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FILMS_FADE_OUT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-06-01-06-16-30

I feel a little sad about this.....thinking of Ansel Adams and others with their large format cameras. And I fondly remember developing my b&w and color photos years ago in a spare room. And I always loved the 8x10 tintype of my wife and I
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Bill



Link for Recent Trip Out West
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Bill,

Thank you for sharing!

I was born in 1967 and my family was poor. My mother did take pictures of us throughout the years, but usually a couple of rolls a year. My birthday was in January and it would be Halloween before that roll got developed!

I was always interested in photography, even as a youth, but never really got into it because of the expense of developing film.

When video cameras came out, I was attracted to that new medium because you could record on a tape, copy it to a bigger VHS tape, and I always had the vision of being able to take stills. The video camera was expensive, but the costs afterwards were extremely cheap. I did manage to do screen captures and they were not very good in quality, but they were still pictures to me!

When digital cameras came out, the first generation was a lot of money for postage-size pictures, it seemed. I think the size was less than VGA (I want to say the size of the pictures were 320 x 240)? Anyway's, I could not afford and passed. When the next wave came out, I was able to get a 3mp camera and my life changed forever because of that.

Last month, I was given two huge cases of family pictures from the early 1900's on up and I will be scanning in each picture one by one and putting them in a format that hopefully my mother will be able to help point out who is who and to date them accordingly. I look forward to this endeavor.

My co-worker was 70 years old when he got facebook and within a year, a majority of his family had linked with him and he was tickled to see photos of his grandkids every other day! Before that, he would have to wait months! He lived here and his wife lived overseas and together they had built a ministry and as it was being built, pictures were uploaded to his facebook and his church friends were able to see the development as it happened!

For me, I am glad those film days are all but gone. I am sure there is a certain level of quality that is different and unique than digital, but that is what makes "era" photography so special and now, it's time to move forward.

There is one truth in the article that is important for all of us to remember here, and that is the fact that we need to use software such as photoshop along with our camera. For me, I use picasa and usually touch nearly each picture I take. I feel those who use digital cameras and don't even do any digital touch-up at all are missing out on making a mediocre picture great and every great picture greater!

Anyway's, thanks for the article. It's good to hear what the numbers are these day of film users and it's nice that options are still available for those folks.

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HX1 / HX5V User Group on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=596585274&ref=name#/group.php?gid=101987207312

Sony HX-1, HX5V, NEX3
16mm (E-Mount)
18-55mm (E-Mount)
70-300 (A-Mount)

Thanks for posting the article. I hate to see film disappear too. It is far superior to digital, but just isn't as cheap and easy to shoot with. The max you could get on a roll of film was 36 exposures, now you can get thousands on a postage stamp size card, discard what you don't want.
I shot many a roll of film.

History repeats itself, so it could make a return, look at vinyl records, they are still making a few of them.

Strangely I am seeing a comeback on these. Two months ago I purchased an LP to USB recorder and now I am transferring all my LP's to mp3.

1/3rd of the LP's that I have were one-timers that the artist made a run of for their club and you cannot buy anywhere online. The artwork on these LP's are awesome, and the insides contain a lot of pictures, lyrics, etc.

But I hardly think LP's are superior in audio quality to CD's or LP's.

I used to buy cassette tapes and then when they wore out, would buy replacements. Same with CD's... when they cracked, would buy a new one! Since I converted my cd collection to mp3, I have not had to replace any albums. I am looking forward to the cloud locker where when you buy the dang thing, it is yours for life, no matter where you are at!

Thank you, digital age!

--

HX1 / HX5V User Group on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=596585274&ref=name#/group.php?gid=101987207312

Sony HX-1, HX5V, NEX3
16mm (E-Mount)
18-55mm (E-Mount)
70-300 (A-Mount)

When I had a film camera, I averaged about 15 photos a year. Now, I shoot about 15,000 annually. In my first month on the Internet, I wrote more words, than I ever had in my whole life before. I didn't talk to people in person as much, though. Maybe that gets at a downside of the digital communication age.
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Steve McDonald
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22121562@N00/
http://www.vimeo.com/user458315/videos

Don't get me wrong....For me...Years after stoping my own developing I longed to have some control over enlargements and prints. So I bought a $500 negative scanner. It gave me some control but still lost so much in the process. Then a friend bought the 707 and I borrowed it. Took some photos...had printed.. and 2 days later ordered one. And I ended up selling everything film related! I can say I never looked back. Also for one to learn the art of photography it is so much easier using digital with the "Instant" feed back. But I geuss I still feel the "Nostalgia" loss.

I hope you get done with your endeavor of scanning those photos. One piece of advice...if possible save the original scans as tif.
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Bill



Link for Recent Trip Out West
http://www.pbase.com/bill_b/west

You're Welcome. Nope not as cheap. I was touring Cal. in 1980 and walking a trail overlooking the ocean and came across an old guy photographing the coastline using a large format camera. I stopped and observed him for a while. Fiddled with camera and fiddled with camera...seemed like 15 minutes or more. I finally talked to him when I felt I wasn't a distraction. He ended up telling me he makes sure that when he finally takes the shot....It is the Shot he Wants and he does not want to say to himself later..."I should have done this or that" as one shot cost like...I forget now but maybe $25 more? Now that's dedication!

Russell Fortner said:

Thanks for posting the article. I hate to see film disappear too. It is far superior to digital, but just isn't as cheap and easy to shoot with. The max you could get on a roll of film was 36 exposures, now you can get thousands on a postage stamp size card, discard what you don't want.
I shot many a roll of film.

History repeats itself, so it could make a return, look at vinyl records, they are still making a few of them.

Click to expand...

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Bill



Link for Recent Trip Out West
http://www.pbase.com/bill_b/west

T. L. Rutter said:

Strangely I am seeing a comeback on these.

Click to expand...

There are still High End Audiophile people out there who swear by lp's.

T. L. Rutter said:

I used to buy cassette tapes and then when they wore out, would buy replacements. Same with CD's... when they cracked, would buy a new one! Since I converted my cd collection to mp3, I have not had to replace any albums. I am looking forward to the cloud locker where when you buy the dang thing, it is yours for life, no matter where you are at!

Click to expand...

I have read a few articles on the archival qualities of cd's one very recently and it's scary! You basically have no idea of the quality from batch to batch....brand to brand!
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Bill



Link for Recent Trip Out West
http://www.pbase.com/bill_b/west

Yup, think the downside is people are by themselves more in front of a puter! I have been taking photos since I was a teenager (early 60's) and using old 8mm and super8mm videos. Glad I did as it seems like all the family and extended family videos and photos were done by me! Last year I had a place transfer a box full of old super8 videos to dvds. And then spent a massive amout of editing time on them. But nice to have completed maybe 6 or 7 dvds for family.

Stephen McDonald said:

When I had a film camera, I averaged about 15 photos a year. Now, I shoot about 15,000 annually. In my first month on the Internet, I wrote more words, than I ever had in my whole life before. I didn't talk to people in person as much, though. Maybe that gets at a downside of the digital communication age.
--
Steve McDonald
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22121562@N00/
http://www.vimeo.com/user458315/videos

Click to expand...

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Bill



Link for Recent Trip Out West
http://www.pbase.com/bill_b/west

Last Saturday I had just finished importing over 140 8mm tapes in. Now comes the fun part of editing!

After I do the LP's and the picture scans (and will do to TIF, thank you very much) I will work on importing all the VHS tapes!

--

HX1 / HX5V User Group on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=596585274&ref=name#/group.php?gid=101987207312

Sony HX-1, HX5V, NEX3
16mm (E-Mount)
18-55mm (E-Mount)
70-300 (A-Mount)

The key to this question is the difference between a digital and an
analog recording. Natural sound is by definition analog.
When a CD recording is created, this analog is sound is digitized. To
do this, they take a lot of snapshots of the analog sound. For a CD
recording they take 44,100 snapshots in a minute. These snapshots are
then converted to digital information with a certain precision. For a
CD recording this precision is 16 bits which means that every one of
the 44,100 snapshots needs to be converted into one of the 65,536
(2^16) possible values.

by definition a digital
recording doesn't include all the sound information. You could
visualize a CD recording as a really large chest with a lot of
drawers. Because the number of snapshots that are taken are not
infinite (the maximum is 44,100 per minute), the process of taking
snapshots results in the loss of information. Information is further
lost because each of these snapshots must be made to fit in one of the
65,536 drawers of the chest.

A record player which plays LP?s is strictly analog. A vinyl record
has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's
waveform. The record player than transforms this groove to an analogue
sound signal which can be fed into an amplifier.
In this process, no information can be lost. No snapshots need to be
taken and the sound doesn't need be converted to one of the possible
65,536 values. There basically is an infinite number of 'snapshots'
and 'possible values'. Therefore vinyl recording sound richer than CD
recordings (as long as you have a decent vinyl record player).

Be aware that recent DVD Audio players and Super Audio CD players come
closer to vinyl recordings as they have a much larger number of
possible snapshots in one minute (up to 192,000) and because these
snapshots can be converted to a larger number of possible values (up
to 16,777,216 possible values, or 24 bit).

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