Any Practical And Financially Viable Reason To Do Film Photography?

Overrank said:

Overrank said:

Sourov, I’ve seen some photos you’ve posted of La Réunion and it looks to be a very nice place to live (and photograph). Another possibility for monetizing film photography could be publishing videos on YouTube etc of landscape photography in La Réunion ?

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Overrank said:

Overrank said:

I’ve no idea how the payment system works on YouTube but I suspect you need a lot of subscribers, and I think that’s probably a bit of a lottery. Some people make a reasonable amount from it, and some make little but still do some excellent videos.

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Overrank said:

Overrank said:

(Of course some of the ones with smaller number of views but a loyal following also use things like Komi and Patreon to subsidize their work)

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I do have an active YouTube channel. Where I make about 30€ per month average. Time to time some sweet folks do donate for my certain tutorials via PayPal and I have 3 contributors in Patreon. In total, it's enough to buy 5-6 films per month and a litre of Kodak d76.

This year its all about Digital photography because, I do know editing by heart. And its easy to make videos on something that I believe I know well. I also love recording ambient sound. Which I post time to time.

However, I am a full time coffee roaster and a specialist coffee Barista. So, after 5 days of work, my obligations to my lovely wife and my family here in La Réunion, France and India, I try to use the rest of the very little time for my passion for photography.

La Reunion is formidable. Calm. Imagine Hawaii on indian Ocean. With an active volcano. I am creating film photography photowalk In La Réunion from end of this year. 4 recordings are already done.

Would you like to know my Platform where I share my super " Just Ok at Best" videos?

--
Sourov Deb

marcio_napoli said:

Hi,

So yesterday I (FINALLY) had a shoot that I could use some film.

Film is just part of the mix, I use all kinds of formats and sensors on my shoots, they're fairly high production value shoots, a lot of occasions I use 2 to 4 different cameras on the same day.

There's a link on my signature if you wanna take a look.

So yesterday I commented with the crew "I've been waiting for this moment for 10 years. This is it. It's finally time".

Left the mistery hanging for a minute, went to the fridge and came back with Portra 160.

Model and the stylist had this "amazed" look on their face, like "wow... ahhhhhh... wow... film, they still do this how can that be?...woooow..."

One of them commented she didn't even know film existed for professional use with SLRs, she taught it was a disposable P&S thing only.

"hey, when are we gonna see it ??????"

I was pretty amazed with the moment.

Haven't seen people that curious for quite a while.

To be honest, people are quite jaded these days.

It's very rare to get a genuine reaction like that. Honestly? Loved the moment.

Film barely makes logic sense these days, but there's a component of passion behind it, that it's getting an ever growing traction and is becoming totally relevant.

You can literally make people pay attention to a given work, as in "make them care", just because it's different and fairly exotic.

Digital will always be 90% of my work, but I'll make sure now there's at least a tiny bit of film here and there.

Best regards,

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If you ever get the chance walk about with a Fuji GW690 (The Texas Leica), literally watch jaws drop. Spoiler alert, it's actually an excellent camera with a very sharp and contrasty lens, just not for the faint hearted, failing that a Pentax 67 has a similar effect.

I was thinking I could use my 8x10 camera to take single-shot gigapixel images. Since I live in a big city, there are local places to get the film processed. But film+processing is around US$20 per shot, and you have to wait a day or two to find out:

• Was my film holder light-tight?
• Did I get all the dust off before I put in the dark slide?
• Was my exposure correct? How about focus?

Then I'd have to pay for a drum scan. I don't know how much that would be, but I doubt it's cheap.

So, unless there's a lot of moving subjects, stitched digital camera shots wins hands down.

Excellent points about constraints. I think a portion of creativity is problem solving. A combination of "that is what you have to work with" and "this is what you need to accomplish".

I never though of film photography as having limits. Maybe affordability. For some a 12 shot roll represented 12 months, one picture a month. That may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Film, processing, printing, flashbulbs (maybe) was expensive.

Fast forward to digital. I own Panasonic micro four thirds cameras. I don't give that a second thought. I know them well, they work well, they capture nice images. They're paid for.

thinkinginimages said:

Excellent points about constraints. I think a portion of creativity is problem solving. A combination of "that is what you have to work with" and "this is what you need to accomplish".

I never though of film photography as having limits. Maybe affordability. For some a 12 shot roll represented 12 months, one picture a month. That may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Film, processing, printing, flashbulbs (maybe) was expensive.

Fast forward to digital. I own Panasonic micro four thirds cameras. I don't give that a second thought. I know them well, they work well, they capture nice images. They're paid for.

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When I was a kid, I worked hard at keeping costs down. I bought 35mm film in 100ft rolls. I loaded those into reusable film canisters. I developed in my darkroom, and did an 8x10 contact print of each roll. At the time, that got my costs down to about 1¢ per frame (that covered the cost of film, developing, and that 24mm by 36mm thumbnail image on the contact print.

I used a magnifying glass to review the images, and a grease pencil to mark the ones to print, and to indicate rough cropping.

About 24 years ago, I moved into my current studio space. I was conflicted as to whether to leave the existing kitchen area, or convert it to a darkroom. In retrospect, I am glad that I left it a kitchen. I have a strong personal preference for shooting digital. I find that anything I could have done in the darkroom, I can do faster and better with digital. But that's just my personal preference.

As a darkroom hobbyist for ten years and a commercial lab tech for twenty (plus photofinishing :-( when the labs all closed, until . . . ).

I would never want to deal with wet processing ever again.

Jack Calypso said:

As a darkroom hobbyist for ten years and a commercial lab tech for twenty (plus photofinishing :-( when the labs all closed, until . . . ).

I would never want to deal with wet processing ever again.

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I also have no desire to deal with wet processing. But that doesn't change the fact that some people enjoy it. There is nothing wrong with including "enjoyment" as a factor in the decision of whether to shoot film or digital.

A good friend of mine had a photo shoot with a model yesterday. While he did shoot some digital, his real passion were the transparencies he took with his medium format film camera. Nothing wrong with doing what you enjoy. It's not my cup of tea, but there is room in this world for all sorts of people.

He's also not a big fan of mirrorless. He likes the sound and feel of the mirror slap from an SLR. I don't think he will ever switch to mirrorless until they add a speaker that plays a mirror slap sound when it takes a shot (my iPhone does this).

Michael Fryd said:

Jack Calypso said:

As a darkroom hobbyist for ten years and a commercial lab tech for twenty (plus photofinishing :-( when the labs all closed, until . . . ).

I would never want to deal with wet processing ever again.

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I also have no desire to deal with wet processing. But that doesn't change the fact that some people enjoy it. There is nothing wrong with including "enjoyment" as a factor in the decision of whether to shoot film or digital.

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Of course you don’t need to print or process to use film - I do neither

Michael Fryd said:

A good friend of mine had a photo shoot with a model yesterday. While he did shoot some digital, his real passion were the transparencies he took with his medium format film camera. Nothing wrong with doing what you enjoy. It's not my cup of tea, but there is room in this world for all sorts of people.

He's also not a big fan of mirrorless. He likes the sound and feel of the mirror slap from an SLR. I don't think he will ever switch to mirrorless until they add a speaker that plays a mirror slap sound when it takes a shot (my iPhone does this).

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Ironically the iPhone does this with the sound of a Nikon F3 and MD4

Overrank said:

Michael Fryd said:

Jack Calypso said:

As a darkroom hobbyist for ten years and a commercial lab tech for twenty (plus photofinishing :-( when the labs all closed, until . . . ).

I would never want to deal with wet processing ever again.

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I also have no desire to deal with wet processing. But that doesn't change the fact that some people enjoy it. There is nothing wrong with including "enjoyment" as a factor in the decision of whether to shoot film or digital.

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Of course you don’t need to print or process to use film - I do neither

Overrank said:

A good friend of mine had a photo shoot with a model yesterday. While he did shoot some digital, his real passion were the transparencies he took with his medium format film camera. Nothing wrong with doing what you enjoy. It's not my cup of tea, but there is room in this world for all sorts of people.

He's also not a big fan of mirrorless. He likes the sound and feel of the mirror slap from an SLR. I don't think he will ever switch to mirrorless until they add a speaker that plays a mirror slap sound when it takes a shot (my iPhone does this).

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Ironically the iPhone does this with the sound of a Nikon F3 and MD4

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I'll add that I still love the experience of handling and operating a film camera with a [preferably fully] mechanical shutter. And I enjoyed operating a Durst enlarger.

But I get the images I want faster and more directly with digital. Things that were a bother to correct or pipe dreams, like correcting keystoning and adjusting curves are a snap in an image editor. It's no contest.

Michael Fryd said:

...
He's also not a big fan of mirrorless. He likes the sound and feel of the mirror slap from an SLR. I don't think he will ever switch to mirrorless until they add a speaker that plays a mirror slap sound when it takes a shot (my iPhone does this).

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In my early days of digital I thought of making an audio loop of my print washer to play while I was at the computer. There was something soothing to me about being in a dimly lit room with water gurgling softly as background to my work.

Never did it, but 25 years later still sometimes miss that sound.

Gato

SpinOne said:

jFK wanted to put an American on the Moon because the US was losing the "Space Race," and NASA thought the US could get there before the Russkies.

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Speaking of which, has anybody watched the series "For All Mankind"?

Autonerd said:

Teila Day said:

No, the title is pretty specific with whether or not there's ANY practical AND financially viable reason to use film. Basically across the spectrum that answer is an emphatic "no".

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Have you been reading the replies? For a lot of us, film is more cost-effective than digital, particularly if you're talking about replacing your camera more than once every 5-6 years.

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"A lot of us" isn't indicative of most. Most photographers do not, will not, and cannot find a practical and or financially compelling reason to shoot film. If you're a hobbyist that doesn't shoot much, then you're an outlier and it should go without saying that someone shooting only twenty (20) 4x5 sheets per year isn't what I'm talking about. However if you're a hobbyist that shoots as much film as a hobbyist typically shoots digital frames, then that usually doesn't make fiscal sense especially if you're using 4x5 or larger film sheets.

A 5-6 year camera replacement is (generally speaking) absolutely ridiculous, but that's another thread.

Autonerd said:

Remember, to get the best image quality in digital, you need a late-model camera.

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Not to my eyes. I'm betting that most people can't tell or would struggle to tell the difference between an 8x10 print (before cropping) from a Canon 5D2 compared to the same print size file from a 5D3. Same image quality but better camera. The Canon 5d2 gave virtually the same image quality as the 5D3 without getting technical about it.

Under typical circumstances you're not going to get a better image quality with a newer camera within a 5-6 year iteration, rather simply more latitude/options related to capturing the moment. You see a image quality difference between the Nikon D4 and D5 worth mentioning? No. Do you see a difference in image quality between the long-in-the-tooth Hasselblad 50c compared to the newer 1XD? No. Nikon D5 and D6? No.. Canon 1DXii vs 1DXiii? No.

Autonerd said:

To get the best image quality in a given size of film, you simply buy the right film.

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To get the same image quality of a Fuji GFX 100S, you basically need 4x5 film, which is roughly $225 per pack (100 sheets). 8x10? That's roughly $200 per 10 sheets.


So for every 500 photos, you've paid a pre-tax of $1,125, before scanning or dealing with your local service bureau... and that's 4x5.... try shooting at least 20 sheets of 8x10 monthly.. that's over $400 monthly - in just film alone you've purchased a Fuji GFX 100s after shooting (very lightly) for 18 months. The most obvious factor that keeps most people from shooting the better, and larger films is cost.

Autonerd said:

For pros? Maybe not. For hobbyists? Absolutely.

Aaron

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Most people shooting film as much as a person would typically shoot a comparable digital body, can't usually make a compelling case for the cost of film being more "practical" and "financially viable".. most of us know that.

thinkinginimages said:

I haven't handled a phaseone is some time. I'm retired. It's not the capture, it's the output. (Look at a platinum or palladium print. Even older processes like autochrome.)

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Wonderful stuff for those into older processes and chemicals, etc., but for those like me - a bit of time here and there in Photoshop, Capture one, etc., and then printing it out on my favorite paper for the subject matter is about as deep as I want to get these days

Nothing wrong with the older processes and results, it's just not the preference of a great many (most?) who used to shoot film, only because nothing else was available. I never want to go back, though I'll shoot a roll every now and then.

thinkinginimages said:

On the capture side of things, a phaseone doesn't have perspective correction...

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Phaseone (digital back) is the film... you mount the back to your favorite platform that has movements. Hasselblad, etc., offers limited movements via lens adapter.

thinkinginimages said:

I could do this kind of artisan "stuff" and make a profit. I've done all sorts of processes.

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Turning a profit is one thing. Turning a profit where the income-to-work/time spent ratio is favorable is entirely different. Some are willing to spend a lot of time working on photographs/negatives and in the end make a profit that equates to $17 an hour (for example). To me that's not worth the time/effort spent. Conversely, if a $375 print costs $25-$30 to spray, print, and mail, then that's a better income to work ratio.

Aesthetics is a personal assessment I realize, but in the spirit of this thread, I'm not convinced that most hobbyist and surely not most working photographers - find film a viable option.

However.. I will concede that many of those old print processes mounted/framed really nicely are definitely attention getting - they do stand out from the hum-drum prints that saturate the market. Often to my eyes - they're refreshing to see.

Autonerd said:

Teila Day said:

I couldn't care less what others use.. I'm often chuckling to myself at so many people running out snapping up old medium format 6x7 and 645 film bodies... they're a can of worms waiting to happen, and a HUGE wake up call will smack these camera users when the first maintenance bill comes for mirror adjustments, light leaks, new film holders, etc..

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Most I've ever spent repairing a film camera was $104. That was a CLA and repair of a non-working shutter.

Aaron

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I've spent $125-$150 just having a K1000 cleaned and debris from the viewfinder removed... and the local shop didn't do a good job at that. You've had low repair bill, but do you expect the same for all these teens buying old 6x7 and 645 cameras? How much will it cost them for mirror adjustments, shipping, parts that may/may not be available?

How much do you think the typical maintenance bill is these days for someone shooting 645 and larger? ... over $200?

Teila Day said:

Teila Day said:

Most people shooting film as much as a person would typically shoot a comparable digital body, can't usually make a compelling case for the cost of film being more "practical" and "financially viable".. most of us know that.

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I find your notion of “comparable” strange - to me a comparable body to a film SLR is a digital SLR or MILC, since they are used for the same purpose (no-one [almost] takes a 10x8 to a party) but that’s by the by

As regards cost , in 2022 I regard all (non commercial) photography other than using a phone a luxury, and therefore arguments over the costs of the same are like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. In the end it’s either a hobby, in which case it has an associated cost that you’re happy with, or a business in which case film or digital is just part of the cost of doing business.

Yes, it's fun!

a_c_skinner said:

I did wonder about large format film and how big a plate you'd need to use to beat one of the 100 Mpix digital big sensor cameras.

Financially? Lord Lichfield swapped to digital to reduce his £200k a year film bill. IIRC. It was a staggering amount.

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4x5 done right puts 100MP to shame - several hundred MPs (minimally) to match if measuring with line pairs. Think 100MP equals 8x0 film? Keep hallucinating. The best DSLRs and MILCs are in the 6x6/6x7 class based on digitally-scanned film with a good scanner. A top Phase One medium format digital is a practical equivalent to medium format film. However, digital scanners limit the quality of film to a large degree. A large direct analog print from 4x5 or 8x10 is stunning and pure beauty to behold that many have never seen in person.

Most people here assume digital vs 35mm. Many who still use film have upped their game to medium and large format - and trust me, the cost of all of my digital cameras and advanced color/B&W darkroom is no match compared to the cost of my Nikon Z9 and lens kit - not to mention the countless thousands lost every year to digital obsolescence.

Shooting film, and more so, doing traditional darkroom developing and printing is a craft unto itself. Becoming a master at it can take years.

Financially viable as in profit? Generally no, but some are making bank by offering (very) high-end film weddings packages, for example - the cost is triple or more than digital packages, and most that do back it up with digital second shooters.

Mike

--
The one thing everyone can agree on is that film photography has its negatives. It even has its positives and internegatives.

SpinOne said:

And you're just going to scan your film anyway.

I'm sure a handful of pros have the reputational weight to shoot whatever capture medium they want. But even for them, it's not practical.

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Well, you are dead wrong. I don't scan, I go the whole darkroom / wet print route. So there goes your baseless generalization.

I also shoot digital commercially - film mostly for pleasure. So there again, you are wrong; both are totally practical for me.

And I am glad you don't - you probably wouldn't be any good at it with your PoV be- best leave film to the craftsmen.

I had a comparable experience. Just for kicks, I hung a film version of an image next to the digital version. The film version of the same image was a B&W print I wet printed in my darkroom and I billed it as such. It sold for several times the cost of the digital version. People were in awe of an analog film print that was hand-made in the darkroom - it caused quite the conversation and spoke volumes about what people value.

Last year I came across a storefront photographic gallery here in my small resort town that is 100% film - the guy is making bank.

Mike

Where I find film is beneficial for me is with medium format. The digital cost of a MF camera and lenses are too high for me compared to MF film equipment. I my case, I don't need to buy a film camera, I have two Mamiya 645, one Mamiya 23 6X7 Press and seven lenses for the 645, ranging from 30 to 250mm. If I want more lenses, the used market has many at low prices where the equivalent digital lenses cost are quite high in most cases. I send out my film and get a high res. CD.