Film, not digital

Is anyone else here using film instead of digital? I was an Air Force photographer from 1986-1990, and film was all there was at the time. When I was in my main piece of equipment was a Nikon F-2 35mm. When I was ready to get out my F-2 was found to be outdated, it had even been to Viet Nam and back and it was being retired. I followed the proper channels and was able to purchase it with the auto winder, lenses, bag and all. As digital photography was basically killing off film, i purchased a great ammount of black and white film asa 64-200 speed film. I set up a makeshift darkroom in my bathroom where I can process and print. That camera has been dependable over the years and its like an old friend, when using it, its like a favorite pair of shoes, it feels comfortable in my hand. Its simple, no fancy settings, I use a grey card to get exposure settings, and i can tweak the resolution as it suits me through processing. There is just more of an intimate feeling using that camera than my wife's Nikon D3000. Coming from a guy that ties his own flies, builds his own fly rods uses a patched round ball in my muzzleloader, a recurve bow with hand fletched cedar arrows and prefers iron sights, i guess im just a relic, but i like having to plan a shot, with my training, i can work with my film camera almost as quick as a digital, but the prints are amazing. If you use film, let me know how you like it.

I was very slow to give up film (still have a dozen or more rolls stuck back in the refrigerator...).

You can tell a difference when shooting with somebody who learned to shoot film and somebody who has only shot digital. There are a LOT less "spray and pray" photographers that came out of the film world where you had 24 or 36 or so shots, and they were expensive compared to digital...

I was at Callaway Garden Butterfly exhibit over the summer. There was a guy in there with a 35mm Minolta SLR. His camera impressed me more than the butterflies.

I have quite a bit of Portra 160 & T-Max 400 stuck back in the refrigerator.

Like Rip.... You tried to make your shots count .... make one or two shots and make them count ... Whole lot different than the machine gun shooting that digital encourages or seems too.

That Portra 160 just has/had a quality ... that I still search for in digital... then of course the developer may have been a much better "developer" than the one I have now....

BriarPatch99 said:

I have quite a bit of Portra 160 & T-Max 400 stuck back in the refrigerator.

Like Rip.... You tried to make your shots count .... make one or two shots and make them count ... Whole lot different than the machine gun shooting that digital encourages or seems too.

That Portra 160 just has/had a quality ... that I still search for in digital... then of course the developer may have been a much better "developer" than the one I have now....

Click to expand...

This is so true about making your shots count,,,, I had a Canon A1 and still have my T90 with several lenses mostly Vivatar series 1, even the old 522 Sunpak flash,,,,

I still have my F 4 Nikon and several rolls of film squirreled away

The exception to the "shoot less, think more" film shooters were some folks who did their own dark room work in B&W. They were happy to get a few desirable prints out of a roll of film and printed only what they liked. I had a buddy who shot a lot of film using an old Leica rangefinder with a few Summicron/Summarit lenses. His work was amazing. One of my seven sisters gave me this old F Nikon “boat anchor” decades ago. She bought it in "like new condition" in Japan in the 1980s. The F series was replaced with the F2 series in 1973. The FTN Photomic light meter head died and it is somewhere buried in the attic. The non-metered head is in place. The Nikonos V was a camera I used fishing and boating with the family. I haven't used them in years.