Do you know anyone who still uses a film camera?

I have an 80 year old friend who uses several and owns no digital ones. He is lucky to have an old-fashioned camera shop nearby that sells old-fashioned film and does o-f developing. But it is getting more and more rare. (Fewer rather than less.)

My son is a professional photographer. He loves to use film, he develops his own, both B&W and Color. For his work he often uses digital cameras. For his art, he uses only film. You can see some of his photographs here .

I do. Mostly for street photography. I process it myself. No real reason, I can duplicate the effect using a DSLR and Photoshop – but old habits are comforting.

You have a wider dynamic range using film without all the involved post processing required to match it in digital. It also forces you to keep your photography honest when you can’t “tweak” it in post.

Guilty. I have found they are still better in some situations.

I still have my Canon SLR film camera.
I have no reason not for going digital though.
There’s very little that film cameras do that digital cameras don’t do better, faster, and cheaper.

I do. My favorite camera is my Nikkormat SLR. Oh. I love that camera. I want to have a B&W dark room sometime in the future, too.

Having said that, I’m more protective of my Nikon DSLR than I am of my computer. I love it. Especially here in Antarctica where most people have lousy digital point and shoots, which really are incapable of capturing the beauty of this place. You need to be able to underexpose, people!

My mother. She is in her mid 70s and still hasn’t bought a digital camera yet.

I do miss the days of processing my own film but it is nice to delete pictures now with my digital camera if they don’t turn out.

I use both film and digital because I still have unique lenses for my film-based camera body which I cannot afford to duplicate for my new digital camera body. I do, though, digitize my negative/positive film-based images and do all image manipulation and printing, digitally.

Without making invidious comparisons, because I know both ways of working are equally valid, I just wanted to mention that Max never does any manipulation of any sort, not even burning and dodging. He just prints exactly what the emulsion captured. People often believe his work has been photoshopped, however.

I once had the privilege of meeting Walker Evans, and couldn’t resist asking him if he hadn’t ever, just once, fooled around in the darkroom. He told me that once he had put his hand on a piece of photo paper in the darkroom, and flipped on the light for a sec.

Although I don’t own a camera right now, when I do get around to purchasing a camera, I want both a film SLR (my mom owns an older Nikon that is very very nice) and something like a Canon Rebel (probably an older refurbished model) for my digital needs.

When I own my own place, I want a dark room. I can’t think of anything as soothing and awesome as making your own b&w prints.

I LOVE the digital cameras, but these new ones don’t have view finders in them . It makes it hard to take pictures outside sometimes. I miss the old ones that have them.

@jbfletcherfan – DSLRs have viewfinders. In fact, on mine that is the only way to see what you are shooting. It drives people nuts. If I set the camera to Auto, and hand them the camera to get a pic of me, they hold it out in front of them, desperately trying to see something on the LCD. I think it is terrible that some people don’t even know how to use a view finder.

@pdworkin Your son does nice work.

My roommate still has, and occasionally uses, her Canon SLR. She has buddies who can develop her film for her when she likes.

Thanks, @peedub. I am inordinately proud of him.

For our wedding reception, we bought a bunch of those disposable cardboard cameras and scattered them around the tables so people could take quick candids that we’d miss otherwise. At the end we rounded them all up for development. It worked well.

Besides, how else could we capture so many images of my mom giving the middle finger salute? Classy.

Me! I have a really nice one that I love. I still use it for good pictures.

I have a fully manual (no batteries) SLR that I use occasionally. Film is fascinating to me. From what it actually is, to how it works, to how it’s developed.

But I mostly stick with my Pentax SLR exclusively for the fact that it’s much easier.

Good god, my roommate is a photo major and she has like 15 vintage cameras, and uses most of them. I know she has a Brownie, and she’s used a large format camera, but I don’t really know the rest of them.

I use a film camera for my B&W photography, but normally I use my DSLR for artistic or scenic color photography. I haven’t used a color film camera in ages…

I shoot both DSLR & various film cameras—almost all of my commission work is DSLR (fast turnaround, low overhead costs), while almost all of my artistic work is done on film.

I also do aerial photography from kites and other things (shameless plug )

Two key things about film vs. digital:
– My 35mm camera with a nice lens can get 20 megapixels no problem. For the aerial work, I’m often flying a $60 motor back with an $80 lens (the filter ring is cracked, but the lens if otherwise perfect—picked it up used).
– My medium format camera can easily get 80 megapixels when I scan it.

- The dynamic range of film is much much greater than that of (most) digital cameras. Three exposures bracketed 2 stops is about right for film vs. digital. That is, a single shot on film has the dynamic range of three shots on digital.

For instance, this photo: http://folio.benpeoples.com/p856200278/e8db391c is two digital images worked together to get you highlights, and sky, and shadow detail. This shot: http://folio.benpeoples.com/p238684644/e3a66fcc8 is film, and gets the highlights, sky, and shadow in a single exposure.

Right now I shoot completely digital. However I am looking to get a film camera. The Canon EOS 1V is what I am looking to purchase.

Film has a art to it and i want to hold on to that.

@efritz: She can still get film for a Brownie? That was my first (the special one.) I still have ancient, yellowed, small snaps of camp that I took using that.

My daughter still uses her 35mm. She went to buy film for it at Wal-Mart & they had to dig to find a roll. I told her she’d better stock up.

@gailcalled – my roommate gets 120mm film for her brownie, but then trims it with manicure scissors and sands it down to 620.

http://www.zianet.com/connealy/vintagecameras/120in620/

I do, too. When I have enough time, I like the result much better than digital. And I enjoy the process of developing and printing it myself. Color film though is way too much hassle, though, I might shoot it but I’d scan it and print it digitally and would be more likely to use my digital camera for that.

I still use a Nikon film SLR. But I live in a city with lots of photographic resources.

@all This book is sooooooo awesome for 35mm.

I have three or four film cameras that I still use frequently. There is just something about using film that I love.

I do. with ISO 50 film it will easily outresolve $7000 DSLR cameras. Development costs are quite low because you are not taking 1000s of pictures at a time, and many labs will scan them to CD for you. Film cameras are really cheap, even after paying for the film.

Medium format will blow away all the digital stuff without blinking.

I only use digital, purely for convenience. But I want to start having a go with film to play around with the results. One of my favourite landscape photographers, Charlie Waite, still resolutely sticks to film – must be something in it!