Back to Film
March 14th, 2007
About 9 months ago, the shutter curtain on my Leica M6 jammed up. It was damned unfortunate, and kind of infuriating, given that a Leica M body typically lasts decades with very little in the way of maintenance requirements.
Around that same time, Michele let me use her Nikon D200 for a bit. It piqued my curiosity enough to purchase one, along with a 17-55/2.8 Nikon DX lens.
Recently, I realized that, with my Leica broken and my new camera being roughly the size of a cinder block, I’d all but stopped with the photography hobby. I never carried the Nikon with me. It was too large, too loud, and too fiddly.
Early hints at my distaste for the beast could be gleaned from an article I wrote for JPG Magazine.
Last week, I sold my Nikon and shipped the Leica to Don Goldberg for a repair and once-over. And yesterday, my precious little Leica was returned to me.
The new shutter mechanism is amazingly smooth. It’s much nicer than it was before, and I imagine it will last me a long time.
An interesting note is that my enthusiasm for photography returned no more than an hour after having sold the dSLR. I can’t quite explain this, other than with an assumption that this hobby, for me, is a romantic thing and that at least some of that romance revolves around film and the analog process. Who knows?
Comments for “Back to Film”
For me the romance is in the snapshot. I shot 35mm for years and had it processed at CVS. If nothing came out well, then it wasn’t in the cards. Shooting digital makes the habit a lot cheaper, but the idea is the same. I never retouch—in fact, I’m content to publish straight from the card with my phone if the mood strikes. Life is too short for color-correcting, IMHO.
I just can’t seem to get the same look out of my D200 that I do from film. No matter how hard I try, I am left deflated. I wish I could. Maybe it’s how they are post processed? I have no idea. Either way, I brought out my Pentax once again. It’s ready to go, stuffed with black and white film.
I’m going back to my roots for a little while, I think.
Ian – I cropped a pic once when (another) Ian and I were running fiftymillimeter.com and he nearly flew up to NYC to kick my ass. I scan my negs and resize, and that’s it.
I think the romantic parts for me are entirely self-indulgent, yet something you may be able to respect. Knowing that each shot costs cold hard cash, that changing film is a pain, and that there is so much that can go wrong from the time the film is loaded until a print/scan is made all makes me care a bit more about the product. With the digital, I felt like everything I shot was just a record. I could practically have kept the shutter firing constantly and picked the good shots later.
But where’s the fun in that? Where’s that feeling of hunting, of the one that got away? And I absolutely love the masochistic joy I feel knowing it may very well be months before I get around to processing a given roll of film. With the shoot-look-delete of the digital, photography pretty much lost its allure.
mitch and i were just having this discussion. we were at a camera store and all of their paper & chemicals were in a side annex room, cast off from the money-making counter where all things digital change hands. mitch stood there pining for a darkroom and i couldn’t remember why i ever got rid of my enlarger. he’s been scanning a lot of film negatives in lately and has been noticing the depth and color richness that film offers (vs. digital Nikon D70).
PS: after i started asking about your DiMAGE scanner, Mitch got an itch and scratched it with the Nikon CoolScan5000. it suddenly became an urgent issue that called for immediate gratification. next time, i keep my mouth shut.
To me, photography is a craft – it’s all about the process. I’m not in it for the instant gratification (otherwise, I’d use my Polaroid).
Thanks You The News
Best Regards
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