I seem to have a yearning for the past. More accurately I have a yearning for things that remind me of the past.
For those who have read the Bolero and ViewT posts the above statement may clarify why I like them. It isn't the fact that they are old cars, because they're not old cars, it's more the fact that they are a very deliberate tribute to old cars. They maintain the functionality of what we have today but simply tip their cap to yesteryear.
Now, at this point, those of you who know that I'm a bit of a photographer may be expecting me to wax lyrical on the virtues of older cameras or pre-digital styles of photography. Those of you who expect me to do this are wrong. Again, I do not wish to go back to old technology. I simply wish to acknowledge it in the things that we already have.
As an example I have recently become enamoured with retro landline telephones. The type that we had at my house when I was a kid. The ones where you twist the number up and around then wait for the ring to reset itself before you can dial again. These phones are still functional today as landline phones, albeit in need of a bit of help.
Similarly I would love ot have a typewriter sitting in my office. Again this is something that we had at my house when I was a kid and I look back on the mechanical sounds of it with fond memories.
That being said I would not write a book on an old typewriter or reach for an old phone in an emergency. I would use what we have now and that is also why I would continue to photograph digitally.
In my experience champions of older photographic technology essentially fall into 2 camps. The retro hipsters and the die-hard film purists.
The retro hipsters largely prefer film for the same reason that they prefer vinyl records: it's uncommon and uncommon is cool. While they may say that they prefer the sound of an old, crackly record or the look of an old, typically broken, film camera the truth is they enjoy the inherent crapness of each of these things. This is clearest in the case of lomography, a retro hipster style of photography based on cameras that never really got the image quite right but were easy to use.
The second group are the die-hard film purists. These people are worth listening to. Unlike the hipsters from the previous paragraph their opinions are based on actual performance and, I'm sad to say, they are right to hold film over digital in many cases. 2 of particular importance are image quality and dynamic range.
Given my bashing of the hipster set's obsession with film simply looking better it may seem odd that I accept the film purist's claim of enhanced image quality. The difference between these 2 things though is the person driving the camera and, in the hands of the film purist, film can really shine. There is something about it that digital has not yet quite matched. While your standard digital camera outstripped the resolution of your standard film camera long ago there is something else that film continue to bring to the table. An adequate desctiption is yet to be given but there is simply somehting about a film image.
Talking to a guy from Kodak a few years ago he speculated that it was becuase film is an organic medium. Unlike the sensor on a digital camera the silver and other chemicals in a strip of film are not distributed perfectly evenly. Ironically then the crapness that I railed against earlier may have a hand in making film images have that little something extra.
an alternative account could be that film images inherently have more care laid upon them. On any given roll of film you're limited to les than 30 shots whereas most digital cameras will now allow you to take 100s of photos on a single card. Perhaps it is the lack of car that creates the difference. However, if this were true, it would be an easy fix and all that would be required is a simple self-governing. Unfortunately though this does not seem to ring true.
Finally it could be that film is typically processed by someone else. Perhaps an additional pair of eyes helps to create something more beautiful.
On a deeper level though perhaps we don't understand how the chemicals pick up on the reds, greens, and blues that they're supposed to. Perhaps our sensors aren't claibrated to match the sensitvity of film. Again, this should be an easy fix in post yet it has yet to occur.
At last then we come to dynamic range. The days of this as an advantage must surely be coming to an end.
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