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from the Film-At-11-Maybe...-Or-Maybe-Not... dept.
It's easy to think that film cameras are gone forever. But Marketplace has a short story about how Kodak is apparently close to re-releasing the Ektachrome 100 film line. Tweet as covered in the story.
There's news that Kodak is about to bring back Ektachrome 100, a popular slide film for analog cameras, that's been gone for five years. Launched in the 1940s, Ektachrome was one of the first commercially available color films and became the "preferred choice of magazine and advertising shooters." (It was a favorite of National Geographic.)
As far as I can tell, the development has been hanging for quite some time as here is one among several stories back from January of 2017 stating it was coming back. I guess software isn't the only industry that suffers from vaporware potential. Marketplace's question could also be asked here: What pieces of discontinued technology do you wish would come back?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Friday June 08 2018, @12:52AM (4 children)
Film. Hollywood still burns through miles of the stuff everyday, though that is slowing changing as digital continues to improve. Serious landscape photography is still a realm of film, largely 4x6 or 810 view cameras. Though again, the new large sensors are going to be giving those film formats a run for their money in the next 5 years or so.
I shoot film because I simply enjoy the process more. I put away my my Minolta in 2008 when I bough a Nikon D40. The Nikon is on its last legs now after a not very hard life. I'm back to shooting film now with the 40 year old Mintola...still working perfectly. As it turns out, the new film stocks that Kodak has out, Porta 400 and Ektar 100 are jaw droppingly good. They can capture an incredible dynamic range with an insanely fine grain. I shoot, develop at home and do a 4000 dpi scan with a dedicated scanner. I couldnt be happier with the results. Best part is, I didnt end up dropping a couple grand on a POS that's going to fall apart on me in 10 years.
I do worry about the long term availability of film and chems, so in the mean time I'll keep burning through a roll or two every month and enjoying myself.
The other thing that brought me back to film was thinking about the long term legacy of the digital age. I'm pretty good about keeping multiple copies of all my images and stuff, but are Nikon Raw, jpg, tiff, still going to be viable file formats in 20, 30, 50 years? Having the negatives gives me a hedge against a personal digital apocalypse.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday June 08 2018, @07:30AM (3 children)
To look at, I'm prefering digital already, and have done for several years. Large format still trumps digital though, but it will go the same way as MF eventually.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday June 08 2018, @04:19PM
> but the graining noise is terrible - in my opinion.
True. Conversely, thick brush strokes with too much paint haven't exactly hurt the value of Van Gogh paintings, and I really wish recent hollywood offerings had less perfect visuals in exchange for more scenario (the insane cost of the perfect visuals driving the "take no risk, don't offend anyone" narratives).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Friday June 08 2018, @04:25PM (1 child)
Grain noise is highly dependent on the film stock used. My basic take on film grain is as follows
Okay, that's enough self-promotion...
But, yeah it won't be too long until MF gives way to digital, the new stuff out just last year, I think finally has the resolution to do it. LF still has a few years left in it and that may be enough of a niche market where the R&D required to get a sensor that big just isn't worth it. So the market will either further consolidate and continue as a Niche, or it'll go the way of Polaroid Peel-a-part film, may she rest in peace.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday June 08 2018, @10:40PM
If one is trying to get a perfect image as a representation of something, say a flower image for a field guide, I think digital beats film hands down. An awful lot of photography though is people trying to create "art", whether they (or anyone else) calls it that or not. Images are edited to look like what people want them to look like. People like the look of film, and there is of course a long history of film photography that is still a base for what photographs "should" look like. There are a lot of software programs that have options to try to emulate the results of various films. I doubt that any of them match the result of the film they are trying to emulate. In the end, it comes down to what you like.