Film, the never ending story…

In the early days of digital age, it seemed as discreet logic wants to, and eventually will take over the world. In many cases, enthusiasm and eagerness, maybe technocracy caused a premature release of these technologies to the world, which was not ready for them. And as a small child, being innocent and brilliant inside, these technologies were not ready for the world either.

Let us start in the eighties. Eveybody remebers it, if they were living. Even those to come will know, what I’m talking about. A sudden release of deadly in music industry: electronic music. Not that filters, synthesators, keyboards, filters, generators, pitch benders and numerous other did not exist before, but now these were labeled DIGITAL and were built using this new unseen technology, exciting and with endless possibilities. Imagine this in an age, where floppy disks were big as a plate, data were still stored on tapes and the word digital meant 256 sound levels in music and was definitely not ready for the music industry. Moreover, the vast majority was not ready for the digital era neither and it will take the next generation of musicians some time, before this beast is tamed…

I can see it right now. The questiom im your minds: “… Now where does film fit in here?”
Well, photography itself did not escape the process of digitalisation, but fortunately the technologies for imaging were so immature, that even the techno enthusiasts refused the transition. Not to mention the prizes. It was not untill later in the 90s that is slowly seemed, that digital has come so far…
And photographers were once again relieved for a while.

The 90s can be seen as the true revolution in digital technology, as even the photo industry, and even the first digital SLR began to emerge. By the end of millenium we could hardly speak of mass production and amateur market, though.
With the comming of the new millenium and leap advances in digital technologies, the era of common photography came. Digital camers were already affordable, produced instant results and were relatively easy to handle. Not to mention no developing.
Slowly, it seemed like the beginning of the end… For film and film cameras.

Many voices began to emerge, praising digital and its qualities, claiming film was dead, some did say it’s only a matter of time. There also was a handfull of those, that didn’t see the end of film comming that soon. I was not among them back then. Simply because they said, that the qualities of film can never be surpassed for proffessional photography.
Half a decade later, most of these claims were gone as digital imaging has surpassed film in almost every aspect. There was no need to stay with film anymore… Or was there?

As a matter of fact, another half decade later, here we are, film photography still flourishing, not willing to give up the feel. Yes, I’d say it is only about the feeling. Technical aspects are clear. Digital is a winner, BUT! The same people that made their “film is dead” claims didn’t count in one variable. People themselves. It is very hard to predict what people, as community, will do. In this case, certain individuals, formins a mass were not willing to give up the feeling of analog photography. There is plenty of them. And some new want to try it out, where some stay, others leave, in favor of digitals.
The result is obvious, these are two different categories, that coexist and benefit eachother, two different things, where one suits some people, the other the rest… Simple as that.

SO, DEATH OF FILM? CERTAINLY NOT.

WHY?
Film technologies are going to stick around for quite a while. There are multiple reasons. First of all, there is a ridiculously high niumber of super cheap new and used proffessional cameras that use film, simply because they use film…
Film market is constant, but new innovations can be found every couple of years, thus development is done also here…
Middle format cameras do not have any equivalent in digital, when it comes to field size…
And most of all, people like to play with chemicals…
Not to forget the pleasure of working with a 35mm SLR viewfinder and for most hobbyists, the fun, as they process the prints. Hardly comparable to pc work, in my opinion.

So, for some people, it has that something, that is imprinted in the final picture by the process, not the medium itself. If you skip one of the steps, you loose it all.

I know, many people might argue, that the process is way too slow and you can get only few prints a day…

I think that now, more than ever before, QUALITY , NOT QUANTITY MATTERS IN THE END

–Ventil