Tuesday, July 31, 2012

The Big Questions

My friends keep asking me about my preferences.

Do I prefer film or digital? Color or black & white? Which film format is my favorite?

Honestly, it doesn't matter.

I struggle with it myself, in fact.

I love shooting film.  I have some shots with my film cameras that I don't think I could have duplicated with my digital cameras (admittedly, mostly due to expired film and/or cross-processing).

But I also love shooting digital. It's faster than film, and is (long-term) a great deal cheaper.

The fact that my default cameras can share lenses doesn't help, here, either, as it feels the same when I'm taking the picture.

Some of my film cameras are more fun to use, however. I really enjoy shooting with my Polaroids, but it costs me more than $1 every time I trip the shutter on one of them.

Color vs Black & White is another tough question - it depends on the camera, really.  If I'm shooting digital, I want to shoot color. I only know of one digital camera designed for B&W shooting, and it's ... well ... a bit expensive.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I love the color that comes out of that Komaflex (via the Bluefire Murano film), but the B&W results are good, too:

Komaflex Roll Three

And, since I live in the Seattle area, sometimes that color is almost a waste:

Komaflex

With the Polaroids, I prefer B&W. The Impossible Project 600-series films have a ways to go before I'll trust them completely - the color results I had were less-interesting than the B&W results. The packfilm from Fuji is good, but I do a lot of indoor shooting, making the 100-speed color a less-than-good decision.

When shooting 35mm, I'm okay with either one.  The Color is cheaper to process than the B&W.

I haven't put any color film through the 645n, yet. But I really like the B&W results I've had so far. I do have a couple of unprocessed rolls with less-than-good shots, because I got a bit excited about taking pictures of airplanes and forgot some of the basics (most notably that objects in shade - like the underside of an airplane - are three stops darker than items in daylight).

Pentax 645N

There's just something that feels ... real when shooting B&W through that 645n. We'll see how the color feels.  And - for the record - I think this one is my favorite camera to use.

Of course, the 4x5 sheet film is only available in B&W, so I have no choice with the crown graphic. Which is fine - it's a fun camera to use.

Crown Graphic

... and I like the results.  I'm looking forward to shooting more with it.

If only film weren't so expensive ...

Which reminds me: I need to grab a few rolls/sheets of each and photograph the negatives so you can see the differences.  Maybe I'll have that done for next week.

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