Film Confessions
This is not an easy blog entry for me to write. It involves me admitting that I shot a few rolls of film recently. There, I said it. And I feel better already.
Here’s the story. I found myself in Hawaii recently, with a very specific plan: do absolutely nothing. It seemed like a good idea to recover from the many hours of work I had been doing, and to recharge my batteries in preparation for getting started on a couple new book projects (more on that at some point in the not-too-distant future).
In some ways a total lack of planning is very liberating (especially for someone with my penchant for planning and scheduling). The problem is that it often leads to a lack of preparation. So I hadn’t purchased an underwater housing for my point-and-shoot digital camera, somehow not realizing how cool that would be when I was out snorkeling and surfing (which again, I wasn’t really planning for, which explains why I wasn’t prepared for this).
Fortunately, I was able to find a disposable underwater film camera at the local souvenir shop. I quickly put it to great use, and even had someone else on the boat that took me out snorkeling one morning shoot a couple shots of me swimming above the sea turtles, so I could later prove to myself I was actually there.
This experience brought up a lot of distant (and painful) memories. I didn’t get to see my pictures right away. I didn’t have confidence that they had been properly exposed (which is obviously a major concern for underwater shots). I didn’t know for sure the images were safe (had water leaked into the camera?). It was really difficult to find a place to get the film processed while I was there (OK, this is certainly a relatively new problem). I had to worry about the film getting ruined by the X-Ray machine at the airport on the way home. I had to ponder (yet again) why the local “one-hour” photo lab needed two hours to process my film.
In all, the experience made me very glad that an option existed to make up for my lack of forethought. It also made me very thankful for digital cameras. There are advantages and disadvantages to digital, but to me the advantages completely outweigh the disadvantages.
Oh, and I ordered an underwater housing for my digital camera as soon as I got home.
Explore posts in the same categories: Film, Digital
December 31st, 2007 at 10:27 am
One can obtain quality underwater images with film (See above website). Velvia is my favorite film. Since I’m getting long in the tooth and have some health problems, I won’t be going to the expense of retooling to digital. However, if I was just beginnig underwater photography I definitely would go digital for a number of reasons. The two most ovious are as you noted above: (1) Digital camera technology is close to film therefore no need to carry film or have x-ray machines to worry about. (2) Instant review of photos, therefore no need to do E-6 processing on the boat. Enjoy making images beneath the waves. TD
February 25th, 2008 at 7:05 am
I’m one of those “fence sitters” who thinks that the digital vs. film debate is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Last year I took photos of the 75 houses for a book celebrating my neighborhood’s 100th anniversary. This was a full-sized book (not a pamphlet) so I needed good quality (quantitatively and qualitatively) pix.
I started shooting with a Canon PowerShot and - although the files were fine - found that navigating around the controls slowed me down considerably. Sure, I could preview the results, yet, I constantly had to reshoot houses.
I switched to my trusty Nikon F100 & Fuji Provia for the rest of the project. The process (for me) was much more intuitive and (after years of shooting analog) I was usually able to get a keeper in one shot.
I shot the final photo with my new Nikon D80. As one would imagine, the quality was fine and the process a good deal easier with it than the Canon.
I tweaked all files (film shots were scanned) in Photoshop.
Photographers often complain about the wait to see results with film, and that’s certainly a plus for digital. On the other hand, my analog workflow leaves a lot more time for actually taking pictures (vs. all the digital-related computer time).
I say live and let live. Both film and digital photography offer advantages and disadvantages depending on one’s goals and work preferences.