Film TCSTV: Analog Shooting

The Camera Store TV guys have done a live-stream with a focus on Analog shooting - their guest is Olivier Du Tre (shoots 4x5). Some good stuff covered.


Interesting discussion. I am not a pro, I am a rank amateur and have a lot to learn so my opinion can be taken by a grain of salt, but when I look at a digital image (like a perfect one) and I look at a beautifully shot 4x5 or 8x10 film shot I cannot help falling in love with the large format print, it draws me in, it's just amazingly beautiful and I can't describe my feelings in words.
I don't agree digital is superior to film, sure technically it is, but it has an edge to it (quite literally sometimes) that does not attract me. I work in an educational institution with access to loads of photographs from the past, as far back as the late 19th century and I can spend hours looking at those pictures. Just recently I had the privilege to look at one in particular that was taken on a large format camera of our college building in about 1928 (sadly photographer and actual date unknown), the enlarged print is about 24" x 36", my first reaction was OMG this is such a gorgeous BW photograph and as I looked I began seeing the people in the windows, the gardener suddenly appears with his rake, then a lady on an upper floor, someone looking at something in a room, beautiful exposed sharp details. The details appear to at the viewer like magic, the more you look the more you find, even my archivist hadn't noticed the people and the details. I have never seen a digital image that has done that to me, but then again maybe a large format digital camera could get down to such details, I don't know, I am still ignorant of what the capabilities of digital are.

I am not saying I hate digital, I don't, I use it all the time on my phone and I love my Olympus EM5II. I started photography with digital earlier this year, and then I went down to archives and got to see "real" film photographs, well that was it for me, it totally and completely drew me in, it was like seeing images for the first time in my life. I think many analog photographers just agree that digital is superior as they don't want to argue with people who dismiss their analog work. I get that all the time, oh how silly, just pick up your phone and take a picture...
 
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