{"id":1542,"date":"2017-05-10T01:47:21","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T00:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/?p=1542"},"modified":"2017-05-10T02:16:55","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T01:16:55","slug":"progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/2017\/05\/progress\/","title":{"rendered":"PROGRESS – FILM Vs DIGITAL"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2_foo\"<\/p>\n

Above: Foo Fighters recording ‘In Your Honor’ on analogue tape. 606 Studio, LA 2005. Shot on Kodak E100VS film (Photo by JOHN McMURTRIE).<\/p>\n

I have a flight case at home that is full of old camera gear.\u00c2\u00a0 Nikon F90X\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, F100\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, various old lenses, Metz & Nikon Speedlights all sit tangled amongst old flash leads, filters and photographic items that I thought were necessary once but are no longer relevant. The case hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been opened in probably 5 years. I also have darkroom trays and boxes of old film taking up space in my office. The film fridge which was originally a beer fridge is now a beer fridge again so progress has brought some good things.\u00c2\u00a0I just discovered that the Contax T3 sitting on my desk as a paperweight is one of the most sort after vintage 35mm cameras fetching upwards of \u00c2\u00a31200 – I was going to give it away!<\/p>\n

It is incredible how quickly the world of film was replaced.\u00c2\u00a0 All these artefacts of an era now gone litter my house like the fossilised remains of Pompeii.\u00c2\u00a0 I distinctly remember the conversations when digital photography first appeared that it could never replace film.\u00c2\u00a0 Never?\u00c2\u00a0 Within 4 years it decimated the industry.\u00c2\u00a0 Tore its head off and spat down its neck!\u00c2\u00a0 Sounds harsh but believe me when it happened it was uglier than that!\u00c2\u00a0 150 years of progress since Fox Talbot discovered Salted paper mixed with Silver Nitrates would leave a latent image and the entire photographic industry as we knew it was washed away virtually overnight.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Above: My first job in a Photographic Processing lab, 1990 (photo by Stephen Judkins).<\/p>\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get me wrong. I am not a luddite. This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the romantic babbling of someone longing for the past.\u00c2\u00a0 I am hopelessly in love with digital photography.\u00c2\u00a0 I embraced it way before digital cameras were a viable option.\u00c2\u00a0 I had several film scanners and celebrated the idea of scanning, editing and delivering from your desktop.\u00c2\u00a0 The quality today is exceptional.\u00c2\u00a0 The detail, resolution and overall satisfaction I have from photography makes me happier than I ever was when shooting film.\u00c2\u00a0 But progress has its disadvantages too.<\/p>\n

\"cristina<\/p>\n

Back in 1998 I could see digital was the future.\u00c2\u00a0 I was the Photographic Advisor at Nikon UK when the D1 was launched.\u00c2\u00a0 A camera so ergonomically designed you would have never guessed it was digital – especially if you compared it to the periscope pig of a beast Kodak had developed.\u00c2\u00a0 At first digital photography was for the Newspaper press core.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need phenomenal shadow detail or massive resolution.\u00c2\u00a0 They needed convenience, speed and reasonable quality to hit the front pages fast.\u00c2\u00a0 The D1 delivered on all of this and was a game changer.\u00c2\u00a0 Within days you had press photographers fighting for parking space outside Nikon UK demanding to see this new tool of wonder.\u00c2\u00a0 Once the camera was passed into their hands they would wander outside into the daylight like new messiahs reborn on the Richmond Rd.\u00c2\u00a0 Their world as they knew it had just changed for the better.\u00c2\u00a0 They no longer had to carry bags of film and processing kits in the boot of their cars.\u00c2\u00a0 No more hair drying wet film and squeezing it into scanners for transmission.\u00c2\u00a0 No more missing deadlines and not getting paid. Shoot download, upload. Job done!\u00c2\u00a0 Deadlines could be met within minutes of a picture being taken.\u00c2\u00a0 The Canon press core universally ditched their kit and jumped into bed with Nikon like their previous marriages meant nothing to them. Until Canon caught up and tempted them all back to their ex-wives.<\/p>\n

\"Nikon_D1_8373\"<\/p>\n

It was fun to watch at the time but for me that is all I did, watched. I had tested the camera before it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s launch and it really wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that good.\u00c2\u00a0 It was terrible above 800 ISO and the resolution was way too low for magazine work.\u00c2\u00a0 I was shooting for Metal Hammer, Total Guitar, Classic Rock, Q magazine and NME at the time and most of my portrait work was shot on a Mamiya RZ 67.\u00c2\u00a0 These were mostly glossy magazines publishing at 300 dpi and their standards were much higher.<\/p>\n

\"006<\/p>\n

It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t until 2006 when the D2x was launched I reluctantly became a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcdigital photographer and packed my 35mm Nikon F90X Pro and F100 cameras away in a flight case for safe keeping.\u00c2\u00a0 I was forced into this decision because the month before I had shot a front cover and spent over \u00c2\u00a3600 on film, process and printing which was un-recoupable on expenses.\u00c2\u00a0 The magazine refused to pay the costs and informed me that everyone was shooting digital now.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone?\u00c2\u00a0 Well nearly everyone.\u00c2\u00a0 But digital still wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that great, it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t better than film.\u00c2\u00a0 Kodak and Fuji were producing the most beautiful transparency films in 35mm and 120 formats.\u00c2\u00a0 Kodak VS (Vivid Saturation) was my portrait film of choice.\u00c2\u00a0 Under expose by one stop and push process it a stop and you had colours and blacks that were like no other.<\/p>\n

\"LIT\"<\/p>\n

But suddenly I was forced to start shooting digitally.\u00c2\u00a0 At first I approached each job in the same way I would with a film camera, except I was \u00c2\u00a3100 richer by not having to pay for film or process.\u00c2\u00a0 I hated the way highlights blew out on digital (I still do).\u00c2\u00a0 With film the graduation is smoother and the effect is altogether more pleasant. Exposure control was widely different in the Nikon D2x than film.\u00c2\u00a0 Different colours had mad effects on the metering and exposure -\u00c2\u00a0 especially in concerts.\u00c2\u00a0 My portrait lighting kit no longer lit to satisfaction, it just looked odd.\u00c2\u00a0 Film used to love the way my flash danced onto its surface.\u00c2\u00a0 Digital just looked harsh and brash like I no longer had any technique. \u00c2\u00a0The social aspect associated with the film process also disappeared.\u00c2\u00a0 I dated my now wife at the time in all the bars around Fulham and Chelsea whilst waiting for film to be cooked at the many labs in the area.\u00c2\u00a0 My elation at looking at my results on the lightbox was probably exaggerated by the amount of alcohol consumed but I miss those days more than anything else.\u00c2\u00a0 What I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t miss is the thousands I used to spend.\u00c2\u00a0 On an average year I would spend over \u00c2\u00a310,000 on film, process and an unverified amount on Oysters and drink in Bibendum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s off the Kings Rd.\u00c2\u00a0 Nipping out to check on a clip test and continuing the boozing until the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwork\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 was complete.<\/p>\n

I now sit in an office at home and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcprocess\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 my RAW files with enthusiasm but with so many distractions it takes longer than it would to process several rolls of film.\u00c2\u00a0 The romance in my marriage and in the photographic process isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t what it was thanks to the evolution of digital.\u00c2\u00a0 The processing labs in Fulham are mostly gone now but Bibendum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s is still there and so is my lovely wife thankfully!<\/p>\n

\"slash\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Above: Foo Fighters recording ‘In Your Honor’ on analogue tape. 606 Studio, LA 2005. Shot on Kodak E100VS film (Photo by JOHN McMURTRIE). I have a flight case at home that is full of old camera gear.\u00c2\u00a0 Nikon F90X\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, F100\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1542"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1557,"href":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions\/1557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.picturedesk.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}