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Is same-day event reportage on film back?
This week, Miles @expiredfilmclub shot the NY Jets game on film, developed it, scanned it, and posted it while the game was still happening. (PetaPixel has more: petapixel.com/2024/10/18/p…)
Last week, I shot Aurora on film around midnight, then posted the results here (along with a long-form article: analog.cafe/r/shooting-nor…) in the afternoon (yes, I slept).
From what I understood about the demise of film photography, particularly in journalism, it was pushed out by the convenience of digital cameras. They were faster and more practical for time-sensitive applications. But in 2024, it seems less true, as we’ve learned to use the same digital cameras to scan film quickly and transfer the results instantaneously:
It’s easier to select the best shots out of 36 instead of thousands on a memory card, and well-scanned quality emulsions come with a formulated colour profile, in contrast to the editing some digital photos may require to look “right.”
Lastly, there’s something to say about the built-in authenticity of physical negatives in the sea of digital fakes and AI slop (see analog.cafe/r/shot-on-film…).
Of course, not every shot is possible on film, and it can be out of the budget (esp video analog.cafe/comments/lso8), but still.
73 Degree Films published a video history of disposable film cameras and their rise in prominence 👇.
According to 73 Degree Films, disposable film cameras didn’t get their start until the ‘80s with introducton of Fujifilm disposable camera. Their rise in popularity was swift, mainly fueled by brands, celebrities, and their commercial interests.
That growth led to various innovations, including Polaroid instant packs and underwater disposables. Today’s disposable, still in wide distribution after a brief lull of the ‘00s-‘10s, feature slimmer design and return of branding by well-known names like BTS.
73 briefly mentions the contraversy associated with waste, providing what I thought a nowel point of view suggesting that “reusable” plastic cameras are no better as their build quality may still inspire a trip to landfill after the first use.
Image: “disposable camera” by Genista (flickr.com/photos/50457550…), licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Polaroid just made a new special-edition film available at their store: Reclaimed Green.
You may remember last year’s Reclaimed Blue release (analog.cafe/r/polaroid-rec…), which sold out quickly as it was the first emulsion of its kind.
Unlike the Duochrome editions, which are essentially black-and-white films with added dye, Reclaimed Blue is a colour film capable of rendering whites (Duochromes use colour dyes which cover whites of the black-and-white positives, yielding darker images).
Reclaimed Green is nearly identical to Reclaimed Blue in the way it works (including its ability to produce whites), only with a yellow dye added to the formula, which turns it green. However, the resulting effect is lighter than that of Duochrome Green (see analog.cafe/r/polaroid-gre…).
Polaroid Reclaimed Green 600 is available at the web store for $16.99 ($3 cheaper than the regular colour film): polaroid.pxf.io/an3RPZ [affiliate].
You can learn a bit more about this film from the excellent In An Instant channel on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=5sSpVp….
The phrase in the recent short video about the celebrated Magnum photographer Bruce Gilden, “I’ll be broke in a year,” preoccupied the internet today.
The video: youtube.com/watch?v=foGe7n…
The article: digitalcameraworld.com/fea…
As someone who’s recently resigned from a well-paid gig to pursue a creative career, I can feel the sentiment clearly. It’s difficult to do hard things, like being an independent artist.
But,
Bruce will be broke in a year; I’ve got about six months. A person next to me on a train doing something they do not love is already broke. So what?
There are plenty of stats available online showing growth in photographic markets. Of course, this doesn’t make the pursuit any easier, but neither do sentimental writeups that rely on the words of a single person who lives a life different from most of us.
My point is that it’s always been difficult. The greats can and do fail, and the odds have not changed for anyone.
Whether it’s a hobby or a career ambition, photography is still worth a try. It’s in demand. People still want to see photographs, in fact, more than ever.
***
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: bls.gov/ooh/media-and-comm…
Jonathan Paragas, or @KingJvpes, recently published a video about his incredible experience finding a Leica M3 at a thrift store for $30.
Jonathan is a San Francisco/Bay Area photographer who’s got over 175K subscribers on YouTube thanks to his popular film camera thrifting videos and content about analogue photography. Of course, there’s more to his fame than just the subjects he picks.
In his recent video, @KingJvpes is seen shaking with excitement after finding a Leica M3 at a thrift store for $30 — a camera that sells for over a thousand dollars on eBay. Though the video had a lot of extra content, I was most impressed with Jonathan’s honesty (he didn’t try to make himself look cool or cut his emotional reaction to such a find from the reel) and his commitment to do the right thing.
Gear theft is a big issue, particularly in the Bay Area (from what I gather online). Which is why Jonathan spent considerable effort to see if his Leica find was lost or stolen before adding it to his collection permanently. But after months of scouring the internet, he determined that it isn’t (besides, why sell it at a thrift store if it could fetch a lot more on eBay?)
Here’s the video: youtube.com/watch?v=BsMrkM… (the key part starts at around 9:30 mark).
A new hand-held large format camera is “coming soon.”
I saw a video this week on YouTube about a 4x5 film camera explicitly designed to be carried and used without a tripod. It uses a mirror and a ground glass for top-down focusing and weighs “just over 2kg.”
This 3D-printed camera also comes with a unique focusing screen mask designed to host a mobile phone for immediately capturing the ground glass output on your digital device. While that may seem unusual and unnecessary at first, from what I understand, it’s a genuinely novel feature that lets you capture the world (inc. video) through the 178mm (50mm eqiv.) large format lens — which gives you an advantage of the incredible depth of field in a wide-angle. If you’ve ever tried to capture the view through a viewfinder of a regular film camera, you’ll know it’s nearly impossible to do it well. But a large ground-glass plane can make it happen.
The project, along with tons of sample photos, lives on Instagram: instagram.com/smartflexcam… and the website: smartflexcamera.com/
The video itself is here: youtube.com/watch?v=qM8_7U…
Buyer’s remorse about the modern film cameras is beginning to cut through the hype.
I’d like to preface this by saying that there’s nothing wrong with being excited about new products. I take a positive approach to most products I review because I love film photography, I understand production constraints in 2024, and I do not expect perfection.
However, it must be difficult to be critical of a relatively expensive gadget that one gets and has limited time to play with. This is also fine. I am not happy about being attacked over not accepting that modern tools are somehow better in every way than their vintage counterparts (that happened, and it’s the Internet, so no surprise either).
But as time passes, the novelty wears and criticisms surface. Whether it’s Lok’s dissatisfaction with the build quality and design of the new Pentax 17 (youtube.com/watch?v=gwnlnE…) or @theinstantcameraguy’s complaints about Polaroid’s slow software fix cycle for critical bugs for I-2 (see: analog.cafe/comments/z0ow).
The truth about those tools is probably somewhere in the middle, and it will depend greatly on individual experience and expectations. But no matter what our collective opinion is about those new tools, it is nonetheless remarkable that there’s such a strong demand for film and film cameras in 2024. I sincerely hope that the manufacturers take note and remember that the user experience matters the most, whereas the hype always fades.
Update the firmware on your Polaroid I-2 to fix the autoexposure features.
Until recently, full auto, shutter priority, and aperture priority modes on Polaroid I-2 cameras have been lacking or useless, according to @theinstantcameraguy in his YouTube video: youtube.com/watch?v=j4z-T5…
But an easy firmware update that you can initiate through your Polaroid app is now available to fix it all. Once you pair your camera with your phone, you can view your firmware version in your app and update it if necessary. The version that fixes the above issues is v1.02.1.
In addition to the firmware announcement and explanation of what it fixes, @theinstantcameraguy notes that it took Polaroid an entire year to develop the firmware update meant to remedy critical features of an expensive camera. It is an unusually long software update cycle, even for a large company with the pains of corporate bureaucracy.
Based on his explanation of how the exposure issues were circumvented manually, it must’ve been a complex problem to solve. Nevertheless, Polaroid is also known for restoring one of the most complicated chemical products in the world. Hence, it’s hard to imagine this fix was beyond their ability to deliver in a shorter timeframe.
One last thing: the video is a little fumy, so if you’d rather not get upset, just update the firmware and enjoy the fix!
YouTube Video