Curiosity in plain sight

[vakkotaur]

I've been using a digital camera for a couple years now, I think. I think there was a time of some overlap when I would use a film camera for some things, but I don't recall just what. A while ago I noticed a film canister next to that camera. I was wondering why I was saving it, so I picked it up. Uh oh, it still had film in it. Did I forget to get a roll developed? Nope. I just never got around to using that roll. I suppose I ought to use and get it developed before it ages too much more. But it seems so limiting to have only 24 exposures, no immediate results, and processing expenses. That's why the film just sat there while I forgot about it, even though I saw it almost every day.

Comments

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Sounds like "changing a roll of 35mm film" needs to be added to http://obsoleteskills.com/. I'm scared at how large of a proportion of what I know is listed on that site.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Obsolete is relative, of course. Many of the entries there have rebuttals or exceptions.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Then there's the new skills that new technology requires, which may not be as difficult but may still cause moments of confusion. Some time ago my dad wanted to put a CD-ROM in his new laptop, and he called me for help because he thought the disk wouldn't fit on the CD drive's spindle. I had to show him how you press it down and snap it into place.

[timmowarner.livejournal.com]

If it's a matter of the film going to waste, isn't it more of a waste to pay to have it developed when you could take the same shots digitally and never pay for development.

Of course, you still have to pay for printing if you need hard copies...

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

There is that consideration too. So it's sort of, "Is there anything where using film makes more sense than using the digital camera?"

I think it's a bit too early to claim nostalgia as a reason.

[thecanuckguy.livejournal.com]

I like digital because I'm such a stinge when it comes to film for whatever reason (well, overall I'd classify myself a stinge, so I guess it fits.) From 1987 (when I got my first camera) to approximately 2005 (so approx. 20 years) I have developed about 52 rolls of film (because I number them for my photo album). People like my wife, who take four or five shots to get the right one annoy me (professional photographers are exempt from my ire, which my wife is not). In 20 years. To me that sounds like a LOT. To others, that's a yearly purchase.

Now, with our cheapy digital, she can take as many pictures as she wants. Me, stilil being a stinge I still delete the "bad" pictures and only save a few pics off the camera (when it comes to electronic storage, I'm very much a stinge, for years I worked off a computer that had a 3GB hard drive (this is a regular IBM PC too around the turn of this century, not talking about the smaller machines like our first PC (the 386) or the TRS-80 before that) and had to be very conscious of how much space I'd put on it. Now, I have a much larger hard drive, but it's still just under half full, and has never been much higher than that. At work, although I've been there longer than most other people (7.5 years) I only have about 50 emails saved (the mails themselves are probably stored in a big central data storage anyways) whereas some that have been ther about 5 years save every email ever sent, even those emails that are only pertinent for that day, made obsolete by the email that send the next day's stats.