Should I get into film photography?

>>4433095 (OP)
Yeah!

>>4433095 (OP)
If you do not self dev and make at least some real darkroom prints its a pointless exercise in spending money on worse digital.

i learned that after eight months when i realized i had spent about $500 on jpeg files with accessory negatives. if you’re going to do that just buy a fujifil since you just want a to turn dials and get that really noisy low quality lab scan look.

Check the year

>>4433097
Oh yeah! Make prints. You can get a setup for around 500 bucks if you're thrifty and only print 35mm.

Think about it. 200 dollar camera, 100 bucks on film, 150 bucks on dev, 500 on darkroom setup and you can be in the 99th percentile of most based photographers on all of /p/. A worthwhile investment if you ask me!

Holding non-backlit 100k dpi prints in your hands is a special kinda feeling and making prints actually improves your photographic skills considerably. Do it.

>>4433095 (OP)

It’s more fun and meaningful and satisfying than digital photography.
When you are ready shooting and developing your own black and white film at home is peak satisfaction and much easier than you think.

>>4433095 (OP)
yes, it's really fun. I've been doing it a little for years now. I started with a P&S and going to the lab. Later on I got more cameras, mostly from thrift stores or being given them. I did some repair on a few, learned more, started practicing metering by eye on C41 film with an old viewfinder camera. Started shooting B&W and developing at home, learning to use flash. Then I got a film scanner (a shitty flatbed) and a printer to make 4x6es at home. Now I've started doing c41 at home and I got a brick of Velvia in the freezer.

And I also got hired to do portraits recently, not on film but I think I'm fairly technically skilled or at least knowledgeable because of my experience.

p.s. if you want to learn a lot more make an account and lurk on photrio.com

>>4433095 (OP)
No you shouldn't but if you really want to it's worth trying.
Can you take photos you like with whatever digital camera/phone you have now? Film scans will be different but not any better.
In my opinion 135 film is not worth it, medium and large format may be.
Film is magnitudes more inconvenient and expensive than shooting and editing digital and getting occasional keeper printed.
I myself started snapping as kid early stone age when digital was not a thing, and developing (only b&w for me) film and making prints in darkroom really was fun and satisfying. If you have the means or can find access to a darkroom via school, local photography club, community college or whatever, try it.

>>4433109
filmcope lmao

Film is something you should do sometimes. It shouldn't be your primary photography

>>4433195
Why not? If your goal is to make great prints(The correct goal) why wouldn't you just shoot film?

>>4433095 (OP)
Film photography is a separate hobby. It's a whole other process that's more physically involved and creates unique results.

"Shooting film" as most people do is just consumerism, and mere "film shooters" are the people the fujifilm x-half and stupid shit like putting a 256 megabyte SD card in a fuji xpro appeals to

>>4433095 (OP)
It technically doesn't make sense these days. The value proposition doesn't exist anymore so the only reason to shoot film is if you have a desire to use the old mechanical film cameras or you wish to make traditional darkroom prints.

Or you wish to have a surprise factor when taking your photos.

>>4433095 (OP)
Just grab a cheap disposable from Walmart or something to see if you like it first.
Also you don't have to invest in your own darkroom and develop your own negatives.
Contrary to the loud minority, there's plenty of people that shoot then just drop off/mail their film at a film lab.
35mm is a good format to start with since it's cheaper for both the cameras and film and you get a lot more exposures per roll than medium-format. The cameras are also smaller and much more pocketable.

I wouldn't use film for all the pictures in my life though.
If I just want to take a picture of something neat or to share immediately, I'll use my phone.
If I want to take family photos on a trip/holiday or portraits, that's when I'll pull out the film camera.
Though I also shoot color positive film (Ektachrome, Provia) so I try to make my shots count instead of spamming out 3 rolls of film a day.

It's a great feeling when you get your negatives back after a trip and get a chance to look back at pictures/memories of the occasion for the first time again.

>>4433229
which is the people that it makes no sense for to me, it significantly increases your costs. 10/roll becomes 30+. and if you dispute that, tell me where you get dev and prints for less because i'll start sending my rolls there.

>>4433243
Half frame fomapan 400 developed in rodinal. Around 6-8 cents per shot.

>>4433243
If you hand load kodak XX it's maybe a teeny bit cheaper for incredible quality film also.

>>4433196
Because it's expensive and time consuming. If you don't care about that then go ahead

>>4433244
>>4433246
no, i get that, i already do, i was just puzzled by the suggestion that most (as implied by 'loud minority') people send their film to labs, which makes the whole endeavour so much more expensive, and thus in my mind less appealing to normies contrary to what this guy is arguing.

>>4433244
>Half frame fomapan 400 developed in rodinal
based combination tbqhwy
not sure about the 17 but it seems fun.

>>4433244
Rodinal is hella grainy for high-speed films. Not my cup of tea. Would have to dev in d76

>>4433252
Rodinal is one of the cheapest. You can mix your own pyrocat HD if you want excellent accutance. It's just an overall better dev than rodinal imo.

>>4433256
rodinal can be successfuly used by someone that's functionally braindead, is pyro that symple? that's a big part of why i just stick with rodinal. I have used other devs when i want finer but nothing beats "just let it stew for an hour" sometimes lol.

>>4433259
True. Pyrocat uses a 2 part developer usually mixed around 1+1+100 at first then tuned to whatever contrast you want.

People use pyroHD as a stand/semi stand developer to good effect. I've never tried it, but the internet says it is possible.

The only really bad thing about it is that a couple of the chems are kinda nasty. Not too bad, but not great. If you mix it yourself you could buy like a years worth of dev for around 150ish bucks I think.

>>4433256
You can get bags of Arista 76 (D76 clone) for about 6.99. This will last you up to 6 months till you gotta dump it. And imo is a much better starter developer since it isn't has polarizing as rodinal.

>>4433264
It only makes like 8L of dev. That wouldn't last me more than a couple weeks developing 8x10 shits. Roughly 25 rolls of 35mm for 7 bucks is not too bad tho.

>>4433265
I did not think of your use case.

The only other developer that's economical and gives a neutral look is HC110. Rodinal is highly economical but doesn't really look nice with high speed films.

I was making D23 at one point and I found it was highly economical if you don't intend to develop very much. You can just made what you need from the raw chemical and nothing will expire.

>>4433264
Did very napkin math for this, but 10L of pyrocat HD stock solution costs around 120 dollars if you buy the chems and mix yourself, which is really straightforward.

You use 10ml of solution A and B to make 1L of working solution.

>>4433264
After mixing pyro it will keep for around 1 year. There is a version that uses glycol instead of distilled water that lasts for up to 3 years once mixed, but that will make your dev a lot more expensive.

film is just digital with extra steps

>>4433274
>press button
>get image
>press button
>get print

If you only know them in the most simplistic and abstracted ways possible yes.
Any sort of real or practical understanding of the two reveals a huge difference between the two that is more than just extra steps.

>>4433274
If you just send it off to a lab to get scans, yes. It is just worse digital with extra steps. Film labs are one of the few ways you can genuinely waste money on photography. Self dev is astronomically cheaper, and at least scanning it yourself instead of accepting a 2004 era film scanners jpeg preset gives it some purpose.

>>4433265
l myself used 100ml D76 stock as one shot in Paterson Orbial to dev up to four 4x5 sheets at time..Same should work for one 8x10 sheet. Search for "paterson orbital sheet film" for guides.
Of course if you shoot enough sheets of 8x10 in few weeks to use 8 liters of developer, developing one at time may be too fiddly.

(One should use the whole bag of developer powder at once to make stock, but In my not-needing-bucketful-of-D76 experience at least Kodak D76 powder can be abused just fine. I put a big bag of it in a jar and when needed, gave the jar a shake and measured (if I remember right, been a while) 11g to make 100ml of stock dilution.

>>4433426
>orbital
Doesn't seem like theres any for sale online. How many sheets of 8x10 does it fit?

Don't you use d76 at a 1:1? I need 1L of dev to fill my paterson for rotary development of 8x10. I don't mind devving them one at a time. On average I only shoot like 2-4 sheets of 8x10 per week.
I need to buy larger trays if I want to do more than one sheet in a tray.

PyrocatHD is still way more affordable than anything premixed. 100L of working solution for like 12-20 dollars depending on how much chems you buy at once.

>>4433429
See (for example) https://www.rogerandfrances.com/processing-sheet-film-orbital/
It's a "a processing tray with a curved bottom and a light-trapped lid" originally for developing color prints. Takes four 4x5 or one 8x10 sheet. Only available 2nd hand. I got mine more than 10 years ago from ebay.
To be honest, I used stock D76 just because it consumed so little developer in my use there was no need to save any and the result was fine enough. Diluted D76 or any dev in any (non-stand) dilution should work just fine as long as developing time is not much less than 5min. It needs to be agitated during development and is not suitable for stand development.

>>4433095 (OP)
If you have to ask, the answer is "no"