Financial Times - Kodak and Chapter 11

In these posts I have made no secret of my love of film. I am not using analogue as an accessory to help me create a hipster look, I just like it.

While randomly surfing the ‘net this week, I found this clip on YouTube comparing film and digital. I think it was inspired by Kodak filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2012. I remember at the time a lot of people thought this would be the final nail in the coffin for film. Personally, I think this was a case of the media loving a bad news story. The film was published in 2015.

It was refreshing to see a different perspective. It was not a case of why one is better than the other. It was a comparison about their differences and possible futures. There were some interesting interviews as well, who I think all made worthwhile contributions.

Micro Four Thirds - Not to be Ignored

Like many photographers, I keep an eye on what is happening to our technology to see what is new and interesting. More importantly, are any of these things of interest or use to me.

I do not do product reviews as such, but this post covers something that I feel is interesting as a technological development.

A few years ago I moved to mirrorless from DSLRs. The main reason was to reduce the weight and bulk of my equipment. I have also found that when shooting in public, I do not seem to get noticed as much, which has many advantages. This is almost certainly due to the annoying (but in this case useful) perception that the bigger your camera the more professional you are.

When I made the switch, I decided to go with the APS-C size sensor. I did take a look at micro four thirds, but it was lacking for me at that time. However, in the present day, I do not think it should be overlooked.

The Olympus OM-D E-M5 MKII is a camera with an interesting feature set, and it is the first camera in this system to have made me look twice. It just about covers everything you would need in a general use digital camera at an enthusiast or even semi-pro level. I will not bore you with the features, although I have linked to the Olympus site in this paragraph if you wanted to take a look. They seem to have thought of just about everything, and that includes the accessories. That is not surprising, as Olympus are old hands at this camera making lark.

I do not think the sensors can be taken over 16 million megapixels, so I think the future will have to focus on image quality and camera design. That seems to be happening already.

When the time comes change my camera in the future, I will certainly take a look at this system and the models available. There are two big names behind micro four thirds, Panasonic and Olympus, and I do not see them throwing away all that research and development any time soon.

Two Film Manufacturers - One Resurrected

We have had a really mixed bag of weather this summer. When I have arranged to shoot something outside and the weather turns nasty, I cannot always put together an alternative. The end result of this dilemma can mean I end up going online for a while.

Sometimes these forays into the world wide web can be very productive. This week I discovered two film related sites that I was not aware of. Well, I say not aware, one I had heard of before, although I thought it was no longer making film. The other was new to me, but looks interesting.

The first is Ferrania film, who are in the process of recreation from the ground up as a film maker. This means they have the potential to survive if another company stops manufacturing as they will make their entire product on site from scratch. The factory is in Italy, and so far the progress looks promising.

The second one is the previously unknown manufacturer, and it is CineStill. I originally thought this was a film along the concept of LightWorks (I think that was the name) who used to buy up surplus cinema film stock and sell it as photographic film. The trouble with that was that the processing chemistry was very specialised and probably expensive as a result. CineStill film is C41 chemistry, which makes their product much more appealing. The only downside is that allegedly it has a backing to it that can mess up a labs chemistry. I will investigate that further.

I will not repeat what is on the respective websites here, but I have linked both sites above if you would like to take a look. My creative life does not revolve soley around film photography, I am just excited to see it is not as dead as I once feared.

Digital Saved my Sanity, but is it Love?

I have said this on here before, but I learnt my photography in the days of film. This was also the days of manual focus. As a result, I feel like I have a personal heritage in photography, which can be very nostalgic.

When auto focus was first available, I could not wait to get my hands on an AF camera. The camera that introduced me to this new way of taking pictures was a borrowed Minolta Dynax 7000, and I was hooked. I changed to an auto focus camera at the earliest opportunity. I alternated a bit between Canon and Nikon, although my final big purchase was with Nikon, partly due to an attractive deal that I could not turn down, but also because I liked the camera. The choice ticked all the boxes so to speak.

Then came digital, and that really rocked my world. My first proper digital camera, and by that I mean DSLR, was a Nikon D100. This was a truly monumental shift in my photography. I was a full time photographer and webmaster (so retro), so each day I shot I would typically expose 30-40 rolls of 35mm film. The AF saved me from being quite so mentally exhausted, and the digital work flow saved my sanity – quite literally.

My main business was web content, so when I was not shooting I was scanning transparencies. I was on first name terms with all the staff at the lab, so it was also quite a social relationship. The negative element (no pun intended) was the scanning.

I forget how many times I was up at midnight or later 'batch' scanning. There were automation options for my scanner; the manufacturer made a slide holder that you could load all your slides into and it would scan them one by one without user intervention. However, it still needed to be loaded and very often, despite my care, the scans were not clean or cropped as accurately as I liked. Computers were not as fast or refined as they are now, so everything took time, and time was something I did not seem to have.

This will not need much explanation, but to be able to take a memory card out of a camera and transfer the contents onto a hard disk was, quite simply, a gift from the Gods. Most of my work was studio based on or location, which meant the images tended to have pretty constant lighting. This meant I could do the basic edit on a few from each set from the day, and then batch process them. Suddenly I gained hours in each day, and with each hour a little of more of my sanity returned. I have lost count of the number of baths, showers and nice meals I was able to build back into my life while all this 'computer stuff' went on in the background.

The rest, as they say, is history. Digital progressed, and image quality improved. Computers became faster. Strangely, this is what brought part of my work back to film. Shooting a couple of rolls of film over a day or two is really enjoyable. Manual focus is not as slow or stressful as I remember it, although the circumstances now are much more preferable. I can still use AF with film, but tend not to. Most processing labs now provide a good quality develop and scan service, so this work is not omitted from being included in the digital world. My old film cameras have big, bright viewfinders and decent lenses. I have owned them from new, so they are all in excellent condition and were stored well when not in use. I never had the heart to get rid of them, which has turned out to be a good decision.

My love of film is partly nostalgia, but also a genuine love of the process. Everything seems a little slower, which is no bad thing. I also think because it is not part of every day or even every week, it means I can enjoy all the stages of the process from buying the film to sharing or doing something else with the images. There is also that slight element of worry that you have made a mistake in exposure or did not get the image you hoped for, but that is all part of analogue.

Analogue Batteries - How Did I Miss This?

There are occasions where I am amazed at my lack of knowledge.

I am not unintelligent by any means, but occasionally certain things just miss my 'knowledge radar'. They are not normally big issues, but they still make me feel silly as I think I should have picked up on them as they probably waved at me as they passed in previous years.

Part of my photography uses my SLRs and 120 cameras, and as you probably know most SLRs need button cell batteries to operate fully. By luck, for me these are all the same size – the 1.5 volt SR44 or equivalent.

I have tended to buy the alkaline versions, based on the historic of development of batteries through my life, and pioneered by the brand with the copper top that goes on and on when others become exhausted. As a child playing with battery operated toys, this was excellent. This good news story is etched on my brain.

One of my cameras takes silver oxide, alkaline or even a slightly bigger lithium cell, which is what set me thinking. I know the older cameras that took mercuric oxide based batteries sometimes need adaptors to use modern equivalents. Some adaptors include voltage regulators, as these voltage differences can affect meter readings, but may not actually damage the camera.

My own cameras do not use mercury based batteries, so this is a not a specific issue that affects me, but I realised the 3 types above probably had different characteristics due to their chemistry.

Silver Oxide – These can cost a little more alkaline. They have an important characteristic, they have the ability to maintain a more stable voltage. This characteristic makes them better and possibly essential for metering equipment such as light meters, where a stable voltage is required. These batteries have a 'W' or 'SW' suffix. This relates to low or high drain applications, and when there is a choice I have decided to always try and get the 'W' version for high drain applications. I am not sure if it makes a difference in real life, but the logic seems well founded.

Alkaline – This type of chemistry should be longer lasting than silver oxide, but their voltage drops off faster than silver oxide from first use. This could affect the accuracy of the built in light meter, so these batteries are no longer my first choice.

Lithium – The Lithium chemistry is the odd one out for me, as I can only use them in one camera. They can have a shelf life of up to 10 years, and should outlast both the above in use. I can use one battery instead of 2 SR44s, which is less fiddly. However, if I use my camera in cold weather (0 degrees celsius or less), lithium chemistry can stop working until it warms up again. I have not found any information about voltage drop during use, but I suspect they are like silver oxide in that respect. As all batteries should now be disposed off in recycling centres, the pollutant element of lithium is not quite such a consideration, but is still a negative.


Conclusion

I have decided to buy silver oxide batteries, mainly because they fit in all my cameras. I will probably renew them every 6-8 months as the cost is not prohibitive. If we were still in a film only era, where I used my camera every day for a few hours, I would probably buy the lithium version as it would survive heavy or extended use better.

Incidentally, I realise cameras may have built in voltage regulation or bridge circuitry, but I cannot assume this.