[Digitalis]

They just turn on burst mode thinking ONE of those two-three dozen frames will get what I wanted! They will all have heart attacks if their bodies lock up every 36 frames.

oh I have so many stories from my colleagues about students using burst shooting so much they can't even wait for their camera's buffers to clear: they just grab another camera. Annie Leibovitz, you are a good photographer, but you are an appalling example.

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Last edited by Digitalis; 09-20-2021 at 07:23 AM.

[gaweidert]

Heck, back in the 1980's I was sending roll film through the mail to Clark Color Labs and getting it returned in less than a week. Total cost of about $.4.00 per roll including shipping. Since I worked at Kodak I got my reversal film (over 90% of my shots) processed through one of the employee stores at KPL (Kodak Processing Labs). Took about a week there too.


We were much better photographers back then. Spray and pray was not an option. If you want to see some masters at work, find an old Sports Illustrated magazine from 1980 or so. No autofocus. Maybe 4 frames per second. Hanging over the rim at any pro basketball game was a bank of flashes. These were triggered by the pros taking shots of layups etc. Fine a video of an old basketball game from back the, You can actually see he light from the flashes. They were aimed is such a way that they did not blind the players. The advent of the digital camera with it's myriad of features and controls actually led to Sports Illustrated letting their professional photographers go. They now rely in stringers.


Back then, the average consumer camera had all of 13 rolls of film run through it during it's lifetime. Images on a roll of film could easily span a year or more. It would not surprise me that today, more images are deleted every day than were taken on any given day back in 1985.

[Digitalis]

Back then, the average consumer camera had all of 13 rolls of film run through it during it's lifetime

My mother and grandmother (both photogaphers) would easily pull 50+ 35mm rolls through their cameras every YEAR. My grandfather and great-grandfather used large format, which slowed the rate of their output quite a bit.

[cmohr]

For me, the biggest restriction whenever i shoot film is that I can't change the ISO from mid-roll

It's easy. I always carried a film leader retrieving tool with me throughout the 80's and 90's, I would change rolls midway all the time, either for faster or slower ISO or swapping to B+W, I generally had three different rolls on the go at the same time. I just kept a marker with me to write on the can how many exposures I had done on the roll, then when swapping it back in again, I just shot off that many plus 1 extra to be sure.

I agree, when learning Photography ( and IMHO... generally out and about) its much better to slow down, shoot less, improve your skills, filling buffers and hoping for something doesn't help you.

[photoptimist]

Although I totally agree that slowing down, shooting fewer frames, and investing more time in each shot would help people learn photography, but film does suffer from one fundamental drawback that really hurts learning.

The time it takes to shoot a whole roll, develop it, and see the results really slows down the learning process. Imagine trying to learn how to throw or kick a ball to a target (e.g., basketball, soccer, etc.) but not getting any feedback on whether any balls made it until at least an hour after you made 36 attempts. Learning to hit the target would take forever!

Immediate feedback and learning in the moment are much more effective practices. Taking the time to review each shot and having a chance to correct mistakes in exposure or composition can accelerate learning. In that regard, the image review feature of digital cmaeras is invaluable. Perhaps digital cameras should pause after each shot and force the photographer to look at the image they just took before they can shoot again.

Practice makes perfect but practice requires timely feedback on each attempt otherwise it's just shooting in the dark.

[Jonathan Mac]

Could Ricoh make a firmware release such that camera user can't take more than two 36 x exposures digital rolls per day, after 72 exposures taken in a day the camera is automatically locked and unusable. Image preview not possible until three weeks have passed from the time of the last exposure of the 36 roll (as if you sent the roll to a lab for development). That would remind us of the good old film camera days, no?

Maybe they could add in occasionally and randomly ruining one of those "rolls" because it dropped off while in the machine and all you get is 36 blank exposures because it was in the chemicals for threehours instead of a few minutes...

Only joking. No-one would buy such a camera.

Buy a film camera and use it, it's lots more fun.

[ChucK20D]

One way I've been thinking of is to dig back into my collection of old SD cards and use only 5 mb or fewer megabyte versions.

Could Ricoh make a firmware release such that camera user can't take more than two 36 x exposures digital rolls per day, after 72 exposures taken in a day the camera is automatically locked and unusable. Image preview not possible until three weeks have passed from the time of the last exposure of the 36 roll (as if you sent the roll to a lab for development). That would remind us of the good old film camera days, no?

[Moe49]

I shoot film & digital pretty much equally.

For instance, while on Holiday I will take one film camera (K2, MZ-S or LX), my K-1 digital, and one set of prime lenses to use with both cameras.
I will shoot only film one day, only digital the next day, 72-80 shots/day. I alternate back and forth until the vacation ends or I run out of film

Using the film cameras conditions me to take my time with each shot, even with the digital K-1 in hand.

[Reciprocity]

I am glad those days are gone. I have less disappointing pictures now, than in the film days. And with instant review, I can correct a picture with a delay of a few seconds instead of forever not being able to have the same circumstances again to make the picture.

Yes, but isn't so that you learned much from the limitations of your analog days? And some young photographers nowadays even don't know anymore what an aperture ring is on a lens. I think that's horrifying, like forgetting that you can use pencil and paper to make a drawing.

[butchblack]

Could Ricoh make a firmware release such that camera user can't take more than two 36 x exposures digital rolls per day, after 72 exposures taken in a day the camera is automatically locked and unusable. Image preview not possible until three weeks have passed from the time of the last exposure of the 36 roll (as if you sent the roll to a lab for development). That would remind us of the good old film camera days, no?

Those "good old film camera days" gave us one-hour minilabs. I'm assuming this was in jest as I can't imagine anyone wanting a camera that could only take 72 pictures before shutting off for three weeks.

[Canada_Rockies]

Yes, but isn't so that you learned much from the limitations of your analog days? And some young photographers nowadays even don't know anymore what an aperture ring is on a lens. I think that's horrifying, like forgetting that you can use pencil and paper to make a drawing.

I just returned a week ago from a three day stay in the trailer on a beautiful lake popular with fisher people and birders. I took my whole kit with me. Didn't use the 12-24, took two shots with the 16-50 (one of each of our two camp sites) 40 or so with the Super Takumar 55/1.8, 20 with the M 400/5.6, and the rest with the DA 55-300ED for a total on the card of 85 shots. Maybe the days and years of shooting with Asahi Pentax, Pentax KX (film), SF-1 film, etc. make my mind work with the viewfinder to take better single shots. I enjoy the ability to make adjustments to the images like cropping and minor exposure changes that we used to do in the enlarger and printing phases with print film while still keeping the fine detail of reversal film. I do not enjoy going through hundreds of images and eliminating the losers.

[Wheatfield]

Could Ricoh make a firmware release such that camera user can't take more than two 36 x exposures digital rolls per day, after 72 exposures taken in a day the camera is automatically locked and unusable. Image preview not possible until three weeks have passed from the time of the last exposure of the 36 roll (as if you sent the roll to a lab for development). That would remind us of the good old film camera days, no?

It's more likely that God will invent a human being with sufficient impulse control to emulate this.

[ironyman]

Could Ricoh make a firmware release such that camera user can't take more than two 36 x exposures digital rolls per day, after 72 exposures taken in a day the camera is automatically locked and unusable. Image preview not possible until three weeks have passed from the time of the last exposure of the 36 roll (as if you sent the roll to a lab for development). That would remind us of the good old film camera days, no?

Hahaha, except we could pack our own 55 shot roll from a bulk reel and develop it the same day. You want to go backwards from the 70's ? There would have to be a menu option for "I have my own darkroom" otherwise this idea will never take off. Gotta think these things thru....

[Kingman]

Could Ricoh make a firmware release such that camera user can't take more than two 36 x exposures digital rolls per day, after 72 exposures taken in a day the camera is automatically locked and unusable. Image preview not possible until three weeks have passed from the time of the last exposure of the 36 roll (as if you sent the roll to a lab for development). That would remind us of the good old film camera days, no?

Why can't you just limit yourself to any number of images yourself. This discipline can be learned instead of "spray and pray"!

[D1N0]

Could Ricoh make a firmware release such that camera user can't take more than two 36 x exposures digital rolls per day, after 72 exposures taken in a day the camera is automatically locked and unusable. Image preview not possible until three weeks have passed from the time of the last exposure of the 36 roll (as if you sent the roll to a lab for development). That would remind us of the good old film camera days, no?

And you have to pay Ricoh each time you activate a new batch of 36. Also you have to pay them to get your images developed. When you want to watch them at more than 4 by 6 inches you have to pay them more. I'm sure they would like you to pay them.