Originally posted by RR84 In an age where photography has become so automated and convenient, why do you still choose to shoot fully manual vs AE, AF cameras? Is it nostalgia, an unwillingness to adapt to newer technologies, or perhaps something deeper than that?
If so, please mention which manual Pentax body if your preferred weapon of choice and why (SV, SP, KX, MX etc).
Although I do shoot digitally, I also continue to shoot with a manual focus, film SLR, and not for nostalgia or an unwillingness to adapt to new tech. Lots of reasons; you asked; here it is:
Manual focus? It's about making the conscious choice of what to focus on. With auto focus, there is always a delay, even for a millisecond. With MF I can anticipate where and when I want to shoot, and when I push the trigger, there is no AF delay. It's also one less thing to break or use power.
Manual exposure? The engineers that have devised all the various exposure modes have done a great job, but unlike the human brain, I've yet to use a light meter that learns from its mistakes. One extreme example is shooting the moon. The meter thinks the night sky should be 18% grey and the exposure will indicate I must be shooting at night. But in fact, I'm shooting daytime on the moon, which is about the same exposure as a sunny day on Earth. Ultimately, manual exposure allows the photographer to be in total control and forces greater awareness of the lighting.
Note: I don't always shoot manual focus and manual exposure, but these are the reasons why I do, when I do.
Film? For 35mm, I prefer my Nikon F3HP. But I usually shoot medium format with a Pentax 645:
a) Intentionality: I can't on the spur of the moment change ISO or emulsion. So when I go out with Ilford Delta 100, I know exactly what my contrast and grain structure is going to look like in grey scale. If I'm shooting Kodak Ektar 100, I'll look for different kinds of contrast, color, and lighting, than if I were shooting Fujichrome Velvia.
b) Vision: I get 15 exposures on a 120 roll and I won't see the results immediately. So I make every shot count. The first one, the second one, the last one. The trials and errors are so much more painful and meaningful than digital that it marks you. It is not a media for the weak or lazy.
c) Aesthetics: All digital images are a grid of pixels or dots. Columns and rows of info. Film is analog and every exposure is a different arrangement of grain, either on the film or the paper. When you shoot digitally on the same sensor, it sends virtual data to a ones and zeros file and the info is processed by chips into recreating data. With film, photons of light are striking a one of a kind emulsion and a latent image is created. Then depending on many variables with chemistry, temperature, etc, the image is created and each one is slightly unique. With digital each image is slightly identical at the elemental level. I've done blind tests with students, and they can always tell the difference when images are put side to side. The best analogy I can make is film is like analog sound recording (yes, even with the scratches and pops), but although it is not as "clean" as an digitally compressed mp3, it is a fuller spectrum. Most motion pictures are still shot on film, and not just because of the dynamic range.
d) Linearity and discovery: I have students that in high school, get to experience both film and digital. Some prefer digital; some prefer film. Why film? They say it's like opening presents under the Christmas tree. You hope, you wish, it may be a dud, or it may be something better than you expected....but you've got to wait and unwrap it. Watching the latent image emerge from the developer tray never gets old. And during critiques, overwhelmingly the favorite shots were serendipity.
e) Art: You are more the creator and less the user. With film, you have to decide long before shooting, what you're going to shoot with and why. Other than different characteristics of various lenses, the camera is essentially just aperture and shutter speed and light meter. You do the rest. With digital, especially jpegs, it's highly engineered for us to the degree that bad technology will limit your potential. Another analogy: Driving a manual transmission car from the 70's vs. a modern CVT today. Most cars are all drive by wire, and the steering wheel, gas pedal, brakes, etc. are essentially video game controllers. We give the car's computer inputs, it responds to what the software says to do, and then sends commands to another computer that tells various parts to do whatever electronically. One has direct linkages, the other has virtual linkages. Yes I love Rock Band, but can I play a real guitar?
f) Price: I bought my Pentax 645 (and 3 manual focus primes) 30 years ago. Imagine buying any DSLR today and still using it to get great images 30 years from today? I cannot afford to buy a 645D or 645Z, but with my 60mm x 45mm film camera, I can scan the image and get 40 MP files. The 6x4.5cm format is approximately 3.7x larger than FF and it's larger than the digital medium format in the 645D or Z. That equals wider angle of view and shallower DOF with the 35mm and 75mm Pentax primes.
g) Archivability: If stored properly, my film should last over 100 years. How about digital tape, floppy disks, zip disks, jaz cartridges, hard drives, etc? How many of us have backed up and transferred our home movies shot on magnetic tape like miniDV? Yes, the cloud will become our collective image bank for the species, but think of the impact it has had on ownership, authorship, copyright, etc.
Don't get me wrong. I love the digital future on so many levels, and for every argument why I shoot film and manual, there are counterpoints for digital. But for me, shooting manually and with film has nothing to do with nostalgia or an aversion to technology.