One use disposable cameras.

[PeteDaLubey]

Yeah you can still buy film and get it developed in any developed country - hahaha - but I amnot sure about disposable cameras. They were a scrourge on the environment anyway. Actually, there are several new films being marketed lately. There is a special look and feel to film photos, for sure, but it is costly - getting over $1.50 AUD per shot nowadays, but at least your memories are saved for possibly hundreds of years, and cannot be deleted accidentally by a couple of clicks, nor lost in the digital dark age....

https://theworld.org/stories/2018-01-01/scientists-warn-we-may-be-creating-digital-dark-age

The "Father of the Internet" is very worried
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31450389

There are many pro photographers who have lost years of digital work - totally gone - thru hard drive failure. I met one just last week. He lost three years of his "life" when his back up drives got zapped. Another fella in San Fran I think it was, lost ten years of work when his offline computer and back up drives got destroyed by an electrical storm. It really pays to back up off-site and unplugged and do it very regularly. Many pro's are doing 4X digital back ups now, on and off site.

BW negatives are good for over 100 years if processed properly. Microsoft has recently 'saved' their OS onto good old BW 35mm film. they have printed the code onto miles and miles of BW neg film and stored it in some mountain storage location in the USA apparently.
Colour negs are not as stable.BW will never die. It is actually surviving very well thanks to those who care about quality and permanency and take pride in doing things themselves and not handing over their life story to guuugoil ;-P

 

[PeteDaLubey]

You can get film developed at Walgreens.

They send the film to a warehouse where it gets developed and scanned. The negatives then get shredded, never to be seen again.

The digital data finds its way back to the store, where they print on some sort of photo paper (inkjet?) and give you a CD with JPEGs of your photos. It's expensive, $15 for 24 pictures.

unbelievable. why would they shred the negatives like that? madness.

 

[y_p_w]

I'm at the age where digital came into play in early adulthood.
Before digital cameras, lots of color pics you'd see in magazines like Hot Rod, National Geographic, Car & Driver............. were shot on slide/reversal film. Getting good quality photos from color print film was rare when you dropped off a roll and wanted and wanted 4'X6' prints. If you took a C-41 negative to a good shop for an enlargement, it made a world of difference. The last modern en masse 1 hour photo machines were a digital hybrid and did better work unless you took your film to a very good shop that would do even better.

B&W photography has suffered big time due to digital cameras and its unfortunate.
While some people still shoot and process their own B&W film and make prints, its a small fraction of what it once was.
B&W photos shot on film convey light, shadows, feel and grain that cant be duplicated by digital.

My Nikon SLR is no longer useable. The light seal on the film back has deteriorated. Not worth repairing.

There was the photo shop near where I grew up and it's hard to explain but there was a parking lot and one of the ways to the street was through this shop or a laundromat. They basically kept that door open for traffic going through hoping that people might come in and buy something.

That's where I learned that there was more than just Kodak and FujiFilm. I learned the names Ilford and Agfa from the various papers and chemicals they had at that store.

As for small format - how about disc?

 

[y_p_w]

Yeah you can still buy film and get it developed in any developed country - hahaha - but I amnot sure about disposable cameras. They were a scrourge on the environment anyway. Actually, there are several new films being marketed lately. There is a special look and feel to film photos, for sure, but it is costly - getting over $1.50 AUD per shot nowadays, but at least your memories are saved for possibly hundreds of years, and cannot be deleted accidentally by a couple of clicks, nor lost in the digital dark age....

https://theworld.org/stories/2018-01-01/scientists-warn-we-may-be-creating-digital-dark-age

The "Father of the Internet" is very worried
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31450389

There are many pro photographers who have lost years of digital work - totally gone - thru hard drive failure. I met one just last week. He lost three years of his "life" when his back up drives got zapped. Another fella in San Fran I think it was, lost ten years of work when his offline computer and back up drives got destroyed by an electrical storm. It really pays to back up off-site and unplugged and do it very regularly. Many pro's are doing 4X digital back ups now, on and off site.

BW negatives are good for over 100 years if processed properly. Microsoft has recently 'saved' their OS onto good old BW 35mm film. they have printed the code onto miles and miles of BW neg film and stored it in some mountain storage location in the USA apparently.
Colour negs are not as stable.BW will never die. It is actually surviving very well thanks to those who care about quality and permanency and take pride in doing things themselves and not handing over their life story to guuugoil ;-P

It might make sense to have everything archived professionally where it's professionally backed up to multiple sources and moved around so that it doesn't stay in one place that might fail. It's possible to make perfect copies and backups indefinitely, as long as something is around (or programmed) to do it.

 

[Vil_Riker]

I would like to go back to 35mm photography but the costs are high and the benefits are absolutely none. We may be nostalgic about them but remember how bad most of the photos were unless you used a good SLR in manual mode.

 

[bunnspecial]

We may be nostalgic about them but remember how bad most of the photos were unless you used a good SLR in manual mode.

Why do you say manual mode is necessary?

 

[Vil_Riker]

Why do you say manual mode is necessary?

For maximum control. I like(d) playing with exposure and aperture, I've never come across good automatic presets that allowed that kind of flexibility.

 

[bunnspecial]

For maximum control. I like(d) playing with exposure and aperture, I've never come across good automatic presets that allowed that kind of flexibility.

I use my F6 pretty much exclusively in aperture priority, as I generally do my DSLRs.

I know the meter well, and it's one of the most advanced ones you will find on a film SLR. I know where it's likely to be tricked or where I can likely trust it, and if unsure I can switch it over to a simpler mode like center weighted average or spot. If I know what's likely to trick it and how, I can dial in exposure compensation, which is a button press and dial spin away without taking my eye from the viewfinder.

I've noticed a lot of "manual exposure" users will play with shutter speed and aperture until they center the needle/electronic null indicator. If you do that, you're just using more steps to accomplish the same thing. Knowing when to deviate from centering the needle is the same as dialing in exposure compensation, a different route to the same thing. Some manual users will also set exposure and recompose, but using an automatic mode with exposure lock(a dedicated button on better cameras) accomplishes the same thing.

In all honesty, I've gotten set on aperture priority just because the aperture is usually what's on my mind and I just make sure that the shutter speed will support what I'm trying to accomplish(usually stopping, sometimes showing, motion blur). Truth be told, on a lot of decent cameras made since the 80s, you can use variable shift program to accomplish the same things I've described. Basically you let the camera pick a shutter speed/aperture combo and then you roll one of the command dials to pick a different equivalent exposure. My 1960 Hasselblad 500C with the lenses I have for it actually in a round about way works with this same similarity, as the shutter speed and aperture dials are by default coupled together-you set the EV reading from your light meter directly then click the dials around to get the combo that makes most sense for you.

With that said too, as much as I like cameras like my F2SB and F2AS(...and FM2n) the 3 LED meter readout doesn't give a ton of information and requires "creeping up" on the meter reading to intentionally over or under expose by 1 stop, then counting clicks to go beyond there. All my cameras with exposure compensation on auto exposure give at least +/- 3 stops, usually in 1/3 stop increments.

That's not to say that there's anything wrong with manual, but rather than for someone who knows their camera there are multiple routes to equivalent results.

 

[Vil_Riker]

...A far cry from a disposable camera's capabilities.

 

[53' Stude]

So these are the things you think of while eating pizza with a fork.

I haven’t seen film for sale in forever, not that long ago there were huge displays everywhere. Where can you even get it developed anymore, mail order?

Remember actually WAITING to see how your pictures turned out?

Hey Tim, now that was wrong!

Anyways you can’t even buy a true Polaroid either. I ditched mine when film quit being made.

 

[97prizm]

So these are the things you think of while eating pizza with a fork.

I haven’t seen film for sale in forever, not that long ago there were huge displays everywhere. Where can you even get it developed anymore, mail order?

Remember actually WAITING to see how your pictures turned out?

Walgreens still does

 

[andrew_j]

I just looked to see if they are still available. I was wondering if any market was left for them.

I got sticker shock. I have no need for any but they have been off my radar for a few decades.

Most everyone has a cell phone.. weird!
Crazy prices for new old tech.

My 17yo daughter and her friends get them and found a place to develop them onto film(they don’t care much) and also digitally .