Is the Revolution Here Again? (I’m really serious about this.)

I read Hamish’s recent review in 35mmc of the new Pentax 17 half frame 35mm camera with interest being an inveterate user of film nowadays. In fact, it stirred in me feelings about producing a photographic image buried deep in my psyche. I have long felt that the photographic image produced digitally is so different from that made with film that they should be considered as completely different mediums. Rather than describing shooting film as analogue photography, it should still simply be called “photography”, “digital imaging” being a very different recording technology. Granted, it uses the same basic physics to produce an image, i.e. focussed light falling on a light sensitive surface, but that is essentially where the similarities ends.

Hi-fi sound reproduction went through similar throes of development with the rise of digital recording mediums, from tape, through discs etc to electronic. But I can buy any of a score of new turntables locally and there is a thriving market for what is now called ‘vinyl”. Yet here also the medium is completely different even though the source material is the same in terms of its originating physics.

Images from digital cameras are precise, almost manicured and can often require a great deal of subsequent work to realise the creative result that may have been in the photographers mind unless you are working in a studio environment. Yes, I know a film image has to go through further steps, either in the darkroom to produce a print or to digitise it. But, unless you are adept at using an airbrush, there is nothing that can do what the likes of Photoshop is capable of in traditional darkroom processes.

The new Pentax wouldn’t tempt me to buy one but I don’t think I am in the sort of demographic it is aimed at. If, as intimated, there are other manufacturers contemplating introducing new models to take film that is only going to benefit the industry in general. A new generation of enthusiastic photographers who appreciate what film offers in comparison to digital is bound to benefit more established practitioners through improved supplies of materials and equipment.

I am no Luddite and I use and appreciate what digital offers. For many reasons I still personally stick with film because I am an amateur in the original meaning of the term, i.e. doing what I do for the love of it, not to make a living, wth all the pressures and commercial consideration that brings with it. Another subject probably, but digital has completely blurred the boundary between amateur and pro. Digital allows the artist to express themselves photographically without having to be familiar with all the technicalities once demanded of them, only as much as they need.

To get back to my point, cameras like this new Pentax are making use of modern manufacturing technology to produce something that can produce a very acceptable image, one that is likely to encourage more serious work with quality glass lenses and precise focus and exposure controls. I see this Pentax as a mid-point camera between the very basic models and a more fully specified version. Electronics today can provide sophisticated focus and exposure mechanisms with reduced cost and complexity so an equivalent to a coupled rangefinder camera at an affordable price could well be possible. The cost of the Pentax may be a stumbling block now, but I think it is intended to test the market so price will be a compromise between actual R&D costs and a commercial return. If the marketing guys are satisfied and some competition comes into play there could well be some interesting developments in the offing.

My featured image is very, very digital but using as basic images studio and location shot transparencies. This closing image is from a monochrome negative, entirely as shot, with no more after-treatment than I would have given it in the darkroom with choice of paper grade and exposure time.

(I’m not really serious of course. The labels are very firmly attached by now but it amuses me that everything seems to have to be defined these days. It reminds me of the label that was suggested for the then new mirrorless camera – electronic viewfinder, interchangeable lens. I don’t think the marketing guys really fancied trying to sell an EVIL camera to the buying public!)

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