Some just don't accept it. (with 25/4 Skopar instead of the 15 Heliar pictured) NEVER used, still in box. And that's why I'm parting out the digi SLR rig.
FILM IS DEAD...at least for movies and television...just watch is gracefully turn to dust and blow away.
Not disagreeing there. Camera film, however... My baby arrived today. I have no clue how old it is (probably 10+ years since the successor was released in 1997), but it was NEVER USED. A guy bought it from a photo store way back and died just a week or two later. His family finally got around to selling off his stuff and sold all the photo gear back to the store, where I ended up purchasing it. Needless to say the batteries--still in the shrink wrap--had croaked by now, but I had a spare set handy. It seems to work flawless so here's my ten year old 'new' camera.
Finally got the Voigtlander rig together. Threw a roll of XP2 in it and did a few test shots. Apologizes for the cruddy scans, but wanted something to show. XP2, though a C41 process film, does make for some really nice skin tones.
i know of a few pro-photographers who still use film on occasion. and if they had it their way would probly use film forever.... good test shots, looking forward to seeing what else you can do...
You can develop without a darkroom, just a changing bag and the proper equipment. I am almost done setting up a proper darkroom though. Any color processing I send out, however... it's too finicky and costly to DIY.
So do you still you Photoshop or some other PP software to work on color, saturation, etc. or are you "getting it right" in camera? I had a dark room for awhile, but as digital started to blossom, solutions, paper, etc started to become more and more expensive. Awesome that you still use it though. I agree with the general film user feeling that there are certain looks that Digital just can't duplicate yet. B&W is one area that I don't think digital has quite caught up with film yet, even in CS3 and Lightroom...
If I scan something I use CS2 to adjust the raw scan so that it looks like it 'should' -- much like you do in the darkroom. on the above color image though, there was no boosting of saturation or anything; the Agfa Ultra 50 film I used is extremely saturated to begin with and that is indeed its 'look'. It is pretty funny how a lot of darkroom/analog people rant about Photoshop being used to change saturation/curves etc. Making prints in the darkroom involves much of the same; choosing the right grade paper (or filters if you print on multigrade/vc), dodging and burning to highlight or adjust certain areas of the image etc... obviously you can go too far, both in the darkroom and in Photoshop. Where I draw a very strict line is manipulating the content itself. I will never ever use the clonestamp or anything to alter the content. Ultimately your goal is to convey the feeling, what you 'saw' when snapping the shot, to the viewer. Often this version does not completely match reality (for one, reality isn't black and white so those prints are suspect to begin with ), and there's nothing wrong with that. However, as stated above, I personally think it is very important to retain all the elements that were in the original image. You start mucking about with that and you're heading down a very slippery slope and what you're producing is no longer a photograph.
First shot from a freshly restored (new seals and damper by yours truly) 1960s Minolta. The negs look a little thick (overexposed), so I think the meter needs a tweak, but not bad nonetheless... the camera is an old SRT101 that I scored for $19 since it needed some TLC.