In the past, photographers were often mistaken for film makers as the stock film that used to capture images were the same type used in capturing motion pictures and home movies were the stuff of legends as portrayed in the JJ Abrams movie, Super 8mm. Analogue film came in several varieties in the 70s and it was the success of the 35mm film that gave birth to the motion picture industry (and the porn film industry in the US). But let's not go the 35mm route. For people who are nostalgic about analogue film, the best place to start is with the 8mm stock.

Today, we have Pro8mm as the only surviving cult cine-cam maker which still extols the value of analogue capture. The best example for us is their version of the Canon 310 XL Super 8mm camera sold by them on the site (and on photojojo.com) called the Rhonda Cam.

Rhonda cam is in essence Lomography for the motion picture film enthusiast. Selling for US$395, it is probably one of the best value for money analogue motion picture cameras you can buy on the market right now. The Canon 310 XL was a legendary name in Super 8mm capture as it had a much better lens and an aperture of f1/0. This means that it can be made to work in low light conditions with the right analogue film. Super 8mm comes in a fixed cartridge for quick release and change so you can continue shooting as long as you have enough film stocks in your back pocket.

Now there are plenty of Canon 310XL film cameras being advertised on eBay for less than US$50. Apparently no one is keen to keep shooting expensive film so it has to find a new owner. We all know that film isn't cheap. A roll of Super 8 will last you up to 4.5 mins of shooting and there is no such thing as digital storage. Pro8mm offers a film package similar to what the folks in Kodak use to and offers free processing of the film for US$80 a roll inclusive of scanning in SD digital video. Now that is expensive if you were only able to shoot roughly 4 min of film WITHOUT sound. Yep. It's silent and there is no way to add sound unless you sync that in during post production telecine. The term telecine refers to film media transferred to a digital medium. Most of the film stocks are color negs, so unless you use color reversal film, you won't be able to project it. So think of the film with processing costing 40 bucks but with a further 45 bucks thrown it for the whole telecine package.

How is shooting film is all the same?

Pro8mm Super 8mm film stocks come rated from ASA64 to ASA500. Most of them have a exposure latitude of only 6 stops, while the 160ASA has 9 stops. This might not make sense to you as a digital photographer but it says a lot about the film. The motion picture capture process is the same as analogue film photography. You need to note the ASA speed of the film, that best suits the scene you wish to capture and fire away. Even though exposure can be set automatically, you can never be too sure about high contrast or low light situations so a light meter can be handy.

There are two types of film stocks for the Super 8mm. The negative film can't be projected but the color reverals film can only be experienced with the use of a projector. You also need to ante up on a projector, which can be had for roughly US$600 to US$800 refurbished. There are only two film stock for color reversal film so shooting rated at ASA200, one in color and the other in b/w.

Why Super8mm is Beautiful

I don't have children and for that I have no use for archival quality but for those of you who have, it makes perfect sense to shoot the best moments on analogue film.

Film is forever. Still images are nice but moving ones are better. The LomoKino achieves this to some extent with 35mm film used in photography but hand cranking the device for a 5fps capture harks back to the 19th Century. A roll of 36 exposure 35mm film will only gives you roughly 6 seconds of motion capture. That's probably just enough to film your self in a new car backing out of the garage.

Rhonda Cam's Super 8mm gives you up to 4.5mins depending on the chosen frame rate so you have this leeway to play with (with pro spec Super 8 cameras, you can shoot at 24fps for up to 2 mins of footage). However with the postage and processing included, you could well end up paying up to US$100 per reel (shipping your film from worldwide that is).

Comparatively, you can shoot all your want, share it online till the cows come home and gets plenty more likes online if you shot digitally on your iPhone. Total cost? Well how much did your iPhone cost without contract?

The beauty of the analogue medium has to be experienced to be appreciated. It is a lot harder to shoot, takes effort to process and there is a learning curve. Shooting analogue is a hardskill learnt through time and effort. The surviving film will outlive you and in time your own great grandchildren can appreciate what life was in the time you lived.

Digital is vaporware. It is gone the moment a service closes down. You might think that Instagram and Facebook would be forever but that's taking it too lightly. I remember a time when Netscape Communications was the unstoppable force on the Internet, look where they are now. What about the hard disk crash that wiped out all your holiday photos? Ditto.

What Pro8mm has done is to make analogue motion capture cool again. The retro movie camera is just plain kick ass and it feels good to hold one with the collapsable stock folded in. But all these experiences comes at a price, and only you can decide if you can afford it. The Rhonda Cam is probably the best analogue experience that can be had in a overtly digital world.

It is a costly hobby if you want to shoot solely on this medium but this is why it is so cool. The limited shooting time gets you thinking about what you shoot all the time as you will be assembling the scenes as you go along and capture what you feel makes beautiful memories. That alone is priceless.

Rhonda Cam Specifications

Focal Length: 8-5 – 25.5mm f/1.0 Macro Zoom

Speed: 18 FPS plus Single Frame

Auto Exposure

Power/Manual Zoom

Power = 2-AA

So what will you remember about 2014 that was worth reviewing? Was it the Drone craze where people ante up to a flying camera or was it that you should never let monkeys take a selfie?

The drone photography business has taken off in such a way that the US National Parks have banned them forever from their midst.

A Geeky Drone Pilot gets roughed up at the Beach

Bad pilots who fly them in public have blood in their hands after crashing them into pedestrians. The craze has gone so far that even GoPro have announced they will come out with a flying camera as soon as their R&D engineers get back from their Christmas Holidays. Meanwhile frustrated single and bow legged women have gotten brave enough to beat up geeky drone pilots who fly their wares in public. That said, aerial photography in 2014 hasn't been all that good.

On another note, David Slater's predicament echoes some of the pain felt by photographers around the world when his monkey pix was made public domain. Technically, and this by legal definition, Slater should not have released it as a selfie because an animal can legally be the rights holder and not the human that owns the camera. His pictures went viral and made it to the top ten list of stories in 2014 in regard to the photography profession that went wrong.

Photography as a Profession

Being a photographer in 2014 has gotten more difficult. There are loads of photographers who cringe on admitting this one true fact that they lack the financial means to prepare for retirement. The successful ones (which are only a handful) gloat at their peers who can't seem to get ahead in the cut throat world of photography.

True. There are plenty of corporates in this world who hire photographers to do work. But these jobs hardly constitute a viable means to earn a living wage judging from the equipment and business savvy one needs in this world.

Remember that in the old world of analog film, photographers co-existed with color lab technicians who developed the prints needed for real world use. Today, everything is online and the onus is on the photographer to process, capture and edit photos all on their own for the same amount of fees—which does not take into consideration the amount of camera equipment, software and computers you need these days to conduct your business. Color lab technicians in the good old days were the go-to guys whenever you needed something done to your positive or negative film. Some even went as far as to manually touch up the negatives or positives to remove blemishes and such from actual film. Photography in its heyday supported a long string of down line jobs, from print makers, color labs and the printing press. Today, with the Internet Disruption model, this is no longer possible. It is basically you and your equipment that decides the way you conduct a business. As for digital prints for hanging on your wall, you can upload them to Flickr and order one online.

Photography went from becoming a hard skill to the Performing Arts where photographers had to suffer for their art without clients ever taking them seriously. Everyone is a photographer thanks to the iPhone and as long as you have 1,000 followers on Instagram, you're a pro. This is not expected to change in the near future and in 2014, I would like to say a silent prayer to all those photographers who have abandoned their dream for a stable monthly income in light of the demands of the real world.

Keeping up with the Joneses

So we have more megapixels in 2014 but camera companies are not making more money from it. So you have more more cameras with the same megapixel count. This has been one of the stories for 2014 and if you were one to fall for this old Jedi mindtrick, then you've been had.

Each time a sensor is created, millions are spent pouring into the research and development process. To think they will be able to give you more pixels for cheaper is a defeatist strategy. People are taking more photos but not with actual digital SLR cameras or DCCs.

The Lumia 1020 still ranks on top of my list for a camera even though it's not really a camera in the first place.

Even though the Apple iPhone 6 ranks on top for color reproduction and low light performance, I'd rather have DNG files of scene I take to work them in post production for a better fit. Who cares if the iPhone can post to FB and Instagram all at the same time? Good pictures have to be edited in some way unless you were using a Leica camera with those expensive glasses for lenses.

Behold! the MA!

Speaking of Leica, they will take the headline for the only company to have come out with a top spec analogue camera! Yes! Film lives! Then again you need to check the price tag before you jump for joy. The new Leica MA weighs in at just over US$4700. It is totally manual, no light meter, nada. When you consider the Leica MP, a pro spec manual camera that sells for just over U$4900, that 200 dollar difference starts to look shady.

Compare the MP

The MP was built for professionals, namely press people who love winding each frame mechanically to capture a picture. It has the same flash x-sync and shutter speed as the MA. Either Leica has a wicked sense of humor or they are just removing old unsold MPs by cannibalizing their parts to make a new budget model (though the term budget may not necessarily apply in this case).

Regardless of where you stand these days. I would like to wish you all a great year ahead shooting can capturing moments that truly matters instead of trying to take a dozen selfies each time you chance across a bathroom mirror.

Photography will still be around and for better of worst, your best bet is to not to buy into the hype and use only what you need to get a good picture.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All!

Yes, it has finally happened. The fiasco regarding Flickr offering Creative Common images for paid Wall Art prints has come to a conclusion. Below is the excerpt of the farce...and apology. In all rational, why would CC type images be offered up as Wall Art in the first place?

We’re sorry we let some of you down.

About a month ago, we introduced Flickr Wall Art to allow our members to order printed photos on wood or canvas. Over the past few weeks, we’ve received a lot of feedback from the community and beyond — while some expressed their excitement about the new photography marketplace and the value it would bring, many felt that including Creative Commons-licensed work in this service wasn’t within the spirit of the Commons and our sharing community.
We hear and understand your concerns, and we always want to ensure that we’re acting within the spirit with which the community has contributed. Given the varied reactions, as a first step, we’ve decided to remove the pool of Creative Commons-licensed images from Flickr Wall Art, effective immediately. We’ll also be refunding all sales of Creative Commons-licensed images made to date through this service.
Subsequently, we’ll work closely with Creative Commons to come back with programs that align better with our community values.
The Wall Art service will continue to be available, but will not tap into Creative Commons-licensed images. You’ll still be able to order Wall Art from your own photostream, as well as the work of Flickr’s licensed artists, who are part of the Flickr Marketplace. If you want your work to appear in the Flickr Marketplace, you can sign up here to be considered and a member of the Flickr curation team will reach out if your work is a good fit.
From the beginning, we’ve worked hard to foster a community of creators. It’s our deep commitment to the Flickr community that inspires us everyday. Please continue to share your ideas and feedback.Bernardo HernandezVP of Flickr

Film is alive and well in Italy judging from the enormous support Ferrania got from its Kickstarter project. This was a project to save a few upstream suppliers who made the materials possible for film production and this is probably the most exciting news to come out of Europe which happens to be the bastion of Lomography of Austria. 

Early backers of the program have already pitched in to the fullest so you can be assured that they will be up and running in 2015. 

 

What is more exciting is the production of analogue motion picture film which were the mainstay of home movies in the 50s to the 80s. 

What is important is that Super 8mm film is still being made by Kodak but not the Kodachrome stock and this means processing anything remotely Kodachrome is impossible. 

Now many of you will be asking where to get a Super 8mm or 16mm film camera, well eBay of course. 

As for processing, Dwayne's Photo (no relation to the Rock) is still processing motion picture film stock. 

Why shoot stock film when there is digital? Well film is forever and when your digital storage dies, so will your captured moments.

 

LomoChrome Turquoise XR 100-400 is an infra-red film released by Lomo for use in quirky captures beyond the ordinary. The film does not render turquoise colors, hence the name so it's one of those weird effects you'd be getting if you shot on water...everything will be rendered blue, whereas warming colors will turn emerald. Get the drift?

The film itself being infra-red, means you can cross process it in normal C-41 negative solution to have it both 120 and 36mm formats. The stock is limited to 5000 rolls so it's on preorder now before it is available.

Rated at 400 ASA, it is probably is quite safe to shoot both indoors and outdoors though I have to pass on judgment when it comes to low light and high contrast situations.

The exposure latitude is something you gotta learn to deal with, and you can't do that with just one roll. That's one of the caveats with shooting on film. You virtually waste a roll as a sample. Having a working light meter will be indispensable so remember to download an app on your iPhone or Android device before going out with that film camera of yours.

Now the film bundle isn't cheap, be prepared to spend US$60 for a pack of 5 films.

First and foremost, the picture above is credited to David Slater, who says that he owned the photo but he didn't capture it. He created the conditions that were optimum for such a picture and as such had claimed to it. Unfortunately, Wiki-commons disagreed and now there is a ongoing copyright battle on who owns the picture. 

What is Public Domain?

Wiki-commons lets people put up copyright free images for everyone's use and these become public domain picture which cannot be used commercially. But seriously folks, do you think people will ever care to respect this bit?

public domain images of Steve Jobs

There are plenty of images in public domain which you can use for blogs and researched papers that will be deposited in pubic domain. Such images cannot be used for commercial gain so even if you used this picture on a banner advertising your garage sale, that would be in breach of the law, citing wiki-commons isn't going to save you.

Who can put Pictures in Public Domain?

Only the photographer can decide to donate a picture he took to public domain. Nothing else matters. The problem here is two folds, Slater didn't take the picture nor did he get a signed release from the Monkey as a model. This makes the whole idea on Slater owning the picture very murky.

So technically, the monkey owns the picture, regardless if it was Slater's camera that took the picture. And since Slater did not get a signed model contract....there is no copyright contention.

Monkey See Monkey Do

Slater baited the monkey to take the selfie. But in the end, he could have just sold the picture as something he had owned. To save himself, he could have fibbed about the picture and then made millions in selling the image for commercial use. Selfie was in essence a bad tag for the picture because this is what created the copyright debate.

Stupidly, he didn't have the brains to do this and now it is too late. However all is not lost. Even if the image is in public domain, it still cannot be used commercially. Slater can still profit from this if he can prove he is the holder of the analogue image.

Opps. He shot digital. Damn. He could have gone the analogue route and saved himself a ton of problems.

Digital files are useless. You may own the RAW image of the file but no one is going to look at a RAW file as proof of copy. Anyone can technically steal a RAW image from your HD and put that up as his own. Even a high resolution JPG can be turned into a DNG file with the right app. Quite a different story if you had a copy of the analogue image in your HD and the real slide or film image in safe keeping.

Lesson is, professional stock image photographers would be better off shooting analogue to protect their own interest. Digital is vaporware...think about it.

This is the lesson gleaned from photographers all over the world who have accidentally shot and released images onto the Internet and regretted it later as it would have cost them lots in commercial licensing.

Rated at ASA200, the new Cine200 Tungsten film isn't all that new to begin with. During my day as a photographer, I would not have bought such a film for use for outdoors for one simple reason, the film gives a cold cast, looking more blue than what you'd get with daylight film.

What are Tungsten Rated Films

Used primarily in studio that have floodlights, these lights give a extremely warm cast, and to balance them, you'd use a Tungsten film so that the colors would appear accurately as perceived in daylight.

The idea behind this is to allow the photographer the freedom to shoot in Tungsten lighting without the use of lens filters. This was a god send for analog photographer who worked constantly under floodlights shooting magazine adverts to printed catalogs.

All you needed to do is to load up the film and shoot. You could also do a vise-versa on normal daylight balanced film with a lens filter that balanced the harsh lighting. Either way,  Tungsten film fell out of fashion during the digital age because White Balance controls negated the need to use any type of filters.

Digital Tungsten White Balance

You can of course switch on your digital camera, go to your White Balance controls and select Tungsten lighting and get the same effect. There is no big deal about this. This method will only give you a bluish looking tint. Not a bad thing if that's what you are looking for but if you have RAW files on your HD, you can give all your digital photos the same look in any post production program like Photoshop or Lightroom.

Lomo's Tungsten Revival

For the young and aspiring analog photographer, the whole Tungsten film revival might seem like a big deal but to the old hands in the industry, it's a yawn.

But this is not a bad thing for people who continue to shoot film. The reason? Well, for art sake. These days, you can virtually tell if an image is digital or analog based on its tint and color reproduction. The closest to digital reproduction can only be achieved through good quality slide film but that too must be under optimum lighting conditions. Films are generally balanced for daylight exposure, if you have heavy clouds hovering before you, that changes the definition of daylight as well so your pictures won't look as good.

Digital Auto White Balance is better at detecting and correcting these minor shifts in the weather so you won't have to do this manually.

Shooting Tungsten in Daylight

Easy as pie but don't be surprised if you don't get the cooler tint during a hot summer's day at the beach. Very warm and sunny weather almost mimics the real conditions of Tungsten lights so you get a well balanced picture in the end.

There is no reason not to use it in everyday mixed lighting conditions just to take your artistic freedom up a notch.

My advice is ultimately this. Film is expensive so remember to capture something worth keeping.