Mr. Jason
AP English Literature
1 June 2018
The End of an Era:
The fall of Film Photography
Man began recording history by painting on cave walls with mashed of berries and flowers; With the creation of pain man began to use that to create paintings to record history. Man eventually built machines to record images called cameras. Around the turn of the century cameras were relatively widely used and the images created called photographs were widely seen. These Photographs were created through the development of the film in the camera which after going through a process, including the submergence of the film in special chemical baths. This is how Photographs used to be created however this has all gone away, except for a discerning few, due to creation of the Digital camera.
Digital cameras are a recent invention only being first created in 1975 by an engineer Eastman Kodak according to Richard Trenholm in his article “Photos: The History of the Digital Camera”. This camera was created from a hodge-podge of parts to serve its new purpose (Trenholm). This lead to a revolution in the world of photography with the ease of access of extracting the images from the camera. In early cameras it was common for the photos taken to be saved to removable disks. A method of retrieving photos in a digital format was exemplified in the Fairchild All-Sky Camera which stored the the images on Fairchild CCDs which in turn could be read on a disk reader such as the Sony CDP-101 which came out in 1981. Another nail in film photography was in 1994 when a printer was built that could print the images at a resolution high enough that photos were clear enough they could be understood (Trenholm). With these advances Digital shrunk the gap with film in regards to availability and accessibility. To certain extents digital was already exceeding film in how quickly the photos could be viewed and accessed.
One of the significant disadvantages of film was how long it took to view or access the film. With film photography it has to undergo development and typically, due to the expense of the material, the need to establish a darkroom, and just lack of expertise, photographers are forced to bring their film into a shop to be developed. The decreasing interest in using film for photography is causing photo shops to close which is making it harder for film to be developed. This is affecting all film photographers since even popular types of film are privy to being shut down. An instance of this would be Kodachrome which was a favorite for many photographers. According “Kodachrome-The King is Dead”, an article published on AnatomyFilms.com, “Kodachrome was the first color film that used a subtractive color method to be successfully mass-marketed. Previous materials, such as Autochrome and Dufaycolor, had used the additive screenplate methods” (anatomyfilms.com). Kodachrome was also one of the longest produced films lasting 74 years and was used in magazines such as National geographic. It was highly valued because of the length it could spend in dark storage. Despite all the positive attributes of Kodachrome Kodak announced they were discontinuing it June 22, 2009 since there was not enough demand to continue manufacturing it (Trenholm). With the decline of Kodachrome film photography experienced one of its largest and hardest felt hits Kodachrome being as much of a cornerstone of film it was.
Another reason digital is surpassing film is film speed and when shooting photos in which light sensitivity is crucial. Another factor when a photo taken is the ISO or how sensitive a camera will be to light in that photo. In Digital it’s extremely easy to change the ISO speed on the camera itself all that you have to do is change a setting amd you can now take a photo at a completely different ISO. According to “Film vs. Digital: A Comparison of the Advantages and Disadvantages” an article published on PetaPixel:
When it comes to shooting in low light conditions, digital image sensors easily take the cake. Film can usually be found available in speeds between 100 and 3200, although 6400 film does exist. Today’s digital camera systems can match the noise produced by analog cameras in these ranges, as well as push their sensitivity many stops higher. Consumer digital cameras such as Fujifilm’s X100T can simulate sensitivities as high as ISO 51200 while professional Nikon systems, such as the D4s, can shoot as high as ISO 409,600. PetaPixel.
In Photography the ISO is the sensitivity to the light; the larger the number the more sensitive the camera will be to light. If a camera is more sensitive to light than the camera will recognize more of the light and make a the picture brighter. However, if the camera tries to take a photo on a bright day with a higher ISO the picture will be too bright and likely it will be hard to see what the picture is of which necessitates the need for a lower ISO. Since Film Cameras can’t shoot in as high of ISOs as digital you can’t take pictures in a darker setting or somewhere not very well lit as well as not being able to switch ISOs typically within one roll of film(PetaPixel). The ability for a digital camera to shoot at higher ISOs and change ISOs between pictures causes film cameras to appear obsolete in comparison.
Lastly, digital is replacing film photography due to length of their respective images lives. In an article, published on streetdirectory.com titled “The Difference Between Film and Digital Photography”, Ziv Harparnas describes the differences between digital photos and film, “Storage of printed film photos or even negatives results in quality deterioration. Digital photos on the other hand never lose their quality” (Harparnas). Since it’s much easier to retain digital photos and create duplicates than it is to expand the lifespan of film.
In conclusion film is getting replaced by digital photography since its not as consumer friendly. With digital you are able to instantly access and alter the images however with film you need to look for one of the dwindling numbers of photo stores to develop the film. Film is also unable to shoot in as dark of settings as digital and deteriorates after time. Due to its handicaps film is harder to use properly and limits the photographer in what they can do unlike digital which expands the consumer’s control and allows even inexperienced photographers to shoot higher quality pictures. It’s because the consumer likes convenience and things to be easy rather than shoot around film’s handicaps that digital is replacing film.