Yes, I understood what the question meant by context, but it was a really odd way of phrasing it to me (and the first time I’ve heard it this way, and several other posters seem to go with it like it was no biggie.) I’ve heard people refer to it as “traditional photograph,” “film photography,” or “analog photography,” but never just “photography” in order to distinguish it from the digital type. Typically, I’d hear the question as “do you miss film?”
I miss it as much as I miss typewriters.
Where you were in a roll of film was certainly something you were constantly aware of when shooting anything action-oriented, especially sports, and it was important to strategically time when to replace the film. You didn’t want to be caught in the middle of replacing film (which, remember, includes rewinding time, but the pro cameras were pretty quick about that) right when some great play happens in front of you, nor do you want to be caught at two frames from the end of the film when the same happens.
I don’t get this sort of nostalgia. If someone misses the old style of photography, they can just go ahead and do that. Finding film and photo labs won’t be as convenient as it used to be but it’s still possible. If someone misses old style photography, convenience isn’t a priority for them anyway.
That people say they miss it while at the same time not do it even though it’s eminently possible suggests that old style photography wasn’t that great (aside from a few specialized cases).
I really don’t miss the time restrictions, the exposure restrictions, the uncertainty and most definitely do NOT miss the cost. I did like mucking about in a darkroom but not enough to replicate the experience.
I will say, though, that there is something about having actual paper prints of photos. My mom is eighty and I did get her a digital photo frame which she enjoys, but I updated the USB stick with newer pics on it then sent the thing to my sister to load up with her images–and there it sits. So I got one of those phone apps that lets you print like 85 photos per month and all you pay is shipping. I uploaded a bunch of images and had them sent to me and I wrote the date on the back just like old times and some notes about who was in the pics or where they were taken, then I sent them on to mom.
She LOVED them. It tickled her no end to have these old school pics she could hold in her hands and flip through. She loved the notes on the back in my handwriting. I love the fact that I could send her so many fun memories for basically no money–shipping from the app then Priority to her was under twenty bucks total.
And someday (hopefully a long time from now) we’ll be clearing out her house to sell after she’s gone and I sure hope the grandkids will find a shoebox full of those pics and go sit out on the front lawn to go through them, read the notes on the back and reminisce.
So there’s that. 
Yes, I miss Kodachrome. When they took my Kodachrome away, digital cameras that could provide the same quality were very expensive, so I lost interest and moved on to other things.
As long as we are conscientious about keeping up backups (and backups of backups: I’ve had two external HD drives go bad in the last 4 years) I’ve been sold on digital since c. 2003 – you can still choose to have manual settings on the camera/lens system to optimize the light-gathering, depth of field, etc. if you so want, and you still need to know what you are doing to use the “darkroom” of graphics processing optimally. At the same time there are not the issues with film being damaged or destroyed by camera light leaks, misthreadings, x-ray machines, temperatures, etc.
And like **SmartAleq **points out, we can still print.
At least Simon can still have his Nikon camera, they even continue to sell two film-based SLRs under their brand, including one basic manual model. Kodachrome, alas, they *did *take away.
Back when I was young, and lived with my parents, I occasionally repurposed the one windowless room in the house—a bathroom—as a temporary darkroom, to develop my own film and print my own pictures. Nearly all black&white, though I did dabble a bit in Cibachrome printing. After getting married, I never again lived in any place where there was any room that could possibly be so repurposed until 2011, when Seanette and I moved into an apartment that has two bathrooms, both of which are windowless and could possibly be used as darkrooms. I have lately felt an occasional yearning to get back into old-fashioned photography, including the darkroom side of it, but have had no opportunity to do so. I left all my darkroom equipment behind, in my parents’ house in Santa Barbara, and I do not think it is there any more.
I do have a wonderful old F2 Photomic—Nikon’s top-of-the-line camera back when it was built in 1972. A couple year ago, I happened to mention it to someone else with whom I was working, at the time, who is also very much into photography, along with an expression of sadness that as great a camera as it is, it might not ever again be used to take pictures, now that I have a decent DSLR that is so much more practical to use. He gave me a roll of Tri-X 400, to run through the F2 and return to him to be developed. When he returned the developed negatives to me, I scanned them on my flatbed scanner, and those images that I found worthy of further processing, I have posted in a Flickr album at https://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_blaylock/albums/72157664829918140.
The occasional yearning remains, to get back into old-fashioned film an chemical photography, but I don’t know if I ever will. Digitial is so much faster, cleaner, cheaper, and provides better quality, that really, no practical reason exists to go back to film and chemicals. But then I guess hobbies usually aren’t about practicality.
Only one of those is really a Nikon.
The F6 is a descendant of the original F camera from 1959, the latest and last of Nikon’s professional grade film SLRs that include the F, F2, F3, F4, F5, and F6 in all of their variants.
The FM10 is not really a Nikon. It’s made by Cosina, as a modified variant of their CT-1, and sold under Nikon’s brand. It is said not to be of nearly the build quality that one expects of a genuine Nikon.
And yes, they really did take Kodachrome away. Even if you find a viable roll of it, you cannot get it developed any more. Kodachrome required an exceptionally elaborate process, which was never done at more than a very small number of labs, the last of which stopped offering it, I believe, back in 2010 or so.
I find that I don’t look at my digital photos as much as I do my print albums. There’s something about sitting down with my wife at the table and flipping the pages and reminiscing about our travels that just isn’t the same as huddling around a computer screen for some reason. Probably because I’m old.
Other than that, the convenience of digital, the sheer volume of shots you can take, and the nearly endless possibilities of after-shoot manipulations make digital far superior.
Nope, not at all. It is easy enough to get physical prints of digital photos at low prices. My brother had a baby almost 4 years ago. The entire family has pictures of the baby from birth, crawling, walking, talking, and now as a preschooler. Even someone with an unlimited budget would have a hard time taking that many pictures of the baby’s growth day to day and then sending all the photos to family members who live all over the USA in the photography days. And, of course, it’s easy to send videos of a baby crawling, far easier than the camcorder days.
I loved time in the dark room… and though I was never a stellar photographer, I simply loved using the dark room to develop and manipulate photographs… so yes, I know… also loved adjusting my camera for shots and still have those cameras but haven’t looked at them in years. alas
Pretty much any digital camera beyond your basic point-and-shoot will allow you to do this. Any dSLR, for instance, will have the ability to adjust the same sort of parameters you would with a Pentax K1000 or NIkon FM2 or whatever your old school camera of choice is. It’s still shutter speed and aperture. (And manual focus, should you desire/need it.) Plus now you get to on-the-fly adjust ISO, too! This is not that much different than the compact point-and-shoots in the 80s and 90s everyone was using for their holiday snaps. If you wanted a “happy snappy” camera where you just press the button, you could have it. If you wanted full control, you can have that, too, by buying an SLR or any most other types of camera.
I miss the characteristic appearance of the various film stocks.
Film stock was very carefully tuned to use imperfect dyes to produce pleasing renderings of different kinds of photography.
Sure, you can get the same effect by applying filters in your favorite editing application, but the Kodachrome look really was special, as were the different portrait films out there.
I enjoy using the VSCO presets in Lightroom for this reason–I can make a good RAW photo look like it was taken with some nice portrait stock from the old days, complete with an appropriate amount of grain.
With that said, the different film stocks were imperfect at best, and there was a time when your people photos would only look great if everyone looked like a Shirley Card.
I love my DSLRs (pro and consumer level) and all the choices for imaging software.
I also loved my darkroom with separate color and B&W enlarger set ups. Loved my 120/220 roll film and 4x5 sheet film cameras as well as all those cool innovative 35mms.
Been a form of employment since 1977 and an enjoyable past time since around 1969. Still is both for me.
While I sometimes get nostalgic for the “old days,” and I still play with film, I think I would implode if I lost my digital capabilities. Digital has especially opened up for me much more of the video/cinema type of projects. Using Super 8 and 16mm was so expensive and time consuming. Early video editing (Beta and VHS) was really a pain for me. That part of being a photographer was not nearly as fun or productive for me “back when.” Much easier for me to be creative with all that now. Just for fun, I recently dug out my Canon 1014XL to use as a prop…
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Yes; I had my own darkroom for a while and access to others a lot longer.
I miss it a little. I did most of the major formats and some of the minor ones as well and there was a certain joy when you got the perfect picture. But ------ sometimes the cost in film and bad shots was a real budget-breaker. Now with digital and even better digital-SLRs you can get the same results in the end at a lower cost. So I’ve adapted for the most part.
Not your fault. Bigfoot is blurry.
I don’t know if I agree. I see photography as the process of producing a photograph - a physical object which bears the image.
A digital image which only appears on a screen doesn’t seem like a photograph to me; it lacks the physical substantiality. It’s a phenomenon not an object. And if digital images are not photographs, then it follows that recording digital images is not photography.
Maybe it’s because I’m an old luddite. Or an old paranoid. But I often wonder if we’re exchanging convenience for permanence.
I won’t deny digital files are far more convenient than physical objects. But I’ve seen formats that have become inaccessible as technology changes. The nice thing about books and photographs is that they don’t need any technological support. I’ve seen books and photographs that are a hundred years old and they’re just as accessible as they were when they were first produced. But you’d have a hard time getting access to something stored on a 3 1/2 floppy disk or a betamax videotape or an 8-track cartridge.
You find a shoebox of your grandparents’ photos in your attic and you can look through them. But when your grandchildren find a hard drive of your digital images in their attic will they be able to look at them?
I cut my chops in bike racing. You’d only get a handful of passes at a given race & then had to wait a whole year until that race happened again. I’d save up to be able to afford 5-6 rolls (& processing) for a given race. Still have a box of those pix upstairs.
Digital is so much more efficient at finding a given picture, though.