Looking back at Photographic Film

In Looking back at Film Cameras I looked at Film cameras and, since they are useless without film it is time to look at film.

Film still has a place in photography. Any image that will be used in legal proceedings should be captured on film since that is harder to fake, and film, especially large format slide film can be viewed without a computer and once developed cannot be destroyed by random magnetic fields. The advantages of film are the relative difficulty of faking an image, the fact it can be viewed with the naked eye and its robustness once developed. Artistically film also allows the creative use of grain.

Film is basically plastic covered with chemicals that react to light. The changes from exposure to light can then be revealed and stabilised by chemical processes which may either be simple enough for home use or complicated and too dangerous to be carried out other than in specialist facilities. Film option include print or slide film, colour or black and white. Colour films for indoor and outdoor use have different characteristics and there are also specialist films for infrared photography and other purposes.

In terms of size of the resulting image 35 Millimetre film (image size 24 by 36mm) comes in sealed cassettes and has to be wound into the cassette when all frames have been exposed. Roll Film used for Medium format film, often in square 6cm by 6cm format (which offers creative possibilities) or larger ( up to 6cm by 9cm the 6cm being fixed by the height of the camera) comes with backing paper and needs only sealing once exposed. The backing paper has image numbers on it, and the film is normally wound on by hand till the next image number appears in a window on the back of the camera. I have not used large format films and so will not discuss them.

Print film was invented in 1885, and the earliest slide film process was patented in 1903 with Kodachrome slide film appearing in the 1930s and according to Wikipaedia colour print film only began to displace transparency film around 1970.

Colour print and transparency film require different development processes and until Ilford invented a black and white film that could be processed as if it were colour print film Black and white film needed a third process. Amateurs used to explore the effects of using the “wrong” development process, and this can now be simulated digitally.

The vast range of colour films in the analogue era allowed photographers great scope for artistic expression, while leaving room for use cases like crime scenes or archaeology that require extreme fidelity. Most of these effects can be replicated digitally and commercial programs are available that recreate the effects of different films. When I was trying to break into stock photography I mainly used slide film from Konica or Kodak and found that many “Own brand” films actually came from the big makers. Unfortunately Orwochrome the cheapest film, and in some ways my favourite, was not wanted by agencies

Perhaps the major advantage of digital is the lack of film and therefore processing costs and the ability to get rapid feedback from experimentation

This discussion would be incomplete without mentioning polaroid film, the instant print film that has become an icon. Special paper that contained all that was needed to produce an image, and a special camera allowed postcard size prints to be produced instantly allowing itinerant photographers to make a living by roaming bars in the small hours of the morning. I understand Polaroid have now ceased production and there is a lively market in expired polaroid film driven by those who “ dislike the predictability of digital media”

Looking back at the photographic darkroom is the  last pert of this series