Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

http://www.infinum.co/the-capsized-eight/articles/analog-photography-is-dead-long-live-analog-photography

by reisub • 13 years ago

77 65 13 years ago

Pretty cool idea but unless you knock the focus off on the enlarger, it's going to look like shit. If you consider photo paper to be around 300dpi then your 400x480 cheap ass smartphone display is going to be pretty obvious.

So blurry or pixelated. Your choice :)

N.B this might be desirable from an artistic point of view though.

MarkNederhoed• 13 years ago

Is it really that bad? Web designers have been taking pictures of their screens for years. You still have the original 'negative' if you need the extra image quality.

Edit: There should really be a couple sample images on the project page.

BashiBazouk3• 13 years ago

Yes it's really that bad. Us print people have been holding our noses with web screen shots for years. They really look bad when printed at 300dpi on paper. I would have to see the results with the even finer chemical grain of photo paper, but I would expect it to look even worse.

Trezoid• 13 years ago

The iPhone 4S (so, the one in all the demo photos) has a screen resolution of 640×960 at 326 ppi, and the Enfojer uses plastic "toy camera" lenses similar to the ones in Lomography cameras, so the results are always going to be slightly blurred.

luscious2• 13 years ago

because your time is worth less than your money. we are fully descended into the first level of mediocrity.

I think I must be getting time-trolled. People come up with ideas to deliver me 5 minutes of hate on a Monday morning.

Let's put together cheap things to waste massive amounts of time in the pursuit of crap, disposable techno-folk-art. Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear.

ctdonath3• 13 years ago

"Strange how much human progress & accomplishment comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim

luscious2• 13 years ago

"Online quotes are vacant appeals to authority. I wish they would stop doing it to me." - Scott Kim

Such a quote is not a talisman. Focusing on the good coming from irrelevant pursuits is confirmation bias and applying such a quote broadly is a slacker's crutch. Let's look at all the semi-self-serious stoners, punks, drunks, libertarians, etc. contemplating the irrelevant... accomplishments? Only if we want to say "do no harm" is better than what they'd do with a bit more ambition.

Robin_Message2• 13 years ago

Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear.

Is this a film reference? It seemed like a total non-sequiter, except I think I watched the referenced film just yesterday.

BashiBazouk3• 13 years ago

The American football season starts on Thursday but most games will be played on Sunday. The next day Congress takes up the issue of bombing Syria...

sp3324• 13 years ago

I guess I'd better stay at work 15 hours a day, to make sure I'm being productive. Heaven forbid I waste time trying to make my own, low-grade fun at home. I'll just buy high-quality fun by the crate on Amazon.

The end result of the photo is not the point here. No one is saying that the results are good quality! But it's fun to make things like this.

privong• 13 years ago

The next logical step is to create a mount for the back of a holga to replace the film plane with a smartphone camera. Or, to create a holga look-alike that interfaces with a smartphone's camera.

plg2• 13 years ago

That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen ... speaking as someone who used to spend hours and hours as a kid in the 1980s in our garage, making prints in our home-made darkroom.

If one is already going to go to the trouble of printing on photographic paper in a darkroom, then why not just go out and get a real enlarger, a real film camera and use real negative film? The quality will be so much better. Also you can buy professional film cameras that used to cost thousands of dollars for peanuts these days. You can send your film out to be developed if you don't want to do that step yourself, e.g indiefilmlab.com or ilfordlab-us.com.

Slightly off topic but I hate to see another lower-quality digital "reinvention" of a highly developed, high quality analog thing again (think audio).

JonnieCache5• 13 years ago

What are you referring to with audio there? The current trend for colour vinyl pressings of music made on laptops?

nwh2• 13 years ago

Probably the obsession with vinyl records "sounding warmer".

bambax• 13 years ago

Why the hate? I too used to make my own prints, not at home since we didn't have the equipment or a spare room that could be darken, but at school.

I still have lots of paper from that time -- certainly useless by now.

I think this is kind of cool though; the big difference with a real film camera is that you get to do it picture by picture.

On a film camera you have to expose a whole roll of film, then process it, then go back and see what shot you want to develop (which is not easy if you only have the film; I used to order small prints to help me choose which pictures I wanted to print myself).

With this, you can go ahead and print the picture you just took.

Will the quality be a little crappy? Probably. But it's a toy! What's wrong with toys? Would you complain that your kid's toy car doesn't have a real gas-powered engine?

phillmv• 13 years ago

Why the hate?

Well, it's not even going to give you the same kind of resolution the actual photo is stored at! You're taking a downsampled analog representation (the light coming off the screen) of an image and further reducing the quality by enlarging it, all the while using fairly poisonous chemicals.

Will the quality be a little crappy? Probably. But it's a toy! What's wrong with toys? Would you complain that your kid's toy car doesn't have a real gas-powered engine?

Ah, touché. It's easy to be grumpy when your own enlarger has been collecting dust for years…

justincormack• 13 years ago

If you want to do one at a time shoot sheet film instead! Its even more fun and you can contact print...

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

Why the hate?

" speaking as someone who used to spend hours and hours as a kid in the 1980s in our garage, making prints in our home-made darkroom."

That is why, the grand parent has an emotional attachment to the memories of making prints in their garage, and someone has made a toy which will give someone a "photography like experience" (sort of like an "Easy Bake" Oven gives you a cooking experience) and they cry inside over the cartoon like experience of something that was so transformative in their life. It expresses as hate.

When they put in an escalator on Mt. Everest for the last pitch, when you "run a marathon" in virtual reality, or when you replace all the chemicals in a chemistry set with water. Basically if you take an experience that someone had, and make it accessible by reducing the challenge and/or fidelity you will invoke this reaction on people whose emotional enjoyment of their memories is the challenge or fidelity.

That said, I don't think it will be all that successful. We were quite successful helping folks enjoy analog photography with light sensitive paper and pin hole cameras. Even contact prints of leaves or insects can give you a sense of wonder. This seems like it will be much more expensive than that without much in the way of additional depth so the value proposition is effectively lower.

hnriot2• 13 years ago

I would think the "why" here is obvious. People have their photos on their phones these days. Whether that makes sense or not, it's just how it is. People said 110 and 126 were stupid ideas too, but they sold well for years.

chongli• 13 years ago

Or go all out and get a view camera and one of those amazing Rodenstock lenses; learn the movements, compose the inverted image on ground glass while crouched beneath a dark cloth; make an exposure on sheet film!

micampe• 13 years ago

Well, if you are going to do the printing developing the film would be the easy part by far. :)

sp3324• 13 years ago

why not just go out and get a real enlarger, a real film camera and use real negative film?

Well I can store thousands of photos on a microsd card and decide later which ones I want to put on paper. Film is much less flexible that way.

ctdonath3• 13 years ago

While I can appreciate the full frugal/retro point of getting an old camera & enlarger for cheap, realize that in doing so there is therein no support for continuing the industry (however paltry). You're not going to get a new enlarger (short of an old never-opened box).

The buggy whip industry still exists, because there are people who in fact want new buggy whips. You can still get record players. Would be nice to see a remnant of the photo[chemical] industry continue, and these guys are doing exactly that by bridging how most photos are now taken with a way to use the old "expose & develop" model.

jhund• 13 years ago

I used to own a B&W enlarger and made prints from my own negatives. I remember the bulb in the enlarger having significantly more power (photons emitted/sec) than a smart phone display has.

I wonder by how much this will increase exposure times, and if it works at all...

nwh2• 13 years ago

I'm not sure that's true of all enlargers. The one I used in school was quite dim; the brightness of my iPhone screen would definitely out power it.

nakedrobot2• 13 years ago

This is so goddam stupid.

"Because you can" does not mean "you should ever" create, sell, or buy such a thing.

Maybe if the iPhone screen had an 8K screen, it could be interesting. But come on.

Why don't we photocopy ourselves, take a picture of that, and fax it instead?

moron4hire2• 13 years ago

Who is this for?

Any serious photographer would not want this as the results are going to be complete crap.

Any casual photographer would not want this because it does nothing to get their shitty photos onto Facebook.

The only people who would like this would be pseudo-intellectual hipsters who think they are "keeping it old school". This is a scene straight out of Portlandia. Let's open an "artisanal" cupcake shop that makes everything in an original, 1963 Hasbro Easy-Bake Oven!

sp3324• 13 years ago

If you can't relate, that's fine. Don't buy it! But your lack of empathy doesn't mean you get to make fun of people who feel differently from you.

ebbv• 13 years ago

What a dumb idea. There is no reason to do this other than it can be done, which is not a good reason.

This is like trying to make a gourmet sandwich out of a Hot Pocket.

HPLovecraft• 13 years ago

lol: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hot-pockets-gourmet...

sp3324• 13 years ago

You're right, we should immediately ban kids from playing with crayons because they are incapable of making good art. It's a total waste of our nation's colored wax resources!

pmelendez• 13 years ago

Wow, A casual reader might get confused with these comments and think that HN means Haters News.

Here we have a product that a curious person (like myself) interested in learning how photography used to work would buy in a heartbeat, and still the top three comments (as I write) are " Who is this for?", "This is so goddam stupid." and "That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen".

If these guys are doing this is because they would buy it. It doesn't matter if the size of their potential market is ridiculously small, it is still a market and they want to test it. There is no need to verbally destroy somebody else ideas.

Sometimes we should keep in mind that phrase : "If you don't have any positive thing to say, don't say anything"

lttlrck• 13 years ago

Right! If nothing else this is a couple of hours of fun mucking around with optics and chemicals. What's not to like? This is the kind of stuff I would have loved to try when I was a kid. Even now, if I had the ingredients lying around I'd probably give it a shot, who cares if the results are rubbish?

dsimms• 13 years ago

wonkblog covered this recently: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/27/r...

yardie• 13 years ago

This teaches you nothing about how photography used to work (it works the same damn way). What it is is how things sorta worked before negative scanners and photoshop.

The iPhone has a 8MP sensor, the screen is 0.6MP why would you intentionally handicap yourself like this? So you use it to develop the results and realize the picture looks like shit. So why bother.

bigdubs2• 13 years ago

Not commenting on the article, just want to comment on the title for a sec.

"The King is dead, long live the king!" is a special phrase used only when a ruler is dead and there is an immediate and available heir to assume the throne. It implies uninterrupted line of accession.

"Analog photography is dead, long live analog photography" is not a correct usage of this phrase. A better way to phrase it would be : "Photography is dead, long live photography!" Implying that the old way is dead (analog) but the new way (digital) will immediately succeed it.

adcoelho• 13 years ago

But the article itself is about a specific characteristic of analog photography. The old way is dead in some aspects but through the usage of new technologies(in this case smartphones) it can live on with its nuances. Its about the preservation of analog photography and not photography as a whole.

DigitalJack• 13 years ago

I'd rather be "wrong" and have people understand me.

bigdubs2• 13 years ago

This statement seems specious. I'd rather understand the idioms I'm using, otherwise their meaning and effectiveness becomes diluted.

icecreampain• 13 years ago

Came here just to say that I utterly hate such phrases, to the point of wishing the most terrible ills on the people who, thinking it's cute and quirky, willingly use the phrase.

I refuse to visit the link and will, if possible, downvote the whole article just because of the headline. Were it more truthful and descriptive, "guy does something with analog photography" I would have nothing to complain about, but now?

Time to call up some russians and arrange a DDOS.

JulianMorrison• 13 years ago

That is not dead which can hipster lie.

BetaCygni• 13 years ago

It does look like fun! Someone should put some designs online to build your own. I would only be using it once or twice so buying it seems wasteful, but it would be a nice project to put together on a rainy day.

spiritplumber• 13 years ago

I gotta wonder -- is a photograph that was on physical support end-to-end a more reliable witness than a digital photo? It's harder to edit.

moron4hire2• 13 years ago

It is not hard to edit.

BashiBazouk3• 13 years ago

Seems like the fun part of developing prints is taken out of the process. It would be at least educational to have a guide where you make the adjustments to the photo on screen then the app gives you the choice to make those adjustments before exposing the film or give instructions on how to dodge and burn during exposure to get the same results.

One big problem I see is photo chemical disposal. We have gotten to the point in understanding the chemistry of photo chemicals and it's effects down the line that you really shouldn't pour most of it down the drain any more. The stop bath is usually equivalent of vinegar but the developer and fix have some mildly toxic stuff in them as well as trace amounts of silver. I would think the hobbyist with a dedicated darkroom would have a better chance of knowing this as opposed to something like this meant for a more causal user.

decasteve• 13 years ago

Analog vs Digital:

A photo sensor in a digital camera is an analog device. The "digital" camera requires an ADC (Analog to digital Converter).

Camera film records information digitally, the light sensitive film (silver halide) either lets light through, or it doesn't. Basically the silver halide crystal is either "on" or "off".

fnordfnordfnord• 13 years ago

A photo sensor in a digital camera is an analog device. The "digital" camera requires an ADC (Analog to digital Converter).

Correct!

Camera film records information digitally, the light sensitive film (silver halide) either lets light through, or it doesn't. Basically the silver halide crystal is either "on" or "off".

Uh, no. There is a continuous range of the amount of light that is blocked by the film negative (for each layer). What you're describing would be something like 1bit color depth RGB.

throwaway1979• 13 years ago

What is the source of "X is dead. Love live X" posts? I know about the historical chant where X=the king. But who started the first blogpost with such a title? IMHO it is now a cliche. I get a twang of pain when I reach such titles on HN.

inertia• 13 years ago

A big part of my dislike for this is that this isn't going to teach anyone how photography "used to work" or anything like that. It's a toy.

I work in a darkroom, I have a lot of experience processing film by hand and making prints. I know a bit about it.

This seriously looks designed by someone who has never spent more than two hours in a darkroom. Encouraging people to set up tiny darkrooms in closets or wherever they can with trays of open chemistry, is a bit irresponsible.

Here's the MSDS for Ilford Multigrade, the developer they recommend: http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2007117133512849.pdf And for the Rapid Fix: http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2012430120381541.pdf It's not super dangerous stuff, but you still need to take some reasonable precautions with it.

And that tray rack? Anyone who has ever worked in a darkroom would never think of stacking trays like that. You need to pick up the print from the chemistry and let the excess drip off before moving to the next tray--this setup is going to be having people spilling photo chemistry all over the place, in a room with no ventilation. Smart.

All the text on the indiegogo site just sets off my rage. Everything at Ilford is not "vintage technology", they have been churning out new products for years. And this? "Old school print development makes every print slightly different, due to microscopic imperfections in the silver halide coating on paper and the chemical reaction that turns parts of the coating black or grey." This is just plain wrong.

This isn't preserving analogue photography. It's trying to sell the idea of being a darkroom. The indiegogo has lots of text about red light bulbs (most darkrooms use amber lights, but I digress), prints hanging on a line, the smell of chemicals, but almost no examples of what the prints made with this thing look like. Why? Because that's not the point.

kawera• 13 years ago

Devere has been selling digital enlargers for at least 10 years[1]. Results on fiber based papers are very very good.

[1] http://www.de-vere.com/products.htm

Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

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