A few comments on all the comments from yesterday...
First of all, I recommended the "Leica as Teacher" exercise for a specific kind of student, namely, the young beginner who is serious and ambitious, as well as willing and able to put a large amount of time and effort into learning photography for a period of at least a year. That's a tiny, tiny minority of all photographers. Secondly, I recommended it as a learning experience—part of that theoretical cohort's education, not a recommendation for ongoing practice. So no one need get in a bother about whether it's "the right tool for the job" or whether there are other ways to accomplish the same results, etc. Those things weren't, and aren't, the point.
But here's the reason for the recommendation: first, because using a manual, mechanical camera with a few simple controls and immediate responsiveness (such as minimal shutter lag with no optical viewfinder blackout) will teach the basics of camera controls and essential shooting skills like no modern electronic camera possibly can. The student would learn things like placing plane of focus and aperture and shutter speed choice rigorously and well. He or she would also be "taught" by the camera to time the exact moment of exposure without viewfinder blackout. Again, it doesn't matter that modern technology can take thirty exposures before the press of the shutter. The point, first, is learning the skill.
Thirdly, I specified B&W film for a specific and considered didactic rationale, and I meant it and I still mean it. It's because intensive drilling in learning to see luminances only—tone, or values, only—with the distraction and decorativeness of color temporarily but absolutely removed, will help most people to see better. And, with the aforementioned manual, mechanical rangefinder, B&W film is the only way to make such seeing the only option, which is essential for the learning process as I've conceived and described it. The fact that you "can" convert a color file to B&W in post is absolutely immaterial in this case: that just means you won't absolutely have to learn how to see in B&W. Again, I'm asserting that it's valuable for learning and I believe that. I believe it would pay permanent dividends for the rest of the photographer's working life.
These are visualizing skills and drills in fundamentals, invaluable for education. Naturally they do not need to be permanent choices, and no one's claiming they should be.
Here's my answer
But then, on to the question—should every photographer try film once?
Considering the educational experience of trying older methods (i.e., film), in my opinion it comes down to two things that experience tells me most students would enjoy and be interested in. One is looking through a view camera. There is no better way to comprehend what a lens is doing, and to understand, viscerally and with immediacy, what photography is capturing. The world seen on a groundglass is captivating, and enchanting. The other is seeing a print come up in the developer, an experience that a wide range of photographers remember as, if not formative, then at least a meaningful landmark of their introductions to the mystery and wonder of the art*.
Both of these experiences can be provided merely in an educational context. There's no need to make every student buy a view camera, and certainly no sense in recommending that every student learn darkroom printing. And of course, it should go without saying that it makes zero sense to suggest that anyone should build their own darkroom in this day and age. (Unless they're doing the "Leica as Teacher" year, but not necessarily even then—Ilford XP2 in an M camera, commercially processed and proofed and occasionally printed, would work fine for that.)
When I was a photography teacher (in the '80s), I provided both these experiences to my students. I brought my own view camera to school and let the students look at each other through it—it was unfailingly an excited, animated class that was memorable for most students, even casual ones who didn't have any real or abiding interest in becoming photographers. I also made a set of "perfect" negatives and, as a class, we went into the darkroom on the very first day of class and everyone made a test strip and a print—that was also a day that made students happy and "nourished their enthusiasm" in Ansel Adams's phrase.
These days, I might have students look through a 4x5 or 5x7 view camera in several settings indoors and then out, and then make a contact print from a pre-made "perfect" 4x5 or 5x7 negative. Depending on the facilities, that could take as little as two class periods.
Beyond that, though, for those not doing the "Leica as Teacher" year, I wouldn't see much need to do more than that with film. Unless of course you want to.
But those things are just cool, and would be fun and informative for most any younger photographer to experience (and it's too bad most of them will never be able to). That's not "just me"—I've heard variations on these themes from hundreds, maybe even thousands of photographers, across many years.
Mike
*We might add to this the experience of seeing a well-made large negative on a light box before making a positive of it (seeing Paul Strand's negatives was where Ansel had his own epiphany). A further exercise might be making and using a pinhole camera, as several readers suggested.
Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Piotr B.: "Looks like I got pulled into shooting film, and I blame you. :-)
"Your most recent post about rangefinder cameras (the one that featured the Mamiya 6 among others) sparked a new flame of interest in me. I always kinda wanted to try film and was always a bit intrigued by the mysterious beast that is a rangefinder. Why mysterious? I never used one. I even had no idea how the viewfinder works until very recently.
"And once I started reading more, I knew I'm in trouble. That Mamiya triggered my GAS and happens to be a killer combo. Film? Check. Rangefinder? Check. Medium format? Check. Wept a bit when I found out how much it costs. Found some other cool cameras and wept some more. After more digging and research, found that Fujica can be had for reasonable lump of money. So I'll settle for that.
"For the time being, I just bought an old, low end TLR (never used one before, BTW) on the cheap and just took out my first roll of film. What a weird experience, looking through that 'viewfinder.' And needing to wait to see my photos, even weirder.
"I liked what my failed attempt at OC/OL/OY challenge did to my skills, but I noticed I fell back to bad habits with the convenience of modern digital cameras (I did the challenge with Sigma DP2M, which, while digital, imposes limitations that are draconian for someone used to modern cameras). So I'm hoping that going film will do me more good.
"And since I decided to torture myself with clunky mechanical contraptions, I also thought it would be a good idea to come up with some kind of a project to give this whole experiment some meaning. I'm kinda sick of shooting just to try to take some pretty pictures.
"But in the end, I consider the whole affair to be a learning experience. I just hope I will actually learn something, as opposed to realizing this whole photography thing was just a meaningless pastime of a bored man who really just wanted to play with some toys. :-)
"So in time, I will either thank you or curse you. :-) "
Michael Ferron: "Though I started with digital I kept bumping into these B&W film forums. The talk of chemistry, technique, exposure and times fascinated me so in 2004 I bought a beautiful Nikon FM2 and gave film a try.
"Never looked back. I just recently purchased a Toyo Field 45 and am really enjoying the experience. Oh, the question? No, I would not recommend shooting film to anyone. It's very time consuming. But If the calling is heard the film will find them, says the 'on occasion' wise man (me)."
Paul De Zan: "Due to all of the rangefinder and film blather on this very fine free website recently, I've just loaded my M4 with Tri-X for the first time in about nine years. On one level: what a drag! I could have taken 36 pictures with any digital camera in the time it took to put film in this relic. On a different level: what a treat to handle this magnificent hunk of metal, like traveling back to the pre-electronic era, to the way the world once was. Pleasant as it is, this has zip to do with actually taking pictures and only half-zip to do with conventional film photography. Without the chemical darkroom process, which is absolutely going to be a bridge too far for most people these days, there isn't any real connection to the traditional silver halide-based experience. I'll shoot a roll, get it processed and scan to Lightroom; anything good will end up on the Internet somewhere. Beyond the experience of working with a mechanical camera and its manual focus and exposure control (which you can do with a digital camera if you're so inclined), it's very nearly the same thing as digital workflow, just with added cost and some (possibly gratifying) delay before seeing your results. Lovely as the relics are, especially to those of a certain age, it doesn't take a lot of Aristotelian pondering to understand why film was swept away as quickly as it was."
David Aiken: "The 'every' in the question mandates that the answer be 'no.' If the answer were 'yes' the statement being questioned would be a rule and as we all know, rules are made to be broken.
"The question is really how useful is it to shoot film as one element in your learning process. I started out shooting black-and-white film in the days before digital, and then I dropped photography for a long period. When I came back to it I bought a digital camera and discovered two things. First, I could no longer 'see' in black and white. Seeing luminance is an acquired skill as you point out, but it's one you lose if you don't keep using it, and I wonder how long you would retain it if you just shot black-and-white film for a year as a learning experience. Second, that I had to unlearn a lot of things which had become ingrained and which I found myself doing automatically. For example it took time to get out of the habit of exposing for the shadows and to start exposing for the highlights instead, to learn to stop worrying about crushing the shadows and to worry instead about preserving highlights. If you're going to end up shooting digital, then learning to shoot by shooting film teaches some wrong lessons as well as teaching some good lessons.
"I have to admit that much of my photographic 'taste' was formed by my experience shooting black-and-white film. Even though I now shoot digital colour, I still find myself processing for the mid tones and shadow detail with good overall contrast, and less saturation than many people seem to go for. But that sometimes makes me wonder whether I'm trying to recapture the look of film rather than trying to get the best that I could from digital. Film and digital have different strengths and weaknesses and I don't think that trying to get the best of one of them from the other is the way to get the best result that the other has to offer. Are the people who eventually get the best out of digital going to be those who have no experience of film? All of the photographers I regard as really getting the results I most admire from film had experience with film only (OK, Cartier-Bresson and maybe some others had experience with painting and drawing but no other photographic medium than film).
"Can experience shooting film be detrimental to getting the best results from digital? If it can, then how much experience with film is too much experience with film? Should it be avoided entirely or, for example, should those who do try shooting film shoot colour slide stock where they would have to learn to preserve the highlights rather than exposing for the shadows as you learn with black-and-white film? What is the best film experience for those who are going to shoot digital?
"I have no answers, just a lot of 'what if' questions. The best advice I can offer to anyone wanting to learn how to photograph is to try what interests you and to see what you learn from the experience but stay open to the opportunities that present themselves. You don't have to take advantage of every unanticipated opportunity but unanticipated opportunities that you do take up can become some of the most important steps in your life."