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Comment by gabereiser | Hacker News Reader

Getting your film developed is why everyone moved to DSLR's and mirrorless. It's not so much that the newer digital cameras are better (they are), it's the fact that you don't have to wait 2 weeks for your photos.

I have Nikon SLR's that have been sitting in the bag for 20 years. I have Cannon DSLR's that see light a couple times a year. I have a GoPro that sees the abuse that an ex-skater, ex-snowboarder, ex-surfer, does to his equipment through no fault of his own.

My issue with film cameras even back in the 90s was the varying quality of film developers to get your photos and the turn around time. Not to mention the photo shop looking at all your photos.

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Yeah I think photography is a good demonstration of how "practical" concerns are often stronger than the "performance" differences that enthusiasts instead focus on. Early digital cameras were, in a word, shit, yet they still had strong interest from consumers due to the "productivity" benefits. Once prices came down they quickly ate film market share, yet 35mm film arguably still had better image quality even in the mid-00s as the crossover point was reached. Though of course digital has now well overtaken film in IQ, it took longer than people remember, especially in the average consumer electronics sector

It was around the 18MP mark I believe. That was the inflection that made digital photos higher quality than their physical counterparts.

developing it yourself reduces that delay! and no photo shop staff to look at your photos.

While increasing the barrier of entry. Not everyone has a dark room laying around.

> Not everyone has a dark room laying around.

You don't necessarily need one for just developing the film - dark bag to load the film onto the spool which is lightfast and bob is your photographed uncle (source: me, having done this in very un-dark kitchen twice.)

I suppose if you want to make your own prints, that probably needs a darkroom but you can get a film scanner cheap and print them on a colour laser, inkjet, or even one of those Selphy dye subs in lieu of that.

This is what I have done. 35mm bw and color developed in a dark bag. Then scan the negatives. So much cheaper than actually having it developed professionally. You also get to mess with the development conditions for various effects.

I hear you. My process is cheapest, doesn’t require chemicals, can be done in sunlight, and with some glsl knowledge, essentially the same. Only digitally and for $0.000000001 an image.

All with none of the experience or knowledge...

Yeah, I do that too but since I'd never really owned a 35mm camera, I thought I'd give it a go ("how hard can it be?" "very if your spool is wet, you fool") and I've enjoyed the experience of taking my PEN-EE around and developing its weird little half-frame outputs.

B&W negatives are easy enough at home. Though you have to get them into a computer and, at that point, I'd sort of be "Why bother?" (other than a fun retro weekend project possibly). And, yes, printing requires an actual darkroom. After school, I quickly decided that setting something up in spare half-bathroom was for the birds.

Huge time sink for B&W, but sure nice to do, a major pain for color and close to impossible for slide film.

The latter was what I basically learned on, back the day, being allowed to sport my dad's back-up F4. Had to tie a knot in the sling for it to not bounce on the ground when I had it around my neck, me being too small.

Digital is so much easier, until you want to print. Upside of learbing on film, you are much more carefull at which pictures you take.

Maybe, one day, I'll get some B&W film and pull out said F4 again. Big maybe so, as I simply don't have the time to develop film on top of everything else...

> Digital is so much easier, until you want to print

I mean, it's not really hard. You just need the hardware to print the photo well.

Yeah, that's were becomes expensive again. Good foto printer either cost a fortune, a fortune for ink or both. Well, still cheaper than printing externally.

Printing well so seems to be a bit of an art so. Selecting the right paper for the printer and foto, doing some trails... A bit like developong and printing in a darkroom, from the looks of it. Not that I have a lot of experience, I need to save the money for the printer first...

Ink printers, where do I start, there’s only one style I can even recommend. Refillable. Forget HP, forget Canon, Brother, get yourself an Epson refillable. Obviously, laser is superior, but if you really want to keep costs down, Epson’s refillable inkjet printers are the only ones that don’t shutdown if you run out of black ink scent. It’s a racket and you should not participate in providing HP or any of those printer companies your money.

https://youtu.be/AHX6tHdQGiQ

Top of my list is an Epson ET-8550, ticks all boxes except price. Followed by a Canon Pro-200, ticks all boxes except ink cost. The pigment printers are all too expensive, and the ink cost of the Epson cartridge models is prohibitive. Problem is that the break even for a ET-8550 is so far out that the Canon one is almost cheaper for the first 80-odd a3 prints. Well, maybe I find a deal for one or the other and the decision is met for me!

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