Vintage technology on the comeback

Email
Print

Vintage technology on the comeback

3News NZ

By Adrien Taylor

The digital age has revolutionised the way we consume music, photography, film, literature and much more. It's made things easier in many ways but has it made it better?

Most would say "yes" to that but many are beginning to say no, and a new kind of revolution is taking place.

Although it looks dated, vintage film is becoming cool again and professional photographer Reatha Kenny is a real film advocate.

She began shooting on digital until the day she was given a film camera to play with, saying it was love at first shot.

“I just love the look. I love the whole process of working with film. I love the smell of the chemicals, I love loading film, I love taking shots with the film, I love having piles of film,” she says.

Ms Kenny is not the only one, as film cameras are being snapped up on Trade Me for under a hundred dollars.

The rekindling love for the vintage doesn't stop with film either. Music on vinyl was written off by many with the birth of the cassette and then the compact disc, but it's also making a comeback.

In the US in 2011 vinyl sales grew by roughly 40 percent year on year and sales are doing very well here too.

“Our vinyl sales are increasing all the time. We're selling more and more vinyl to a very wide age group of people,” says Garry Knight, manager of Penny Lane Records.

Media Studies lecturer Geoff Stahl says the love of vintage formats has resonated with subcultures.

“People who are interested in old vintage media like vinyl and film et cetera they're doing something else which is slowing down the media in a culture which emphasises acceleration,” he says.

Mr Stahl says it's interesting that most of the young people who are into older formats, never experienced them when they were first created.

It seems the digital world, as convenient as it may be, just doesn't quite tick the tangibility box for many.

It's an ability to touch and interact with media that the digital world can only try to replicate.

3 News

Post a Comment

Before commenting, please take the time to read our moderation guide


(Won't be published)



Comments

10/11/2012 9:36:37 a.m.

Duncan wrote:

Digital means no more dangerous chemicals in the darkroom, your pc IS your darkroom. No more expensive mistakes, overeposures underexposures wasted paper, film etc. Many digital papers are now archival quality lasting 99 years or more. If you want a traditional print get your digital file ready, print a negative (chemical free) then take it to a photography lab for them to make a silver print. It used to be $7-10 for a roll of film, $7-10 for process only, buy your slide holders, $$for darkroom equipment chemicals paper, a constant stream of expenditure multiplied everytime you take an exposure and out of a roll of film, how many images do you actually use?? With digital, all this reacuring cost magically disappears, WONDERFULL!! and every image you dont like, delete, ZERO film wasted = zero dollars spent!! Pro or not, you have got to love it.

27/10/2012 8:53:33 a.m.

Bradie Paul wrote:

hands down film photography has it. the quality and Light is always there plus there is a loving relationship with your work during the whole process in the darkroom.

17/10/2012 3:02:12 a.m.

Mike wrote:

@Willem depends on your software and also your setup.

Software and hardware try to comply with copyright laws around the world. This means that a DVD drive can copy a DVD movie in one country using the same software/hardware and in another country the exact same hardware/software blocks it. If you dont mind fiddling with your setup, its sometimes possible to just change your setup to make use of the different copyright rules for some software/hardware. Some hardware set this copyright flagging when installed and it cant be reset.

You can also step up the software to higher end, which means higher costs, but gives full editing ability. Standard software thats free to download, allows all the editing etc but no save ability to force people to buy a full version (and sometimes the full version can have about 5 different versions from $100's to $1000's with more ability as the price goes up). Best to check out with a minor change to start with to see if the software your using will allow editing without spending hours to learn this. Some software allows so many uses/time before blocking. Eg PDF printing by Adobe allows 30 prints over a year before it blocks on a computer.

Some of the digital recordings flag the recordings when made to 'copyrighted' so wont allow basic editing as you described. If connect to the recording device, its posible to change this on many recording devices. The other way is to have higher end software that allows editing which basically ignores the recording devices copyright flagging as it assumes that if you have the software, you must have paid and have the rights/responsibility to edit. Any professional film editor uses more expensive software so they dont have problems editing. Eg proffesional end editing suites will allow copying a commercial DVD even when copyrighted, often it will just give a warning if copyrighted and do it anyway.

Problems editing digital can come from many sources.

16/10/2012 8:35:08 p.m.

Ruz wrote:

I have worked with film in both 35mm, medium format and 16mm. In my view digital does a pretty good job when compared with the older technology. think those who claim that film is superior might just be engaged in arty farty snobery.

16/10/2012 12:22:41 p.m.

Swamp Donkey wrote:

After spending $2500 on a digital camera that lasted a few years because the dust killed the sensor I picked up a Leica Rangefinder to shoot film. My negatives go in a folder a physical backup. Scan the negs and they look beautiful and no digital has that look. Keep upgrading the digital camera and loose files when the hard drive fails.

16/10/2012 11:09:28 a.m.

Willem wrote:

Copyright 'barriers' are one of the problem with digital. Just a few days a ago I was asked to look at editing a piece of homemade video, a mixture of phone video and slides, in windows movie maker. It was my first time and after I was reasonably satisfied with the result I wanted to save the project file as a movie. It seemed to do that OK, but at the end it told me 'Windows cannot save the file' One of the reasons it came up with. Windows can't access the original movie files. LOL, they were on the computer of my friend, who asked me to give it a try. Hours of 'fun' gone.

16/10/2012 9:31:04 a.m.

Evan wrote:

Interesting that the young people are discovering the pre-digital technology. I am 66 and have lived through that era, and I have no desire to revisit it - give me the latest digital gadgets any day - bought an iPad the other day.