Unpopular opinion: I think we romanticize grainy film too much

I was looking through some old rolls my grandpa shot in the 70s, and I found one where the grain was so heavy you could barely make out his face. It hit me that sometimes we chase that look for nostalgia, but maybe we forget the original goal was to get a clear shot. Has anyone else had a moment where they realized a certain film aesthetic wasn't as great as they thought?

2 comments

2 Comments

derekp701d agoMost Upvoted

Ngl that 70s roll sounds brutal. My dad's old Kodachrome shots are the opposite - zero grain, colors still pop like crazy. Makes me wonder if we're just defending bad scans or cheap film.

elliots491d ago

Wait, your dad's Kodachrome still pops like that? A buddy of mine found his grandpa's old slides from a 1972 road trip, and they looked terrible. All these muddy browns and faded greens, like someone drained the color out of everything. He scanned them with some cheap flatbed he got at a garage sale, and the grain was so bad it looked like sandpaper. Turned out the original film was fine, but the scanner was absolute junk. He finally paid a guy to drum scan a few, and they came back looking like they were shot yesterday. So yeah, it's probably the scanning setup half the time.