There definitely is an appeal to the analog and the idea of slowing down to be more creative and productive.
Photography is a hobby of mine. I own a Nikon D500, which is one of Nikon's flagship professional DSLR cameras. It can shoot at 10 frames per second with a buffer of 200 shots. The storage cards hold thousands of images. All of this is great when you're shooting high-speed action where every shot in a short time frame counts, but it also means there's very little risk in each shot. So if you take 900 pictures and only 9 are keepers it's no big deal. I shoot in RAW mode so any type of color and lighting adjustments can be made in post, and the resolution's high enough that I can crop for a good composition after the fact.
But recently I've decided to get into plain old fashioned 35mm film photography. The equipment is all still relatively inexpensive, but the film costs $5-10 per roll of 24 or 36 exposures. Then you either have to send the film out to be developed, which can take days or weeks (since there are very few places that do it in house anymore), or you can develop it yourself (as I have started to do) which involves an hour long process mixing chemicals, making sure everything's the right temperature, shaking and stirring, drying and cutting, then finally scanning the processed film. Each shot has more risk, and so you take more time and compose more carefully, which makes the end result that much better. I've found it to be incredibly enjoyable and rewarding.
You can buy a 1Gb SD card for every photo session, and throw it to garbage after it's full.
Don't lie to yourself, you just like film and paper itself, and all that stuff and smells around the process. :-) (me too)
Ah, ya got me! I just love that grain, but I haven't started printing yet. Unfortunately my darkroom (read: bathroom) isn't quite big enough for that -- a larger bathroom will be a must in my next apartment.
I assume you're developing black and white, since doing color at home is impossible unless you basically have a dedicated lab for it, which even the most hardcore photographers have a hard time justifying.
As you get used to developing, you'll get faster at it; i can now do a few rolls in 30 minutes easily.
I'd also suggest that you look into doing your own printing. The chemical process is nothing different from scanning negatives; you do need an enlarger, which can be a pain to set up at home- check into any local photo clubs. (there is Harvey Milk Photo Center in SF that I recommend) The satisfaction you'll get from it will go even beyond developing just the film; and the results are much more creatively rewarding than negative scanning.
You're right, I'm only doing black and white at the moment, but only because the color chems I ordered haven't arrived yet. From what I've read I don't think color developing is as difficult as you're making it seem, at least for C-41 color film. The temperature tolerances are tighter and the chemicals themselves are a bit more expensive (but still reasonable) and have a shorter shelf life, but it seems very doable. This is the kit I have coming sometime this week: http://www.freestylephoto.biz/20411-Arista-C-41-Liquid-Color...
As far as the hour time frame I gave, that was really just an estimate of diluting concentrates, loading the film reels (which is still the trickiest part for me so far), and then the actual developing. The steps of developing itself maybe take me about 25 minutes total.
Ane finally, yeah I do want to start printing at some point, but my bathroom currently is about 30 square feet, if that, so right now it doesn't seem very feasible.
Edit: I should also add that I live in very rural northern New York state. The nearest public use lab to me is a three-hour or so drive away, so that option's out.
Photography is a hobby of mine. I own a Nikon D500, which is one of Nikon's flagship professional DSLR cameras. It can shoot at 10 frames per second with a buffer of 200 shots. The storage cards hold thousands of images. All of this is great when you're shooting high-speed action where every shot in a short time frame counts, but it also means there's very little risk in each shot. So if you take 900 pictures and only 9 are keepers it's no big deal. I shoot in RAW mode so any type of color and lighting adjustments can be made in post, and the resolution's high enough that I can crop for a good composition after the fact.
But recently I've decided to get into plain old fashioned 35mm film photography. The equipment is all still relatively inexpensive, but the film costs $5-10 per roll of 24 or 36 exposures. Then you either have to send the film out to be developed, which can take days or weeks (since there are very few places that do it in house anymore), or you can develop it yourself (as I have started to do) which involves an hour long process mixing chemicals, making sure everything's the right temperature, shaking and stirring, drying and cutting, then finally scanning the processed film. Each shot has more risk, and so you take more time and compose more carefully, which makes the end result that much better. I've found it to be incredibly enjoyable and rewarding.