Do you still use film?
My brother taking a digital photo
Film vs. Digital. There are very obvious pros and cons to both. On the one hand, the quality of photos taken on good film is vastly superior to those taken by your digital camera. Yet, the immediacy of digital photos, the ease of being able to get them into your computer to send across the globe, and the ability to create projects like books, calendars, etc - make my personal choice lean towards digital.
Do you still use film? If so, why? Is it because of the quality alone? Is it because you think this “digital thing” is only for the casual photographer?
I have a few friends, and relatives, that are still working with film. And some of them have real reasons, others simply have not yet had the time/money/reason to purchase a digital camera yet. Which is fine, but they’ve expressed that they eventually would like to “go digital”.
If you have not made the switch yet, I’d like to know if you have reasons. If you are a professional, do you use film or digital?
Oh, and one more question, if I may. If you use digital, what megapixel are you currently storing your photos at? For no other reason than price, Eliza and I are at 5.1. Someday we’ll get ourselves a really professional camera - since we love photos so much.
[tags]cameras, film, digital[/tags]
April 7th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
“quality of photos taken on good film is vastly superior to those taken by your digital camera”
The quality of your photos is determined by how much time you put into taking the photo + skill in using the camera + how good of an ‘eye’ you have for shots, multiplied by luck + the quality of the camera you have.
I have a $1300 digital camera. I’d say that my digital shots are much better than any of my film camera shots. While it’s true that I was much less experienced, much less skilled, and had a much crappier camera, I have friends that shoot with film cameras that cost about the same and are on the same level of quality, and we get about equal results in the end.
I think the selling point (for me) on digital, is being able to go back and see if the photo was good or bad, and shooting more if I need to. I can’t do that with a film camera.
As far as Point and Shoot vs DSLR, I’m in favor of a DSLR nearly all the times, except the times where a bulky SLR camera gets in the way (ie, concerts). The “what you see is what you get” (rather than a half to whole second lag on an P&S) and the sound of the shutter clicking were things that made me say “I gotta have that”.
I’m on a 6.1 MP DSLR camera (Nikon D70s). Since I do alot of editing and photoshop, I say that the more MP the better. My Cannon S50 (a P&S) is a 5 MP.
I have one friend that is a film purist. He doesn’t like digital and loves the darkroom. He mainly uses those throw-away $3 “vacation” cameras that kodak (and everyone else) sells. The so called “disposable” camera. He developes it himself and gets amazing shots. Point is that the ‘talent’ side of things is a big thing to consider.
April 8th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Daniel: Thanks for chiming in. No doubt the person that is taken the photo definitely comes into account. I’m talking from a purely technical standpoint, digital will take many more years before it catches up to film as far as raw quality, color range, etc. Sizing up on film is exponential, while with digital its extremely limited.
Point taken on the bulk of SLR, and I am with you on the aesthetics of some cameras. We really like the camera we have now, and hopefully we’ll still appreciate the quality in 10 years.
April 8th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Oh, as another side note: One of the friends that I have, that uses film, has a rather cheap body for his camera, but his lens costs about $3,000USD (I think). Its all about the glass.
April 8th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
so true - the glass is very very important
April 8th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
Also - to note that the current best mass produced digital cameras are equal to the film as far as raw quality, color range, & Sizing up. I think it’s the 24 MP camera that is equal to it. I could be off a few megapixels… It’s been a while since I read the article.
But - it’s very very true, and my above statement proves the point, that it will many more years before digital is equal to film, at the same price.
April 9th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
I use digital, it’s faster and cheaper than film. As far as print quality, the 5D beats 35mm film. Filmtypes, I can generally create in photoshop.
Darkness,
http://g8.no
April 10th, 2006 at 7:33 am
Ive been digital for about 5 years now. I just upgraded from a 2.1 MP to a 5.1 MP like you guys. The difference is amazing!
April 14th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Digital and not looking back. I have two new lenses on their way right now for my Canon DSLR.
April 14th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Sorry for the double post but I forgot to say what MP I’m at. I have 8.1MP at the moment.
April 19th, 2006 at 7:30 am
In principle I like both… but as I (a) was able to get my dad’s old analogue equipment which includes a number of nice lenses and (b) couldn’t find a sweet spot in the digital camera vs. size tradeoff, I only have an analogue camera.
I do tend to borrow other people’s digital cameras a lot, though
I don’t think that resolution matters a lot these days in the small digital camera world. I doubt that for a small camera size (which usually means mediocre lenses and noise…) the pixels you get beyond the 4MP barrier add much more than extra bytes to the file size.
I wrote a sum-up of my digital vs. analogue photography stuff a while ago (see the website link and its follow-up). And I’m currently experimenting with a friend to see how the differences in digital vs analogue work out in practice. We try to shoot similar things with digital and analogue SLRs and see what comes out. The first impression is that in analogue (I’m using black and white) we get better contrasts and deeper blacks. On the other hand the digital photos tend to look smoother.
Of course there’s plenty of room for additional manipulation in both worlds.
May 19th, 2006 at 7:30 am
I still use my Nikon FE2 and plain vanilla fixed focus (non-zoom) lenses with highest f stops. Because the tool feels better in my hands, no hassle with a tiny screen (which I can’t view without my glasses anyway), and film offers a much better tonal range curve than any digital today.
I have the Fuji Superia 100 developed and scan the images with a Nikon Coolscan LS 5000, getting something like 23 megapixel images.
From time to time I use my Minox 35GT as well - for those unnoticed street shots on markets. A precision tool as well.
OK, it costs time and some money. But I won’t change until Nikon will feature a reasonable priced full format sensor digicam where I can use my lenses.
Sure, I’m using a Canon Powershot A620 (7.1 mp) as well, but more for ‘journal/diary’ shots. It’s fast, comfortable (with the optical viewfinder, though this one lacks some precision).
To me it doesn’t make sense to throw away my Nikon system - it still does have a great value. Though it doesn’t feature AF or any of the 23 gazillion program/metering options, I’m in most cases faster than a DSLR shooter (=experience!).
You’ll see me often with a heavy duty tripod running through the streets, having all the time I need to compose an image I have in my mind.
I think it depends on what you want to achieve. For sports, news and fashion I think digital does have an advantage.
I don’t understand when a friend of mine had a wedding shooting, return with 800 images after 3 hours and has to browse a week through the material just to pick the best shots.
Usually I return with two rolls of film with 37 or sometimes even 38 best shots. That’s 74 images. Fantastic images. Best of all: I can have the negatives processed in 20 years, no matter what image formats will lead the world in the future (anyone tried to read an 8″ or 5 1/4″ data disk today - and being able to import the data?)
As soon as digital will be grown up, I’ll switch. But I think this wouldn’t happen before I’ll be retired.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:37 am
I hope you don’t mind a late comment on this. I recently bought a DSLR to see if I could duplicate, or equal, the results of shooting Tri-X and HP5,scanning it in, and printing it on an inkjet printer. For color, the digital (a Nikon D50 w/ good lenses and shooting in RAW) equaled or bettered my film camera, at least w/ color neg film. I suspect slides would have been a tie. But converting the digital shots to B&W was a failure. Never mind printing them, they looked bad just on the monitor. Digital, while clean, has a poor exposure latitude. The rqnge of grey tones was flat and limited, no matter how much editing in Photoshop. And of course the beautiful B&W film grain was missing. True, you could occasionally get a good B&W shot from the digital file, but not often. At this stage of development, digital B&W cannot compete w/ film, unless you happen to like ultra clean images w/ a flat look and a lack of tonal range. Portraits were the worst.
December 11th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
film.
anyone can take a picture now.
film has a look all its own.
it truly takes skill to use a film camera. even for mine since i don’t even have auto focus and i have to wind my camera each time.
here’s one pic
the only digital i would possibly prefer would be the canon 1D mark II.
but in regards to digital supposing to be more for the competitive, check out the stuff by ryan russell. he still shoots film and all his images are used in magazines.
April 15th, 2007 at 9:34 am
We are really discussing apples and oranges here. I own both higher-end digital; Canao 5d L lenses; and high-end analogue Lieca M6 & Ziess Ikon ZI all leica glass; and a Nikon CoolScan 4k.
The 5D is indeed fabulous and an effortless tool for picture taking- you can just go out shoot shoot shoot to your 8gb mem card to your hearts content. 80% of the frames are technicaly usable with maybe 5% worth going through the post process printing effort. But the question this begs - is this really photgraphy for the majority of shooters (not all mind you) or just a faster higher resolution snapshop system? Where is the work? The understanding of the media (i.e. various film emulsions, response curves; dynamic range….). It is indeed fast to shoot digital but does fast equate to good? There is the potential for significantly less thought going into each shot.
The film camera slows me down quite a bit causing me to think (contemplate) more about the process of photography. The result is more of a 60% through out rate to a 30-40% worth printing rate. So the question arises is digital more of an operation akin to using a computer and analogue more akin to programming that same computer? Is one simple act of pushing a shutter release and the other a skill or even an art? Mind you I am far away from claiming any grand artistic skill on my part - these are just general questions we need to ask ourselves.
Another point to consider is that digital has put us on the a never ending consumerist treadmill of upgrade after upgrade with no end in site as sensor densities follow Moores law to some theoritical physical limits imposed by materials. To what end all this ? More resolution, less grain, to a hyper-realist representaion of the world around us. At that point I would venture to say that photography will have fully morphed from art to technology.
The holly grail of grainless smooth images is not what the photo arts are all about - lest we forget composition, subject, and……… Does anyone think that a Ategets’, Steichens’, Stieglizs’, and Bressons’, art is dimished by lack of detail, optical aberations, visible grain structure, and such?
The conclusive point is lets not get lost in the technological and numerical wilderness and forget what we are all striving for - a photograph that is evocative and makes us and the viewer think and wonder more fully about our world - no matter the subject matter.
L
November 16th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
I would agree with lots LeoAI as written.
For my own two cents: I have been shooting for about 10 years. Started with film, switched to digital two years ago (first a Fujifilm point & shoot, then a Nikon D50, now a Nikon D200). At first I love the convenience….no processing fees, no waiting to pick up slides or contact sheets or prints. LCD screens to gauge your shot right away. However, the images have never ever moved me the way my old film images have. Sure, they immaculately clean at high ISOs, they are very sharp, but therein lies the whole problem. Nothing is left to chance, to magic. I may sound overly romantic, but I like the idea that no, you will not always be able to get every shot as you intended. Sometimes the film will decide, or the camera. Sometimes a shot you thought would look one way turns out looking another because you forgot that daylight film will cause the shadows to turn blue. Of course, with digital, you would have noticed that on your LCD and said “Oops, wrong white balance” and perhaps re-shot it, even deleting the offending image without viewing it on your monitor at home. Let’s not even comment on the amount of time one has to spend on their computer these days if you are a serious photographer. I have wasted HOURS of my life trying to add punch to images or colour correct them, all the while admitting that I probably am the worst editor of my own work and should leave it to a professional (ie - the guy/gal in the lab who does it 10 hours a day and loves it.) Having said all this….I recently bought another film camera and shot film for the first time in two years just the other day. I LOVE IT. I picked up my prints today and there is no comparison. I ripped open the envelope after waiting an hour and a half and it reminded me why I got into photography in the first place. Digital sucks. It’s not photography.
November 28th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
I bought my wife a Nikon D200 kit and it keeps her happy. Photos are good and they store easily in the computer. After repeatedly viewing some medium format film photography, I purchased a Hasselblad medium format film camera, started shooting some film, and have not looked back since. I don’t even miss the two new Leica fim cameras that were sold last year. These cameras are slow, mechanical, methodical, thought provoking, noisy, and totally makes you involved in the process, physically and mentally. The results are the best kept secret around!?? No, I guess pro’s have been shooting these cameras and seeing their work on magazine covers and in books for around fifty years . The images are breathtaking, to say the least! If you love to take pictures of people, places, things, then you will have a treat waiting for you! The gear is relatively inexpensive in superb used condition (see REH) and we probably can thank the digital buying public for helping us out in this regard. I truely believe that these are the best brushes an artist can use.
April 26th, 2008 at 9:59 am
I used film for about 30 odd years with a fairly comprehensive Nikon system, and then went digital in March 2005, swapping over to a Canon 20D and some new lenses. I did however keep some of my old Nikon film kit.
Whilst I do love the instant results from digital, and the quality is now very good, I just find myself getting bored with it - Recently I’ve found myself going back to using my film cameras, a lovely Nikon F100 & 4 x manual-focus prime lenses, and a Canon EOS30 that uses my recently purchased (expensive) Canon glass.
I just find it makes you think about every shot a lot more. Rather than firing off 20 or 30 shots of one thing (and usually getting one good one!) I am forced to think more about composition and exposure etc. because I only have a max of 36 shots available in one go, and I don’t want to rely on Photoshop for the final result, although I do scan the transparencies I actually like the ‘look’ they give me and tend to only carry-out minor touching up work etc. - Digital just looks too ’sterile’ to me…