Film or Digital?

[r_fredrick_smith]

Is film photography dead? What do you think? What are the pros and cons of each? How do they compare? If you switched, why? Are the two on equal footing? Has digital become superior to film in resolution?

Here is my take on the current state of film vs digital:

I had originally posted this photo in the editorial section, but it fits for a general photographic section on the above subject?

Cheers,
rfs

[jchupa]

Even thought digital is superior in almost every way, film still has it's place. Digital has the advantage of long life and with it's ability to be stored on devises like CDs, flash drives or other media, it's highly compact verses the bulky rolls of film and the limitations to how many images can be stored on a roll of film verses digital media. The images quality that can be produced by film is still amazing. Digital is getting better every day. Digital photos are quite equal when it comes to image quality. At this point it's is now just a matter of personal choice, but in order for the photographers of today to keep up both technology and financially, they will have to move into the digital realm. Printing companys all over the world are now mostly dealing with digital media and considering the potability of digital photos.... the limits are boundless. A whole photo shoot can be transmitted by e-mail anywhere in the world in seconds verses waiting for a currier.

In answer to your question, is film photography dead? May be in the professional world, but as a hobby, it will be around for a long time.

[RSStory]

I dont think film is dead yet, I do think it is on its last leg in the commercial world though. There are still companies and magazines that want film used but they are getting fewer by the day. I have enlargments on the wall that I could not have done with 35mm film. Film is still fun to shoot now and again but I dont do it often as my lab has stopped processing it completely now.

[Electricseashell]

I've never been fortunate enough to have the money to develop real film. I don't even have enough money to print my digital ones. I have an old 35 M and really wanted to try it but can't get it to work. I was gifted my first digital which was a point and shoot HP and I took it all over the country on a journey. Dropping it in North Carolina and finding out that it was toast broke my heart.
The art of film development should not be lost, I'd love to be able to shoot some film and have that rush of seeing it come alive in the developing fluid. So maybe someone should open few shops that allow personal developing. That would be very cool... and would keep the art of real film alive.
So in conclusion cost is my prohibitive factor.

[PhotosbyChuck]

Virtually every medium that has ever existed still exists. Film won't vanish. It is simply on a slide out of the mainstream and into a niche. Someday we'll all have holographic cameras...think of the lighting headaches then!

[Arbib]

I still shoot film...I have a Manual Focus
Pentax ZX-M with a 28mm (Candid), and a 50mm Pentax-M f/2.
I have a really sharp Pentacon 30mm f/3.5 in LTM (M39) waiting for a Bessa R or R2 RF body. I prefer the RF with candid..though.
Although with my 4/3's DSLR at 14mm, f/8 at INF has 5' to INF in focus too..Will have to give that a try too..

With HR scans (3600x2400 or above...you get a nice size file and good detail preservation.
(Use a C41 B&W though..most scanners are set for an "Orange" base film..not Grey/Gray base color)

Here is a photo from a film RF with a 24mm lens (Bessa R2 with Snap-Shot Skoper (No longer own it )


No, Film is not dead...just not called upon as often any more...After all, with Digital, you can change ISO's at any time,..You can shoot in many different Light Qualities...Tungsten, daylight, Fluorescent, Shade and have perfect WB with all of them..You can adjust the Overall picture color tone with many DSLR's. So you can have Leitz Lens color, or Canon Lens color...(this can done i post too..much easier too).

But Film has it charm too,..Mainly the Grain structure is much differant than Digital Grain, and with great detail with films like HD 400 Kodak, Fuji 800 Superior..The Kodak B&W CN400 Pro is a nice too. My favs..

[r_fredrick_smith]

But Film has it charm too,..Mainly the Grain structure is much differant than Digital Grain, and with great detail with films like HD 400 Kodak, Fuji 800 Superior..The Kodak B&W CN400 Pro is a nice too. My favs..

But with several different filter set plugins for Photoshop (such as CEP 3.0), you can simulate all the old films (by brand name) and then simulate the grain. I've published photos that people thought were film that were, in reality, done with CEP 3.0. So I'm not sure that this is really an issue anymore.

Cheers,
rfs

[soupman]

I am totally digital now. My Nikon has been in the closet for almost ten years. I always wanted to have a darkroom for color film processing. But the cost of the equipment, chemicals and having a spot pretty much dedicated in a small house made it impossible. Today, I can do virtually anything I want without the chemicals and risk of ruining the photographs I shot.

Film has its place. Especially in legal matters. Knowing what I know about digital images, I would feel better if legally necessary photographs were film. (Yes, I understand that film images can be manipulated too, but at much greater difficulty and not as easily. When the negative is viewed and compared to the photo, one has greater assurance that the photograph has not been changed.)

A big and sad downside to digital is the primary source for the photos, a digital file on a disk or chip, will not be accessible in the future. In the past for instance, everything was written or typed on paper, drawn or painted. Some of the documents we have are thousands of years old and we can still see them. Now our images are stored digitally. I still have 3.5" disks with photos and documents...but some of the things I have on them I don't have the software to access them...and only one of my computers (the oldest one) even has a 3.5" disk slot. I have 100MB Zip Disks I may as well throw awy.

Of big concern to museums today is how do we make available the code used in the programming of the Apollo rockets, digital word documents, spreadsheets, etc. How many people can play an album now? Heck, CD's are being phased out in favoer of hard disk drives with MP3. What about the old wire voice recorders. I remember when I just had to have a giant reel-to-reel recorder. Friends of mine would spend weeks recording a reel of music.

Certainly the photos we take can be copied into other means of storage, but no copy is perfect. Each time quality is impacted in a negative way. Only the primary source will produce the artists original work. I stll have negatives from the 1970's when I started photography and I can still get photos from those primary documents. Will I be able to retrieve my digital photos 30 years from now (assuming I am still around)?

[JKlebPhoto]

I think film won't go away. But the people who master darkroom printing will be seen as true craftsmen and artists in 20 years. I think the difference will be really noticeable in the print prices for fine art.
Think of it like cars. You can buy a Corvette for 60k, get 500hp, good handling, comfortable ride, and still turn heads. Service is available and affordable all over the country and you can buy a new one at almost every GM dealership. Of course it's still an assembly line car and if you've driven a particular year model and trim, then another one like it feels just the same. You can also buy a mid level Ferrari for three times the price of the Corvette. A little less under the hood, a little better in the curves. You've got a car that Enzo Ferrari probably put his thoughts into before he died. A work order with the names of the guys who built your car by hand. Not a VIN number that gives you a plant code and a generic team of engineers behind it. A lot more heads turn because only a few can afford and want "the best". Of course try getting service outside of a major city. Small breakdowns start to happen earlier and more often. If your 6'3" don't expect a nice trip across the country. The gas tank doesn't hold enough to keep you on the road for a decent amount of time anyway. But, you've got a hand crafted car that only a few master craftsmen in the world could produce. A hundred years ago all cars were built like that. Fifty years ago a large number of cars, especially in Europe, were built like that. Today it's a luxury for the wealthy, who are willing to put up with the drawbacks to own a status symbol. And to keep things in perspective they're driving their Lexus 95% of the time. In fact, I read an article a few years ago that the most common vehicle driven by millionaires in the US was the Ford F-150.

So film won't die, it will become exclusive. I think that those in the next couple decades who master the use of film and the darkroom, and are good at selling themselves to high society, will be doing quite well. But 99% of the world will be digital instant gratification.

[r_fredrick_smith]

I think the argument of digital obsolescence is often overstated. Sure, it is more difficult to read some of our old files, because we might not have a floppy drive, or a zip drive, etc. But these devices still exist and anything could be read from any time frame if we really needed to. I can read any of these formats when I need to. If data is deemed important enough, then it should be copied to new mediums and updated and saved to new formats. The same thing happened with the old paper documents of the past. Often what we consider the oldest document is just a copy of the older original. Certainly this is the case of the New Testament documents that are all copies at least 200 years after the fact except for perhaps 1 or 2 minor very small exceptions.

As for digital forensics, you can have the same reliablitly with a digital image if the right add on software is used for taking the photos (and Canon as well as other companies offer these add ons).

Cheers,
rfs