Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

I began on film in the mid 70’s. Still burn film exclusively. I am not anti-digital, but digital has just never appealed to me. I am perfectly content with film.

Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

The remaining films are superb.

jackm1943 Loc: Omaha, Nebraska

After gifting my Rolleiflex to my granddaughter, every once and awhile I get the urge to purchase another medium format camera and clean the cobwebs from my darkroom. Then I realize, I've got a 330 with nearly all the lenses and accessories, and a 6x7 roll film back for my 4x5. And I remember how difficult it is to make real unsharp masks or to make high quality scans of b/w negatives and the urge goes away.

karno Loc: Chico ,California

I miss aspects of shooting film especially medium and large formats, although digital allows me to take a image further and photograph things that are not possible with film.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

I like the way film captures light. I like the process of shooting film, I tend to be more methodical and deliberate and I take more time to make sure the frame is what I want. I like the delayed gratification of getting the results.

clint f. Loc: Priest Lake Idaho, Spokane Wa

There are still numerous places that process film. The internet is your friend. Unless you shoot Kodachrome—then you have no friends.

wmurnahan Loc: Bloomington IN

I will always use B&W film as long as I can get it but more importantly, I will always print my B&W on silver oxide papers because you can't recreate a silver oxide black with an inkjet printer. If they stop making it, I will have to learn how to make my own I guess. I see no advantage to shooting color film over digital though.

ecurb1105

It's another art, in and of itself.

throughrhettseyes Loc: Rowlett, TX

Tradition. That it in a nut shell.

pendennis

In 2007, I bought a Nikon D200, used the lenses I already had for film, and let the film gear sit in the closet. To gain some storage, I dumped all the film gear, LF, MF, and 35mm to KEH when they came to town to buy.

A couple of years ago I upped my digital cameras to a D500 and a D750. The D500 went to my son. I loved the results, and I enjoy the "instant gratification" of digital. I could edit to my heart's content, and get images the way I wanted, something difficult to do with color chromes and negatives.

Fast forward. I bought an Epson scanner to convert a lot of film to digital. Then I realized after scanning in around 5K images, that I could get results I wanted using the image editors. I also realized just how much joy I got using film. Whether E6 or C41, I get a far different experience using film.

I've also found that digital images can get over-saturated and over-edited. One of the cues I've picked up is the "over-greening" of greenery. Folks, too much green is worse than not enough.

As others have noted, digital and film are completely different art forms, and I'm thankful I can participate in each.

Now, to get the Hasselblad and the Nikon F2 out and do some real fun.

Smudgey Loc: Ohio, Calif, Now Arizona

Enjoying the process is one thing that I understand. I used to love spending hours in the darkroom, but with todays cameras and 40 and 50 megapixel images, film has never been that good, unless your using an 8X10 view camera. For the most part todays cams. give better image quality than film.

BlueMorel Loc: Southwest Michigan

I'm not going to, but sometimes when film masters here post about the joy of film, I get nostalgic for the hands-on process of using film,from loading spools in the dark, to seeing a photo emerge from the developer bath set up in our bathroom.

scsdesphotography Loc: Southeastern Michigan

Wow, a really interesting discussion. I'll add my thoughts to this, but remember, composition trumps media, and anything else in the field of photography. Today there is only one reason to shoot film, because you like it and all the process that goes with it. One thing is for sure, to make and print a quality film image the photographer has to have a superior ability to judge a scene, adjust their settings and get a proper exposure without the benefit of immediate feedback afforded by digital.

Several contributors have suggested that the film vs. digital is similar to the vinyl vs. CD (digital audio) debate. It is. In my opinion, the best of any audio medium is very, very good. The exception being 8-tracks, which were the tape equivalents of modern MP3 files. The very best vinyl recordings are sonically so close to their CD equivalent that most people can't tell the difference. So which is "better?" Full wave digital files are technically and sonically superior to analog vinyl. But the question is which "sounds better" to you? There is a whole field that deals with the psychology of audio perception. For example, the small amount of tape noise inherent in vintage vinyl leads to the perception of higher frequency response. That is what most listeners missed when hearing early CD recordings. The point is, if it sounds better to you, then it sounds better to you! Doesn't matter what I hear because hearing is a personal experience. There are no measurements for that.

So what about film versus digital. The one area where film has the sight edge is in B&W prints. A carefully developed B&W film print is as sharp as any digital equivalent and can have slightly better dynamic range. The actual grey scale range is superior with digital. However it doesn't matter, under normal viewing conditions no one can see the greater range. In B&W the difference between the average film print and the same digital print are very difficult to distinguish. But you may like the appearance of a silver halide print over a quality ink jet print, which is quite okay and explains the fact that some pros still prefer to work with film to make B&W prints, they like the look.

With color, however, digital is superior in every metric to film. Digital color prints are sharper, have greater dynamic range, and a far larger range of colors as compared to film. But some like the softer occasionally more saturated look of film, especially with portraits.

There is plenty of room for both in photography, go with the one that gives you the most joy, or gets you the most work. If you are satisfied with the images you get, then that is what counts.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Why do people still buy and play vinyl!? bwa

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Very simply, I enjoy it. Regardless of what format I'm shooting, it is a joy to shoot film. It's a joy to see the freshly developed negatives and know the creativity continues from there. I like the results I get from it.

Although I can print from the negative, it's not often that I make prints and therefore I scan them for posting and printing. I've done film and digital of the same scene and see little difference in the final print.
--Bob