Post why film is better than digital, a dare!

[Ed K.]

Hi EB,

I probably shouldn't have responded to your post. Every expert around has made their take well known on this, however it's just irrisitable chum.

Better for what? As the paint roller has its place, so does the brush. A fast food burger has a purpose, so does a banquet. Long time exposures of architecture at night, or tiny photos for a print catalog? It seems that everyone has beat this one to death. Platinum printers switching to inkjets or printing with "digital negatives", digital shooters outputing to C paper on a lightjet, small format digital shooters going large format. I think the whole idea of better or worse out of context is a waste of time. If the world says digital is the best and one has it, does that confer some kind of gold star on the person who has it?

Whatever gets me there is what I'll use - that's what is so wonderful about this time we live in. So many choices and good ones at that, so little time. Seems like most people use both at least a little bit.

Seriously, a dare back to you - which one do you think is better, and why? And to add, which digital are you talking about - scanning, betterlight, leaf, dslr ? Which end product? What kind of subject? Which person doing the shooting? What budget? Which do you use?

Please clarify. I'll leave it to the big fish to take or leave the rest.

[Scott Fleming]

Somebody give me a FULL frame 6 x 4.5mm back for my contax that I can also put on my view camera and I'll be a digital convert. OK .... I'd pay .... oh say maybe $3k for it. At 55 I stand a good chance of not getting what I want before I die. (yes I'll add in an allowance for inflation) So for now 4 x 5 is better. Period.

[Jack Flesher]

>>FULL frame 6 x 4.5mm back ~snip~ oh say maybe $3k for it. At 55 I stand a good chance of not getting what I want before I die.<<

I say in 5 years we will be buying the soon to be released P45 digital back used for $3K or less -- and you'll still be alive to enjoy it

[Steven Barall]

When I look at photos I don't care to know if the photographer used film or digital but when I make photos I make a clear choice for myself. Film and digital engage the user differently from eachother and it really all depends on the experience you want as the photographer.

A lot of people have no interest in the process, all they care about is the result. Others however might obsess on the particulars of the process and actually might even view the finished photos as an afterthought. Many many photographers don't process their own film or make their own prints and others work in labs where all they do is process and print for others. It's all good.

Cameras and film are tools. The right tool for the job. Just choose whatever part of the process makes you happy.

[jhogan]

No batteries.

[Steve Gilbert]

Perhaps a bit of a different view...

I still use my Nikon F5 when I want to use 35mm (very rarely these days). I'd love to have a nice digital SLR, but can't afford one right now and am content to wait for prices to keep falling and technology to keep improving.

If I need to take a picture of something to sell on Ebay or take snapshots at a party, I use my cheap little point-and-shoot digital camera. Exactly what it was made to do.

But when it comes to large format...for me, it's really more about the journey than the destination. I spend 40+ hours a week staring at a computer at work and solving complex technical problems. Large format photography is my escape from computers and technology. The only reason I don't have a wet darkroom running anymore is because my new abode doesn't have a practical place for it...and so I scan and Photoshop. However, I'll probably be buying a new house in the next year or so, and all that darkroom gear will come out of storage. Yes...it might very well be just as good or better to shoot color or digital and switch to B&W in Photoshop, but I don't care...it's just not as fun to me.

Obviously, I'm not a professional photographer, and only the most generous, kind-hearted person would call me an artist. If my income or reputation depended on it, I'd probably have a much different opinion, but it's the journey that's special to this weekend 4x5 hauler. If it were my results that mattered, I would have given up long ago :-)

[kreig]

Very simple to answer. Long after your digital camera dies, my mechanical cameras, 35mm, medium format, and LF quipment will still be working now and into the future, long after we all die. My 14x17 camera is 100 years old and still working. I doubt any digital camera will be working for 20%that long.
I often use a 17mm WA lens on my Minolta 35mm camera when travling. I dont know of an affordable digital system that can provide these kind of images (WA).

Also, I cancelled a few magazine subscriptions simply because the use of poor quality digital images made for poor quality reproductions. No one would ever consider useing a 110 instamatic film camera for reproductions in magazines, yet that is the image quality that was coming from digital. One example is Automobile Quarterly magazine which started accepting very poor digital images for reproduction, a magazine noted for photography excellence. The images were unacceptable from my point of view. In the end, it is about decision making, choices, and your final goal or product.

For me digital could be an acceptable medium when I can no longer tell it was a digital image.

[Paul Kierstead]

Film is better then digital because it makes me a better photographer; this is especially true for 4x5. However, I am also a better photographer with a simple stupid 35mm rangefinder then a DSLR, or even a smart Canon 1V then a DSLR. I chimp and tweak too much with the DSLR and lose sight of the image. With film, I fire, cross my fingers and move on; a kind of 'no worries'. 4x5 gives me a view I can see, and demands all the care I can possibly put in the image, making me a vastly better photographer.

It isn't the medium, its the equipment which encourages me to everything but pay attention to my subject. My failing perhaps, but it works for me.

[Donald Qualls]

Film is better than digital because it doesn't require me to spend thousands of dollars all in a lump to buy the equipment. To date, including my recent purchase of a 150 mm lens in shutter, I have spent about $1000 on film-based photo equipment -- since 1970.

Yes, film costs for every exposure, but I can pay for that as I go, $10 here, $50 there -- and by buying equipment used, I can do the same with the hardware. Digital equipment worth bothering would set me back a minimum of several hundred dollars for a single unit that, far from being still operational and useful in fifty years, will be obsolete and unsupported in five.

And I enjoy handling film in the darkroom, and I like the smell of the chemicals, and I *really* like the magic of watching a print come up in the developer. So, I get a process I like better, and I can (usually) afford it -- win-win.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Hi there,

Large format portraits.

Large format landscapes.

Large format macro.

Wedding photography.

You asked.