The Future of Film Photography

[Ian Williams]

I have recently changed career and now work in the photographic industry in London. I am also studying for a foundation degree in photography and the title of my extended study essay is "What is the future of film photography in the 21st century digital age?" Personally I am in the film camp, and I am about to indulge myself into the world of large format (I also use a Nikon FE, Hasselblad XPan and Mamiya 7). I am therefore canvassing opinion on the following questions:
1. Is image quality really better with digital photography?
2. Has film technology been curtailed too hastily, and are there technologies in emulsions and chemistry that we could be yet to benefit from?
3. What are the real benefits of film? Are we 'film enthusiasts" simply photographers who refuse to be swept along on the wave of digital technology, wallowing in nostalgia and traditionalism, or are there real qualities to film that digital photography simply cannot replace?
4. What is the driving force behind the digital market? Is it that camera manufacturers are simply exploiting the modern consumerist culture of today, or is there a real and tangible benefit in 24mp cameras and hugely expensive zooms etc...
5. Will film photography have a role over the next 30 years, and where will film photography fit into the digital revolution?

Any responses and thoughts to this will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[Andrew O'Neill]

If I use digital cameras I start to miss the movements of a LF camera (ooh yes, there's photoshop but it's not the same). I and many other photographers cannot afford a digital back for our LF cameras. On an esthetic level I personally prefer the look and feel of film and fibre based photographic papers.
There is also the storage issue. My negatives will also outlast any digital file of my images. I have a CD that is seven years old and won't open.
There are also many photographers who take the hybrid approach. Capture on film, and then scan in the negative and print out on inkjet... or make digital negatives for alternative processes, like I'm trying to teach myself.
There will still be film in the next thirty years. The niche may be smaller but it'll still be there. If it does go away tomorrow, I'll start coating glass plates like some people do here and over at the apug site.

[Greg Gibbons]

I'm not sure if your question is inadvertently phrased incorrectly, but image quality is not currently better with digital. There are some digital film backs which rival 4x5 film, but aren't demonstrably better, and there isn't one that is acknowledged as good as anything larger than 4x5.

It's virtually unchallenged that digital can rival anything analogue technically, so there will come a time when image quality will be better than film, however economics may come into play more than technology. To rival my Crown Graphic (which cost $500), one would have to spend something on the order of $30,000 in digital equipment. It'd be nicer, but there's no way I'm spending that kind of money. So ultimately it becomes an economic argument, not a technical one. In the short term, film has a place because it is superior quality for a far smaller price. In the longer term, film can only survive if it has critical mass, which may continue to be true for a while if there isn't sufficient demand to push electronics down the price curve.

Understand - there is NO inherent advantage in film that cannot be overcome digitally. People will argue that film has a different look, or different quality; if those qualities are in sufficient demand, they can be created digitally. Again, the question is more one of economics than technical.

[paulr]

Again, the question is more one of economics than technical.

That's the short of it. I might say that it has to do with the intersection of the technical and the economic.

What you can get for how much is constantly changing. What makes sense for you might be different than what makes sense for me. What makes sense tomorrow might be different than what makes sense today.

Working styles are another difference to consider. Fundamentally, digital and analog are names that we give to workflows, not specific technologies. There's personal preference involved ... you might love/hate working in the darkroom, or love/hate working at a computer. And each workflow has a different set of conveniences and inconveniences. A DSLR is faster and more spontaneous to use than a view camera with film. But a view camera with a scanning back, tethered to a computer, might be more cumbersome than both.

You get the idea ... the realities are dependent on the specific technologies you compare, and they're constantly evolving.

[Maris Rusis]

What the pictures look like doesn't count in the long run. Digital picture making can, or soon will be able to, replicate the surface appearance of any medium; film, paint, pencil, whatever.

If you want to look pictures that have the same relationship to subject matter as film based pictures then nothing touched by digital technology is worth looking at.

A film based photograph happens when a physical sample of subject matter travels across space, penetrates the sensitive surface, and occasions picture forming marks where it penetrates. If you want this then don't bother with "digital." But why would you so want?

A film photograph is physically, necessarily, and materially bound to its subject in the same way as a graphite rubbing, a footprint, or a silicone rubber cast. It is a straight line case of a substance direct on substance action. There is no virtual component. If this is what you want then don't bother with digital.

The film photograph is utterly powerless in depicting subjects that do not exist. The film photograph is a certificate for the existence of subject matter. Physical subjects are a necessary prerequisite for the possibility of a film photograph. If you want pictures of unicorns then you have to go digital. Film won't help you.

Successful pictures in film photography require that the subject and the film have to be in each others presence simultaneously and that they have to be directly and physically connected at the same (relativistically adjusted!) moment. An actual film negative of the Eiffel Tower cannot exist without the film itself having made a trip to Paris. If this is what you want then don't bother even looking at digital. Remember, a digital picture of a dinosaur is possible without a trip back to the Jurassic.

Film photographs can do nothing about subjects which may have existed in the past. If you want scenes from ancient Rome or portraits of Jesus then digital can deliver them. But don't presume they are equivalent to film photographs.

The future is similarly a closed book to film photographs. Photographs can only be exposed in the implacable present moment. Try as you might you won't get the Star-ship Enterprise on film, it hasn't been built yet, but digital will deliver you a whole Star Trek movie.

No film photography can go into landscapes of the imagination or into the topography of dreams. Digital does this easily. All one needs is a computer, a few image files, and some nice software for pushing pixels. Remember, hallucinations don't register on film.

Film photography cannot address subject matter which full well exists but is momentarily blocked from sight. If you want pictures of something you missed then digital is your only recourse. Whether anyone would believe such a picture is a moot point. A digital picture offered under oath is a mighty suspicious thing except to the terminally naive. A film photograph requires no oath. It is true to subject although that in itself is no guarantee that the casual observer won't muddle what they see.

The sole source of energy for a film photograph is the subject and the internal chemical potential energy of the photographic materials. External energy sources, electricity for example, are not at all required. My film camera, film, and chemicals would work just as well in Shakespeare's day or the distant future when dark energy has long replaced electricity.

Digital of course delivers "appearances" and that can be entertaining but if you need a refuge from a world where "seeming" is indistinguishable from "being" then film photography is one such refuge.

[Ben Syverson]

The film photograph is utterly powerless in depicting subjects that do not exist... If you want pictures of unicorns then you have to go digital. Film won't help you.

You can't be serious. What about every movie ever made before 1990 or so? Take for example the attached image of a unicorn from Blade Runner.

Try as you might you won't get the Star-ship Enterprise on film, it hasn't been built yet, but digital will deliver you a whole Star Trek movie.

What about all the Star Trek movies made before CGI? What is the difference in the "truth" between a miniature model of the Enterprise shot on 35mm film, and a digital model rendered using CGI? They're equally "true" or "untrue!"

No film photography can go into landscapes of the imagination or into the topography of dreams.

Ludicrous!

Every photograph, whether it's captured by a digital sensor or an analog one, is a lie. The camera always lies. Even (especially?) documentary/photojournalist photography, which has pretensions of neutrality, often distorts and misleads, whether intentionally or not.

All photography, whether digital or analog, is the product of someone's imagination or dream. The photographer imagines making the image, and then makes it. It doesn't matter whether it's staged or spontaneous, or whether it takes two years or 5 milliseconds; at some point, the photographer has the idea to make the image, and some time later, the shutter is released.

[paulr]

A film photograph is physically, necessarily, and materially bound to its subject in the same way as a graphite rubbing, a footprint, or a silicone rubber cast. It is a straight line case of a substance direct on substance action. ...

Maris, you're talking about the semiotic nature of photographic materials. This relationship you describe, where the sign is a direct imprint of the thing signified, is called an indexical relationship. I happen to think this type of relationship between subject and image is a fundamental characteristic of photography.

But I disagree with you on most of your points. I don't believe that an image formed on a digital sensor is any less indexical than one formed on an analog one. And I don't think there's anything about a medium's capability of recording straight, indexical images that guarantees straight, indexical results.

In other words, film, while it can record a direct imprint of a real world subject, is not bound to doing so. For 150 years, photographers have been photographing things that don't exist, removing things that exist from photographs, and fundamentally changing the form of things through their photographs. All with film.

Digital media are not different in this regard; they can break the indexical relationship with the subject in all the same ways. They just happen to make it easier to do so.

[roresteen]

Understand - there is NO inherent advantage in film that cannot be overcome digitally. People will argue that film has a different look, or different quality; if those qualities are in sufficient demand, they can be created digitally. Again, the question is more one of economics than technical.

Greg - in terms of quality I have to take issue with your statement. The internet is littered with many attempts to replicate the "film" look. It falls short, to be polite.

Film color is smooth and not punchy, digital well, is digital.

Film tonality is smooth across the range...digital is not bad, but nor superb like film is from MF on up.

Film color can be reproduced but it's depth cannot - or at least not without an obvious digital footprint applied to it.

Film has the uncanny ability to be sharp and smooth at the same time:







I have noticed a significant advantage in shadow detail and depth with the Mamiya C330 with pro stock color negative film. A D3 or 5D cannot replicate this in camera.

Another reason for a resurgence in film is the digital "promise" many would-be MWAC or DWAC's realize is that you must become a Photoshop jockey more than a..photographer, to get those *awesome* images you see everywhere.

So many good images can come right out of the can with film, not so much with digital.

Regardless of how 'good' digital supposedly is, it looks flat and probably always will be flat.

[GPS]

Yaawn..!

[venchka]

Yaawn..!

The difinitive response.