Digital v Film

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Hi Guys I need your opinion on this subject.... Digital or Film, Film or Digital
Am doing a presentation at Uni next week about the pros and cons of both meduims... i would like to know what you think, and your views on which one is best and why.... thanks i know you wont let me down
__________________
 
I think this page sums it up very nicely

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/why-we-love-film.htm

Generally speaking, film has greater dynamic range.
Resolution-wise I think 35mm film translates to 22MP which means medium formats and large formats are even greater.

Some people believe there's some sort of magic with film... which is often about the look that you get from different types or film or ways of processing. Although I would say that you can pretty much get all of that in post-processing of digital photos.

Digital wins when it comes to post-processing, all sort of stuff you can do with photoshop etc.
It also wins when it comes to it's ability to shoot a lot of photos on one memory card and you can keep a lot of memory cards easily in a bag. So shooting sports becomes a lot easier when you can burst shoot a million frames without the need to change film.
 
Digital opens up cheap high quality photography to the masses. Simples
 
I like film because it makes something that exists physically by default, the entire process is much more tactile, digital feels very detached in that respect.
Digital is also very clinical, its too perfect, synthetic looking.
Film has imperfections, grizzely bits, I like that about film, it lives.

There is no best, it depends on your point of view, the job you want it to do, time and financial constraints.
All I can say is if I had the choice, I wouldn't ever shoot digital, apart from the look, technology has made it just too damn simple to be interesting...:)
 
King_Boru said:
He has to be one of the worst reviewers / writers I have come across on the internet. :wacky:. But this article has some credible advice.
Click to expand...

Yea, the reviews are kinda crap. Especially those ones when he compares two or more products, he just kind of randomly choose one and just say it's better at the end without much justification. nevertheless, there are some useful info on that site...
 
Well, here's my opinion :D

Image quality wise:
Film is obviously analogue, and so more information can be derived from this kind of medium with the correct scanner. Usually the optical diffraction limit equates to around 4800DPI. After that, you are simply interpolating up, so this simply adds pixels and in effect reduces the quality as it's a software process. It should be noted that whilst slightly more information (generally) can be derived from film per unit area of negative, the sharpness will not match that of digital. Some might argue this, but discrete pixels will always produce a sharper image than film grain will. (unless of course the film ISO is silly low, like < 12)

The "feel" of film:
Film does have a distinctive character to each brand. This is a chemical fact. However this is not in dispute. I have tried to replicated a certain films' "feel" in PS and never managed it. This might be due to my inability in PS, but still far too much faff when the film itself and a good scanner / enlarger is a much easier solution.

35mm vs larger formats:
Tonal graduation is a wonderful thing! Larger the format, the better the tonal graduation, and in a sense, a better feel to the image as a result. Then comes the fact that you can get more information from a larger negative. So much so, that if I scan in my 6x7 format negatives at 4800DPI on a good scanner, I can get a 120MP image easily.

Dynamic range:
Black and white film is far greater than colour in most cases. Don't quote me on this, but Ilford FP4+, for example, has a dynamic range of around 10 stops iirc. My D700 however is higher than that (According to most quoted figures). Colour films such as Velvia tend to be utterly rubbish, coming in at around 4-5 stops.

However!

When it comes to running costs, ease of use, ease of processing, ease of publication, cost per frame shot, etc etc etc (and there are many many reasons), digital wins. Hands down. Personally, I shoot street and landscapes. So medium format comes out for landscapes, but I use the digital for everything I do. So, as for what I think is best? It depends entirely on what you want to shoot. I wont say Film > Digital, or Digital > Film, because that would be far too narrow minded imho.

Also, take Ken with a pinch tbh. Some of stuff he harps on about, like the HDR stuff. Yeah.... lol.
 
Now I'll openly admit that what I'm about to say is based purely on the books I've read and not on my own scientific testing but I'm not going to let that stop me.

People always say that film hasd a greater dynamic range than digital, it's probably true but not if you hand the film in to snappy snaps for developing and printing. To get the maximum dynamic range you have to know what you're doing, you won't get greater dynamic range by default. To maximise the dynamic range of film (specifically B&W here) you have to over expose a high contrast scene to ensure you get the shadow detail. Then you have to under develop it (pull processing) to protect the highlights. Then you have to print on the right paper. Print on the wrong paper and you won't see the benefits of the increased dynamic range you've found.

I think scanning is another thing all together because now you will have the dynamic range of the scanner (talking flatbeds not drums here) to consider, it's probably no better than a digital camera.

I picked up creative B&W photography by Les Maclean in one of those bargain bookshops the other day for £2 and it's been mind blowing how easily he explains all of this compared to the Roger Hicks book I bought on B&W. Not a single mention of dLogE curves so far(y)
 
goldie said:
Hi Guys I need your opinion on this subject.... Digital or Film, Film or Digital
Am doing a presentation at Uni next week about the pros and cons of both meduims... i would like to know what you think, and your views on which one is best and why.... thanks i know you wont let me down
__________________
Click to expand...

You could bring up the subject of archiving....if digital joe public didn't get all their important shots done on excellent "long life" prints, then where will all their jpgs be, say in 20 years time. Some things to talk about:-

How long will files on a DVD or CD last?
Hard drive crashes and how long will the magnetic info last on a seperate backed up hard drive?
Can you guarantee any files backed up to a company on the net wont go bust and you lose them?
 
I like both, they both have their place. Film I like because of it's physical presence and the way you get involved from start to finish in a process that is very much hands on and dirty where results are achieved relative to skill and time put in.

Digital? Well there's no doubt digital allows people to improve faster if only because of the speed from capture to image produced... sometimes though it's that very speed which stops the full potential of a picture being realised. Film images, (once in the darkroom), have to be considered, thought about, imagined almost... I do find that sometimes my digital post processing becomes a bit automatic. This can be borne out by the "custom filters" and batch processing options in many software packages. OK yes, I realise that it's all down to the individual, but film processing does tend to make you stop and think right from day one.

Arthur
 
thankyou all so very much your comments are very insightfull and helpfull
 
oh come on you lot stop beating about the bush the answer is film ( well it is in here anyway ) because you really are capturing the light ,digital??pah ( was that ok ? )
 
Taking a photo with a film camera was a pleasure. I tended to take a lot more of the same scene due to the unknown correct exposure of the final image. Having developed & printed BW film at home (sometime ago) I found it most rewarding rolling my film onto a patersons tank reel, developing then watching the process of the formation of the image in the trays. The digital cameras I own now are handy for picture taking and cheaper for mass images but technology rapidly makes your current camera redundant. Film cameras used different formats to improve picture quality along with different asa speeds. Were more reliable using a small battery to run the metering and or click the shutter. I have a kodak folding camera (1912) that has no battery and all mechnical. Put some roll film through this and photos were pretty good. I have 1000's of slides taken with a film camera that would have been better stored on a hard disk to take up less room and easier to manage.
 
Woodsy said:
Well, here's my opinion :D

The "feel" of film:
Film does have a distinctive character to each brand. This is a chemical fact. However this is not in dispute. I have tried to replicated a certain films' "feel" in PS and never managed it. This might be due to my inability in PS, but still far too much faff when the film itself and a good scanner / enlarger is a much easier solution.
Click to expand...


Just to clarify, my use of the word "magic" wasn't trying to say it's some disputed myth. It's just a lot of people refer to tht as film magic. And as this points out, it's due to types of film and chemical. But as long as it's chemical, it means there is a degree of logic in it (i.e. some sort of fomula to turn an image to the film outcome) then a computer can always replicate. And the beauty of computers is that, once you've done it once, you can save the process and have the next picture processed this way in 1ms.

The thing is, so many people attribute this as an advantage of film but to me it just isn't, because it can be done with digital. That's why I hate it when someone says they love film because there is just this film tone etc to the images... Where film wins is with it's dynamic range and availability of large format.
 
donutagain said:
oh come on you lot stop beating about the bush the answer is film ( well it is in here anyway ) because you really are capturing the light ,digital??pah ( was that ok ? )
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actually... I guess you can also argue the same way about digital. With film, the light hits the film and starts some sort of chemical reaction... then you end up with a pool of chemicals.

with digital, the light hits the sensor photodiodes and transfer some of the energy to the sensor circuit and into electrical impulses. thus with digital, you actually preserve the energy... but then again with the chemicals, it could be argued that the energy is stored in chemical form... you know what, I don't know...
 
I still use black & white film,Sometimes colour,my wife likes digital because she can come home and load it on to the computer.
 
fumiyasu said:
The thing is, so many people attribute this as an advantage of film but to me it just isn't, because it can be done with digital. That's why I hate it when someone says they love film because there is just this film tone etc to the images... Where film wins is with it's dynamic range and availability of large format.
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That's just your opinion, I don't agree.
Digital always looks synthetic imo, even when its trying to mimic film it still looks plastic/electronic/manmade/manufactured.
If there is a film "look" (and I think there is), then the digital "look" is synthetic.
 
John

My views on this are fairly well articulated; and I completely agree with what you say John ( and I am assuming you are talking of wet printing from a negative, or a slide film; rather than a negative scanned and then printed.)

On a slightly different note, isn't there 2 stages where a film differs from digital

1. The final print : There is a qualitative difference between the wet printed photograph and the output from a printer. In that respect, a ' film - negative - wet printing ' is much more attractive that a ' film-negative -scan-printer ' output. Also how much difference is there between a ' film -negative - scan-printer output ' when compared to ' digital file - printer output ' . I suspect the difference is vastly reduced if the same quality printer and scanner is used in both cases.

2. The ability to change the the output of the camera : In a film, this is / was not usually done. Barring major darkroom activities ( such as the famous Trotsky wipe out), most photographs were cropped, dodge and burn and exposure controlled. At least for the amateurs and semi pros ( i will ignore the whole fashion / advertisement/media industry here, they were out to sell an image not a photograph). Compared to that, most of the digital photographs are majorly altered; in every respect; colour, contrast, crop, look, feel, grain...everything.Even things that were not possible / very difficult to achieve in the darkroom. Now, while this has enabled many to create attractive images all the time, such creation is a combination of camera + computer.

To me, a photograph is what comes out of a film camera ( and printing process); and an image is what comes out of a digital camera. I have to admit that the digital process ( camera and computer) has enabled most to create attractive image; and what almost anyone can do is not challenging or exclusive enough.

The chinese make copies of paintings by first photographing them and then by spray painting in such a way that you will never know its a fake. I have seen a few in a shop; and its both scary and repulsive. The reason we value a good painting is becasue only few can paint it; and its a diffcult skill ( both the art and the craft). If along comes a software which enables us to convert out vision of a painting ( and we all have visions, its the skill to convert the vision into a painting that we value) into a nice painting, everybody will become a painter; and it will lose its charm.

In realtiy, the most important reason I dislike digital image making is because, with digital , evaryone can produce reasonably nice images - with a little bit of skill and practise. And to me, the exclusivity and charm is gone.

Just a random rambling on a thursday evening :LOL::LOL:
 
I have bought into film AFTER digital. I find that I shoot hundreds of images with digital that are rubbish because I don't take as much time over my shots. I find that when I am shooting film I take more time over it and I have a higher percentage of keepers (because I have to pay every time I press the button).

I love the feel of black and white images taken on film and for some reason digital do not come out quite the same. I for one will not be replacing my D700 with film but I like to have both.
 
Let's have a look at the original brief again:

Pros and Cons of Digital or film. There is no, one is better than another - it is an arguement to differentiate the plusses and minusses of each.

Film has SOUL. There is an emotional as well as a physical attachment to a film derived picture, be that negative printed or a transparency viewed on a lightbox through a loop. As humans we NEED those emotive forces to drive us, having to wait for results is good for our physiological well being, the anticipation and subsequent euphoria of seeing a good result stimulates hormones (endorphines) in our brains which ultimately are good for our health, even if the chemicals aren't. The subsequent failures that we have also waited for serve as good lessons in both photographic technique and expectation.
Film has a proven archival quality - there are photographs around taken over 130 years ago.
Film requires a greater degree of input from the creator, I think this is a good thing as it is this ability or inability that seperates photographers from snappers, from just film wasters. I don't see this as a drawback.
There is a uniqueness about film images because the moment of capture produces only ONE negative or transparency - this can be copied, but not multiplied.

Digital imaging is souless. It provides an instant gratification to the masses with less input from the creator. It could be argued that a wrongly taken picture is as bad in either form and it is automation of the taking process that has allowed idiots to produce useable pictures rather than the storage medium itself.
Digital has a cleaner workflow, but conveniently everyone forgets the precious metals and noxtious processes involved in creating the sensors and storage cards where small boys have to mine dangerous minerals from the bowels of the earth and then those minerals get transported round the globe three times....so digital is about as ecofriendly as hybrid cars are (metals mined in south America shipped to Germany to produce the batteries then they in turn shipped to Japan....the whole thing is one big con). The difference is the toxic elements of the process are divorced from the creator of the image and hidden in some 3rd world country out of sight, so out of mind.
Digital has reduced the unit cost of producing an image and reduced the time it takes to see the result. One consequence of this is it has led to disorganisation in the user....why do I need to plan ahead, you can take the picture now and get it to me in 5 minutes time (the fact I knew about the project 6 months ago and forgot to do anything about it is irrelevant because the system allows me to get it NOW.) So everything is done just too late, rather than just in time!
Digital allows the production of perfect copies so multiplying up the image numbers is easy and each one is identical - just make a copy. Film cannot do this. A copy of a neg/tranny is degraded from the original. Scanning and subsequent multiplying up is digital.
Digital archiving has yet to be tested. DVDs and Cds delaminate in the wrong environment quite quickly. I have no idea how long hard drive storage will last - it is one of the things that will be interesting in 75 years time when people want documentary evidence of these years. On the up side, digital storage takes up far less room. One DVD will store, full size, a whole filing cabinet full of trannies worth.
Digital pictures provides for ease of movement between people and places. Trannies or film stock had to be physically moved about the place (bike couriers have lost out because of this!) digital can just go down the wire.


Those are some more points you might like to either include, or use as inspiration for your own ideas and thoughts.
 
joxby said:
That's just your opinion, I don't agree.
Digital always looks synthetic imo, even when its trying to mimic film it still looks plastic/electronic/manmade/manufactured.
If there is a film "look" (and I think there is), then the digital "look" is synthetic.
Click to expand...

before I say anything, I think film is cool... so I am not a hater... just thought I would make this clear first...

I think part of this synthetic-ness is to do with the how the imaging software algorithms were written. Often, it's done too perfectly with no random errors that you can get with film during the creation process. But if the imaging software was written better, soul-ness can be added. I a way, i guess what I didn't make clear is that when I talk about film vs digital in terms of advantages, I like to think of it in extreme. What are the limitations and digital manipulation can never create certain film characteristics is a hard claim. After all, film also captures an image. the difference between this and the end print is the experience it's gone through from the shutter opens and the developing. Anything that happens pretty much have to obey the laws of physics (unless there's some kind of quantum physics phenomenon that I am missing) and therefore they are done in a repeatable constant way (repeating might be very hard, for example for some sort of light leak and the different light that got leaked in at different situations, but in theory, it is repeatable if everything happened exactly the same..).. So as long as you have amazing attention to detail, it is possible through digital manipulation. So I just can't say this is a limitation of digital, because it depends on how good you are at this stuff, but not the limitation of the technology.

I actually really like to be able say when asked why I took film today instead of the 5D and say because there is some sort of magical film character that cannot be archived in digital but no. It's because I can't be bothered to try and copy that with digital, I just want to take the shot, forget about it and see how it turns out. And probably, my computer skills would only get me so far in copying film, so there are some character that perhaps I am unable to copy. But that's just the limit of my ability, not the technology. It doesn't mean that the world's greatest photoshopper can't do it.

However, what you've made be realize, is that one thing you don't get with digital, is the journey that the film goes through until it gets developed and locked in. It's this fragile nature of it and susceptible to changes from after the shot and before it goes into the darkroom. thus it's this journey that's unique to film.

So basically, what I am saying is, it's not a technical limitation but it's the difference in creation process that gives you different characteristics with the end results. You can probably simulate all this stuff with digital, and it will look pretty close if you are good, but it's just pointless and you lose that random-ness.

There you go... I now have a better speech to make about why to use film...
 
please dont shoot me for what im about to say lol

but i think the digital photography makes a photographer lazy all you have to do is shoot 100's of shots till you get a good one

with film you have to think long and hard before you press the shutter

now saying that i understand that technology moves on and new tools come in but the cost of a good DSLR is out of the reach of 90% of us

i can goto ebay and pick up a pro film camera for next to nothing with powerful lenses

NIKON D300s £1'200 without lens now im sorry but thats just to high i like the D300s but even if i had the cash i would not pay that

for someone like me who just dont have the cash to buy a good DSLR then film opens up a way to us


if im honest the only thing i like about digital and it is the only thing is i can see my photos right away and as i use my photos to make my cards thats a big plus for me

but due to the cost of the cameras i have to use a compact digital

i think digital has its place but film it should not replace
 
cyberspider said:
please dont shoot me for what im about to say lol

but i think the digital photography makes a photographer lazy all you have to do is shoot 100's of shots till you get a good one

with film you have to think long and hard before you press the shutter

now saying that i understand that technology moves on and new tools come in but the cost of a good DSLR is out of the reach of 90% of us

i can goto ebay and pick up a pro film camera for next to nothing with powerful lenses

NIKON D300s £1'200 without lens now im sorry but thats just to high i like the D300s but even if i had the cash i would not pay that

for someone like me who just dont have the cash to buy a good DSLR then film opens up a way to us


if im honest the only thing i like about digital and it is the only thing is i can see my photos right away and as i use my photos to make my cards thats a big plus for me

but due to the cost of the cameras i have to use a compact digital

i think digital has its place but film it should not replace
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not gonna shoot ya, might attack your argument with a machete though :p

digital doesn't make good photographers crap, same as film doesn't make crap photographers good. Digital lets people LEARN a helluva lot quicker. Learning is a voluntary process if someone doesn't want to learn then it doesn't matter how they shoot. In addition having an LCD telling you you have the keepers you need then you can start get creative knowing you have that saftey net.

the money thing is straight up irrelevant as good film bodies were expensive back in the day and plenty of people DO shell out for high end digi bodies. Your comment seems only to relate to you. Oh and the best pro film bodies take current pro lenses (eos 3 ect which are dammed expensive anyway).

I'll give you entry-mid level film is cheaper set up than entry level digi but running costs are high, they're high for me and I have free chemicals and my own darkroom.

The thought process in a film image takes place in a digital one. I spend most of my life in manual and I consider which tones to meter from and where to focus and how to compose. I have an extra step on my digi body and that is checking my frame before I walk on or set the next up, I find this invaluable.

Yeah, digi rocks, film rocks (y)
 
david1701 said:
not gonna shoot ya, might attack your argument with a machete though :p

digital doesn't make good photographers crap, same as film doesn't make crap photographers good. Digital lets people LEARN a helluva lot quicker. Learning is a voluntary process if someone doesn't want to learn then it doesn't matter how they shoot. In addition having an LCD telling you you have the keepers you need then you can start get creative knowing you have that saftey net.

the money thing is straight up irrelevant as good film bodies were expensive back in the day and plenty of people DO shell out for high end digi bodies. Your comment seems only to relate to you. Oh and the best pro film bodies take current pro lenses (eos 3 ect which are dammed expensive anyway).

I'll give you entry-mid level film is cheaper set up than entry level digi but running costs are high, they're high for me and I have free chemicals and my own darkroom.

The thought process in a film image takes place in a digital one. I spend most of my life in manual and I consider which tones to meter from and where to focus and how to compose. I have an extra step on my digi body and that is checking my frame before I walk on or set the next up, I find this invaluable.

Yeah, digi rocks, film rocks (y)
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thank you for your comment i do appreciate your view and respect your knowledge on the matter is greater than mine

just one thing though when you said
Your comment seems only to relate to you
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well yes it would as i can only speak for myself and how things affect me
others will think differently thats what makes the world go round :)

thank you again for your input
 
cyberspider said:
just one thing though when you said well yes it would as i can only speak for myself and how things affect me
others will think differently thats what makes the world go round :)

thank you again for your input
Click to expand...

it did occur to me after I posted that most of mine applied to me :bang: hehehehe
 
One of the beauties of film is it can deal with multiple colour tones without throwing a hissy fit, whereas I find digital tries to bias toward one or the other, meaning your reds become washed out, your blues too strong, etc. Film just aces the colours. I've taken photos of sunsets/sunrises on a PnS film camera when I was barely a teenager, that I have never been able to match on digital.

Maybe that's because I'm a photografail, but I do think film gets the trueness of the light much closer than digital. It also seems to have better contrast ranges?
 
...and using film is so simple, many of Joe public find digital cameras confusing yet like lemmings buy them.

Kodak's punch line "you click the button and we do the rest"
 
Digital wins hands down when you consider camera to final print. Just consider experimenting with catching moving shots (water drops for instance) with digital. You can say "Aw *****" and try again. With film, you have to take the shot, develop the film, print numerous shots and give up. Colour developing of film takes time and printing is a non starter.
 
Posting the question in Film and Conventional is going to give an obvious bias so I'm proposing to move this to Talk Photography. I'll wait until lunchtime to give people the opportunity to post any reasonable objections.
 
fabs said:
Posting the question in Film and Conventional is going to give an obvious bias so I'm proposing to move this to Talk Photography. I'll wait until lunchtime to give people the opportunity to post any reasonable objections.
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I thought this thread came about because one was put in Talk Photography and it was suggested that having a thread in this sub forum might balance that one.
 
The main issue discussed here is preference. Film or Digital? Which do you prefer?

As hobbyists, we use the methods or technologies we feel most comfortable with or believe in the most, or simply whatever we can afford or what may be accessible.
As working photographers we select tools in a fairly similar way but they must meet a certain level of criteria to meet our clients requirements and the demands of the industry.
We need to survive as a business and the choice of tools plays a very important role in our investments.

I find the view that digital is a soulless process or so simple that even a monkey can achieve fantastic results is practically insignificant and extraneous.

It takes 'soul' to create technology. Technology itself has no 'soul', the soul, spirit or life etc is thankfully provided by the human element during use.

A robot, micro chip, camera sensor or program or whatever other bi product of technology, simply can't write literary master pieces nor can it produce anything else of significant artistic nature. The human element with photography, just like any other medium - is paramount.

Digital technology is only more efficient in terms of accessibility and procedure.

Is it 'easier' than film? Certainly is.

Will it make me a better photographer? Absolutely not.

It is arguable that you may learn a little quicker but all the graft in the mechanics, theory and practise of photography remains utterly the same.
 
gingerjon said:
I thought this thread came about because one was put in Talk Photography and it was suggested that having a thread in this sub forum might balance that one.
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Yep you're right, didn't see it as it was a month ago.

That said, don't see how putting it in here will give it balance as Film & Conventional covers just that whereas Talk Photography encompasses all. As I said, posting it in here just gives it a film bias as most who post in here are film users. I shouldn't imagine dedicated digital users will look in here very often.
 
fabs said:
Yep you're right, didn't see it as it was a month ago.

That said, don't see how putting it in here will give it balance as Film & Conventional covers just that whereas Talk Photography encompasses all. As I said, posting it in here just gives it a film bias as most who post in here are film users. I shouldn't imagine dedicated digital users will look in here very often.
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Agreed.

Although as film is better I don't see that as a problem.:D
 
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