What takes little effort to obtain, is often of little value; that which is hard to obtain, is frequently prized With digital, it is very easy to take photos. Taking 'good' photo's still takes effort, and is difficult, and thefore they still have value; but to do it with film? Can be more of a challenge, and therfore to get ANYTHING ultimately more rewarding. Said it over and over, 'Better' is subjective. Better at what? Matter of Image Quality has been done to death, and is ultimately pretty irrelevent. Few ever exploit the ultimate Image Quality either 35mm or Digital might offer, so what does it matter? Either can deliver more than 'Acceptable Quality Levels'. Cost has been done to death. Digital isn't 'Free'; and we shoot to the limits of our budget anyway; the camera and consumeables only being a part of the costs of getting a picture anyhow. Capabilities? Ability to change ISO setting or switch between Colour & B&W. Ability to machine-gun; all these sort of things? ALL are just as possible with film as with digital; just not necesserily with a single camera body; or at the flick of a switch or prod of a button. CONVENIENCE remains about the only significant difference. The convenience of shooting in a format that the image is most likely to remain in; which can more easily and rapidly be accessed, viewed, stored, transmitted, duplicated or manipulated. But the sacrifice for that convenience is 'Magic'. You shoot digital; you come home, take the card out the camera, stick it in the computer, copy to your hard drive, then click on the first one in the list, and it pops up, instantly, what, 15" wide or more? You know you took photo's; you probably saw them on the screen on the back when they were taken, and you got a frame review. You expect that them to be on the card, you expect them to be on teh disc and its no surprise when they pop up on the screen in all thier glory. When you shoot film, particularly slide film.... well... I KNOW that its only 'chemistry'.. I have a ruddy A-Level in the subject, I am a scientist, an empirasist... but even so... You take a little can out the back of the camera; you trim the ends of the leader you have been careful not to loose into the can on rewind; then put it, a pair of scissors, a developing tank and spiral into a changing bag, and working blind and by feel you wind the film onto the spiral, snip the film off the spindle, then put the loaded spiral in the tank, and seal it up, before taking it out the bag. You then pop the tank into a washing up bowl full of warm water, and add warm water to the tank to get it up to temperature, which you measure with a thermomenter stuck out the top. Meanwhile, you get your chemistry ready, and likewise, put the bottles of made up solution into the washing up bowl, and making sure you clean and rince the thermomenter between solutions... take all thier temperatures; scooping water out of the bowl and topping up with warm to keep them all constant. Like a parent, nursing a child, you nurture your latent image; tend to it, care for it, and following the instructions, slosh chemicals around like the mad scientis about to make that breakthrough that will save mankind! Eventually, after lots of intense adjustments; taking care to keep the temperatures correct, and watching your timings, the film is developed, and ready to rince; in warm water first, but cooling it, slowly back to room temperature, adding a little drying agent in the last rince... Then... then.. and with unsteady hands, you face the moment of truth... HAS IT WORKED! What will you find inside the tank? Will the film have dissolved? Have you cooked the emulsion? Have you over agitated it and got sloch markes and uneven development? Was there anything there to develop in the first place? Did you fog the film loading it onto the spiral? Did you kink it? Please, PLEAS dont tell me I cross threaded the spiral, or opened it and dropped the film out the grooves as I put it in the tank, and all I'm going to find in there is a much of stuck together celuloid! And, with shaking hands you lift the lid, and withdraw the spiral... and as the last rince drips, you SEE.... Little Pictures! Tiny, little minute photographs! And you hold them up to the light, as you squeegee off the damp of the last wash; and extract the film from the spiral, and weight it and hang it to dry... And you stand there, like a new father, EVERY BLOOMIN TIME.... stunned, marvelling at these little wonders of chemistry, hanging in the doorway, the light from behind shining through them. "I MADE THAT!" Its incredible. Doesn't matter if they are any good or not. It's just incredible they even EXIST at all! And you value them, because you made them. You invested your time, your effort, your know-how into producing them, and it WASN'T easy; it wasn't just a touch of a button, it WASN'T 'expected'.... It was MAGIC And that is something Digital just does not, CANNOT offer. I'll probably, well, almost certainly digitise any pictures I have taken on film; anyway, and it would be a heck of a lot easier to shoot directly, and more reliably and predictably, straight to digital.... but? But... there's no 'Magic' in that. No involvement; no challenge, and what comes 'easily' is often valued little; what is hard, prized. Now WHO the heck is this Bob Dylan character you are talking about?!
Was he that hippy fella my Mum & Dad used to listen to?
" One cannot be universally better than the other as they are different but one can be better for one person and the other better for someone else."