Dan Havlik, our photo guy, posted a thought-provoking forum question on PDNPulse, a fairly geeky photoblog. His question is simple: How many professional photographers use film on a regular basis? The responses, needless to say, were vociferous and varied.
I came into photography after the digital revolution. A buddy of mine in Boston called me about a year ago and asked me which camera to buy. I told him the digital Rebel XT, my own camera of choice. He went instead with a cheaper 35mm Rebel. He told me that it would be the “Last film camera he ever bought” and assumed he would use it for a few years and then buy a 100-megapixel DSLR for $59.99 at Target when the prices went down. He took it back to the store a week later and bought a digital Rebel.
Say what you like about the analog “richness” of film and the sense that cameras like the Leica have defined our century. These devices defined our century because those iconic shooters didn’t have digital cameras. While pictures of fleeing Vietnamese children and poor sharecroppers look stunning in black and white on a piece of Kodak paper, these photos are stunning because a professional photographer was in the right place at the right time with a camera that didn’t suck. Give WeeGee of Avedon a Rebel and they’d probably be able to turn in some of the most striking work you’ve ever seen. Kids learning the craft of photography coming up will still be making iconic images in digital, and I think it’s time film went the way of the VHS tape.
Attack of the Luddites [PDNPulse]
I studied photo for a while, using both film and digital cameras. Film sucks. It adds like 80 steps to the process of producing a final image.
today, with the infinite post-production capabilities, it makes no sence to use film.
I use a nikon d80. i also shoot film. i love the whole process of developing my own film in the darkroom. its much more exciting than taking 100 photos and picking and choosing what i like better on my digitial…its nostolgic really
I think digital is fine for birthday parties and other “snapshot” events. But if you want to be serious about photography — from learning how to take The Next Great Shot to ensuring every detail is captured without any “artifacts” — you’ll shoot film.
I wrote a rather lengthy blog entry about it over here: http://mactactoe.com/blog_files/318b634456516934775cf4ed8e61c114-6.html
Digital is easy, for people with no brains or time to use them.
Digital cameras, even in $7-800 range are built like throwaway CRAP that they are- 35mm slr film cameras were built to last.
35mm SLRs gave you more control and capability- filters, depth of field, specialized lenses, exposure control, and much, much more allowed film to be used by ARTISTS or BUBBAS. Digital makes us all BUBBAS.
Have always wondered why conversion kits weren’t made to turn film 35mm SLR bodies into digital SLRs with flexibility and control-
FILM is physical- can’t be lost in a drive crash, print colors don’t fade in 5 minutes- and in my experience digital pics do degrade dependent on file and/or media types.
Film, especially slide film, is basically INFINITE MEGAPIXELS ( can be reproduced in any size)- digital will always be limited to the original file size and compression when the button was pushed….
Digital is SLOW- when doing action sequences in HiRes…any SLR will kill ANY digital camera in this regard….pretty amazing when you consider the film must be physically moved between shots…
IMHO digital is a good replacement for polaroids, as a toy for kids of all ages, for evidence photographs, for really stupid people, not much else.
I do like it for the ability to take infinite shots at no real cost to find the best one…
At age 14 I saw a friend develop a roll of film and make contact sheet in his closet. As I walked home I decided to become a professional photographer. Twelve years later I was working for the #1 company in the #1 market, New York City.
Would I have been as moved by seeing the process done digitally? Of course not! Because anyone can do it digitally.
What I saw was borderline magic at the time in the 1960s. I soon acquired a 35mm camera and a darkroom where I preceded to spend countless hours making every mistake possible. The mistakes were painful…very painful. Those mistakes forced me to think and learn how to use LIGHT to tell a story. In College I shot over 40 rolls of B&W film a week and I was absolutely positive what I had exposed in my camera the moment the shutter clicked because I shot and developed so much so often. Only amateurs and idiots ever said out-loud “I can fix it in the darkroom”. IT HAD TO BE SHOT RIGHT TO LOOK RIGHT!
Digital film does the same thing to photography that electronic video tape cameras did to news and documentary cinematography. It lets the idiots in. The use of the medium doesn’t make you an idiot it’s relying on it to do your job that makes you an idiot.
Regardless of the medium only a real photographer can hand you an image and say nothing knowing full well you see what he saw. A photographer tells a story with light, not pixels, not film,LIGHT!
Convenience isn’t everything, and I noticed that the first few people who made comments here are obsessed by convenience. Film is by far a superior medium. There is a reason big budgeted studio films are shot on film, not digital video. The digital video is just cheap looking. It is really noticeable on a big screen at the theater. A movie shot digitally looks dull, flat, and unsaturated in color compared to film. Not to mention the fine details and nuances of the human face that is lacking on DV. No matter what you apply in Premiere or Final Cut Pro this digital look can’t be fixed, nor can Photoshop fix the flaws of digital stills. Fast action against a background on DV has that interlaced blur no matter what you do in post. Lastly a digital camera’s CDC chip has very little dynamic range of exposure compared to film. God forbid you have a bright light and a shadow in the same frame with a digital camera. The light will blow out the picture as too bright while there is no detail in the shadows.
I am a cinematographer who has used both DV cameras, and 16 mm film cameras. It is no contest that film is superior and more artful. I have digital cameras at home, and I love them for their convenience too. But when I have serious photos to take, I get out my film SLR. There is nothing outdated nor old fashion about film at all. I have a good guess that these film detractors above are of the Ritalin raised generation. Have a conversation, don’t text. Prepare a good meal, not a microwaved box nor bag from a drive-thru window. Have a good glass wine, not an energy drink. Learn the fine art of film photography, not point and shoot digital.