What is the difference between a film photographer and a digital photographer?

Question

A film photographer says "Will you like fries with that hamburger"?

Answer 1

... and a digital photographer says, "Here are three thousand fries. Choose your favorite one, and I can copy it as many times as you want."

Answer 2

A digital photographer will say I can put an alien into your hamburger if you'd like.
A film photographer I believe is the better of the two.
Film cameras require more patience and a piece of art always needs time to become a piece of art right?
These cameras can be altered if they were carefully done with the negatives and can produce stunning effects that are totally hand done by humans such as double negatives with the SLR cameras.
With a digital camera, anyone can pose as a photographer and is able to create what type of effect they would like... but with a computer.
There are more controlled aspects to the digital camera where you can change anything you would like to with the touch of a button which does not necessarily require too much technique with the camera itself. Although there are digital SLR cameras out there now, they don't seem to be able to give such intricate details with a single mm of the focus ring on a manual SLR camera where everything is controlled by the photographer instead of the editter on the computer.
They may seem as though there isn't much difference to an untrained eye but each has its own difficulty to overcome with each type of camera.
Hope this helps ^^

Answer 3

The difference is in the camera. Most serious photographers today have made the switch to digital (at least the ones trying to make a living off their work). You can just do so much more with a digital than you ever could with film.

Answer 4

I don't there is much difference between Digital and Film photographers.
Digital Photographer's darkroom represents Photoshop or other computer softwares. and he uses the digital SLR cameras.

while film photographer uses the manual SLR cameras, has the special dark room where he develop the pictures in toxic chemicals and must be done under the special red lights.

in other hand, the digital photographer can do everything in few seconds, when film photographer needs time to produce an image.

Answer 5

This is a dilemma I am encountering all the time...I am a photographer who doesn't use digital ( yet), preferring instead to remain with the print or slide film media. There is an aesthetic reason for this where light manipulation and maximum control of ones craft are concerned, but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is akin to being a master blacksmith...a craft requiring great technical skill, to be sure, but of diminishing importance the less people ride horses in the mainstream. And if I intend to remain in this industry, I am going to have to make the jump at some point to digital...it is the future of photography. For one thing, when an image is blown up made from film, there is a maximum size allowed (dependent on several factors including film speed and the format in which one shoots) before the image is rendered "grainy" (newspaper-like texture) and therefore unsuitable for portraiture. This is overcome at great expense to the artist, which is then transfered to the client. Conversely, digital imagery can be blown up to ridiculously large sizes without a loss of resolution at a mere fraction of the cost. My personal qualms against digital photos has to do with the loss of creative control of the photographic process, but as the technology improves that is less and less a factor, and as I have already admitted, I am no expert on digital craftsmanship. In other words, they may already have solved that problem. From what I have seen of digital work lately, it makes me wonder if one day it won't put the photographer out of business altogether ( everyone and their grandmother uses a digital camera nowdays and gets pretty impressive results). Proofing is also a factor: when I shoot an event, I then have to take film in to be processed and then printed into viewable proofs...this is time consuming and costly. A digital photographer, conversely, could conceiveably shoot today, and proof this afternoon with the client ...saving time and money in the process. I understand why he extolls the virtues of film, because that's what I do, too. It's the craft I know, so of course I'll play up my strengths. But digital photography is making a strong case for itself in a lot of significant ways...and that can't honestly be ignored.

Answer 6

Why would he do that? Digital photography requires the same skills and knowledge as regular photgraphy, just better tools. This isn't obvious to amateurs who use prosumer kits. Although you can take very nice pictures with the best ones (for example, Sony's DSC-R1), it will never approach the quality of a professional d-SLR set manually and used with other professional equipment.

Compared to everything else having to do with professional photography, using the electronics is trivial, at best. A good film photgrapher can change over in a matter of days. The move from a prosumer to professional who just knows the electronics....takes YEARS.

Answer 7

There are 2 different types of camera and each is a photographer according to the equipment he uses.

Answer 8

film takes a lot more skill understanding and patience
I've been taking pictures professionally for ten years both film a digital and there is all kinds of stuff that i can't do digitally that comes naturally to film. Film reacts to light more organically. it also handle flesh tones more naturally.film grain gives way more detail than DPI

Answer 9

ideally, nothing but the camera they shoot with.

most professional photographers (including myself) use both-it just depends on what the client wants and on what is being shot, as each have their strengths and weaknesses.

generally, most people need digital images-so even if you shoot film you'll have to scan your images to create digital files.

Answer 10

the camera