film vs. digital photography in the art world, are both equal?

Question

when photography was invented, painters and other artists considered photography a lower art form and some didnt even consider it an art form at all. now the same dispuit is arising around digital vs. film photography. as an art form is digital equal to film

you can actually do just about anything with film that you can with digital, look at jerry uelsmann's work, he did alot of work in the 70s i believe and as you can see that was well before the digital age

Answer 1

Today most artists/photographers are willing to give digital it's place. There are some very good works of digital photography.

However, as a photography teacher, I do not like digital; it's too easy, and the effects available sometimes can be used to disguise real problems with the basics. Film is a far superior medium for instruction, because you need to learn the steps, work on composition more, and confront your problems head on.

Answer 2

Digital photography lets you look at the pictures right away,meaning you could take another picture if need be whilst still on location, film requires processing before you can see the results. The discipline required for film may make you a better photographer, as you wont be so likely to rush your shots. If you are talking about Professional photography and working with RAW images as opposed to JPEGs a great deal of your time will be used on a computers and printers that are beyond your usual high street desktop. On an amateure level stay with digital, it's cheaper, faster, and easier to file away latent images. In response to a couple of previous answers, film does not suffer from colour bleed and as for how manymega-pixelss you need is dependent on many factors. As a rule of thumb compacts have very small sensors, cramming more than 12mega-pixelss on such sensors is very detrimentall to the image quality.

Answer 3

Just like anything else, there are pros and cons to both. Digital is faster and easier in some aspects, but bad news for some. There are special types of film on the market, and a "professional photographer", should know this. These special films allow you to do stuff that digital "can't" match. Black & White is the big argument. They are very close and in a standard photo, you can't tell the difference with the naked eye. But in tricky lighting, film can give where it needs to and digital can't really match it yet. In time, I'm sure they will. I'm also aware, that lots of people are going to disagree with me, but a true photographer would be open to either. I'm a freelance photographer myself. I prefer film, but use both digital and film. Some situations are better suited to one than the other. If you're wondering which to go with for yourself, try both, and see what you are more comfortable with. Photography is an art, and art is an expression of yourself. So use what "you" like.

Answer 4

No artistically speaking, they are not equal. Digital photography and film do have many similarities however it's the time, patience and manipulation in the darkroom which makes it more of an art form rather than the point and click factor.
i think through technology and time they will be equal and digital will, in a way, replace film because art is another form of change. but film will be in the future, just like painting, a creative outlet to look back on and be admired and discussed.

Answer 5

I disagree with Ipshwitz somewhat regarding B&W photography. I believe that in color work, digital can equal or even surpass traditional film. However, aside from comparing images on a VDT (video display terminal), you really can tell the difference between fine quality B&W film work and B&W digital work. I agree with Ipshwitz that it is up to the technical skills of the person producing the image, whether professional or not, but I guarranty that if you view a 16x20 or 20x24 print made from a medium (120 neg) or large format (4x5 or larger neg) with a film such as Iflord Pan F+, you will see a significant difference in the image made from digital. The difference comes from "growing chrystals" in the film of an infinitely smaller structure than you can produce through pixelation. Silver chrystals grown in film emulsion and print paper emulsion have a different look, sheen and reflectancy than their ink-based pixelated counterparts. You will also see a difference in an image made from scanning a B&W film negative and printed digitally, and the same negative printed on traditional gallerie quality photo paper. I know he is adamant. I would challenge Ipshwits to put up "identical" images shot on digital and then with traditional film and print and see then who can tell the difference. Of course, your only option would be to compare the pixelated renderings on your PC monitor again. But, if you could see them in person, I have no doubt most could see at least SOME differences. I hope that digital WILL one day be virturally indiscernable from traditional film/photo paper based images. The chemicals used to produce the latter are toxic, can poison, injure and kill people with improper use. But I say with confidence as a professional photographer for over 28 years, with a degree in photography and having hung several masters prints and passing the PPA 4 hour written exam in 45 minutes with no mistakes (that's right, no mistakes!) that anyone who has studied photographic imagery for a while, even a respectable amature, will be able to tell the difference between the two products when you are face to face with them. Anyone who works as a professional certainly can. I now do only Fine Art photography in the southwest, and would not consider at this time or in the near future using anything but traditional film and gallerie quality photo paper for my sale product. Soon, it may be come a "lost art" and then everyone will be asking "who can produce photographs the "old fashioned way" and there will be few of us left who can! I am also a retired computer technician and followed digital photography closely since it's inseption and look forward to the day when it does exceed all traditional film camera imagery!

Answer 6

Film and Digital Photography are not equal at all. With film you get limited shots, and have to pay for film and processing. With Digital you get to take a certain amount of shots depending on your memory card, A 1gb sd card with a NikonD50(i use) can hold 330 Regular JPEG photos. You also get presets, such as macro, action, portrait, baby, auto, program, manual, aperature/shutter. Digital is much nicer, but you can't gain the effects as you can out of a film camera. it's handy to have both. :)

Answer 7

There are thousands of reasons today, tomorrow I believe there wont be 10s.. It is not easy to inject the new happening into lives easily. It is always hard for Old Timer Pros to accept the faster, easier and powerful process. For example I am software developer when the DOS (Disk Operating System) was in and Windows was just a concept. We had to write each code for every process, now a .NET programmers mostly play with CLICKS for simple developments and we go like, "comeon man these are toys, do the real programming like we did"

But as Photographer I see digital camera is like heaven GOD I needed one, I been dreaming to take pictures of this and that from ages, but always hasitate because of so many things specially the cost of film, picture development, with limited resources and short time for experiments I never touched the film based cameras.

Now with digital all these costs are cut to none, had to get used to some settings and it is I think almost as tough as with any film camera. The lights the lense, shutter, ISO or ASA (filmspeeds) It took a while to understand all these. Lot of experiments helped a lot to clear the functions of each, which was not possible earlier due to HIGHLY investment of Money and Time.

The Quality, perhaps in start the digital camera was not good with the output but now time is changed, I read books in which the regular photographers are moving into digital and they appriciate it a lot. By using Digital Darkrooms (Software) they had same results as they enjoy in regular darkrooms, and in very well time, matter of hours instead of days.

I say Digital Camera is for Today and for Tomorrow, Old timers should jump into it and share their great experience with new technology to bring out some thing more extraordinary.

I am sorry if my speech is broken by 5am, it is hard to focus when language is not mothertongue :)

Answer 8

When digital cameras first flooded the market, the quality was that no where near what a film camera could produce.

However, now with Pro DSLR cameras there is no difference. The idea the film is more 'artsy' is a bunch of crap. I can produce on my pro DSLR what anyone else can do with their film without even editing it in photoshop.

What people really need to realize is that it's not a matter of film vs digital, it's a matter of photographer vs photographer. A pro photographer can produce superior images no matter what medium he is using... Pro Film, Pro Digital, Disposable, etc.

If there is one uneducated moron out there who believes there is truly a difference, I challenge them to prove it.

http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/ipshwitz/slideshow?.dir=/640ere2&.src=ph

If you look through those photos, 2 of them were done with film, the rest were digital. I can guarentee you can't tell which one was done with film. Why? Because the quality is dependant on the photographer, not the camera.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

I don't think they are equal. Digital allows the person to add or remove pixels to make the photo look good. With film, you have to be a little informed about apeture and speed.