Digital or Film?

Question

OK...here's the million dollar question....my professional photograhper friend and I have a serious debate...In my opinion, digital photography is great...as far as it being utilitarian, conveniant, efficent, etc, etc...however...not the best for true "artistic" photography. I feel that it pulls away from the art to have an image digitized and broken down into pixils and then rescrambled back together on an LCD screen. To have an image that is actually burned by light into film seems much more authentic and real. My photographer friend thinks it makes no difference and doesn't interfere with the artistic process to use digital. Any thoughts?

Let me make a couple of comments on my mindset...looking at the responses thus far...I'm in fact in my early 30's...however...my family owned one of the first photography studios in the US...so...needless to say...I have a bit of an inclination to film...I have boxes and boxes of glass negatives, film negatives, etc, etc...maybe I should re-phrase my question---it's not that I debate that artistic expression can't ever be used through digital...it's that I feel that to remain true to the "craft" of photography....in it's origianal artistic form...going through the processes of film must be used...and in turn...a more authentic work of art that represents the original nature of photography is produced...ie..burning light into film...if photography is evolving....it should be renamed to digital imaging

Answer 1

for artistic purposes, film is the way to go. not only is the picture better quality, but it takes a true artist to see something, and take a picture of it with 35mm film and know what he's doing, instead of takign a picture of something and then editing it to look better. anyone can edit on photoshop, not everyone can take good 35mm pics. it's truly a rare and dying art form.

digital's great if you want to edit it and do something fun with it, but when i take pics of my 17 month old nephew, he sits still for the 35mm camera longer than the digital camera (probably because it looks weird..) and my photos allways turn out better than the ones i take with the digital, even when he is still.

plus, since film can't be altered without noticeable differences, while digital photos can be changed easily, courts want film for evidence pics. so as long as peopel kill other people, and police want photographs of the scenes, there's gonna be film.

Answer 2

Of course, there is no right or wrong answer here. The medium is determined by the artist. As a photographer, I had used the multitude of options available in film photography for many years. However, with the wide lattitude and unlimited choices offered in digital, the lab and film has become obsolete for me. There is nothing I cannot do on film that can't be duplicated easier & faster using the many graphic programs available. I prefer Paint Shop Pro or Corel. Why buy & store, or carry & attach a 1A filter when the warmth can be adjusted by changing gamma on your computer? Saturation can be changed on the laptop, instead of the lab. Bracketing is now a thing of the past.

I'm certain this question was asked by someone when George Eastman produced the first Brownie cameras. Roll film vs plates? Even before Eastman, some people probably did not see the artistic value of capturing artwork with lens and film, instead of laboring for hours, days, or years with brush and oil paints.

Again, it is strictly opinion that matters here, but I tend to agree with your friend. Digital is here to stay. If you saw some of the original artistic prints I have sold, you might agree. Or not.

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Answer 3

Whether it is digital or film; it is still light that creates the image. Only the medium is different. I was once lucky enough, and had enough money to pay for the opportunity to have Ansel Adams look at a photo I printed after having spent nearly 8 hours in a darkroom and selecting it from amongst 10-12 prints of the same subject. His judgment was "Junk!" and into the dirt it went. Now he wasn't being selective, since 7 photographs of other aspirant photographers met the same demise. What I am saying here is that I can now obtain a better print using a GOOD digital camera, and Photoshop in far less time. The world evolves, and so has photography.

Answer 4

I agree that digital photography should be renamed digital imaging. In a way photography with a film camera and photography with a digital camera are two completely different art forms all together. With film, you are involved in the process of its outcome manually, which in my opinipon is more traditionally artistic (working with your hands, etc.), while digital photography is mainly working with computers which takes a different kind of skill and therefore is in my opinion a whole different kind of art (graphic art, etc.). They both just take different methods and equipment to get an end result. The reason your friend sides to digital is because digital pictures are obviously going to be more precise (which is important for pros i guess) and there are more options because of the computer, but any computer geek can then be called an "artist". So, traditionally speaking, I would have to agree that film photography is the way to go if you want to stay true to artistic roots by still being able to use your own controls for the end product (not that of a machine/computer).

Answer 5

I work in a Photoshop. It doesn't really make difference between digital and film. For a good picture, you really need a good eye and some experience with lights and position.
When you develop a film, it's not a 100% sure that the chemicals on the machine are a 100% good but still your pictures will look okay.
After developing a film in the first chemical machine, your film goes to the printer which uses other chemicals for the printer so you will end up having 2 chemical process for films while digital only takes the second step so digital pictures will have a better chance to be printed without colour changes unless you change yourself.

Answer 6

I agree with your friend. In reality, the silver solution on the film is very much like a digital image in that the silver is in millions of spots across the film. That is why enlarging a photo taking using a low speed film results in a "grainy" looking photo.

Digitial simply moves it from a chemical process to an electronic process.

The artistry is not in the equipment but the composition. If you have a quality digital camera that has the same type settings as a film camera, one cannot tell the difference in the resulting photos.

Answer 7

With no disrespect to those that prefer to shoot digital, I am a staunch film user for many reasons. First, the image does yield great detail, particularly in the shadowy area, the image itself seems to have a quality of depth within the paper unique only to film images. Also, film has great latitude for error while slide film has may 3 and digital may have just 1 (film has about 5/6).

Insofar as the artistic process, I think it suffers only insofar as the photographer not studying the subject/scene to be photographed by will take multiples shots in hopes of salvaging one or two. The thought process of looking through the camera's viewfinder is the same... for those who plan each and ever shot, anyway. The techniques for portraiture doesn't change, the same light is used (artificial and/or natural lighting).

Aside from the fact that digital gives you the immediate satisfaction of seeing your images on the LCD, the images on the LCD and/or the PC monitor, the images are back lit so they SEEM to look better, like slides look better once projected... but not necessarily when printed.

I also prefer film because it not more expensive as the proponents of digital technology would have me believe. First, I need the camera that is about 5 to 7 times more expensive than a film camera with the same features. Don't forget that while I use film, the digital memory is not that cheap... and the problem of having to backup the images to prevent loss of information as a result of corruption which leads to a loss of images on the hard drive, or CD (CD and DVD images do not last forever and can be lost if a magnet is placed near it, of left by heat source or the sun or scratched... etc).

Don't forget that the images are also only as good as the printer. And, speaking of printers, you have to upgrade every few years, like you do with the camera, and the archival inks and archival papers are not that inexpensive. Also, you must buy a device so that what you see on the monitor conforms (or syncs) with what the memory card has color-wise. This has to be done every few months (and those devices are not all very cheap). Oh, don't forget the use of batteries (rechargeable? You need the charger and the outlet and the cost of the rechargeable batteries). Oops, don't forget that you need cables for the camera to the card reader and the card reader and the cables and the card readers cost money. You need to learn how to use the card reader, you need to use the device to color coordinate with between the computer, the card information and the printer. Did I mention how delicate those cameras are? They're easily damaged by humidity, or the heat from the sun or ambient heat source. How about the time you spend tweaking and color correcting or adjusting the images and reviewing and learning different programs and procedures for images on a hard drive or card or CD or DVD? There's also the use of a portable hard drive or some other device for backing up that avid photographers using digital technology get. All of these peripherals add up to quite a hefty sum, and even more so when you consider that you have to buy a new camera every 2 years (since the one you buy today is usually outdated in 6 to 8 months), along with the printers and the computer programs... all of these are added expenses... and they say it's cheaper than buying a roll of film and having it developed?

I heard one guy say that he take about 1,000 images in a week. But that's because he machine guns his shutter button... which doesn't necessarily make him into a better photographer... while film users do not... (too costly a habit) and they want to compare the cost of taking 1,000 a week... hardly seems like a fair proposition since I won't shoot that many ANYWAY, let alone with film that has to be developed. Taking 1,000 to discard 900+ ain't gonna make anyone a better photographer!

Insofar as digital cameras, why do the repairs cost so much when most of the time they're done via computer programs that re-program the camera chips, which takes a few minutes? And, replacing the chips is not really a chore for a rocket scientist! But why so damned expensive?

Would you believe that there are film images in my family taken well BEFORE 1900? Look at those images taken during the Civil War! Will digital images last that long? Environmental factors cause the printed images to fade (such as aerosol sprays, sun light, UV rays from fluorescent lights, humidity, heat, etc).

One other thing. Most digital camera users will discard the images that they don't like... rather than have them to study for purposes of learning from their mistakes and improving their techniques. Instead, they machine-gun the shutter button in hopes of getting at least one good photo out of 30 or 40 images.... !

Well, there's so much that I can say but, as I said, I am not in anyway fanning a fire or trying to draw anyone into a debate. These are just my own opinions and I respect anyone's opinion and right to disagree with me.

Answer 8

I'm drawn to the process of working with film, partly because it's what I grew up with. I like simple, mechanical cameras, and I like working in a darkroom. But to say that film is more "artistic" than digital seems like a stretch to me.

As much as I like using film, it's just a tool for conveying a particular vision of reality. A CCD or CMOS sensor is another tool. There's nothing that makes chemistry "more artistic" than electronics. The authenticity that comes with exposing and developing silver halide film is sort of illusory. . . photography itself is an artifice, and I think it would be a mistake to posit that a traditional method is more "authentic" than a modern one. All photography is inherently deceptive by its very nature.

Answer 9

Arts evolve. I believe both film and digital photography are, or can be, artistic. Both processes have thier limitations and points they do betther than the other.

I know this is a photography question but here's a answer to your follow up question refering to naming it digital imaging. Would you consider an acrylic painting to be something other than a painting?

Answer 10

Digital is nice but will not come close to getting the fine detail that shows up in film. Most pro commercail pictures are done with either midium or large format FILM cameras (2 1/2 in x 2 1/2 negatives or larger) because of the fine details in the pictures.