what are the advantages of film camera over digital camera?

Question

will the use of filim camera stop for ever or will it be used by professsional for a good time forward in future?

Answer 1

There are still resolution and granularity issues, especially with large format, where film still has advantages over digital. I would assume that eventually digital technology will evolve to the point that these advantages will be negligible relative to the advantages that digital presents.

However, many professionals have shot film their entire lives. All their gear is built around film, their workflow is based on film, they know how to compensate and render artistic effects in the development process, etc. These guys will be very, very slow to convert over, simply because they know how to realize their artistry in a particular medium...no matter what advantages digital has, they'd be in many senses starting from scratch, and a pro doesn't have much desire to do that.

Good question. Best to you.

Answer 2

Just call it what it is - a camera. Give the nomenclature of the camera and you will be understood, for example - if you want a Leica M4, ask for a Leica M4 and they will understand you. All cameras are both analog and digital. The term analog represents the signal of a mechanism which measures a continuous physical variable, as either a voltage or pressure. The term digital represents a device which can generate, record, process, receive, transmit, or display information that is represented in discrete numerical form. When you use a film camera that has a light meter, it uses a device which measures the light, representing the measurement as a voltage (analog), then converts that signal into information that can be understood by a microprocessor, in discrete numerical values of either 1 or 0 (digital), so that it can set or indicate the appropriate exposure value. Though you may think that the terms describe opposite functions, they are mostly associated with one another in the operation of complex devices like cameras. Even my 25 year old Nikon FE2 manual focus film SLR contains an analog/digital conversion device which serves as its light meter. The two words are not to be used to differentiate between cameras which are exclusively digital and cameras that use film, the distinction is that one uses film and the other does not.

Answer 3

This is an argument that will go on ad infinitum.

It is a case of two polarized groups that can never come to any agreement.

I have been in photography now for 40 years and have used digitals, Instamatics, several different 35mm brands, 6x6 and now 6x7.

I have to ask why, if digital is so much better is there a whole column of things to do in the photo software, Micsoft's, Corel's and Adobe's that have no other reason to exist except to correct digital pictures. Color abberations abound as does digital noise - problems that film does not have.

If you place your faith in CD storage or other magnetic storage, you will soon find out that anything on those media is, at best, transient and the quality of the picture will dissipate over time. Film storage also has its problems if they are not handled well. They get mold, they will fade, etc., but correct storage will slow that down. I have developed pictures my great grandfather took over 100 years ago with excellent results. These were on hand painted (emulsion) glass negatives.

I have reprinted pictures that I took in Vietnam 40 years ago and all have the same colors as their original prints.

Many professional photographers are turning back to film after trying digital because the image quality on a CD deteriorates over a short time - really not that long. A major film camera used by pros is not decreasing its production to make digitals, it is increasing its production of film cameras this year.

If you want a camera that thinks for you, then go digital. If you want to use your photographic skills, learn to use a manual film camera. All of my cameras (and I have a few) are manual and about 75% o the time I don't need the light meter to show me what to set it at or make the adjustments themselves.

If you know photography, you can use either. I prefer film.

If I want digital, I would not go to the store and buy a camera that will be outdated by the time that you go through the purchasing process, which digitals are doing all the time, I would only buy a digital back for my cameras and start shooting, but I would not get the same quality results that I would with film, it would not be as good.

I don't know a way to do with digital pictures what I do with film. Can you take a 1/2 inch square from a digital picture and blow it up to post size without massive hyperpixillaton?

Answer 4

I'll be honest!!! I haven't read all the posts. That said, what I did read was mostly filled with partially correct information.
Are there advantages to film? Yes!
Are there advantages to Digital? Yes!
But here are a couple of quick facts.
1 Ritz Camera does not make enlargements from a negative past a 5x7. (this may vary by store) reason. complaints of poor quality. Solution, drum scan the image, interpolate to appropriate size.
2 Kodak no longer produces film cameras.

Answer 5

Film has better dynamic range. It is actually more complicated than that because some camera makers will highlight the very wide dynamic range of thier camera but it isn't just about the ability to see the different ends of the scale, it is also about the ability to see them well. Dynamic range can vary from film to film but as a general statement, print film tends to be forgiving. The higher end DSLRs are doing much better in this regard.

A lot of digital shooters like to shoot some film because they can get a look that is not achievable otherwise. Yes, I know about products that mimic film, I have a copy of Alien Skin's Exposure, but it still isn't the same. Just look at how many pros actually carry around a Holga. This is regarded as a shabby toy camera yet many pros use it to capture something different. Maybe film use will be reduced to novelty but it will still be around for a long time.

Answer 6

I am happy for any film photographer to contest me on what im writing here.

There is a myth that film is less grainy than digital. There is also a myth that film has a higher resolution than digital. Another myth is that film has a greater dynamic range.

All wrong. Dedicated film photographers will argue their point till the cows come home but if you put film and digital side by side, digital is smoother than film. A 10MP nikon or canon far exceeds the resolution of 35mm film. The dynamic range of the Nikon D200 is 14 stops. That's huge. If you know what you're doing, you can use that dynamic range to is full potential.

I am a photographer so I'm not just talking scientific measurements here, I'm talking practical experience as well. The only time film is better than digital is if you are using large format film which is impractical in most applications.

Another interesting point - most of the worlds top professional photographers have converted to digital.

What would you rather use - CD or Cassette tape?

Answer 7

The simple answer is that with film cameras your obligated t go to the store and get the pictures developed. This is not a bad thing since now a days you get your pictures, and can request to have them put on disc as well. Where digital people (like myself) tend to store them on the computer and only printing certain ones. The only thing with this is that you need to remember to make a back up, or else all is lost and you can't get it back.

Answer 8

The only real advantage I can see of film cameras now is you get better quality hard copy prints + the batteries last longer.
While digital is better for
- instantly being able to see your results on the screen (and being able to retake shots in most cases if it turns out you ****ed it up the first try)

- Better quality on screen compared to scanned on prints
I noticed this today when I transferred some pictures from a KODAK picture CD of pictures I took of a trip to York in 2004 to my new computer, and compared them ones I took in pretty much the same locations with my Fuji Finepix A345 Digital compact in a trip I took September 2006.

2004 York Trip pics on my Yahoo Album:
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jduck1979/album?.dir=2314&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jduck1979/my_photos

2006 York Trip pictures (taken with Digital Camera) on Yahoo photos:
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jduck1979/album?.dir=df2ere2&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jduck1979/my_photos

- You can take almost as many pictures as you jolly well like on a Digital, on a reusable memory card barely bigger than a postage stamp........... while with film cameras you're limited to 12 / 24 / 36 exposure rolls of film which cost between £2 - £5 each, and in the past I've had 36exposure films (Kodak Gold, so not a cheap one) decide to rewind on me after 8 shots (rip off or what?).

Answer 9

You wouldn't buy a cassette recorder over an Ipod, or a VCR over a DVD recorder/playback unit, or an adding machine over an electronic calculator. Why would you buy 30 year old technology that the photo industry has already abandoned (no research and development funding)?
Chemical image systems have had their run. All of the energy of the photo industry in devoted to the electronic capture of images.
Don't invest your time or money in film cameras. That ship has sailed...

Answer 10

LISTEN to Timothy W & Okami; digital tech fanatics are deluding themselves to believe the hype that digital manufacturers are spreading to the unsuspecting public, as they laugh to the bank with their wheelbarrows full of profits from a cheaper technology & flimsier camera bodies that are over-priced & overrated.

Digital tech is a good technology and it has its advantages (as film also has its advantages), too. But, once I scan my film images, I can do the same things but I get great image detail if I use a good scanner.

The dynamic range is STILL far greater in film than it is with digital with greater image details in highlights and shadows: even the unforgiving slide film has superior dynamic range than digital sensors. Photographers that require great details (professionals like commercial landscape photographers) still use film and some, in fact, use 8” x 10” view cameras!

You need to have several sets of rechargeable batteries plus re-chargers, a card reader, a memory card or two, cables, an auxiliary hard drive to take on the field for temporary storage, a fast computer with loads of memory & a lot of RAM memory, an expensive printer (your images are only as good as your printer), the device to calibrate your computer monitor’s colors to the printer & to your memory card to achieve accurate print color rendition, archival inks and archival paper; get the… er… “picture”? Don’t forget that you must also learn another program to enable you to manipulate, tweak & enhance the images, too (PhotoShop). You can’t possibly compare the body build and durability of a film camera with a digital camera, right? And, digital cameras are outdated every 9 months 18 months… and the cost of paper and inks to print at home is slightly higher than having film developed and the images printed, and the cost of sending the images out is about the same as conventional film (at least where I do business at).

Sure, digital will someday overtake film but not yet.

By the way, I’ve been in photography for slightly over 43 years (court evidence: landlord/tenant court, a few accidents involving fraud; weddings, graduations and portraits since the mid-60s plus a “few” hundred sporting events).

I use only film but I LOVE what digital tech has done: bring down the prices of great quality cameras! The only feature I like about digital technology is the ability to see one’s image seconds after tripping the shutter button.

There are still photos in my family of my great-grandmother when she was still a young girl back in the late 1880s that are still quite clear... I hear of the boasts of digital images but... well, let's just say that there's NO sure way of knowing that yet... but, those images do tend to fade with household aerosols in the air, as well as with humidity and/or excessive heat in the environment; I'm of the opinion that digital tech archival issues are still a bit precarious, to say the least, when they require constant mulitiple backups, don't you think? I still have films of images I took in the 60s (and my family still has photos AND the negatives of images taken in the 30s and 40s, too).

Film still has a few long years to be around; digital tech is just another way of doing the same thing we've been doing for over a hundred years: capturing reflected light as images.

Best wishes.