Question for photograpghers...Why do some photographers still choose to shoot 35mm as opposed to digital?

Question

I've heard some photographers refuse to switch to digital and would rather shoot 35mm (film). Why? Are there benifits to shooting with 35mm instead of digital?

Answer 1

Thanks, VM, but this is probably best left for the people who make a living at photography. That doesn't stop me from having an opinion, though.

Let's get the flames out of the way first. For one thing, many professional photographers have thousands of dollars invested in film equipment and they don't want to chuck it all and pour thousands into new digital equipment. My sister made a nice living as a profesional photographer (commercial work, casino promotions, some journalism) for about 20 years. She still has Hasselblad and Canon equipment that would be valued about at more money than most people spend on their cars. The commercial demand for digital forced her to make a decision about going digital. ("We need it YESTERDAY." "Our printer only accepts digital images." Etc...) Since the medium format was where she really made her living, she simply decided to give it up rather than pour more money into a digital back than she had spent on all of her equipment to date. Please realize that this was about 10 years ago and prices have at least stabilized, if not come down. [Sidebar: It didn't hurt that she made wonderful contacts that led to a real estate license that provides a very nice income in the booming Atlantic City area.] On top of the intial investment, equipment life has to be considered by a professional. While I count my shots one-by-one, she (or any pro) counted hers by the hundred. If a shutter and sensor have a finite life, I may never reach that number (100,000 on my D200), but she could blow through it in a year and certainly within two years. Film equipment can be repaired or maintained for relatively little money. No, it's not cheap, but it's quantum leaps less expense than repairing or replacing high-end digital equipment. Digital equipment, as you know, carries a very high price tag. I buy equipment for fun and because I can. A pro buys equipment with an eye on return on investment. As we know, the Hasselblad H3D-39 sells for over $30,000. Darn, that's a lot of pictures!

Okay, now for the artistic side of the argument. I really will leave most of this for those who make their living this way and who have chosen to stick with film.

Film has a certain character that has yet to be captured by digital. Yes, there is grain, but there are no stinking pixels. There is almost no point at which you would find yourself limited to a certain size enlargement due to excessive grain. If it becomes that evident, we just accept it as a limitation of the medium. In fact, we choose films carefully and embrace this seeming flaw as an artistic choice. Even with millions and millions of pixels, you eventually lose the ability to make a suitable enlargement or crop an image as tightly as you would like to.

I think that color transitions are smoother with film. You never hear of "fringing" with film. There is no "sharpness" adjustment with film. It is what we are more accustomed to viewing. If we want a warm rendering, we choose a warming film. If we want stark reality, we choose a crisp "European-style" (Agfa) film. If we want deep color saturation, we choose a rich film. And so it goes, on and on.

Film is very hard to blow out in the highlights, especially color negative film. With all the work we can do in digital, I think it is easier to save a bad exposure with film. No, this is not an excuse for sloppy work, but I'm just pointing out one advantage. Every setup can't be ideal and sometimes you use all of your knowledge and skills and still, you hope for the best.

Film is more of a mastery of a skill and an art form than a mastery of a science and a technique. Or so some would say. Anyone making a living with film has survived a true rite of passage that is hard to think may not have been neccesary.

As a poor analogy, I offer Jimi Hendrix. In the late 60's, Hendrix did things with a guitar (AND the studio equipment that was a neccesary part of his sound) that nobody before him ever even conceived of. Nobody. By the early 70's, every 14 year old kid was working on note-for-note transcriptions to learn "The Star Spangled Banner" as they watched - and freeze-framed - video from the movie, "Woodstock." More "mature" guitar players held Hendrix in awe. Younger guitar players said, "Let me at him." Someone blazed the trail (or burned the guitar) for them so they wouldn't have to. And so it may be for old-guard film photographers who say that "kids today" don't have to learn real photography. They can just take 500 shots and hope that one or two come out right. I submit that some of those film photographers for the days when they were bulk loading film for "a penny a shot" so they could do almost the same thing. After a while, your "luck" begins to improve as you pay attention and learn your craft. So it should be for digital. Shoot; look; learn. It just won't cost an arm and a leg for the failures.

Okay, I will step aside before we all find out there actually is a limit on the length of an answer permitted in Yahoo! and I will defer to the opinion of anyone who has made a living at photography, as I certainly have not.

I have seen some photos of some of our members and we have some truly talented photographers here, so let's hear your opinions.

Answer 2

Being a photographer that still shoots both, there are many reasons. Resolution being one of the biggest. It depends on what you want to do with your pictures. For professional publications (adds for example) film still has it over digital. There are also several special films available that a digital can't quite duplicate yet, infrared for example. Then there is the need to shoot color slides in many cases. This is only a very short list, but I think you get the idea. I use a tired old Miranda SLR for film and a Pentax DSLR for digital and though some components will interchange (pistol grip and some of the lenses and most all my filters), some won't. The Miranda (due to the fact it has two shutter releases) can use a cable release on the front one ( My pistol grip is so equipped) and still leave the top one available, but the Pentax has to use the wired remote as it has no cable release system. Night photography is some what easier with the 35 for that reason. And then you gotta admit it looks cool to have each hanging around my neck when I am working!

Answer 3

This Is MOSTLY An "Artistic" Or "Aesthetic" Choice. They Simply Prefer The "Look" Feel" Or "Romance" Of Film A Few Actually Need The "Extra" Resolution Offered By Film (For Digital Cameras Have The Same Approximate Resolution As Film (ISO100) You Would Need A 20 to 30 Mega-Pixel (Uncompressed) Image)

Answer 4

This is a very common question but you asked it in a specific way, not so much which is better, but why use film?

I am not an advanced 'photographer' but very technical and open minded kind of person and I hasten to honestly disclose my bias towards the digital machine.

I think the bottom-line fast answer to your question is simply 'what you're used to' and how much you embrace computers. My analogy is how some very good architects still draw by hand and don't use CAD software, they started their careers with pencil in hand and, for many of them, it is easier to still draw than feel constrained by the unfamiliar CAD software.

I have read other answers and will add (in defense of digital):

You can have a real mastery of skill with either chemicals or software.

Nobody can see a stuck pixel on a print, even a large print, even a large print from a reasonable-size crop.

You can have a digital camera with all kinds of remotes if you want.

You can make a color slide from a digital image.

Here is a great article from my favorite digital camera site that address this comparison well....


http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/transition.html

Answer 5

I finally made the switch a few months ago. I still prefer the idea of film to digital. Digital takes all the guess work out of the quality of your image, being able to reshoot an image until you are happy removes the art from the process. With film you never know what you have until you develop. With digital the results are instantly available to be scrutinized. The reason I finally switched was the cost of film and processing. It has become cost prohibitive to use film for non-commercial enterprises.

Answer 6

I shoot stereo (3D) pictures on slide film - using a Stereo Realist and other Stereo cameras made in the 50's - The slides are viewed in a double viewer - something like a viewmaster - but much better because the film chips are bigger. - The illusion of being there is amazing. You can't do anything like this with digital. Ten megapixel digital cameras are common, but the screens on the backs of digital cameras which look a little like a color slide generally have a resolution of about 225,000 dots.- or about 75,000 pixels. -

Answer 7

I still use my F100 (film) Cameras for Weddings, admittedly mostly because of the cost of replacing with Digital.
I was going to try to answer this more but Dr. Sam did a fantastic Job. There were other great answers too. I'm done.

Answer 8

There are many situations where digital photography is significantly inferior to film:

Infrared photography in some cameras (most modern digital cameras have low sensitivity in the infrared portion of the spectrum) and long exposures (i.e. 30 seconds) will give unacceptable amounts of noise in a digital image.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

My cousin is like this. I read that to have an equivalent picture quality, you would need a 20MP camera, and the most I've seen is 12MP (for around $2000.) It's also personal preference.