Apples & Oranges

Elizabeth Etienne on Film vs Digital

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:25:35 -0500

Professional photographer Elizabeth Etienne weighs in on the difference between film and digital:

Here is my explanation plain and simple: Film looks like "film" and digital looks, well... "digital". There is a difference. I use film primarily for several reasons listed below. However, digital is also used in low light situations and as an additional back up during certain shooting situations. If you like the moody tones of the sepia tone black and whites on my website it's because that was shot on "FILM"!

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Digital vs. Film (The Real Deal) - Nikon D300 vs. Fuji GS645s

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:33:41 -0500

The Brothers Wright wring out differences between film and digital on their Twin Lens Life blog, itself a small bibliography on the issue:

So many people have naive misconceptions about film and digital and what they have to offer to photography. Almost every comparison online shows unfair samples of digital captures with full control in RAW, against inferior scans or prints from inferior film stocks. And any editorial publication has a vested interest to sell the product that is lining the pockets of the manufacturers financing their distribution....So we felt obliged to balance the scales, to show a controlled study focusing on the suppressed advantages of analog capture.

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Open Mike Night #28 - The Coming Change

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:09:01 -0500

Professional photographer Michael Escalera recounts his journey from film to digital and back to film again in his recent article, The Coming Change:

I have been photographing weddings for 11 years and love what I do for a living. When I first began, I used film....In 2005 I transitioned to a digital workflow....In my experience, the digital images were not as rich as the film images. Sure, they were sharper and in some cases more vibrant, but they didn't fully match what I had hoped they would be.

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Calumet Photo Spills Beans!

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:52:49 -0500

In a refreshing bit of candor, Calumet Photo's latest Calumet Focus gives professional safari leader Todd Gustafson's opinions about film versus digital:

The two main logistical advantages of shooting with digital media are carrying a few CF cards instead of 300 rolls of film and the cost of CF cards verses the cost of film and processing. From a photographic standpoint, there is a much faster learning curve with digital. There is no substitute for immediately seeing the photographic results when you are in the field. You can also tell when you have the shot and are able to move on to capture new subjects without taking—and paying for—all of those dreaded insurance shots.

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Erwin Puts on Digital vs. Film

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:20:00 -0500

Going digital implies saying goodbye to the 20th century art of photography and will imply the death of photography as we know it.
- Erwin Puts, Death of Photography

Published author Erwin Puts, probably the world's foremost Leica expert, is a philosopher of photography. His weblog pulls no punches and rambles at times, but is sure to provoke thought. Some of Erwin's views on digital vs film:

Current camera models are very complex tools with an overdose of technology and options. The modern consumer starts to rebel and wants a reduction of the high-tech phalanx. One approach by the industry is to add smarttech to the products: in fact this is a shielding technique where smart filters are used to guess the needs of the user and suppress all options that are not required.

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Digital Technology and the Consumer

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:54:00 -0500

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol.1.

Remember when the music Compact Disc was the ultimate in audio?

Using digital technology to create sound far superior to that of traditional phonograph records, the compact disc, or CD, is rejuvenating the audio business and producing a generation of born-again music lovers.

- Manuel Schiffres, Compact discs now the hottest sound in town, U.S. News & World Report, June 17, 1985,

The superiority of CD in sound reproduction...could not be denied....

- Patrick Macdonald, Vinyl's Final Days, Seattle Times, January 21, 1990.

As more people discover that classical music sounds superior on CD, it will be easier to find recordings....

- Howard Blumenthal, Classical recordings sound superior on Compact Disc, Chicago Sun-Times, December 27, 1987.

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Real World Test: Kodak Gold 200 vs Nikon D60 Dynamic Range

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:57:00 -0500

[D]ynamic range is one of the most misunderstood concepts out there. It's not that people misunderstand what it is in the abstract; rather, it is the practical application to photography that seems to be the hangup.
- Dante Stella
Background
Dynamic Range (DR) is itself a confusing issue and comparisons of DR between film and digital take this confusion to a whole new level. Some very credible references declare the digicam the winner in this regard; others just as firmly stand behind film. So, does film have more DR than digital or not?

This question turns out to be more complicated than it sounds. Any blanket claims that "digital has greater DR than film," or vice-versa, are not useful as they gloss over the many technical differences between film and digital photography. Any responsible comparison must consider:

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Kirk Tuck's Return to Film

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:23:16 -0500

Kirk Tuck

In June 2001, professional photographer Kirk Tuck achieved some small notoriety and elicited dozens of reader responses when he published his very compelling A Pro Photographer's review of the Leica M6 and lenses for it:

Everyone seems to have an opinion about the Leica M series rangefinder cameras, yet so few people have actually picked one up and used it for enough time to understand the unique features and benefits that make it one of the finest tools for certain kinds of photography.

Then on September 01, 2002, Kirk abruptly "went digital:"
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Film Scanners: Bridge to the Digital Darkroom

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:51:00 -0500

An oft heard remark about digicams is they give us a "digital darkroom," freeing us from the "wet" darkroom and magnifying our editing capabilities manyfold. Wait - there's another option: film scanners offer the benefits of the digital darkroom, plus the virtues of film! Scanners and scanning software have recently evolved to the point where top quality images from film can be produced easily and economically. In his article, Best film scanner in its class: the Nikon Coolscan V ED, Epinions "Top Reviewer in Electronics" jvandegr writes,

I teach digital photography and I own a compact digital camera. I enjoy both of them thoroughly. The convenience of digital photography is unquestionable, but the image quality has been more than questionable for many years. As with most new technologies (and new media), it is constantly adjusting and updating, and recent years have seen significant improvements in digital image quality. Still, when it came time to invest in either a $3000 - $5000 digital SLR or an $800 film SLR, there was no contest, especially considering the focal length conversion problem of the majority of digital SLRs.

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Why This 'Blog?

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 11:09:12 -0600

People reading this 'blog might wonder how it came to be.

I'm a serious amateur photographer.*

By summer 2005, I had for some time been following the digital camera "revolution," wondering if (or when) I'd convert from 35mm to a digicam. The move seemed logical to me. Given the benefits I had experienced through the "digital darkroom" moving to a digital camera seemed to hold great promise.
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Slow is Beautiful: Photography as if People Mattered

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 10:22:00 -0600

Billions of pictures are made with the diabolically clever automatic cameras, pictures that satisfy the snap-shooter but do not often reveal evidence of imaginative visualization....
- Ansel Adams, Examples, p. 73.

Explaining his fondness for film over digital photography, Oleg Novikov says, the [photographic] result, of course, is important; however, I would not want it at the cost of missing the process of exploration. In other words the experience of photographic exploration may be as important as the images obtained. But several decades of rapid advances in photographic equipment (of which digital is only the most recent incarnation) have obscured for us this importance of practice (or experience) as opposed to product. As we turn increasingly to the equipment rather than our own talents to accomplish a photograph, we distance ourselves from photographic practice and diminish photography as a source of artistic inspiration.
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My Year With Digital Cameras

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 01:57:00 -0600

Commercial photographer David Beckerman recounts the experiences that led him away from film and then finally back to it:

It began on July 4th, 2004. I was by the East River photographing fireworks with my Elan 3, and nearby was a fellow with a big Canon digital SLR that he had just bought for $4500. Sure it was a lot of money he said, but it paid for itself with a couple of photography assignment[s].

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Oleg Novikov on the film vs. digital issue

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:38:21 -0500

Photographer and essayist Oleg Novikov owns a DSLR but finds film offers a "fundamentally different driving experiences." Here he explains how the explorative experience of shooting leads him to use film for serious work:

What should matter to an artist or someone who at least has artistic aspirations is whether the overall workflow dictated by the medium, film or digital, as well as the character of the final outcome, stimulates his artistic intentions and creativity.

[T]o take full advantage [of digicam files] one has to be quite knowledgeable about colour science and very experienced with RAW converter software, as well as spend a lot of time in front of the computer monitor....With (colour slide) film, on the other hand, one gets perfect colours straight away [because] Fujifilm and Kodak spent decades improving and fine-tuning colour reproduction of their films.

There also are other technical aspects such as archivability and its reliability, dynamic range, capturing long exposures, viewfinder size of DSLRs with APS-sized censors, etc., where film is still very appealing.

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Two-dollar roll of film better than $3,000 digital camera

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 13:32:04 -0500

When professional photographer Henry Butz says today's digital cameras "don't do black and white" he doesn't mean they can't produce b&w images, just that they don't offer the dynamic range of b&w film:

Digital cameras are really coming into their own. Although it would take 11 million pixels to approximate the film size of a 35mm negative, today's 5 and 6 megapixel cameras are very impressive. But, they don't do black and white.

It might surprise some people that B/W film is just as sensitive to color as color film, perhaps even more so. Not only does B/W film capture the visible light spectrum, but it can also capture infrared and ultraviolet light as well. Color digital cameras closely mimic color film technology. Color film has red, green, and blue sensitive layers. Digital cameras have red, green, and blue sensitive CCD's (or other similar device) which reports color with digital values.

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Oranges & Apples (Introduction)

nospam@example.com (Carson Wilson) — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 11:45:00 -0500

The attitude of the scientists, at any rate, is clear. Technique exists because it is technique. The golden age will be because it will be. Any other answer is superfluous.
- Jacques Ellul, closing words, The Technological Society.

Film cameras are a mature, incrementally advancing technology. However, our market-driven media follow the action and their current darling the ever-changing digital camera gleans much press, overshadowing its stable parent. Combined with an industry which relentlessly touts its latest camera gear as having obsoleted all predecessors, this media bias intimates that digital photography has now replaced film.

There's some truth here: digicams are now put to purposes for which we once relied on film. But while a professional's choice to "go digital" usually stems from financial concerns the photography enthusiast's motivation is mainly aesthetic. Digital photography has its advantages, but if you think it's replaced film there are some things you should know. I've assembled articles here exposing various shortcomings of digital photography in hopes of balancing the current media bias and providing perspective to anyone weighing their options.
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