Digital vs Film

[Moppie]

To save people dragging share photo threads off topic this will be the home of the great debate on digital vs film photography.

Please keep all debates rational, usual forum rules do of course apply.



Ill start by simply saying that Digital is just as real as film, and that manipulating an image in a computer afterwards takes nothing away from it.


With a film camera you use a mechanical machine to capture an image on a chemical medium, then you use chemicals and various darkroom techniques to maniplate that image into a format that is viewable with the human eye in a variety of formats, e.g. as prints, slides or as images on a computer screen.


With a Digital camera you use a mechanical machine to capture an image on a digital medium, then use various computer programs to maniplate that image into a format that is viewable with the human eye in a variety of formats, e.g. as prints, slides or as images on a computer screen.

[crayzayjay]

I have nothing against manipulating digital pics, but i feel film is vastly better than digital. The colour is superior, as is the sharpness of the image. Myself and a few friends went on a lad's holiday last year, my friend took lots of pics with his 5mp digital camera and the pictures it took clearly werent as good as the ones i took with a disposable camera. That was an ideal direct comparison with the same backgrounds / amount of light etc.. and was judged by a friend of mine who makes films for a living, and is a big photography nut.. not that the outcome wasnt clear for all to see. I vote film, but that's not to say i dont like digital cameras.

[Moppie]

Film has a greater dynamic range than current technology digital, (amount of light and colour that can be seen by the camera) but its a gap that is rapidly closing and there is currently very little discernable differnce between proffesional level film and digital SLRs.

And don't forget that a lot of the differnces in results can be accounted to the user, and not the camera.
Point and shoot Digital cameras generaly offer the user more control over how an image is taken than a compareable film camera, its simply part of the nature of each product. Unforuatly it means that there is far more scope for the digital user to make mistakes than there is for the equivant film user.

[my3rdskyline]

This to me is almost like the debate over LP vs SACD. Both have positive and negative qualities.

Digital +
Resolution (technology is growing rapidly)
Ease of use
Cost (long term)
Images are Digital. If you keep the original files you don't have to worry, they will not discolor after 40 years.

Digital -
Resolution. Fixed resolution sucks. Film can scale well, keep your negatives and maybe printing processes will get better in the future.
When you buy a digital camera you are sticking a fork in the ground and marking the date at which you purchased the camera. Sure everything behind you is behind you, but what about the future? With a standard camera you can adapt to new film types, processes or whatever. With digital you are stuck with that CCD and every pixel on her.

Film +
Quality, craftsmanship. People have been doing the shit for years so there is a lot of good information on how to learn it yourself. Analog is good because eventually the image has to be analog for you to look at it. :-P

Film -

Film
exposure of film (unintended)
age, film cant extend the test of time like DSCyaddayadda.bmp (provided you don't loose the file)
We all know that if you want your pictures to look the same in 100 years, the only way to preserve them like that is digital.
Chemicals suck, C41 processing can get expensive
paper is expensive, equipment is expensive.
compare the costs of a dye sub printer (or whatever you like), a nice camera and some good software on a good computer.

Now compare a nice analog camera, a lifetime supply of film and chemicals and trying to convince your wife to let you have a dark room in your house.

To sum it all up, it's what you like. it's what's best for you. There is no best camera for any one thing. It comes down to what you like, what you can use, and what you an afford. If someone where to ask which is better, I'd say it's a loaded question.

[2strokebloke]

Film is better. Digital I see not as threat to film, but rather as threat to Polaroid instant picture type cameras. Sometimes I wish I had a digital camera just to take a quick snapshot, but for my hobby of photography, I'll always use film. It's much more fun.

We all know that if you want your pictures to look the same in 100 years, the only way to preserve them like that is digital.

Unless of course formats change, and you can no longer find a machine capable of reading your files - a problem which has happened over and over again throughout the history of computers. Supposing you're using black and white, you can make a platinum print or a cyanotype, and these are very stable processes which will not change chemically even after hundreds of years because the chemicals used are more stable than the silver salts typically used.
But for color, you can either have the attitude "that nothing lasts forever" or make a digital copy and hope it doesn't become obsolete...
I might as well point out that I can still buy film for my 60 year old Argus C-3, and still get the pictures I've taken with it developed anywhere - but how usefull will any current digital camera be in six decades? Or half that ammount of time?

[Damien]

See, I like digital for the quickness and there is some clarity. In fact, I'm goin' to buy myself one, but it'll be one of those digital recorders/pic. They're not as good quality, well, resonable price wise, as the set digital cameras, but for my photography, I'm sticking with my 35mm Minolta. For one, a basic 35mm normally has faster shutter speed than a digital, especially in darker enviroments. I've been selected twice as the phtographer of events 'cause my 35mm is faster than the groups digital that needed me.

Overall, I like both, but when it comes to true photograohy, I'll stick with my 35mm until I get the couple of grand to buy a digital that euqals mine for less than $500.....

[Moppie]

Originally Posted by my3rdskyline

This to me is almost like the debate over LP vs SACD. Both have positive and negative qualities.

I have to totaly agree with you on that, the differnces are largely subjective. However-


Digital -
Resolution. Fixed resolution sucks. Film can scale well, keep your negatives and maybe printing processes will get better in the future.
......................

REsolution is not fixed on a digital camera, its dependant on the print size, just the same as it is with film. There is a limit to how large you can make a film print, just the same as there is with a digital print. A film format does have a fixed resolution, there is a limit, digital is only limited by the size and density of the sensor (CCD technology is now outdated, most now use CMOS sensors). And the rate of development of digital technology far exceeds that of film. It used to be that digital cameras were enginered off of film based designs, now its the other way around. Film technology may have reached the end of its development life, not because it can't be developed any further, but because the manufactors are losing interest in it.
Some film formats also get just as stuck, ask anyone with an old 110 cartridge film camera how easy it is to buy film, or someone with an old plate camera from the 30s when was the last time they went to thier local camera shop and got some new plates.

Film +
Quality, craftsmanship. People have been doing the shit for years so there is a lot of good information on how to learn it yourself.....................................

The quality and craftmanship that goes into a digital camera is no differnt that what goes into a film camera. The companies that make the best digitals (canon, Nikon, Kodak etc etc) have been making cameras for years. When it comes to things like the lens technology there is no differnce between whats used in film and whats used in digital. A digital SLR (DSLR) use's exactly the same lens its film equivilant does, and I know several people who shoot both film and digital and simply swap lens on each body as needed.
Photography techniques are also the same, digitals still need a shutter and most will still let the user adjust things like F stop and apature size.
Whether your shooting in manual or auto or anywhere in between exposure needs to be controlled the same way, whether your useing film or digital.
And, unlike film, its possible to change the ISO setting with each shot. A digital can also do something no film camera can, it lets you adjust the white balance to suit each photo. It is not possible to adjust the white balance in a film camera, instead you have to buy special film that is hopefuly balanced for the lighting, and given the wide range of differnt lighting situations that can be encounted, and limited range of colour balanced films avlaible that is almost impossible to do.

[Moppie]

Originally Posted by Damien

For one, a basic 35mm normally has faster shutter speed than a digital, especially in darker enviroments.

Rubbish.
Most point and shoot digitals cover a similar apature range to most point and shoot film cameras, with similar shutter speeds avliable.
Normaly around F2:8 - F8 and 15sec-1/2000.
The range avliable is defined by the lens used, and has nothing to do with the format used to record the image.

The only advantage film offers when shooting in a dark environment is less noise at higher ISO settings, however its only really a problem for point and shoot users, modern DSLRS have noise correction that yields an image equivilant to that of film. And of course anyone can use any number of noise reduction algorithms on a digital image to reduce the noise to near film quality if useing a point and shoot.

Originally Posted by Damien

I'll stick with my 35mm until I get the couple of grand to buy a digital that euqals mine for less than $500.....

A very good point. When it comes to buying a DSLR vs a film SLR the differnce is huge! A brand new film SLR can be had to 1/3 or less the price of its equivilant digital model.


But then when I realise I can set things like ISO and white balance on the fly, and I get to develop my own images with out playing with chemicals or relying on a lab to do it for me, and I get to only print the ones I want, I realise more and more why digital offers so many advantages.
It still requires and artisitc touch, its just a slight differnt one.

A really really good film photograph requires lots of time, skill, experiance and creative artisitc flair in the dark room. Often more so than it does with the camera. And plenty of famous film photographers have mentioned the time put in in the dark room can be more important than the time spent behind the camera.

Digital is not that differnt, however instead of being in a dark room you do the same work on a computer. The reward can be just as great, and you are still subject to the same problems. What do you do when you run out of chemicals in a dark room? or memory or HDD space on your computer? And what happens when certian development technicques become out dated, or the chemicals used illegal or unavliable? Its not that differnt to the changes that occur in computeing. Altough the current picture formats .jpeg .tiff and RAW etc are unlikely to change much, and if they do then conversion software would be easily avliable.


But then Iv only ever shot digital, I was never lucky enough to be in a position where I could afford to shoot film so I am more than a little biased

[Vtec913]

I really like digital

[my3rdskyline]

Originally Posted by Vtec913

I really like digital

Simply put :-)

I'd like to add that I really like photography and can appreciate any aspects of any type of camera. For me, digital works best and just because of the sheer amount of pictures I take; a $1500 digitalSLR camera would cost me less per year than an equivalent build/picture quality 35mm SLR. I don't have to explain the cost per shot. just think to yourself how many rolls of film you would need to take the amount of pictures you can fit in 250GB. That's why it works for me, and that's why I like digital. But to all you out there who are hard core film types, I hear you and I respect that. Over the past 3 years I have taken (as of today) 5781 (my nikon) + 2646 (my canon) = 8427 pictures. that's 2800 pictures per year. And a lot of them are junk so I don't have to pay anything for them, I just look at them all and get the good ones printed and hung on the wall. I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from so I'll stop my ramble. Developing 6.5 rolls of 36 exposure film every month is not something I would look forward to paying for. Even if all of those pictures were over 5MB, that would still be less than 45GB to store all of them.

[Damien]

Well, that's why i want a digital recorder that also takes pictures. I know there's no guarantee but if i use my 35mm, i know it'll be good. That's what my disposables are for...the random fun shots. it's just that you cant quite get the same effect. I turn on my 35mm, it's on and dispopsables are ready at the second but with a digital...you have a mix of pics and the settings...wow. It's just not...workable for random shots.

So, when i get a digital recorder, i'll have it on a basic setting and no big deal. I think the other thing that has me as an old school photographer is that my great-grandfather was a photographer with of course a 35 which is so beautiful and so were my uncle and grandfather. it's what I grew up with and am use to, depsite costs.

But Moppie, it's not rubbish. See, here's th eother problem with this...well, topic. What kind of digital camera. The one my school had was just a basic digital camera...nothing in comparison to my 35mm duh, just like reg cameras to 35mm, they have slower shutter speeds.

That's common sense...

[Moppie]

Originally Posted by Damien

But Moppie, it's not rubbish. See, here's th eother problem with this...well, topic. What kind of digital camera. The one my school had was just a basic digital camera...nothing in comparison to my 35mm duh, just like reg cameras to 35mm, they have slower shutter speeds.

You took a single example of what is clearly either an old technology camera, or a very bad camera and used it as example of all digital cameras.
That is rubbish.

And if you re-read your above post the second sentance makes very little sense. 35mm is a film format used to describe a general camera type, And the required shutter speed and apature size have nothing to do with the recording media, be it film or digital. Required shutter speed is based on the amount of light the lens can gather, which is dependant on the lens type and range of apature size's it surports.

And I have yet to find a digital camera that did not have an "AUTO" mode that required the user to do little more than turn it on, point it at something and press the shutter button. Even most digital SLR's have a similar feature, its no different to useing a fully automatic film camera.

[Damien]

Fine...simple english for you to understand

A disposable camera has a slower shutter speed than my Minolta 35mm.

A basic bought digital which costs a pretty penny, an automatic, has a slower shutter speed than my 35. How do i know, I compared!!! Now, this is a fact...you must not see a lot of cameras...cause if all cameras had the same shutter speed, then one area of competition is cleared out.

[Moppie]

Originally Posted by Damien

Fine...simple english for you to understand

A disposable camera has a slower shutter speed than my Minolta 35mm.

Your not reading my posts.

And I think your getting your has a slower shutter speed confused with requires a slower shutter speed. My Canon A80 has a slowest shutter speed of 15 seconds. But in low light at F:2.8 it often requires around 1/200th of a second to take a good picture at say ISO400. The required shutter speed is of course dependant on the ISO setting, apature size and of course amount of avliable light.
Your Minolta might have a very fast lens on it, which means it has a very wide shutter apature (low F stop No.) enabling it to use a faster shutter speed in low light than another camera with a smaller shutter apature.
As Iv said 3 times now this has nothing to do with the recording media and is related to the lens fitted to the camera. If you have an SLR then take your lens off and fit it to a Digital SLR and you will get similar shutter speeds in the same conditions.
And if you really want to argue this then you could at least tell us what sort of camera you are useing, and what lens it is fitted with.

[ac427cpe]

i have to side with digital on this argument. don't get me wrong, i love my nikon Fe, the picture crispness is beyond amazing, but my nikon 5700 can and HAS taken better and sharper pictures than i got from my 35mm. now given, if i want total control in a shot, i will still use the 35mm, but only after i use the digital in the same shot. reasoning: i can set them the same way, and by taking a picture close to how i want it, i have the range to take a better one with the 35mm. the only advantage to film that i can see is in having a hard copy of my photos. but, the fact that at the last race i went to i took over 300 hi-res pictures... digital > film in developing. out of the 300 pictures, there are only 20 or so that i really liked, at roughly 25 cents a print, i'm liking the 5 dollars in good pictures as opposed to the 75 that i would have had to spend to get the $5 worth that i wanted.