When Film is Better than Digital

This week I read an article on Digital Photo's website called "When Film is Better than Digital". The article started out by saying that digital, in just about every situation, is better than film. It is true that almost everyone today who takes pictures uses digital, from professional photographers to hobbyists. Digital is cheaper to shoot and you can see the pictures and delete as you go. But according to the author of this article, William Sawalich, there are five situations in which shooting film is better than shooting digital. The first is when you want the look of film. Digital photography can emulate it, but only true film can have that true, distinct look. I would agree that only film can actually look like film.

The second situation was when making long exposures. If you are doing really long exposures, film won't produce the noise that you can get with digital. He does note that digital is good for most moderately long exposures. I would find it interesting to compare a long exposure done with a digital camera with the same picture done with a film one. The third situation, and the one I found most interesting, was shooting landscape photography. Film meets needs for color, contrast, sharpness and detail, all without the need to download and backup files. The author seemed to list this one more out of convenience than anything else, since he seemed to say that film could capture the same quality image without all the hassle of having to save them or charge batteries.

The fourth situation had nothing to do with actually taking photos, but rather storing them. He seems to think having a closet full of well organized film is more simple and secure than having them on a hard drive, and he can always find a negative for any picture. I would say that a hard drive takes up a lot less room than a closet, but he makes one point that is hard to argue with: the closet never crashes.

The fifth situation sums up the article nicely. Use film if you have an excess of time and money. Since each shot taken with film costs money, both to take and develop, it is considerably more expenxive than digital, where one hundred shots are no more expensive than ten. It takes a long time to see the result of your work; no looking at the monitor on the back of the camera. But film can do a good job of teaching you how to take the picture right the first time, since you have to really think about it, and may only have one shot. The only problem is, I don't have an excess of time or money, but maybe I will take out the old (really old) Pentax, just to see how it goes.


Digital Photo, "When Film is Better than Digital, Five Situations in Which Film is a Better Choice", William Sawalich
 http://www.dpmag.com/how-to/tip-of-the-week/when-film-is-better-than-digital-10-25-10.html