This link has been bookmarked by 61 people . It was first bookmarked on 15 Aug 2006, by Ophir Radnitz.
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02 Apr 17
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09 Feb 15
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They each serve a different purpose.
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Film and digital capture are completely different media
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Most people get better results with digital cameras
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Film takes much more work.
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Extremely skilled photographers can get better results on film if they can complete the many more steps from shot to print all perfectly
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beginning photographers and hobbyists usually get better prints from digital because there are fewer variables to control.
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Labs usually make awful prints from film, which is why people who don't print their work personally get better results from digital
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prints from negatives are at the mercy of the eye of the person making the print
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Large format film still rules for serious landscape photography
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The biggest reason the results look different is the highlights.
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This mimics our eye far better than digital. Digital's weak point is that highlights abruptly clip and look horrible as soon as anything hits white.
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A smaller reason is that film, especially larger format film used in landscape photography, has more resolution
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Neither is better on an absolute basis. The choice depends on your application. Once you know your application the debate goes away.
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Most people get better results from digital.
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Convenience has always won out over ultimate quality throughout the history of photography.
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Digital cameras give much better results than 35mm print film unless you are custom printing your own film because the colors from digital are not subject to the whims of the lab doing the printing.
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Digital cameras give me much better and more accurate colors than I've ever gotten with print film.
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Digital is far more convenient and offers great quality for photojournalism and portraits, and film is king for large prints and reproduction where textures in nature and landscapes are important.
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The violent film vs. digital WWF death match smackdown articles are just to sell magazines and digital cameras.
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For most things digital is far more convenient if you're shooting hundreds of images, making prints smaller than a few feet on a side and posting on websites and email, and for other things like landscape photography for reproduction and large fine prints film is better.
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To quote from Peter Ensengerger, Arizona Highways Director of Photography, in that most recent article: "digital still can’t touch large-format film for the full-page reproductions that have made Arizona Highways famous" and "The 4x5 view camera remains unsurpassed for landscape photography."
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Neither is going away, although film will decline in areas where digital excels, like news.
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WHICH IS BETTER
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It all depends on what you want done.
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CAUTION: In Hollywood movie production we have a phrase called "finishing." "Finishing on film" means the end product is film. "Finishing on video" means the end product is video. One can start and capture images on any medium and we have ways to convert anything to anything. In other words, we can shoot either on film or video, and convert either to the other if we need it.
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We also can take video and write it onto film, too, and you as a still photographer also have these options. I have taken digital camera files and had them written onto slides.
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By definition, anything you see on the Internet is obviously limited by this issue. The flaw here is that one is not comparing to film but comparing to a cheap scan of the film and then presented at screen resolution (72 DPI).
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ADVANTAGES: back to top
FILM:
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A glass plate from 1880 still has more resolution than a Canon 1Ds-MkII. Film always wins here when used by a skilled photographer.
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You also can see that in the March/April 2004 edition of Photo Techniques magazine where a guy actually shot USAF resolution targets with both 35mm film and a digital SLR and immediately discovered that even 35mm film has three times the resolution, duh.
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Film is the result of over 100 years of refinement. Digital is just starting out.
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If you are happy with small sizes like 13 x 19" then by all means digital cameras are all you'd need if you can work around their highlight issues.
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professional landscape shooters shoot 4 x 5" film, even in 2005
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Film is Future Proof
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Scanners always get better. Film shot today will be scanned better tomorrow
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Digital is always stuck in whatever quality you shot it. Digital or video has nothing to rescan. What you got it is all you're every going to get.
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This is why Hollywood shoots movies, and even the better TV series, on film.
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Film records and reproduces a broader range of color. This is important for wild landscapes, deep red cars and flowers.
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DIGITAL:
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Digital SLR cameras like the Nikon D70 have no grain.
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if I need speed I get better results shooting on digital then shooting film.
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digital usually looks much better than most prints made from negatives.
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Digital gives me better and more consistent color than I get with regular print film.
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Long exposures are a problem. The image sensors have leakage which add random white dots into your image with long exposures. Some cameras try to compensate for this. This is never an issue with film.
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If you are publishing in print or Internet or email you already know how great it is to have your files ready to go right from the camera. It's wonderful not to have to process and then scan each of your film images.
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With film it takes me months to get around to scanning all the images the hard way. With my digital camera I have shot a thousand images at a wedding and handed the groom a CD with all the original images on it before he left.
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With digital you can use standard computer methods to backup and store exact copies of your original images in multiple physical locations.
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ou can send your digital images to your clients and never have to trust your original to leave your possession.
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there is nothing more fun than shooting away and seeing what you just shot
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Hard drives and CDs can store bazillions of images in far less space than binders and files full of film.
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Since you're already in the computer, file indexing and organization is easy. Film needs to be tagged physically by hand.
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With digital it's common for me to shoot 900 images in an hour-long hockey game just because I can.
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Shoot as much as you like, it costs you nothing. On the other hand the cameras cost four times as much as film cameras.
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If you want to see the images on your screen it's trivial to show them, and with the internet you can show them to anyone anywhere anytime
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DISADVANTAGES
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FILM:
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Prints from color negatives usually have poor colors unless printed yourself.
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Color film fades. Digital files don't.
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Digital stored on CDs or hard drives can take much less space.
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have to index every image by hand
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You have to send the original image everywhere. If you lose it, you've lost it. Backup copies are always a little worse than the original.
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you pay as you go.
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DIGITAL:
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Even today your dad's 20 year old Canon AE-1 can make technically better images than any digital camera.
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Digital still has a huge problem with highlight reproduction,
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even with severe overexposure in places that the highlights are rendered naturally on film
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at the dawn of the 21st century digital capture is more linear than logarithmic as film is. This means that digital cameras often have better shadow detail than my Velvia, but can have horrid, unnatural highlights if overexposed even a third of a stop.
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digital camera images may show all sorts of nasty, unnatural hue (color) shifts in the brightest areas.
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Of course negative film has more range still, but that's not really relevant to good photography since the dynamic range of negative film already exceeds what you ought to be photographing. For instance, a negative can be way overexposed and still retain detail in otherwise blown out highlights, if you custom print and burn in those areas. Heck, you can scan a negative from a $6 disposable camera and have more highlight dynamic range than any digital capture system.
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Digital does have more shadow detail than film
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Digital SLRs have about the same depth of field as 35mm film cameras.
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Compact digital cameras have almost infinite depth of field, meaning you can't deliberately blur backgrounds. Why is this? Simple: the tiny image sensors of compact digital cameras (meaning everyone selling for less than $2,000) use much shorter focal length lenses to get the same angle of view. These shorter lenses have much greater depth of field.
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Digital has the advantage of immediate feedback
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Underexposure is easy to correct in post, but overexposure renders an image useless
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you are going to have to wait for the camera to turn on, and then wait when you press the shutter for the camera to get around to focusing and setting itself and eventually making a photo, and then wait around for it to finish writing the file to your storage medium until you can take the next photo.
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Digital cameras are very, very expensive for what they do. They become obsolete in a year, unlike film cameras which, in the case of 4x5, even 50 year old cameras and lenses are in use daily.
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Digital cameras pay for themselves if you use them a lot as I do, they are far more expensive than any film camera if you only shoot a few hundred shots every month.
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As you see, film and digital all excel and stink at different aspects of the same things!
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Digital has already replaced film in sports and news coverage for a couple of years.
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Even printing presses have forgone plates and now many take just digital inputs. Film is just a pain to have to use for publication. The only high-end pro use of 35mm today is for sports on posters and magazines, since larger format cameras are not fast enough.
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Film will remain king for landscapes and anything that holds still and requires big prints.
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Years from now we'll use the latest telecine machines (scanners) to get even better results from the film we shot today. On the other hand, years from now we may not even be able to play back the tapes if we shot on video. Ever seen "Gone with the Wind" on video? It looks pretty good for something shot in 1934 on film. Ever seen "Welcome Back Kotter?" It looks awful since it was shot on video in 1974 and is stuck in that quality level forever.
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Film and Digital both have there own advantages and disadvantages to the degree of what the image is being taken of. If you want a simple "selfie" then you would definitely use a digital camera but if you were taking landscape photography then film would be the better option of the two
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05 Feb 15
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28 Mar 14
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07 Feb 14
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29 Dec 13
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It's the artist, not the medium, which defines quality.
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12 Nov 12
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I use both digital and film cameras all the time. They each serve a different purpose.
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Most people get better results with digital cameras. I prefer the look of film. Film takes much more work.
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beginning photographers and hobbyists usually get better prints from digital because there are fewer variables to control.
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This is because prints from negatives are at the mercy of the eye of the person making the print.
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Large format film still rules for serious landscape photography.
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Digital replaced film in 1999 for big-city newspapers.
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The biggest reason the results look different is the highlights. We're used to the way film looks. It overloads gracefully when things get too light or wash out. This mimics our eye far better than digital.
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Neither is better on an absolute basis. The choice depends on your application.
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It's the artist, not the medium, which defines quality.
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If and only if you're an accomplished artist who can extract every last drop from film's quality then film, meaning large format film, technically is better than digital in every way. Few people have the skill to work film out to this level, thus the debate.
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Pros never say "film," they say a format like "120," "4x5," "6x17," "8x20" or "35" since "film" could mean so many things. Amateurs say "film" since they only use one format and presume 35mm.
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Digital cameras give much better results than 35mm print film unless you are custom printing your own film because the colors from digital are not subject to the whims of the lab doing the printing.
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Digital is far more convenient and offers great quality for photojournalism and portraits, and film is king for large prints and reproduction where textures in nature and landscapes are important.
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One first needs to define just what one is going to do with the photographs.
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"digital still can’t touch large-format film for the full-page reproductions that have made Arizona Highways famous"
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Film has already disappeared from professional newspaper use a year or so ago, although small town papers may still use it, and likewise, no digital capture system has come anywhere near replacing 8x10" large format film for huge exhibition prints that need to be hellaciously detailed.
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Ignore people who insist that one is better than the other without stating their end purpose. It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
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A professional scanner costs about $50,000 and takes years of experience to learn to get great results. The $3,000 scanners still lose information from the film when trying to make a comparison
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These typical comparisons of course put the film at a huge disadvantage since they are eliminating all of film's advantages and reducing the comparison to the trivial resolution issues the newbies argue about.
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The folly is that they were not comparing film to digital, but film scanned and printed at the consumer level to digital.
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A glass plate from 1880 still has more resolution than a Canon 1Ds-MkII. Film always wins here when used by a skilled photographer.
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Forget the naive debate over pixel counts. There are far more important aspects to picture quality.
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Film is the result of over 100 years of refinement. Digital is just starting out.
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I find that it takes about 25 megapixels to simulate 35mm film's practical resolution, which is still far more than any practical digital camera.
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digital would need about 100 megapixels to simulate medium format, or 500 megapixels to simulate 4x5," even if the highlight issue was resolved which it isn't.
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The key to resolution debates is to ask yourself how big you will ever need to print an image.
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Digital is always stuck in whatever quality you shot it. Digital or video has nothing to rescan.
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Film has a huge advantage in recording highlights. We take for granted the fact that specular highlights and bright sunsets look the way they do in painting and on film. Digital has a huge problem with this
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Film records and reproduces a broader range of color.
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DOUBLE EXPOSURES: No problem. Almost no digital camera can do this.
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Film does not erase itself. Film does not become unreadable for no reason. It doesn't have file compatibility problems. Traditional black and white film and prints will outlast any of us.
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CAMERAS AND LENSES: These are effectively free.
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A good lens today is still a good lens in 20 years.
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Likewise, a new $100 film camera can whup any digital camera for color and resolution.
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You always can see film by looking at it, even 100 years from today.
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People may or may not have the ability to play back JPG files, and probably no ability to play back any of today's proprietary RAW digital formats in 20 years.
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We take it for granted, but when you turn on a camera or push the shutter it just works as it should with no waiting around.
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Digital SLR cameras like the Nikon D70 have no grain.
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Digital has no "negative" stage. Because of this, digital usually looks much better than most prints made from negatives. This is because most negatives are usually is printed poorly by automated photo finishing equipment.
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Long exposures are a problem.
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It's wonderful not to have to process and then scan each of your film images.
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With digital you can use standard computer methods to backup and store exact copies of your original images in multiple physical locations.
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The digicam is not only a great composition tool, but also can preview exposure for your film camera.
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Hard drives and CDs can store bazillions of images in far less space than binders and files full of film.
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With film I'm too shy to shoot 100 images of nothing just for the hell of it.
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Shoot as much as you like, it costs you nothing. On the other hand the cameras cost four times as much as film cameras.
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High speed (ASA 1,600) film is poor. Prints from color negatives usually have poor colors unless printed yourself.
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Color film fades. Digital files don't.
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23 Feb 12
Michaela KFilm vs. Digital
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Film takes much more work. Extremely skilled photographers can get better results on film if they can complete the many more steps from shot to print all perfectly.
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Labs usually make awful prints from film, which is why people who don't print their work personally get better results from digital.
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30 Jan 12
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Film and digital capture are completely different media. They are used for similar purposes, but they themselves are completely unrelated to each other. I'd have an easier time and get in less trouble comparing m
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Film and digital capture are completely different media. They are used for similar purposes, but they themselves are completely unrelated to each other. I'd have an easier time and get in less trouble comparing my mom to a maid or my wife to something else than attempting a comparison of film to digital cameras. That said, here goes.
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27 Sep 11
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24 Mar 10
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29 Jun 08
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19 Apr 08
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10 Sep 07
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13 Nov 06
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15 Aug 06
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26 Jul 06
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28 May 06
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15 Mar 06
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