I mostly shoot medium and some 4x5 format b&w film and scan and print on a Pro 100 and I think the prints look different than a digital b&w. This might be crazy but it reminds me of the Canon 5D prints.
Pixelpuffin wrote:
Does anyone have a link that shows side by side photos (same subject) between film and digital please.?
I’m really struggling to convince myself shooting film is worth all the expense and effort over just shooting digital.
I just can’t bring myself to blow £20-25 only to realise I can’t tell the bloody difference!!
What is your goal for shooting film? When it comes to results, one can simulate any emulsion digitally with extreme accuracy. The grain, the halation, the S-curve, even the color response. You can do anything with LUTs.
Shooting film is mostly about the process. When someone asks whether I mediate, I say "yes".
One possible exception is what you can do with a view camera movements, or the resolution you can theoretically get out of a 8x10" sheet.
Having grown up a film (1970's-1990's) then giving it up for digital in the early 2000's. I recently got a few film cameras to play around with. To me shooting with film now is more about the process, choosing a film stock, loading it, knowing there are only 36 exposures, waiting for the images, not being certain what you got...
Digital is definitely easier with the instantaneous reward but sometimes it's nice to slow down. If you are young enough never to have had to shoot film there may be even more about it that is interesting but I wouldn't know.
The main down side is the expense and film has gotten very expensive lately but then you get that look the analog randomness of film that is exciting. To each their own but if you have that itch go ahead and scratch.
old-gregg wrote:
What is your goal for shooting film? When it comes to results, one can simulate any emulsion digitally with extreme accuracy. The grain, the halation, the S-curve, even the color response. You can do anything with LUTs.
Shooting film is mostly about the process. When someone asks whether I mediate, I say "yes".
One possible exception is what you can do with a view camera movements, or the resolution you can theoretically get out of a 8x10" sheet.
First and foremost it’s the enprints
I just miss the simplicity of taking pictures, handing the film over and receiving an envelope contains 36 prints. I then vet to determine which goes in the album. It used to be so simple and straight forward.
I don’t shoot RAW, never have and probably never will. The idea of being stuck infront of a computer adjusting levels and curves fills me with dread.
Likewise thd idea of shooting 5x4 or 10x8… why ??
If the image grabs your attention it will still grab if shot on a smaller camera format
Besides I spent several years at college doing photography in the early 90’s
I’ve had my fill with sheet film cameras.
It looks like the ember of film photography is growing in an "artistic" sense. It's not replacing digital, but adds back some level of simplicity, integrity and craft. Most of the LES/Brooklyn kids I see street shooting here are using film gear - M6 with a 35/1.4 Nokton being the top choice. They all have Sony or Fuji kits, too, "for work". (I have never seen another Zf in NYC. Go figure.)
Film can also be the middle finger to the internet's MTF-bokeh dogma, clumsily complex camera automations, and "cheap", synthetic post-processing & AI. It can return an aura of craft and "authenticity" into making images.
It definitely pressures you to be more thoughtful and intentional, which should make a you better photographer.
(It's not hard to notice that many of the best images on this site are in "Film is Not Dead.")
Pixelpuffin wrote:
Getting a sharp picture has never been so easy as it is today
Even my phone gives ridiculously sharp vivid saturated contrasty pictures. I could hand a toddler a iPad and point them to the flowers in the garden, they would return with amazingly sharp vivid pictures everytime.
Which actually always kinda makes me laugh a little on other forums where guys sporting high end camera gear upload RAWs of flowers that tbh look no better than the snaps taken by the iPad clutching toddler !!
A sharp picture in 2026 is a given. Uploading for validation to fuel one’s ego says more than it should tbh.
Not meaning to ruffle feathers and btw I tripped and fell off my soapbox 🤣
But seriously uploading a sharp picture in 2026 is not enough..it’s a given. ...Show more →
