What is better, Film or DIgital? (Loctite #STFU applied.)

of course when we see 32bit capture on digital (giving us HDRI in one click) and sensors like the Foveon it will indeed be a much tougher call :-)

 

a worthwhile read is here http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sigmadp1/page20.asp ... "revealing it is Hmmm"

We have to be careful not to define our work/art by the tools we use to produce it. The nature of technology is something like; more, better, faster.......but always tomorrow.

 

Right now we need to use what is at hand. The work can always transcend the medium anyway.

 

Some of the best paintings were created with the lowly paint brush. Some of the greatest novels were written with a pen. Some of the greatest photographs were taken with film.

WOW - that DPreview article.. for some reason i no longer want a Leica M8.... it gets spanked by a measly little Nikon D60!

that's just sad.

 

Concerning the FIlm v. Digi thing, i think it's fair to say that for MOST applications, especially technically oriented ones,

digital is "better." However, if you want the most NATIVE resolution, you will be hard pressed to beat just a 4x5 piece of

film! I have never shot 8x10, but knowing what 4x5 is like, i can just imagine the detail.. That simply blows digital away.

Even with a full frame (6x4.5) chip, that's NOTHING next to one of these LF negs.

 

Of course, the other side of the coin is that the increase in resolution really only becomes apparent in big enlargements..

so unless you're a very hardcore purist, you might not want to walk around with a view camera.

 

On that note, the argument is soo relative that it's almost not worth typing. Techincally, digital is better, but it's

expensive, and the best you can get is a scanning back, that takes alot longer to take a picture than just a conventional

peice of film. That makes film "faster" for LF work.. but for medium format (6x4.5 anyway) digital prety much whips

film. But then again, film is more "rugged" - ie no batts required in those extreme instances.. but more prone to

mechanical failure... this goes ON AND ON AND ON....

I wrote a few pages about what I think are the advantages of both film and digital. Since I don't want to overwhelm the

site, I have put them on a separate web page. If you are interested, you can read my essay:

 

http://web.mac.com/jpo3136

 

Click on the tab marked, "Blog: Documents on Photography"

 

The essay is titled, "Advantages of Film and Digital Imaging Syntaxes"

 

Good luck. J.

QUOTE: Mike Wilson , Aug 26, 2008; 02:55 p.m. -----

"... However, optical design for larger coverage restricts resolution, and a 35mm setup resolves more lines per mm than 120 or larger. I find that if I need swings and tilts the large camera is best, and 35mm or a DSLR are most convenient, but that for tack-sharp images 120 film is the winner. ..."

 

QUESTION: Mike, what is the Diameter of the Lens in your 120 Camera, and what ISO Film are you using? The lpmm Resolution is related to the amount of light exposing the Film. A 43mm Lens (without the Zoom) will fill up a 135 Frame, but it takes 84mm & 92mm Lenses (without Zoom) to fill up the 60mm and 70mm 120 Frame. With full size Lenses, 120 Format should be stunning.

 

Mr. Terry Mester ----- Film Info Website - - http://www.geocities.com/filmanddigitalinfo

"Jack, DVDs? Phased out: never! By what: Blu-Ray? Ha! Blu-Ray lacks the soul and depth of DVDs! You just watch how fast this new "technology" goes down in flames."

 

Arjun, you sound like what people said when 8 tracks were replaced. Or, records or everything else in the past.

I would like to ask a different question, what makes a better painting oil paints or aquarelle. both are different mediums and give very

different results the only similarity is they both us a camera and lens (paint brush) and give an image as a end.. why the duality? can one

not use the medium most appropriate for our artistic expression or is photography not art?

"why the duality? can one not use the medium most appropriate for our artistic expression or is photography not art?"

 

Jonah,

 

Photography seems to have two souls.

-One soul appears to be the attraction the human has to pretty sparkly things like new cameras. Comparing pixel counts, enigmatic lens tests, features and cost.

-The other soul has something to do with art.

 

But then, you know this.

Jack, yeah, I know...

I can not believe people are still asking this question and that so many people replied to it. This argument will never end if

people keep being drawn into it. As a matter of fact i can't believe I am responding to this. Forgive me for my hypocritical

ummm, ness

"why the duality?"

 

Some film users have seen the photography world move away from their understanding and practice and have circled the wagons against it. Some digital users seem to transfer their anger with and need to break with their parents' views, and transfer that to film (after all, their parents used film) and become transgressively triumphalist in their adoption of "change".

 

Sorta like USA politics.

"become transgressively triumphalist"

 

Thank God you're here Don E.

Do you make house calls, I think someone here may have a digital camera.

"Do you make house calls"

 

Give 'em two PX625s with a glass of water and call me in the morning.

In the spirit of playing the game rather than arguing a point (mainly out of boredom), I'd say since digital is still in infancy, only those who don't care or those who are addicted to "new" would think digital imaging is a superior technology to film.

 

By "those who don't care," I am lumping pro shooters in with MySpacers. The reason is that publications don't really care how they get an image as long as it's publishable and prompt. The quality of the lens, the accuracy of colors, the nuances of how lenses and sensors capture light are distractions from the job of pushing content. By the same token, someone who likes digital because it's easy to post images taken a few minutes ago has willingly sacrificed everything for convenience. It's a conscious choice for those folks. It's not ignorance or foolishness, it's apathy. And for them, it's fine - whatever works.

 

I recently shot a roll of Pan F at an Italian car and bike show. I shot one roll, and every shot was what I wanted. Not all were "perfect," but *none* were discards. That's because I took a minute to consider if the shot was going to be what I wanted. I didn't snap away hoping something worked. I don't point my camera out the window of my car and hope for the best very often. If I am pressing the shutter button, it's because I already know it will work. I'm not just "seeing what I can get." And to me, the lens, the film, the developing, those issues are relevant.

 

I'm under no time pressure, so I don't sacrifice quality for convenience. I have a dedicated film scanner, so I can share my shots digitally when I wish. And as has been said, when I get a better scanner I'll have better shots to share online without having to retake anything. I can still print my shots whatever way I wish.

 

Obviously, sacrificing quality for convenience is not something I feel comfortable doing. So I will maintain film rules, digital drools. Other folks have access to lower quality media, and that makes them happy. The fact that they cannot fathom the reasons I say film is universally superior is proof of their own indifference, not proof of an irrational prejudice on my part.

<i>The fact that they cannot fathom the reasons I say film is universally superior is proof of their own indifference, not proof of an irrational prejudice on my part.</i><p>Nah, it's proof that you prefer knocking what other people do to any kind of meaningful evaluation.

I don't know, BT: sounds like curmudgeonly snobbery, to me. A hell of a lot of people shoot digital nowadays, and

it's absurd to state they all do so because they're somehow unrefined or apathetic. If film helps you "take your

time," and taking your time helps you get better shots, good for you; that's how the medium affects you — it's

not a reflection of some caveat of an alternative format. It's laughable to suggest that you, with a roll of Pan

F Plus, take your time and consider what you want, while another photographer, with a D.S.L.R. and a four-gig.

memory card, just snaps off a hundred or so shots hoping that something along the way will turn out all right. I

guess, by the logic that convenience leads to haste leads to poor pictures, one could make the argument that

anything more portable than a large-format camera — less burdensome that a Waterhouse stop — is just amateurish

junk for those who don't care about the art of photography.

 

By the way, it's 2008 — I think digital has safely set foot a couple of years out of its "infancy."

". . . one could argue that anything more portable than a large format camera . . . is just amateurish junk . . . "

 

Yeah, well, really, sometimes that's close. Let's face it, do you want 3 good pictures or 3,000 bad ones that are going to

need a helluva lot of work in post processing? Not the tools, but the photographer that generated that problem.

 

Meanwhile, some of these DSLRs that are getting pushed on us in the marketplace represent "snobbery" to me.

Meanwhile, there go the tools and materials that could keep photography going forever. Gone. No more black and

white print paper from Kodak. Ridiculous. Polaroid; no more instant films. Ridiculous. Pentax, maker of numerous

innovations in cameras and lenses, phasing out film cameras. Ridiculous.

 

And what are we to do with these shiny and new tools that are replacing our old ones? Pay out some company $5000 at

a time and then pay another software corporation some other thousands. It's a crass re-marketing of objects so that

someone can charge us what we paid before, plus another ten times that amount, in order to do the same thing.

 

Rush, rush, rush. To achieve what? A rush to failure. Don't buy the latest new toy that costs ten times what its

predecessor did, to do the same thing, and you can kiss your applied art goodbye.

 

When they began marketing cameras that made us choose between either a digital sensor or film, camera manufacturers

worldwide failed us. We should not have to reformat our lives and our works just because they wanted to sell the world

on a more expensive design. Period.

". . . digital a couple of years out of its infancy . . ."

 

Excellent point. How marketable are those Windows 3.1 compatible digital photos? Worthless. When was the last time

someone actually used a contemporary operating system that was effortlessly 100% backwards compatible? Four years

ago? Seven years ago? How many times are we to throw away years of our lives on work that will be worthless every

time someone wants to sell the world an "update"?

 

Are the film guys getting racketeered? What about the digital photographers? How many hours, weeks, months and

years of their lives are going to be thrown away because they are working on a file format or a product that will not last

more than two years? The people who are paying into these digital schemes are good folks who work hard and who

need their tools to do the job. And look what happens to them. Never to gain any ground. Never to even hold on to

what they have already done. Work galore arbitrarily thrown away because of someone's marketing scheme.

Ridiculous.

 

There needs to be an ISO standard or some kind of international standard, not set by manufacturers and their lawyers,

but by the users and consumers, just as there were standards set for basic structural soundness for film years ago.

 

Foisting all this cheap, poorly thought out, constantly disposable and expensive technology in the form of intellectual

property tools is ridiculous. It's worthy of ridicule, and that's why I'm slinging it. We should not roll over and just accept

anything. Even for the digital photographers who have already invested so much, why should they continue to lose the

gains that are rightfully theirs? So that someone else can take their money? Ridiculous.

 

I'm sorry. I hope I didn't hurt anybody's feelings. But I really feel that this situation is unacceptable. It's ridiculous.

"The fact that they cannot fathom the reasons I say film is universally superior is proof of their own indifference, not proof of an irrational prejudice on my part."

 

Insert CF card rectal suppository and call me in the morning

 

Dr Don E

Both are better, but when i want a good picture i use film.

Yes

Sorry, meant to type No

Which is better, Photo.net or APUG.org? Last call? Where do the people who are 9 years old now post this question

when they are 16, 18 or even 21 years old?

How about you look at the search results to see just how many different places this gets asked:

 

"film versus digital" under photo.net.

 

So what, it has been asked before..is it a crime to ask it again? NO!

There is no crime in asking this question, but for some reason, it is heavily discouraged on this site.

I was happy to join this place in 2000, in looking at how much photoshopped non-photo garbage is on here now, I am not

so happy.

 

In a few weeks, my new site will launch. Once it does, I am pulling every single image except for the two POW's off and

disassociating with this place.

 

It's not that I don't like it, I just don't want my images anywhere near the proliferation of what I consider to be non-

photographic images. And that is not a crime either.

By the way, thanks again Lex for keeping this one in, you have my utmost respect for that, even if it is the last one.

 

Peace everyone...and get out to make some photographs.