For those who use it, what draws you to film?

<p>Yes to all of the film users above. It's not that film is better than digital, it's about what is better for the individual. The more I talk to people about photography, the more I hear about how some folks miss the look, and feel of a real silver geletin print. I also love the permanance of the B&W image. Since my Dads passing I'm still finding negatives, and prints that were shot long before I was born. Some are slightly yellowed, from not enogh washing, but the image is still as crisp, and contrasty as the day they were first developed. It's also a zen kind of thing (as Lex said) and a connection to my youth since some of the equipment in my dark room is the same that I, and my Dad used long ago. </p>

It's mostly about the cameras for me. Quality digital is almost all about DSLRs. There's no digital equivalent for my Konica

Hexar AF, my Mamiya Universal, my Cambo Wide. Sometimes they're the tool I need, or the tool I enjoy working with.

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I also vastly prefer the way film handles blown highlights. Digital mangles in-scene light sources, especially colored ones.

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Oh, and even at ISO 100 my 1dsII looks like crap over about 30 seconds. TMX looks the same however long you expose it

for.

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That said, easily 97% of what I shoot is digital. But it'll be a long time before it hits 100%.

<p>First, let me start by saying that I absolutely LOVE digital photography and I love my DSLRs. They are amazing pieces of engineering to me, and allow me so much flexibility in a wide variety of situations. That being said, I really love film even more and I'm not really sure how to verbalize exactly why that is. Much of it is subjective, such as loving the look of a film print and the exciting anticipation of waiting to get my pictures from the photo-lab, but I also really enjoy using my film cameras. I have a rather large number of different types of film cameras and using them offers different experiences in capturing a particular moment, some more enjoyable than others. In our current high-tech digital world we are constantly bombarded by comparisons of which device is better than the other and why we must upgrade to that device, but that makes me appreciate the engineering that went into film cameras even more. A couple of years ago my ratio was probably 95% digital and 5% film, but that's shifted back to about a 50-50 ratio at present. Yesterday while driving I saw two fawns standing on the side of the road. Without thinking I grabbed my Canon F-1 and snapped off a couple of shots and then remembered to try and get a couple of shots with my DSLR. Normally I would have had my DSLR with a 70-200 2.8IS riding shotgun, but I think that the challenge of capturing that exquisite moment on film with an older mechanical camera was a bit more alluring. I also like actually having prints in my hand once they return from the lab as opposed to having thousands of files on my hard drive waiting to be processed because many of those files never see the light of day once they enter virtual purgatory. Also currently with the prices of film cameras ridiculously low, I can afford to buy top-notch cameras that used to be well outside of my budget and enjoy all of the qualities that made them top-notch in the first place. And then there's the rather strange fact that I even like the smell of film when I open the film canister. It reminds me of the exciting times when I was younger, preparing to go on a big family vacation. So, most of my reasons are purely subjective, but sometimes the best reasons for doing something are those subjective ones that just make us feel good.</p>

<p>I have a couple of cartons of film. I hope very much to use it up soon.</p>

 

<p>1. Because I have to work real hard to get "grain" in film; while I have to work real hard not to get "noise" in digital<br>

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2. Film makes great prints and prints are what I am after; I have to work too hard to get great prints from digital files.</p>

<p>3. Mount an SLR on a tripod, aim the camera at a checkered pattern and shoot five shots: with digital, consecutive shots of the same subject will give you shots which have to be manipulated differently in post to make them the same. With digital, even consecutive shots will have vastly diffrerent histograms which will need careful adjustments to give them the same appearance. <br>

With film, all five shots will be the same. Assumng even if the lighting is constant, digital will look different shot to shot, not so film.</p>

<p>4. Prints.<br>

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<p>Almost every last little detail that you can think of draws me to film. The only things that don't are the environmental problems it can cause</p>