I agree with everything that's been said about Digital v Analog. There is another aspect that I've found compelling in my own work. Since I've quit the 9to5 I've found real satisfaction In practicing the craft of analog work. While using a community darkroom can be one of the most frustrating experiences in photography my local museum school darkroom is much better equipped than my old home darkroom ever was. And with my own tendency to be something of a recluse it forces me out of the house and creates interaction with interesting people I wouldn't otherwise meet.

I’m not going to waste my time explaining. I’m thoroughly enjoying it, though.

I can explain why people edit the digital scan of their film negatives: it's not just to reverse the negative. It's because the negative was meant to be printed, and now that they aren't printing, they need to apply the same curves that the print's paper would have, or the contrast (and color) isn't right. As far as things film can do that digital can't, film has got an advantage in the highlights. A photo of, say, the sun between tree branches, is much easier to not blow out on film than on digital. And film can be used for long exposures, hours or days long. And large and medium format film still has a resolution advantage over digital, or so I'm told.

Some of my friends at the camera club have enrolled in our local college that has a fantastic photography program and a lab that rivals the Photography Art Centers in California. They really enjoy it and of course it is expensive, but they develop their film themselves and develop their prints etc. But I don't think they ever did that in the good old days like I did. I've been there, done that, don't want to do it again.

I'm on the same page as you regarding film! I spent way too much time in the darkroom years ago when we had no choice.

As a Pro for 40yrs+ I will never look back - I spent thousands and thousands of hours in my lab in the dark when I could have been out taking pictures - I spend a few hours on a Mac now.

I get you. I haven't shot film for at least 20 years. But I think we need to think of film vs digital the way a painter thinks about oil paints vs acrylics vs water colors. They are different media with different characteristics. Is one better than the other? How can we say? They are different. Digital photography is great and so is film and so is glass plates and so is Polaroid. I remember how shooting film made me slow down and think more. I think what often gets lost with digital is intention; planning; waiting for the light; or as what Adams referred to as pre-visualization. Film forces that more than digital. It is possible with both but types of photography but when you know you have a 64gb card in the camera and another in your bag, it's easy to forget to stop and consider what you are trying to do with a single image.

I’m with you - and I’m sure Ansel would be too!

I’ve shot digitally now for 20 years,but I started with film. I find myself going back to film because it’s not technically perfect. Film just has a look! My analogy is it’s like modern cars. Technically perfect ,but when you see a vintage car you can easily see the soul. Maybe it’s nostalgia?

I really enjoyed your video. Certainly felt close to home. You brought up so many good points and you can certainly speak from experience. The real beauty of the story is that this story is about me. Having totally skipped over 35mm film, I briefly flirted with the 135mm and my Kodak Foto Center booth at 86th & Ditch. Although it was magical at 10 years old, I was far too intimidated to actually buy a camera with a bunch of dials I couldn't possibly figure out. Fast-Forward 40 years and I'm shooting digital. I'm quite competent with the the digital workflow from beginning to end. The truth is, your Daily Chat about your first love (Argus C3) hit so close to home. I had that exact camera (your first love's younger sister) sitting on a shelf collecting dust, never been used by me. So call me a sucker; I did my research, bought the film and am happy to spend the $35 for the opportunity to step back in time, and experience "film" much like everyone before me. I'm expecting the experience to be very similar to those that go from Digital Audio vs. Vinyl. For those that never experienced turning on the Receiver, putting the LP on the turn-table, dropping the needle and hearing the rich sound (aka harmonic distortion) and scratches, it can be a beautiful different experience. I can't wait!

... btw, one of the best black and white negative films I used with my Contax G1 before 2003 was the gigabit film. I'm not sure if the film is still distributed today but there is still a rudimentary German website. Also the scan of it still brings very good digital source material.

Hi Kevin, I shoot both Digital and film. I shoot B&W film. There is a look to B&W film (printed particularly 😊) that is hard/impossible to reproduce with digital, even with very good presets. I use a Leica M (used!) in both cases, so the lenses are the same, but the look is different. When I look on the web, the only thing that comes close is a monochrome digital camera (and I have toyed with that, but expansive). The limitation of 36 exposures is actually an interesting thing. For what I choose film for (street, urban landscape), it’s a discipline more than a limitation. I experiment with digital, though, because of the ridiculous cost of film, as you mention. Overall, though, my rate of “keepers” is higher with film, because of the discipline. But it’s the tonal gradation of B&W film that I love (and the blocked shadows, well, that’s part of the esthetic I am looking for). Now, I started with B&W film and developing/printing on my own 45+ years ago, so there may be nostalgia, but the look… (I scan myself to reduce costs and then it’s all a digital workflow; can’t be bothered with chemicals these days). Hope that helps. Great, great channel.

I think when people can get the *exact* same look from digital compared to film, they'll be more inclined to agree. But on top of that I personally do find film so much fun as well. Incredibly fun. But that might be younger eyes which is used to a digital age from every electronic I own. That being said I haven't yet actually bought a digital camera and I'm trying to find a nice, cheap(ish), entry level digital camera to help me learn the ropes, too.

I do shoot some film with an assortment of nikon cameras. It slows me down as I think through each shot so I’m not wasting the film… is it better in any way? No. It brings back memories, (not many are good), of my time as a wedding photographer shooting film. There is that nostalgic feeling and the comments and conversations that the cameras start are worth it!

What confuses me are the people shooting film so they can digitize their negs. I see a film advantage being silver gelatin prints from a well exposed negative but not an ink jet print from a scan. Save a step and a lot of money, shoot digitally in the first place. I agree with Kevin, I started with film and even like the smell of fixer but I’m in no hurry to go back.

feels like those of us who cut our teeth on film and were part of the digital revolution appreciate the benefits and convenience of the modern digital camera. but the younger folks who think shooting film is novel and different just don't have the muscle memory of dealing with film over the many decades past .

Digital gives "the best pictures possible?" Cost? McDonald's has sold billions of inexpensive hamburgers but folks go to Ruth's Crist for a reason. Why pay 50 dollars for a dinner when you could eat beef at Mickey D's for $7? And its faster and you can take it home? I develop and can my film costing me $ 3 roll. I print digitally on a large format printer. Nothing to show you have the right exposure? My f100, f5 and f5 have dead on matrix and spot meters. With my vintage cameras I use a hand held meter. It's DEAD ON. I use them in studio to set as many as 7 lights. Yes, someone who hasn't mastered the craft will have lots of failure. For a photographer, exposure is gotten out of the way as a mere numerical measurement so we can concentrate on the real purpose of a photo, the message. Maybe because I shot film for 40 years, I learned to nail focus and double check my metering. I KNOW WHAT I AM GETTING. Film is more of a challenge and that alone may be an appeal. It also separated film photographers from all the hamburgers taking billions of photos THAT ALL LOOK ALIKE. Oh, dynamic range, that's what makes a great image? Blocked up shadows, burned out highlights? Portra has a huge dynamic range and gives me detail in highlights/ the sky that would be blown out in digital. In b&w Kyle MacDougal did a test of hp5, one shot at proper exposure then shots down to 2 stops under and 6 stops over exposed. 5 stops over exposed was IDENTICAL to the proper exposure. Try that with digital and you have a pure white rectangle. And developing my own film, I can over expose by 2/3 stop iso to get more shadow detail/contrast, then shorten development to get more detail in the highlights. The Fstopper guys said the same thing about plugins, including one of their sponsors. They tried to match portra and after 30 minutes gave up. Close no cigar You might want to watch the movie Kodachrome. My favorite quote from it about digital v film is" Ever hold fake breasts in your hands, no matter how good they look they are never as good as the real thing. Because I camera scan, I have all the digital post processing tools available to work on my film scan. Better optics, better auto focus? My f100, f5 and f6 use exactly the same glass I use on my digital d850, the best nikon lenses including gelded lenses for digital and zeiss glass. and have dead on auto focus, spot and matrix metering and auto film advance. We don't "play with" film, and once I educate my clients to the difference, they love it. It doesn't make sense TO YOU, spare us reading our minds that it doesn't make sense to us. It also slows us down, I don't come home from a shoot with 2000 mostly near identical images to cull. Oh, and something that seems to have been lost in the blind pursuit of sharp, no ca, no vignetting is film can be FUN. Remember, most folks shoot for FUN, and the camera just pumping out sterile, perfect rendered images is BORING. Seems like every time someone wants to breathlessly show me the photos they are so proud of, I have to bite my tongue and not say , they look like every one of the millions of photos taken yesterday. Sharp, oof background, screwed with saturation, over sharpened subject and don't forget, with those 22 element lenses, flat rendering. My zeiss glass gives the zeiss pop 3D look. I hope this helps you to get it. Weddings? That's what the F stopper guys who failed with plugins and 30 minutes of editing told a friend who spent 25 grand on film for last years weddings. I am a portraitist. I love the grain I get from film, not some hookey fog of dots added digitally . I love the pastel look of portra. I can get plenty of sharpness with a 100 or 400 T grained film like tmax but love the feel of the grain in 3200 in 645 or 67. Toning? I use nik silver efex to edit my film. Investing in digital cameras... that will be obsolete in 4 years? I'm still shooting a pentax me I purchased in 1978 and my RB 67 is 40 years old, f5 25. My f6 probably only 7 years old but like new. I approach photography as an art form and film gives me different tools to create my art, like different paints or brushes. For folks who just want to ape what is in front of the camera, digital is a godsend. Point it in the direction and the camera does the rest. But youngsters are finding it is fun to drive the train and make an image that is their vision instead of taking one.

Couple back I bought some film to shoot because my daughter was really getting into film. Developing it even. Well I had to wait three weeks for the results and I was ot all that impressed with the results. OK, you shoot film, if you stick with the whole process, develop the film, then using an enlarger and making the print, then you certainly get a film look - it's analog the whole way. But if you're going to shoot film, then convert to digital (and I can see why you'd want to, especially if you do color; all those nasty chemicals should be avoided; then there are the large amounts of water you have to go through) but if you're going to end up in the digital world - start with it too. I, for the most part, cherish the old days in the lab. Fun times. Having lived it, I don't see the point anymore. I suspect there will be this little transition period where some folks are attracted to it for their reasons. But I don't see film having any advantage at all to digital.

I think regarding the cost of film alone you are quite right. The prices are really high for quality film like Fuji Velvia50 etc. It is my preferred film, not easy to use but when I did everything right it’s always magic on the light table. I shoot predominantly MF and occasionally I use a small Panasonic digicam. Results are fine but Digicam imho just lack this quality about color. It is a bit flat and I do edit in Photoshop…. Thanks for your thoughts Kevin.

Pre-digital I shot a LOT of film but was never able to set up my own dark room. So if I got a promising negative or slide I had prints made by a custom lab, and the process was mostly out of my control, lots of money and hope for the best. With digital I have the control over the whole process (capture to print) that I could only dream of with film. I still have my film cameras, including large format, and keep thinking I'll use them again - maybe someday...

I agree! No more film for me!

The thing I do not get is if one shoots film for "the film look" once you scan it you are shooting digital, if one really wants the film look one has to go all the way and print in the darkroom on photographic paper

I have extensive Sony and Olympus systems, but also an extensive collection Hasselblad V, Pentax 67, Pentax M42. For me shooting film is not about logic, it is about nostalgia for the feel of 70's 80's film cameras at their mechanical pinnacle before plastification. Todays camera do not have that same desire to be picked up and regarded as a fine instrument. As far as actually shooting film goes, real BW emulsions with their tonalities and grain connects us to those great photojournalists of the last century. Other than nostalgia, digital is just better.

I shoot 6x9 negs that end up to be around 80mp. I scan them myself after I get the negs processed. I shoot digital for work ( corporate and events) but I like to shoot film on my days off, It's lovely. I can slow down, and think about the small details and then go" click". Having said that I have about 30 roll of 120 ( that I bought for placticly nothing from a family member) in the fridge and when that's done , that will be my swansong. I will then sell everything I own (cameras, lights, lenses, etc.) and buy the biggest, baddest medium format camera I can afford. :-)

If you shoot analog film, have it processed and then scanned.....it is then digital. I don't get it either. Unless you have your own print equipped darkroom, even if you get your negatives printed, they are probably scanned and then printed. They are digital prints. I just don't get it.

I don't get it either. I shot film for many years and do not miss it at all. I suspect that most people shooting film today grew up with digital photography, with smart phones, laptops, tablets, etc screens everywhere and see film as simpler, more pure somehow. Perhaps it's even a bit of a rebellion with the way the world is going. And some will just enjoy the process. To each his own.

...for me this is not an issue, having switched completely from 80% slides and 20% negative film to digital photography in 2003. Besides the cost of film, I scan analog film every now and then and when I see the low dynamic range and film grain from an Ektachrom 400, I'm grateful every day for the digitization ;). The whole thing is similar to the records.

Call me a weirdo, but I like to shoot photos using film, but not because of the film. I love the feel of 6x6 Rolleicord. I love my old Linhof 6x9. One day, I will buy some 4x5 camera, or even 8x10. Because I like the way they work. It's crazy expensive way of taking pictures, but those wonderful old cameras deserve a roll or sheet of film from time to time. But it's just a small part of photography for me.

Imagine you love fishing-you relish the tactile experience and the serenity of nature. Can that really be compared to simply grabbing a fish from your freezer?

Well, even I can understand nostalgic people go back to film, that's not for me. It's ok as everybody does whatever makes them happy. For me, it's digital as I can get the most available image quality with my digital cameras, including Fuji GFX100, X-T3,... But when I feel a little bit nostalgic I go out with my old X-Pro1 and X-E1, both using the first Xtrans sensor. Yes, it's just 16Mp but I get really beautiful images. So, even using digital, you can shot in "nostalgic mode". Going further, when I really feel nostalgic, I take old lenses like Leica, Nikon (including rangefinder ones that are great), Meyer Optik, Carl Zeiss Jena, Soviet lenses (yes, there are wonderful ones) and enjoy the best of both, analog and digital worlds as these old lenses have their own "personalities" or character (read bunch of defects). So, depending of my mood, I take out my favourite toys (sorry Kevin, I mean tools) and have lots of fun and that's the real point for me. 😉

Old man yells at analog cloud. How to shoot film cheaper: Bulk load, develop and scan at home. I'm shooting $6 rolls of 250D because I process and scan at home. I'll gladly take that f3 off of your hands though.

I don't get it either; especially for color photography.

If your digitising film I can understand the argument but if your not into spending time at a computer screen converting your images, boosting colours and all other manner of artificially compensating for either lack of skill or digital's weaknesses then film becomes a viable alternative. The attraction of digital is immediate gratification and even those without photographic skill can achieve very acceptable results more reliably and in a wider range of light conditions quite cheaply. Reason enough to give it a try but in my experience all the digital shooters I know report that straight out of the camera, colours are digital's weakness and the only way to improve your results is to tweek away. I'm sure one day things will get better but they're not there yet.

outside of the mckinnon hipster bullshit, one thing you left out is the experience of shooting film cameras. A sony is not going to give you the same experiences as a Rolleiflex TLR. an iphone is not like shooting an f3. A modern Hasselblad is not like shooting a Shinhao. many of us who grew up in the film era were happy to finally get away from it when we had the chance with the first DSLR’s, now we have it as a luxury to enjoy the types of cameras, we probably could not afford in their prime. and unlike before you can shoot it when you in the mood for it and shoot digital when you’re not. The whole notion of switching from digital to film is inherently Stupid. Is it expensive? Absolutely! but so is any hobby that’s worth enjoying. and I’ll take an image shot on film over an image shot on a phone any day of the week

I shoot film to improve my digital black and white. Then again I develop my own film.

I agree with you ! I just don´t get it either. I did analog photography with film from 1970 to 2007, both as a professional and as a hobby. Since 2007 I have only used digital Cameras and I have never missed analog and I never will, digital photography is so much better and gives much more fun. Those young "hipsters" just want to be different and "trendy", I just don´t get it !!!

I started photography back in the 70s. I still own all of my film cameras, some of which I purchased new in the 70s. I have Canon AE-1, Canon F1-N, 2 Nikon FE and Kiev-88CM. I have not touched one of then since I switched to digital and won't go back. Nor do I miss darkroom work. I see the move back film the same as people listening to vinyl records. Why? CDs are much better than vinyl. I could not wait to replace my disks with CDs, especially the classical records.

its new and hip and a little bit clever -street photography in grainy monochrome, I suppose they feel really pro. Always say "scanned to 100mp!" Unfortunately the detail level is stuck at 15mp....

If you want to get the feel of what it was like to shoot film I have a suggestion. I used a Canon F1 and a Canon Ftb from 1972 until 2007. Many long nights were spent developing film and prints. I found the ease at which the digital images I got from my Pentax K10D could be edited and displayed was so satisfying that I swore off film forever. So, to my suggestion. If you want to handicap yourself and use equipment that offers challenges, buy some old digital gear. Like a camera with CCD sensor. Or a point and shoot from around 2010. Any brand will give you all the headache and frustration of a film camera and film. These cameras are cheap. A good one works as well as it did back when. I still drag out my 2007 ten megapixel Pentax and take it for a walk now and then just to remind me how nice it is too shoot with a Sony A7RIII. I recently bought a thirteen year old Sony point and shoot at a flea market for $10.00. After spending about thirty more on batteries and an SD card I have a pocket camera that will deliver jpegs that can be made to look like film. And as a bonus, I suppose, it's a pain to shoot with.

Does he know some people use bicycles instead of driving cars? Or that some people both ride bicycles and drive cars? There are even people who ride horseback!

Cost?? You say that you are ordering the new IPhone …You constantly upgrade your digital gear. Wien did you upgrade your analogue gear? The cost of GAS is much higher than the cost of film. Buy a Nice Leica MP or like, and you have a camera for LIFE 😉

If you "just don't get it," you never will. You seem to be closed to the idea that any process that is not your own might have validity.