35mm film? My 5 cents...
I can understand the attraction to film, there's also a solid clunky mechanical feel to a film camera that's genuinely pleasing, but when it comes to image quality, in pretty much every measurable criteria, digital has left film behind. This..
In the realm of 35mm film; digital cameras are finally catching up in terms of resolution.
..is completely untrue (no offense BBA). In terms of resolution, digital overtook film around 4 to 5 years ago.
Here's a shot of a print I did for a client on Friday. It's one meter wide (about 40 inches) and I shot it with a 12mp camera.
Here's a close up of the same print with my iPhone to give an idea of scale.
Despite the fact that it's been up-rezzed considerably, there are no digital artifacts and you have to push your nose up against the print to see any pixels or loss of resolution (and these are the shadows, which is where any digital artifacts are usually most noticeable).
The largest photography books I have on my shelf are
Art Wolfe's Edge of the Earth Corner of the Sky,
Steve McCurry's South Southeast,
Yann Artus-Bertrand's Earth From Above and
Sebastiao Salgado's Africa. These were all shot with 35mm film, and the biggest has some images printed at about 20 inches across 2 pages - half the size of the above print. These are not cheap books, but it's really clear to see that they are pushing the format to it's absolute limit. In some images there is a clear loss of resolution from printing so large.
I know that Art Wolfe, Steve McCurry and Yann Artus-Bertrand now all shoot digital. Salgado, I don't know....although I haven't seen any new work from him for a very long time, so I don't know how active he is.
When it comes to high ISOs, you just can't even begin to compare. The image below was shot at ISO 1600.
Ever seen film at ISO 1600?
You just couldn't make a shot like this with 35mm film....it's inconceivable..
In terms of resolution, dSLRs are even catching up with medium and large format. Have you seen the
DXO Mark ratings of the Nikon D800 sensor? They say it's the best sensor they've ever analyzed INCLUDING medium format digital sensors.
All these comparisons head in the same direction: the D800’s sensor is comparable to the best medium-format sensor, and in fact does even better — much better — as ISO increases.
35mm film can't come close to digital medium format in terms of resolution, and yet 35mm digital can.
Also, film has a smaller dynamic range and is prone to colour shift in long exposures, so there really is no measurable way in which 35mm is better than modern digital.
I can understand what you're saying about the "feel" of film, but to go back to Steve McCurry, I remember hearing an interview with him where he said he changed to digital when he realised that it was no longer true that film had a better "feel". And he's arguable the greatest living photo-journalist.
To be honest, I think a lot of this thing about "feel" comes from the fact that many people print digital images as JPGs straight from the camera, which have had all the in-camera processing and compression done to them.
If you also factor in that a lot of people shooting digital are using compacts with ridiculously high MP counts on a tiny sensor, and they often print cheaply (by that I mean using cheap inks, cheap paper and cheap printers)..then yeah, it's easy to see all the tell-tale signs of digital in prints.
However, if you compare a print from a 35mm film camera with a print from a properly-exposed and processed RAW file shot with a 35mm dSLR from the last 4 years, printed on the same paper with the same inks and printer, and at a regular size (say, up to about 35cm (13 inches) then it's impossible to see the difference.
Print it bigger, or shoot at higher than ISO 800, and you will see the difference because the film print will start to look inferior in terms of detail.
I also understand all the flexibility about being able to switch different types of body and lens with different films for a completely different look, and I would LOVE someone like Nikon or Canon to produce a properly modular system (interchangeable sensors for example), but the flexibility of film for me is kind of fun but not particularly practical.
With film, if I want switch from colour to b&w, change the ISO or the colour temperature, then I have to change the film. With digital I can change all of those things from shot to shot, and that for me is real, practical flexibility.
Not only that, but once I've got the RAW file, I can process it to look however I like...and as I said, if it's done well, I don't believe the images are distinguishable.
There is a magic to the darkroom, and sitting infront of a PC can certainly be annoying. I understand the pleasure of developing film, but for me, it's like the attraction of tinkering with an old car or something. Occasionally I'll play around with my Nikon FE2...I do love the mechanical snap of the shutter, but most of the time it's used as an attractive paper weight, and for anything where image quality is important, and certainly for any client work, I shoot digital.
[GU said:
elmur_fud]...I do agree the noise filter is crap... Cleaning up an already noisy photo without plasticizing it is definitely a challenge and usually requires retouching by hand and a layered approach.
The best PS plug-in for noise I've found is Noise Ninja. Put it on a separate layer, hide the layer, then just use the brush tool at a lowered opacity on the areas you want to work on until you're happy with how it looks.
EDIT: Just re-read my post back and it sounds kind of rant-y. No offense meant, it's just opinion and at the end of the day photography is about having fun and creating, and enjoying what you create. If film gives you that, then that's awesome. Didn't mean to come across like some kind of zealot. Apologies if I came across that way.
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