StephenM
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- 6 October 2025
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- Name
- Stephen
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Film is now the old technology, and digital has superseded it. Digital is just as capable of recording an image as film, is simpler (no developing of film before you can even start on making a print), and, once you already have the equipment, free (electricity costs for charging batteries and running computers aside). So, why do I use film?
The history of photography shows a steady progression - I won't quite say progress, as that would suggest continuous improvement. Daguerreotypes gave way to the negative/positive approach, wet plate gave place to dry plate (which instantly made photography simpler). Yet even today, all the old processes are still employed somewhere, and there has been a noticeable increase in books covering them. It's easier today to walk into a good photographic bookshop (are there any, outside of exhibition halls?) and walk out with books on how to use old processes than it was in pre-digital days. What's the appeal, apart from being different? If you're expecting me to answer that one, I can't. I've seen various answers on other forums - I like the process, I don't like sitting in front of a computer outside work, or even that it's a craft process - but none of those fit me.
In my case, partly it's prejudice. I've been developing my own films since the late 1950s, and got my first enlarger in 1961, so I've invested a fair amount of time on the "old ways". But I do also use a digital camera and there's at least one of my digital photographs on this forum. It's not that I refuse to use modern methods, nor is it that I prefer the analogue process. I'd much prefer NOT having to process film, scan it, spot it and only then get to the stage of making a print, a sequence that in digital becomes connect the card or camera and download. Much simpler, quicker, easier all round. My choice of film is down to more personal reasons - mainly my own weaknesses, but not entirely.
My biggest weakness is impatience. Yes, that should play to digital, but my impatience is that with an eye level camera, I don't take the time to properly examine the viewfinder for extraneous items, don't pay the same attention to the screen as I would to a ground glass, and see as an eyewitness, aware of the surroundings and not solely concentrating on what will actually appear on the photograph. I find that I pay much more attention to what will appear in the frame if the frame I'm viewing isn't at eye level and is larger. This means I'm using a medium format camera, and with a waist level finder for preference. It detaches me more from the surroundings, my peripheral vision doesn't include what's around the frame, and additionally, the image is laterally reversed.
This makes the view subtly different and a little more detached from the scene in front of me. The sudden change makes me look more closely, and composition improves. When it's a large format camera, admittedly eye level, the ground glass is larger again, and the focusing cloth completely isolates me. Plus the image is not only reversed left to right, but upside down. That really makes it easier to compose, and to really see what shouldn't be in the frame. Large format also gives other advantages in terms of camera movements - all lenses become tilt/shift lenses, I can adjust adjust object sizes in camera.
So far, nothing I've written actually makes film photography "better" than digital. I could just slow down and adapt. Or use a digital back (at the cost of a car). But I have another, very, very, illogical weakness. I prefer black and white to colour (and that would be another post) and with a film camera have no problems transposing the scene to black and white (I have one spectacular failure on that point though). With a digital camera, for some reason I can't make that leap. Nonsensical, isn't it? Could I learn? Probably. But the gain would still leave one final point, the real reason I stick with film.
The main, overriding reason is that the prints, even after scanning and being inkjet printed, still have a subtle difference from pure digital ones - a difference that gives prints I prefer. I can try and explain why I think this is so, but another time. If photography is about prints, rather than photos online, that is my ultimate fall back reason. Better prints, to my eyes. And that's ultimately what photography is about to me - the final image.
The history of photography shows a steady progression - I won't quite say progress, as that would suggest continuous improvement. Daguerreotypes gave way to the negative/positive approach, wet plate gave place to dry plate (which instantly made photography simpler). Yet even today, all the old processes are still employed somewhere, and there has been a noticeable increase in books covering them. It's easier today to walk into a good photographic bookshop (are there any, outside of exhibition halls?) and walk out with books on how to use old processes than it was in pre-digital days. What's the appeal, apart from being different? If you're expecting me to answer that one, I can't. I've seen various answers on other forums - I like the process, I don't like sitting in front of a computer outside work, or even that it's a craft process - but none of those fit me.
In my case, partly it's prejudice. I've been developing my own films since the late 1950s, and got my first enlarger in 1961, so I've invested a fair amount of time on the "old ways". But I do also use a digital camera and there's at least one of my digital photographs on this forum. It's not that I refuse to use modern methods, nor is it that I prefer the analogue process. I'd much prefer NOT having to process film, scan it, spot it and only then get to the stage of making a print, a sequence that in digital becomes connect the card or camera and download. Much simpler, quicker, easier all round. My choice of film is down to more personal reasons - mainly my own weaknesses, but not entirely.
My biggest weakness is impatience. Yes, that should play to digital, but my impatience is that with an eye level camera, I don't take the time to properly examine the viewfinder for extraneous items, don't pay the same attention to the screen as I would to a ground glass, and see as an eyewitness, aware of the surroundings and not solely concentrating on what will actually appear on the photograph. I find that I pay much more attention to what will appear in the frame if the frame I'm viewing isn't at eye level and is larger. This means I'm using a medium format camera, and with a waist level finder for preference. It detaches me more from the surroundings, my peripheral vision doesn't include what's around the frame, and additionally, the image is laterally reversed.
This makes the view subtly different and a little more detached from the scene in front of me. The sudden change makes me look more closely, and composition improves. When it's a large format camera, admittedly eye level, the ground glass is larger again, and the focusing cloth completely isolates me. Plus the image is not only reversed left to right, but upside down. That really makes it easier to compose, and to really see what shouldn't be in the frame. Large format also gives other advantages in terms of camera movements - all lenses become tilt/shift lenses, I can adjust adjust object sizes in camera.
So far, nothing I've written actually makes film photography "better" than digital. I could just slow down and adapt. Or use a digital back (at the cost of a car). But I have another, very, very, illogical weakness. I prefer black and white to colour (and that would be another post) and with a film camera have no problems transposing the scene to black and white (I have one spectacular failure on that point though). With a digital camera, for some reason I can't make that leap. Nonsensical, isn't it? Could I learn? Probably. But the gain would still leave one final point, the real reason I stick with film.
The main, overriding reason is that the prints, even after scanning and being inkjet printed, still have a subtle difference from pure digital ones - a difference that gives prints I prefer. I can try and explain why I think this is so, but another time. If photography is about prints, rather than photos online, that is my ultimate fall back reason. Better prints, to my eyes. And that's ultimately what photography is about to me - the final image.
. Actually, in practice although I always take a reading, I estimate the exposure first, and I'm rarely more than half a stop out from the meter. I think this comes from using a separate meter and having to transfer the settings - you can't not notice what they are. One of the historical features in the UK is Hadrian's Wall; one year when photographing part of it, we parked in the car park at the base of the hill and then walked up some distance, me carrying my 5x4 (monorail in those days, 4.2 kilos), tripod and (almost) all the stuff I needed. The almost was the light meter - that was left in the car. I didn't bother going back, just estimated, and to be honest I couldn't tell from the negatives that anything unusual had happened.
