Digital or film... which is best for you?

It isn’t a matter of either OR. Sally Mann doesn’t coat her own plates because of OR. Ditto Atget with his kit in his time before her, and countless others before him. It is always a matter of AND. It isn’t a contest. It’s a matter of very personal needs AND taste AND evolution. Always was, always will be. Making an argument out of any of it, OR pitching any one against any other, OR even competitively comparing them is simply stupid.

Edit: Well, now that you reacted to my post by completely re-editing the header, I’d of course word what I said differently, but screw that: I didn’t change my stupid mind, you did.

Therefore, there is also zero reason for me to comment on your post which you subsequently directed to me, below.

For the better part of the past ten years, I have made my living manipulating other peoples’ pictures using photoshop. Right now, that’s still how I make my living; eight hours (or more) a day, five days a week. I have Photoshop so embedded in my brain, that when I really started to learn photography myself a couple years ago, I took a film photography class that frustrated me to no end. I spent hours screaming at the stop bath that I could have been done if I had only shot digitally.

I’ll fully admit that my path is probably a little more unique than others, that’s why I always prefer digital over film. When I’m really on my game shooting, I sometimes know what curve moves, etc. I want to apply to my images when I release the shutter.

One of the things that the film photography class taught me was respect for the masters of the darkroom. Those people blow me away with their ability to freakishly burn and dodge on the fly like they do. If you haven’t seen video of that taking place, do yourself a favor and look up video of it.

film….

but it aint for me because it’s More or Less than digi…for now, film is only the tool that makes sense visually for the way i express something (whatever the hell is that i am expressing) through the language of photographs….i’ve used digital also in the past (the first generation of cameras) and loved them for all their pixelated oddity (i’m not a fan of all the perfection and sharpness now), and i’ve moved toward digital printing, and web-based ideas over tradition representation/distribution of images, but still…though i continually struggle with the environmental footprint of using film, digital is not yet a visual viable means for me, nor by a measure of standard, by a simple fact:

what film accomplishes for work like my own is how photography makes sense…and that includes being limited by the amount i can shoot (1 roll, 4 rolls, etc) in any given period of time….a kind of diet as well..

it is what it is, nothing more profound than that ;)

running
b

Stupid, I see your point AND agree, BUT the question here IS what medium works best for YOU (Digital or Film) AND in which medium do you feel your work is better. There is no argument to be made AND arguing about it would simply be stupid. It’s subjective. (By the way, I’ve removed the word “argument” from my original post). ;)

blink and remember

one could probably argue that the environmental downsides of using film are balanced by the fact that you don’t need to buy a new camera every six months and throw away your previous. really you are only tossing the developer and there are environmentally friendly ones (xtol and hc110 to name a couple).

i shoot film, i use photoshop, you might say the best of both worlds.

my situation is the effect of desires, necessities and practicalities. the camera i wish to shoot with isn’t viable in digital, using an enlarger is not viable in my home (currently without one) and i truly love the characteristics and restrictions of shooting film.

i am young enough that i started out in photography with a digital camera and then went back to film, if the situation changes and its possible to use my camera in a digital world and i need it then i may use it but i am currently quite happy with film.

Hi. Is another way to see, the light is diferent thru analog support. In black and white the use of filters is not the same as when you try to do the same in digital in photoshop. The effect of developers is another thing, the source of light you have in the enlarger make the difference too. See a copy in fiber doble weight base paper and you can see another diffence in relation to the art of the copy. The cameras you can use are very different too, see the work of David Burnett. And you have to guest many things, you have to image your shot because there are some time until you get it developed. Some mistakes are really good surprises, some not. But Brian, today if you use film mean that you have to use photoshop too, sometimes retouching scans of films another time of copies because you can forget the web. I paste this
http://www.digitalrailroad.net/eniefoto/gpgs.aspx?pgid=11523603&e=0&p=0

Film…

my photography – film and only film
commercial in small format- only digi
snapshot- mostly digi but film also
experiments and fun -everything

I’ll take great subject matter and let the film or digi fall where it may….but great subject matter is harder to find that a Leica M4 or a Canon 5D.

Hi Andy, you are right. But I am in the opposite way. I want to find the uncanny, the beauty, the odd in the most ordinaries people, situations, places. Reveal something that is in front of us but we don’t see whatever is the subject matter. This is harder to do too.

Hernan…I think you and Andy are saying the same thing here. The success of any single or group of images depends not on equipment but on your personnel radar. The willingness to see and feel deeper in any given situation. Film or Digi is a lot to do about nothing (Shakespeare). :)

Gregory…..EXACTLY. In Hernan’s case great subject matter is everyday life, but obviously not every person makes for an interesting portrait….

Actually, every stupid person does make for an interesting portrait. If you can’t see that, take another, longer, more contemplative look. In due time, you’ll see the picture.

I suppose its a good attitude to have if you work as a passport photographer.

Or a stupid extermination camp photographer, doesn’t really matter, as long as you have the eyes and soul of a photographer.

http://stupidphotographer.blogspot.com/2007/10/im-just-stupid-photographer-i-dont-know.html

Interesting…..film or digital?

Both, since you’re seeing it on the stupid web.

J.F. you just hush that pretty little mouth of yours before I have to hush it up for you.. :)

Andy et al.,

Here is the link to the article on NYT about the circumstances of the above portrait which was taken by a 16-year-old boy who learned photography in China. He used the large format to take this and other portraits of those who were killed afterward.

I have now found a more recent article on this subject.

I think only now we are seeing the impact of digital photography on photography… how digital photography is making a change in the timeline, in the history of photography. That impact is seen in the absolute explosion in the popularity of photography. Still, and video images too, are possible wherever there is a cell phone. ...and that is everywhere. Photographs are everywhere, publishable, shareable with the click of a mouse.

This has confirmed the fears of many photographers back in the early years of the digital revolution. There has been an overwhelming wave of really pretty mediocre, if not just bad, photography. But, there are a lot of people having a lot of fun.

As a serious photographer, however, there is a subtle, but profound effect. That is because of the process, the ease of creating an exceptionally high-quality image with a minimum investment of time, money, and effort.

Here’s the thing… a friend of mine was talking to me about what it’s like to shoot with an 8×10 camera. He said, “man, when you take a picture with an 8×10, you know you’ve taken a frikkin picture!” Well, here is my problem with that. After you’ve gone to the effort of setting up the camera, and making the exposure, and processing the film, if you don’t think there is a good image there, then you feel like you’ve wasted your effort. You’ve invested too much in the image to see it for what it is… and that may well be just a bad image.

There’s an old joke about high-maintenance cars… if you spend a ton of money buying, and then maintaining a car, you’re going to either believe that car is the best thing on the road, or feel like a sucker. Shooting most film cameras is much the same… after you’ve gone to the effort, you have a hard time dismissing it as a poor image.

Let’s look at shooting with my little pocket Canon G9. I have it with me everywhere. It makes an absolutely remarkable 16×20 print. I have shot gigabytes with it since I got it, and some of the images are, well, quite good. There are two major things at play here… first, I am shooting everything and anything, pretty much at the drop of a hat. If in doubt, I shoot. Second, I edit ruthlessly.

I am not overly invested in any one image. This frees me to see the images for more what they are… and allows me to pull only the best, and set the rest aside.

After all is said and done, this is really, for me, the most significant change… I am free to explore and imagine, to try and experiment, and to see and learn, and am objective and dispassionate enough to make a good cut.

...once I have made that cut, then I get passionate.

To the vast majority of today’s photographers, meaning people who now own and use cameras, the “film vs digi” question is much like the stupid “steam engine vs jet engine” one, to day’s travelers. Doesn’t mean the steam engine is dead, or better, or worse than jets. Doesn’t mean nobody loves steam anymore. Does mean most people don’t give a crap one way or the other, they simply want to get from A to B, best they can, which is not by steam. Leaves steam to steam lovers and film to film fans.

I don’t think so, anonymous photographer. For the reasons i said before. Steam and jet have nothing to do with the digital and analog way of take pics.

I shoot more photos with digital but I get about same amount of good images as film. By that I think I am a better photographer shooting film.

I still shoot film (35mm and 6×6) because I have not decided on what kind of digital cameras I want to have. Also I invested too much money on getting lenses for my OM system, so I`d better stick with my setup. My major challenge is how I am going to digitize my results quickly so that I can show the results to my potential buyers and viewers.

I would love to shoot film now, but I would really battle over getting my work digitised. Polaroid, I love. Film, I love, but the scanning kills me. I travel so much, and I really respect so many Lightstalkers who choose film over digital despite their traveling lifestyle. For me now, I spend my time concerned with where my next recharge is coming from. Both media have inherent benefits and inherent problems. The real art is in being able to find and use those benefits to one’s advantage.

Blue.

I don’t know if it still exists but there was a website www.digitalsucks.org or maybe .com They said it all. Go get yourself a Holga and get really creative – or frustrated.

I have followed this thread with interest and declined to comment until now. But I have to say that, IMHO, except with respect to space in a bag, the two media are just different, and not truly in competition with one another. Moreover, a photog who shoots both learns something in each that helps him/her in the other.

Let’s face it, a shooter can take world-class photos in fim and digital equally well. Obviously the circumstances of the shooting will define to a large extent which medium is used (deadline sports is clearly now a digital game). But the speed with which digital shots can be taken tends to make shooters sloppy, I believe.

I found myself so afflicted. When I pulled out my old FM2 and loaded it with Tri-X, my personal Tao went to another place. I found myself concentrating better and coming up with a notably higher percentage of keepers. I also found myself taking fewer risks, and in some senses my creativity went down.

That led my to revisit the basics, which I did with Bill Allard at a workshop at LOOK3. He was a great help and pushed me to a new place in my shooting generally, but especially in my digital.

I am still working some with the B&W film (because the look is just different from digital B&W, and I like it). I now consider the two media quite differently and always look at them in terms of the subject matter of the shooting. I should also add that carrying around a rangefinder is a whole lot easier than the D3, even with my favorite 35mm lens. But it won’t stop me from using the D3 (to me, still a dream camera)

So I think that it all turns on the circumstances presented at a particular time—your environment, your subject matter, your mindset (Tao), your artistic objectives, etc. It’s like in the pre-digital past deciding whether to shoot in 35 mm, medium format, 4×5, 8×10, etc. Each has superior strength in a particular setting.