It was maybe a decade ago, I remember talking to a friend and being perplexed that she preferred good ole-fashioned paper books to e-readers. Back then I thought e-readers were just amazing. I mean, they are simply superior, right? You could fit hundreds of books in one tiny device, you can add as many dog ears as you want, you can add highlighter and change font size, you can write as much as you want in the margins without ever running out of space, you can even look up dictionary definitions without leaving the page! They are simply superior, right?
Similarly, I could never understand those odd folks that preferred vinyl records to the clean sound of digital. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an audiophile, but the sound of digital is just superior, right? It’s just the music and nothing else. You can skip to any song easily (I guess you can do this with records, but not as easily), you have access to almost any song ever created, you can equalize with far more precision. It’s just so convenient! And the sound, did I mention the sound?
Fast forward a few years and I have bought my first film camera. It was a cheap Aires 35 IIIC rangefinder camera. I wasn’t trying to get into film photography, I just wanted to experience the full-frame “look”. You see, I could only afford an APS-C camera, which, as you may have guessed, has a smaller sensor than a full-frame camera. Full frame is essentially the same size as the 35mm film frame. So I bought a film camera just to see what all the full-frame fuss was about! I don’t think I feel one way or the other when it comes to the whole full-frame VS APS-C debate, but as far as film was concerned, I was digging it!
It was such an inconvenient thing, though. But I enjoyed every painstaking moment of it. I soon learned how to develop C-41 (color film). When developing I would often scratch and damage my negatives and all the work put into that photo went down the drain. Not to mention entire rolls that I lost because I accidentally exposed them or because I didn’t load them properly onto the developing reel. Dust is also a major pain in the ass as it will easily stick to your film. The process is cumbersome! With digital, you can easily check your LCD and decide if you are satisfied with the photo, but with film, there’s no feedback. You’ll just have to wait and see. With digital, you virtually have unlimited shots, but with film you get either 24 or 36 frames, depending on the roll. With digital, you can change your ISO on the fly, but with film, you are committed to a fixed ISO for all of those 36 shots. And those 36 shots cost money, by the way! At first glance, you may think film is cheaper, but those rolls of film add up! Depending on how you shoot, film can be more expensive than digital.
scratched film
Then there’s the resolution. In theory, a 35mm film’s emulsion can hold more data than a digital sensor, but in practice, your lens probably does not render so much detail. But even if it did, your film scanner will likely not outperform your digital camera’s sensor. So much so that many film photographers even opt to use their digital cameras to scan their film negatives instead of a dedicated scanner. There’s no question in my mind, digital simply has too many advantages over film. Digital is objectively superior to film. There, I said it! One could probably argue that film has a particular look that can’t be achieved by digital. But I must admit I’ve been fooled by many digital images that were edited to look like film. Sure maybe if I look real close I can tell the difference. But I feel if I’m looking that close, I missed the point.
So, why insist on film? It’s not easy to answer, but I’ll try. For me, it’s how film makes you shoot. I feel more involved in my photography than ever before. I feel weird as I type this, because I must admit that I lose a lot of the control I would otherwise have with digital. But that does not remove the fact that I am more involved. I am more involved precisely because I need to work through the limitations of the medium. By now it’s cliche to say film just slows you down, but it’s true. And for some people, slowing down is very welcomed. You only get 36 shots so you need to think twice before you click that shutter. And that second thought helps me see things I would have missed. I’m sure most digital photographers think twice already, but for me, film helped me get into the habit, so I guess it’s not fair to say this is exclusive to film.
You also need to visualize. This is a huge one. With digital I never used to bother because I could easily verify my LCD screen and immediately judge the photo. But with film, you are forced to think about how the light will look on a print. I’ve been shooting with rangefinders lately and with this type of camera you can’t even see through the lens. So you even start to learn how to visualize the lens compression and angle of view. This is big for me because sometimes I will think about how a scene will look even when I don’t have a camera with me. I didn’t used to think this way. However, most professional photographers don’t rely on their LCD screens too often. They even have a derogatory name for it: chimping. So, again, this visualization process is not exclusive to film photography.
It’s also extremely tactile. I think this is one of the aspects that make me feel so involved and immersed. From loading the film, to dialing in the aperture and the shutter speed, to developing and drying, to printing in the darkroom, you are working with a physical object, an artifact, that literally recorded the photons that hit it the moment you clicked the shutter. The feeling of making something with your hands is just different too. Participating in an action that involves and results in tangible objects just feels good! But I must acknowledge that todays inkjet printers combined with high quality archival paper will produce a beautiful tangible object as well.
So why insist on film? Why insist on books, vinyls, mechanical watches, manual transmissions, dip pens, etc.? I honestly don’t know… but I get it.
francisco@grainyowl.com
