subject: Film Vs Digital? [print this page] It's the 21stcentury, and digital rules the consumer marketplace. In professional photography circles, it's not so clear. Digital photography is useful in that it allows hundreds of pictures to be taken and stored in a few minutes, but the resolution isn't up to par with film, and the range of colors is often more subdued.
For example, if you were going for a vehicle wrap, if it's digital it might be too blocky or soft. It also might have problems showing the detail of the dark colors and the light colors. Film has no such issues, giving an incredible range of colors and shades, and the resolution is only limited to how sensitive your film scanner is, meaning in 10 years, it could be an even better quality than it is now.
Another problem is archiving. Even the Smithsonian Institute is having problems archiving digital data. Floppy disks and CDs degrade, and hard drives fail after only a few years. Hollywood takes its digital video and CGI animation and puts it into film for storage. They don't risk losing data by degradation. Furthermore, keeping a backup server running for all of the data of the thousands of digital photos can cost thousands of dollars a month. With film, you keep a sorted box or folder of negatives. Storage is basically free.
And futureproof, for that matter. In 1990, people used 5 " floppy disk drives for almost everything. Now, nobody has something that can even read them. In the future, it may be the case that computers don't even work the same way they do now, rendering the digital files useless, like a CD with no CD player. What would happen if you wanted to find portraits of your children from 15 years ago and have no way to open the files, or the hard drive failed? There's nothing you can do. With film, it's just a matter of looking at the negatives.
A common misconception is that digital is much cheaper than film. In some respects, that's right. In others, however, it's film that's cheap. Every year new digital cameras come out, or new software, or new equipment, and they all to try to make digital look as good as film, and they lose thousands and thousands of dollars every year in depreciation, or a new system comes out that render all the old equipment useless. Film on the other hand has been the same since the sixties, and the equipment is great. It's time tested, and doesn't require such an influx of money just to keep current.
When people just start out in digital photography, they can make better prints with digital cameras. They come out just as they look on the screen. Most studios do a terrible job with film prints, however, and even beginner photographers don't do so well. It's a fine process to develop negatives, and it's easy to do wrong. However, professional, experienced photographers can get colors and shades out of film that digital shooters can only dream of.
So, as with most things, it's not necessarily a clear cut choice. It can be broken up this way, though: If you want quicker results and easier development, ask for digital. But if you want MORE colors, MORE light range, BETTER definition, CHEAPER storage, and MORE RELIABLE archiving, go film.
