Why shoot film in the digital age?

Lately I have been thinking a lot about analog photography and whether I should maybe stop doing digital photography altogether. Wait, what? Don’t we live in the digital age and isn’t film something completely outdated? Well, hear me out before you conclude that I’m crazy!

I have been shooting film for a couple of years now and it’s been a very rewarding experience. However, at the beginning things were tough. My first manual film camera, the Zorki 3C, was slightly broken and I had problems with the focus because the rangefinder was off. It also didn’t have a light meter so I used an external one, which was rather tedious for street photography. The camera wasn’t the only problem though. The cheap lab I used in the beginning also did a terrible job with black and white film and I had to use a pro lab which was quite expensive. In the end I only shot 8 rolls of film in the first year because I couldn’t be bothered to go to the lab to have the films developed and found that paying 10€ for one roll of film – 5€ for my then favourite HP5+, 5€ for development – seemed way too expensive for my budget.

 

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

 

After about a year I decided to give film another chance though. After all I started film photography not out of boredom, but because I had a goal: I wanted to buy a Leica one day and the only way I would ever be able to afford one was to get a used film Leica. So, after 8 rolls of film I actually took a darkroom course where I learned how to develop my own black and white film, how to make contact sheets and also basic darkroom techniques like dodging and burning. And all of a sudden I was hooked! Not only did my expenses for development drop to only a few cents, but I could also develop at home in the bathroom the same day and had control over the results. If I didn’t like how the negatives turned out I could try different developers or push the film at no extra expense. Quickly I ditched the light meter and started guessing the exposure, which helped me to really get to know light, correct exposure and also how to compensate for exposure mistakes in development. After another year I have actually shot more than 100 rolls of film, tried different developers and film emulsions, pushed film beyond the ISO range of my digital cameras and I also started shooting medium format film.

Granted, shooting film is expensive with one roll of black and white film costing between 3-8€ depending on the emulsion. It also takes a lot more effort if you don’t have the money to pay a lab to do all your developing and scanning. However, apart from the emotional reasons shooting film still has some great advantages as well where digital photography can’t compete yet.

 

Latitude

Current professional DSLRs have about 12 stops of dynamic range, while there are film emulsions that can have 18 or even 19 stops! Experience shows that Portra can be overexposed 4 stops without loss and underexposed 1-2 stops without having to resort to push or pull processing. T-Max shows similar properties. I personally hardly shoot such high latitude films, because they are either colour films (Kodak Portra) or fine grain films (Kodak T-Max), but it is good to know that the option is there when needed at the expense of a few euros only. Where digital photographers need HDR to increase their dynamic range, which looks artificial and does not work with all subject matter, film provides an increased dynamic range out of the box without exposure bracketing. This is also why I could ditch the light meter so easily and still got decent results most of the time.

 

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Resolution

Compared to 35mm film digital full format provides higher resolution and sharpness with comparable image size, yes, I know. However, where digital cannot compete in resolution yet is in medium format and large format photography. Although there are digital backs for quite a few medium format cameras their prices are still too prohibitive to compete with 120 film. People who haven’t recently won the lottery can only dream of shooting at such a high resolution, unless they shoot film. Digital large format is not available at all yet. It can be expected that digital medium format will become more affordable with time, but even then there is still a rather large gap to close when it comes to large format. Of course resolution is somewhat overrated, but there are applications that need rather large formats to produce big prints and here medium and large format film still has a competitive advantage. If you ever dream of having a massive print of one of your pictures, medium or large format film photography is the way to go. And the great thing is that you can pick up a medium format folding camera and a roll of 120 film already for 50€. Chances are that the camera case of your digital camera was more expensive than that!

 

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

 

Consistency

Analog cameras often have a very long life span. I have shot several cameras from the 1950s that still work fine if you know their quirks (Zorki 3C, Agfa Isolette II, Rolleicord V), which means that a consistent look can be achieved over decades! In an era in which photographers change their digital gear every 2 years and sensor quality is still increasing, there is really no consistency at all anymore, because sensors and formats are still changing too fast. Each time the gear changes, a photographer has to re-learn all the automatisms that make him work quickly and efficiently with his gear. Usability is not the only issue though: Each time the gear is changed the look and quality of the pictures, the colours and noise levels will change. In this context, chances are that a retrospective of pictures taken over a lifetime in digital photography will look very inconsistent in comparison to the work of analog photographers who often stick with their gear and film / developer combinations for decades. The availability of film stock in different formats even makes it possible to achieve a tonal consistency no matter whether you shoot 35mm, 120 film or large formats like 4×5. By the way, I’m sure that one day I will decide on a film emulsion and a developer as well, but for now I’m having fun experimenting.

 

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

 

Atmosphere

In the same vain film has something that digital lacks: Atmosphere. In fact the magic of analog photography lies hidden somewhere in this elusive concept of “atmosphere” that digital photographers usually fail to create with software filters. Although it is obviously impossible to quantify this atmosphere in any way, it is obvious also to digital photographers that their pictures are missing something, or else there wouldn’t be such a high demand for filters that create a believable “analog look”. Digital RAW files consist of very clinical raw sensor data that still has to be processed to get a certain look. Film on the other hand comes with a certain look and feel out of the box which is achieved by the film emulsion in combination with the development. The C41 development process is standardised and consistently produces the same look for everyone. And although black and white development is not standardised and every photographer can develop their own look by experimenting with film emulsions and developer combinations, even there the look is still reproducible by always following the same development formula. In comparison to the rather open post-processing options of digital photography in which atmosphere remains mostly a matter of chance, it is much easier to achieve predictable results with film, because film producers have spent years on creating just the right tonal balance and colour saturation. And this is even possible without any knowledge about film development at all if you use a professional lab! No need to learn Photoshop at all! Since digital photographers usually change their gear too often it is rather impossible for them to even stumble onto a comparable “atmosphere” in the first place, so that film again has the edge where it comes to the feel of the pictures. This might be the least quantifiable argument for film, but for everyone who ever shot film it is probably the most important aspect. Although we can’t quite put our finger on it, digital lacks something vital, a certain magic, an atmosphere, a look and feel that is next to impossible to emulate in the digital world and this is usually why film photographers keep coming back for more, despite the cost and/or effort involved in shooting film.

 

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

San Sebastian, Spain | © Lilly Schwartz 2014

 

Archival properties

The earliest photographs are now almost 200 years old and some of them still survive. The reason for this are the exceptional archival properties of analog photographic materials when stored correctly. In comparison digital photographs might disappear within a fraction of a second due to accidental deletion or failure of storage devices. It can already be anticipated that there will be a whole generation that will lose their baby pictures due to faulty hardware. Yes, old photographs might be lost or damaged physically as well, but losing track of digital files is much easier than forgetting the existence of a stack of photographic prints. And if you still don’t believe me that negatives have better keeping properties because you have a flawless two-tier off-site backup system, then why do you think that certain labs now offer the option to expose your digital pictures on film? Ironic as this fact may be for the question at hand, the reason is clearly the inherent cruelty of the universe, since the laws of probability seem to be bent where it comes to backup systems. If systems fail, they usually fail all at once for no apparent logical reason. And believe me when I tell you that even the most religiously performed backup routine might not save the picture of a lifetime if you accidentally delete it on your camera. Yes, it has happened to me and I cried.

 

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

 

Conclusions

As you have seen, even though digital photography is very convenient, fast, cost-effective and flexible there are still some very good reasons for shooting film that go beyond emotions. If you want the highest possible latitude and resolution, excellent archival properties and predictable results that have the potential to be consistent over decades then shooting film is definitely the way to go.

I personally fell in love with analog photography even before I ever thought about these rather technical reasons though. In the end these might just be attempts at justification for a matter on which my heart is already decided. I used to be a rather digital person for as long as I can remember. I learned to code when I was 12, I used to work in IT, I spend many hours a day in front of the computer and I even hold a degree in Robotics. Still, there is nothing quite as lovely as the crackle of an old record that I salvaged from a flea market or the magical moment when a picture starts to appear on the paper in the darkroom as if by magic. I am still unsure whether I will switch to film entirely, but the truth of the matter is that I have shot more and more film over the last year without even thinking about it. I know I would switch to film without hesitation if I could afford to shoot as much film as I wanted and if developing and scanning the film wouldn’t take up so much time.

 

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

 

How to justify the cost

The truth is that in the digital age shooting film really has become a matter of cost. Film prices are always increasing so that even the cheapest 35mm black and white film costs 3€ nowadays and pro labs charge 14€ for developing and scanning one roll of it. Although I would have to win the lottery to be able to afford scanning at this rate and prefer to develop my own black and white film to have more control over the non-standardised process anyway, there are still ways of making film photography more cost-effective, both financially and time-wise. Only recently did I realise that one can save money on bulk-loading Ilford film even in Europe. To save on Kodak film in Europe the only way is to shoot cine film like Double-X that is only sold in 400ft and 1000ft rolls. Development costs are already very low when you develop your own film, but can be made even more cost-effective by using especially cheap methods like stand-developing in Rodinal. With only 3.5ml of Rodinal and a no-name fixer developing a roll of BW costs only about 15ct per roll. This is even cheaper than developing your film in caffenol, which is also a surprisingly effective, cheap and ecological developer on the basis of instant coffee. As for the time spent developing: This can be significantly shortened by developing up to 8 rolls at once in one tank. Although scanning is of course a matter of the cost of the scanning equipment the most important factor is how much you value your own work though. Whether spending 14€ for scanning is worth it depends on your hourly wage, since scanning a roll of 35mm film on a flatbed scanner takes about 1 or 2 hours – not only raw scanning time but also cropping the frames, colour / histogram corrections and dust-spotting. However, even scanning time can be decreased by using dedicated film scanners that can automatically scan a roll of uncut 35mm film in 3-4 minutes.

 

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

 

In the end, the question whether to shoot mostly film or digital will become moot for me once my little Olympus E-PL3 with its poor autofocus and its sad low light capabilities has to live up to the standards of my fantastic Rolleicord and a yet to be acquired Leica M6. Maybe with a Leica M9 this decision would be less easy for me, but if I could afford an M9 then cost also would hardly be a factor anymore either. As it is, if I want to shoot with gear at the level of the Leica then the price difference between a used full-frame digital Leica M9 and a used Leica M6 is almost 800 rolls of Kentmere 400 film, i.e. more than 5 years worth of film at my current rate of about 150 rolls of film a year, at which point the Leica M9 will also be completely obsolete. Besides, the M6 will probably keep its value while the M9 had a drop in re-sale value of probably around 2000€ with the introduction of the current Leica M and is likely to drop another 1000€ once even the current model is outdated. A digital medium format camera as fantastic as my Rolleicord would also be so fantastically unaffordable to me that the prices provoke nothing more than laughter. I could maybe buy around 25-75 years worth of film from the price difference between a analog and a digital medium format camera depending on the model. And what’s even more baffling is that those digital medium format backs can only do ISO 800, while I can push my film to ISO 6400 if I want!

Of course, if you are operating on the level of a relatively cheap MFT or entry-level DSLR cameras, shooting film can quickly seem rather expensive, but once you start comparing professional level cameras there really is no question for me as a street photographer anymore: Film is the way to go!

 

Final words

After all this deliberation and all these attempts at justification I suspect that even without all these arguments the decision was clear for me from the start. It only needed one afternoon in the darkroom and film photography found its way into my heart. There is only one thing left to say: Long live film!

 

Update: Since October 2014 I shoot exclusively film and my Leica M6 has already seen almost 200 rolls of film. There is no going back for me now! 

Comments

  • Care to share this in a Nik & Trick blog? now that you’re a customer of course x

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Sure Richard, why not 🙂 PM me details! x

  • ralf

    Thanks for your statement – nothing to add!

    • Lilly Schwartz

      You’re welcome 🙂 I suspected that you’d agree 😉

  • George

    There is no why.
    You get a camera with ten €
    And magically it works.

    • Lilly Schwartz

      You’re completely right, another bit of magic right there. I do tend to get the “Why do you still shoot film?” question very often though, which is precisely why I wrote this article. Not everyone knows about all that magic!

  • shutteroo

    Thanks, Lilly. I shared it on my timeline. Nice words !

    • Lilly Schwartz

      I’m glad you liked it! And thanks for sharing! 🙂

  • Going further in FSU RF cameras you should try a Zorki-6. No slow speeds but pretty fool proof and easy in handling. You found already the Jupiter-8 and J-12 lenses. They can be pretty good because the design were pre-war Zeiss Sonnar / Biogon type.

    For bulk film try Fomapan films too. Only take notice that Fomapan 400 is slower then the name should suggest, E.I. 250 in most developers. The same for the Fomapan 200, E.I. 160 but this is a very nice film if you are developing yourself because the emulsion is soft. It is a cubical type film combined with hexagonal Silver crystals, unique, no other manufacturer has it.

    Other good prices, better then Double X (Kodak) in Europe is OrWo Filmotec N74+, 122m/400ft.

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Thanks for all the good advice, Robert!

      I actually have two Zorkis already, a 3C and a 4K and I definitely like them both. However, I got really infuriated by the film forwarding dial of the 3C and therefore I much prefer the newer 4K with the forwarding lever. It also has less of the picture on the sprocket holes, which in general says something about the fit of the Western canisters. My main problem with the Zorkis is that they chew film like crazy, especially in winter. They have metal sprockets, so if the film gets a little brittle they really become a menace. Lots of film gets torn or scratched and it’s especially bad with one of my favourite films, Kentmere 400, because it has a rather thin base. So, in the end I kind of doubt I’ll get another Zorki, especially one with a forwarding dial like the Zorki 6, because I already have the one that fits my style of shooting best with the fast forwarding lever. And they are really a bit tricky because of the bad fit of the western film canisters as well. I was tempted by the Kievs too, by the way. One of my friends has one and it’s a beautiful camera that produces great pictures. However, I think I’ll upgrade to a Leica M6 soon, which will turn these FSU RFs into toys, really.

      I haven’t tried the Fomapan yet, but I think I’ll give it a try at some point because I like the look of some of the examples I’ve seen online. It is definitely economical, that’s for sure, but I’ve heard that they have a bit of a problem with quality control there. In any case, it’s on my list of films to try! My usual go to film for cheap film is K400 and that one is really nice. It took me a while to figure it out, because it doesn’t play nicely with all developers, but I think I’ve found the right combination now. It’s a shame that there is no 120 version of it.

      Indeed, Orwo is another good option. I first wanted to try the Double X stock though, because I really like Tri-X and it looks like a mix between that and the old Plus-X to me. I have two 36 exposure rolls coming my way for tests and if I like it I might invest in one of those 400ft rolls. And 400ft is quite a bit, something like 60 rolls, so it’ll take a while until I manage to try Orwo.

  • I think the decision to shoot analogue is a personal one and one that has no real visual benefits. It certainly is more of an art and skill, and I remember spending exorbitant amounts of time learning to read light and situations, etc. but at the end of the day for me, it came down to the moment and I wanted more than anything to capture it. I would find that sometimes that moment would be lost through my own mistakes and inabilities to read situations.
    I think the are benefits to both digital and analogue and in the end I chose to walk the digital path, primarily because I like to share my work, (which I no longer do much of) with friends and digital seemed easier and more instant. I also could not get over the fact I would spend time and money developing the film, only to have it scanned and digitized in order to share in this digital time….seemed a little oxymoronic.
    Greatest and thanks for sharing
    Gary

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Thanks for sharing your take on it, Gary! It’s true, if you want to share your work online then digital is much more convenient. I really do spend a lot of time scanning. However, I don’t agree that there are no visual benefits: I much prefer grain to noise and the colour rendition of digital sensors really is quite a mess for most cameras. This is actually one of the main reasons why I haven’t shot much colour in the last few years. It just takes too long to get the colours right in post-processing that I would spend too long on editing. So far I’ve only liked the colour rendition of the Leica M9 and that one is way outside of my budget. I shot a few rolls of colour film recently, but since I don’t know yet how to develop colour at home, I’ll have to wait for the lab on those. In any case, it is indeed a very personal decision and if you don’t see any difference between digital and analog, then of course digital also has benefits.

      • Hello Lilly,

        Great article! Regarding Gary’s comment, I don’t necessarily believe that it’s pointless to shoot film if all you want to do is share your work online. The visual benefits (if you are scanning yourself – using the labs to do your scanning kind of locks you into a certain look by the way the lab operator scans your film.), are most certainly there. I spend alot of time scanning as well, and for some reason, I enjoy it more than when all I did was shoot digital and post process the Raw files. But it all is a personal decision in the end.

        As someone that recently has started doing thier own color developing at home, you’ll find that those same magical feelings (watching a print develop in the darkroom, or like me waiting for the timer to end on the fix so you can pull out the negatives to glance over them) will be stirred up the first time that you open the tank and see those smelly, orange negatives on the reel!

        take care,
        Laidric

  • The following youtube video could be of interest:
    Rob Hummel: Primer on Film and Digital Capture by Rob Hummel at Cine Gear Expo 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98FZ8C6HneE

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Thanks for sharing this Andreas! Now, that’s absolutely crazy! I didn’t know that high altitudes kill pixels. I always thought that traveling with film is annoying, because you might kill your film in a broken x-ray machine and always have to argue with the security guards to have it hand-checked. However, killing one roll of film is an entirely different thing than killing a pixel on your digital. That pixel will be dead permanently!

  • Great piece. I’ve got shooting 120 film down to as cheap as $3.50 per roll by choosing certain types of film, processing in Caffenol and scanning myself. When you consider that a $2500 digital SLR body will on overage shoot 200,000 shots before the shutter gives out, or more likely, before you have to upgrade in 2 or 3 years time to the newest latest bit of gear, the cost of shooting film compares favourably.

    I’ve had 2 DSLRs expire in the period of time that I’ve had one Rolleiflex, which is still chugging along.

    Plus more than the cost, I really enjoy the process of shooting film. Sitting in front of a PC sorting 300 photos and moving sliders for 3 hours doesn’t excite me the way that developing film and holding negatives to the light for the first time does.

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Well, with DSLRs you obviously become a victim of planned obsolescence as well. I doubt that the shutter has to give out after 200,000 shots, they make it that way on purpose. Why else would there be 60 year old SLRs that still work fine to this day? Digital cameras expire for this reason or that while the analog ones really keep forever. If I buy a 20 year old Leica now I expect it to keep at least another 20 or 30 with only minimal servicing! My Rolleicord is actually 60 years old and still works fine! I expect it to keep going for another 30 at the very least.

      And you’re so right about digital processing. Considering that digital cameras also invite you to shoot all sorts of crap, getting 10 keepers in 300 pictures is almost a good hit rate. And of course you have to go through all of them to really know which ones are the keepers. I much prefer taking the film from the spool and looking at them for the first time when they’re still wet as well. It’s such a nice feeling! Sorting through a contact sheet of 36-39 pictures is also much faster than looking through 300 pictures on the screen.

  • Roy K.

    Hi Lilly.
    This was really cool to read, as I recently posted something quite similar on a blog I started some time ago, but never really knew in which direction it would take me.
    I shoot film. I have shot film since I was a child and got my first Minolta Hi-matic G from my parents in -74. Did 135 film most of my life, until DSLR’s really flooded the market, and film was “impossible” to get hold of anymore. Forgot about my cameras and decided to never buy a DSLR, period.
    Well, a few years back the prices for a used one came down to reasonable levels, so I thought what the heck, and went for a Nikon D300. Then I needed good lenses, which was found in between my old stuff… then I found my old cameras, and then (since internet at this point finally had started to get useful) I finally discovered that film was absolutely not dead at all. Grabbed my old Nikons, bought some film at some point after being shooting digital for a little while, and was hooked again. Hooked on a feeling, so to say, because this has a lot to do about feeling I think.
    Well… then I started to think that maybe I should realize an old dream and buy a medium format camera, since there was no way I could possibly afford this back in the 80’s or 90’s. Easy as heck, and went away with a good Mamiya RZ shortly after. Since then I have not been looking back to be honest. I still shoot a few digishots every now and then just because it’s faster and easier for things that has to be posted rather quickly, but I never shoot digital unless there is the slightest possibility that film will do the job. And film will allways do the job, but just in a different way.
    I have been developing film since I was a kid as well, since my father was doing it and I learned from him. A few weeks ago I developed my first C-41 as well, and It’s just the same as B&W, only a bit more hot water will have to be used. No hassle at all.
    Well, just wanted to share these thoughts actually… and if you care to have a short glimpse at my blog entry on my thoughts about why some people still shoot film in 2014, please feel free! I don’t think anyone else has visited it, and probably it is because it has been kind of a secret project that has not been released to anyone as for yet 🙂
    http://www.karlsvik.priv.no/Roy_Karlsvik/Photoblog/Innlegg/2014/9/18_Why_the_heck_do_people_use_film_in_2014.html

  • Great piece. I’ve started processing my own C41 and let me tell you, it’s easier than you might think. Film is an experience that every photographer should try at least once.

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Thanks Gerry! I actually started my own C41 development recently and found it indeed very easy. Already my first roll turned out great! Definitely something that I will keep doing!

  • Great article. I’ve joined a local darkroom and begun to discover the magic of film

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Thank you Simon! I definitely also need to join a community darkroom. I get to print way too little these days! In any case, welcome to the wonderful world of film photography! You’ll love it!

  • A great article Lilly. I learned to shoot film in high school, as well as develop the negs and make B&W prints. When my gear was stolen shortly after high school, I took a long break from photography. About 7-8 years ago I decided to get back into photography, and because digital was the rave I ended up spending a fairly large sum of money on gear and lighting etc.

    Well, this year my sister, who taught photography at a local highschool, retired. She phoned me one day and said she had excess film gear kicking around that was up for grabs. I went to meet her at her high school, grabbed a box of 35 mm cameras, lenses, and some Vivitar falshes. I shot one roll of B&W on a Canon A-1, and I was hooked. The first roll was not great, but I then decided to get a Mamiya RB 67 Pro SD on eBay….for $250 US! I am still getting used to this camera in terms of proper metering, and I have purchase a scanner so I have more control of the outcome in my images, but I have to admit I am very excited to be back working with film. Does this mean I will retire my 5D MK II? No, but I find myself less interested in digital these days, and my focus has shifted to shooting medium format. I know I have lots to learn, and I am no spring chicken (I just turned 55!), but I can see myself spending more time thinking about what I am doing shooting film, instead of shooting way too many digitial images and spending to o muc time post processing. Thanks for the article!

    sincerely,

    Paul L.

    • Thank you Paul, I’m glad you enjoyed the article! Wow, that Mamaya RB67 is a real beast! But then, if you were lugging around a 5D MK II you’re used to big cameras! Be careful playing with that Mamiya though, you might just get hooked and retire that 5D after all. I haven’t taken a serious digital picture since last October and have shot plenty of film in the meantime with my Leica M6 and my Rolleicord (150+ rolls). It’s addictive to be shooting with such great gear! I also now spend way less time deleting pictures than before and I only need to do post-processing on medium format colour film now. 35mm happens automatically in the scanner, which has reduced the time I spend in front of the screen substantially. And speaking of colour: I never liked colour when I was shooting digital because those cheap unshielded sensors are dreadful. With film I’m even beginning to enjoy shooting colour, Who would have thought! Have a wonderful time with you A-1 and the Mamiya, I’m sure you’ll find yourself on an Alice in Wonderland journey that will give your 5D plenty of shelf-time.

      • Thanks Lilly. I think you are right about the 5D getting more shelf time. I still tend to carry it and the mamiya in my bag, which probably wieghs around 30 pounds now, but it gives me a workout! I think you are also correct about the colour that digital cameras put out. For me, the clincher in getting back to film is when I saw comparisons beteween film and digital with the same images. To me digital tends to look synthetic, and not very real. I also like film’s ability to render subtle shadows and highlights better than digitial. Film just looks more real. Take care, and happy shooting! All the best.

        sincerely,

        Paul

  • Bubba Jones

    Love your article. Many decades ago and for decades I used film. Then when digital came alone I jumped in with both feet and credit cards. With all my DSLR, their upgrades, and associated stuff I spent a small fortune.

    A day came that I stared thinking about all the fun I had with film, hum gave it another go. Found I enjoyed film more than digital, so after two years I sold off all my digital equipment. Other than my iPhone 6 Plus film is all I shoot. Now I own a couple SLRs and numerous old Rangefinder cameras, one being a Leica IIIf. These old Rangefinders bring me more enjoyment than the DSLR cameras did. When ask to shoot assignments I inform them of my film equipment, for some that is an issue, many others it is not.

    Thank you for your wonderful article.

    • Thank you Bubba! I’m glad that you enjoyed the article! One can really spend unlimited amounts of money on upgrades for digital cameras and they become obsolete so often that it’s hardly worth it. I have now decided that I won’t invest in any cameras anymore unless they will last me the next 20 years. That excludes all digital cameras on the market at the moment! The M9 that I was lusting after a few years ago even has sensor rot! And indeed digital cameras don’t give me any enjoyment anymore. It’s just so much nicer to work with film cameras, especially if they are as beautiful as my Leica or my Rollei!

      Thank you for taking the time to comment 🙂

  • Dan

    Exactly the resolution made me to switch from digital to film.
    Paraphrasing HCB resolution is not an artistic (atmosphere 🙂 ) quality.
    Digital over amplifies every defect of the human skin due to lack of enough resolution, the separation is very drastic and so you get a plastic poppet look.
    I am for the finesse, scanning a 35mm film at 6400 dpi gives you roughly a 50 MP image.
    I am scanning so high not for the resolution but for the finesse and the ability to post-process.

    Thank you.

    btw
    I am using Canon EOS 1N (150 Euro) which takes every EF lens: Canon, Tokina, Sigma, Tamron, Vivitar, YongNuo, you name it
    Kiev 4a with Helios 103, Zenith E, and Praktica

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