Digital vs. Film Part 2 

Great points. I shoot both (Digital/Film) depending on the situation. Traveling I always take my Z Nikon. When shooting locally or just for fun/projects then film. I started developing the film myself, just the roll and then I digitize them on an Epson V550 photo scanner. Film obligates me to be a good photographer. But as you said, it is wonderful seeing the film developed.

One of my main pleasure. Thx for your work. Keep on publishing these videos and sorry for this message in 3 episodes :)

Hi Jules you made a contest when you reached 100 subscribers you are now near 500… do you plan to organize a new one when you pass the 500 ? I am sure you still have plenty of hardware !!!! Lol. Anyway keep on making these videos which are all interesting and you deeply deserve more subscribers. Have a nice day.

And one of the major downsides of digital, is technical failure, like SD card failure, and thus losing all your images. Pretty interesting that film is still a quite durable media storage even in XXI century.

The only way to do a true quality comparison is to shoot film processed to a positive slide (b/w of color) at a native ISO of say 25 and make true laser drum scans of oil mounted images and compare detail to detail without any resampling. ANY resampling automatically invalidates the assessment. Spent 33 years in conventional and digital prepress from process camera color separating to Hell and Crosfield drum scanners and the absolute minimum we would use from a digital camera for "high end" reproduction would be an 18 meg file in rgb to fill an 8.5x11 page. We were forced to compromise often but we always let the client understand that it WAS a compromise.

I am truly loving your videos and insights. Initially I was skeptical . The digital vs film domain is fraught with many pitfalls and invalid arguments and rhetoric. I’m tempted to assume you’re a professor of sorts because normally these videos are obscenely long and very underwhelming. I got into film two years ago largely as a result of the romanticism and lore extolled by the internet echo chamber. I’ve learned a lot since then. The biggest hole needing to be filled in the digital domain is post processing, and the s curves and contrast masking Cliffs Notes approach ( if only it were that simple) is not it. The beauty of film was the sheer amount of research and development integrated into that roll of film. Where’s with digital we’re handed a kitchen sink and told to design our own synthesizers- easier said than done. Ultimately we’re framing this entire conversation of digital vs filmin the wrong way; it’s not an either-or dichotomy. What I’m learning is that the barrier to entry for doing film the digital way is wayyyyyy more convoluted and expensive than the internet made us believe. If I had to do it all over again I would have used professional labs or bought an X1d or Leaf Back instead of that Pentax 67. Though I definitely satisfied (perhaps disappointingly, yet equally enlightened) that urge to shoot the same camera Bruce Weber did. I’m writing this now having upgraded to a 4x5 in order to channel my inner Albert Watson and Irving Penn. I’m not sure where I was going with this, but the happy accidents of discovering film photography (law of unintended consequences!) have definitely opened my eyes much in the same way humanities and writing classes did. Hopefully ChatGPT can give me the secret sauce to mimicking TXP 320 digitally and I can become a god. Seriously, thank you so much for your insights. In this world of noise it’s quite the happenstance to encounter this level of wisdom which you profess. Have a terrific weekend!

I also bought some old Leica R with their smooth and inimitable shutter noise and some primes (not a lot these German lenses are still expensive :(). And what a pleasure to go to the center of the city , with these photo boxes more than 50 or 60 years old with only one or 2 lenses and take pictures, saying I can take this one and this one , not that one because I only got 8 pictures leaving from my HP5 … :) that d really

Other solution for film if you haven’t an enlarger is to send your film to a laboratory with enlarger and have a darkroom wetprint for all your photos.You can save money for this by scanning the film by yourself at home.Print is far more important than scanning.Scanning is not even necessary if you have already a print.

Hi when I heard you speaking of the excitement at taking a look at a wet and just developed film , I remembered the first time it happened to me and it was great :) I also remember when I saw my first B&W picture 18*24cms being revealed in the dark room… I will never forget the emotion this generated to me. Nothing equivalent with seeing a digital picture on the back screen. This is why many years after playing with digital I rebought some mechanical cameras (how beautiful is a Nikon F photomic, an F2 , a simple Nikon FM2, a canon F1 ) and the prime lens I could not afford when I was young : Nikkor ai 20mm f4, 105 mm f2.5, 180 ed f2.8, canon 135mm f 2.5

Thanks Jules, I still use my nikkormat FT2 more than my F4. actually, I just gave my son-in-law's girlfriend my nikon digital and 2 lenses to get her started in photography that does not use a cell phone camera. did I mention i love my nikkormat!

One of the downsides of film for me is inability to change whether you shoot color or b/w within the one camera. I can carry, let's say two bodies, or two film holders in case of medium format. But it's gonna add some weight, especially in case of several film bodies. Sadly, there's not that many option in my country and my region in particular (Russia to be exact).