On the flip-side, as a person who has been doing cinematography for some time and has spent thousands on equipment over the years, I can say I would have never got into photography and cinematography if it wasn't digital.
Nothing about the experience of developing film sounds interesting to me.
Would you mind sharing other subtle nuances of shoot on film vs digital?
Digital is WAAAY easier to get started on, no doubt. It's also much easier to learn the basics of composition and exposure. Unbelievably so! You can "develop" your images in microseconds.
With film you have to supplement a lot of what's achievable in digital via guessing and checking with careful thought. You also have many fewer opportunities to get the shot right before you exhaust your film and probably blow the moment replacing it.
This makes film into a forcing function to perform excellent technique and to pre-visualize your shot. This creates better technique.
It's also nice that film has a very high effective resolution (when drum scanned), that film grain is a favorable aesthetic right now (it was usually considered ugly before digital), and that film has a logarithmic response to light meaning that it can handle a wider dynamic range than digital.
The logarithmic response to light is the first non-emotional benefit to film photography I have seen in these discussions. Thanks for pointing that out.
Emotional benefits don't really help me understand the difference between film and digital. It seems too anecdotal of an experience for me to take it seriously. Might be me though...
For better and worse, photography is largely an artistic endeavor. Finding emotional appeal is a big part of that.
On the other hand, scientific imaging is definitely something where non-emotional performance matters and I doubt people use film for any kind of scientific work these days.
> film has a logarithmic response to light meaning that it can handle a wider dynamic range than digital.
Not sure if that situation still exists in DV but for digital photography that stopped being true a long time ago (the balance started shifting almost 10 years ago), most digital sensors support more stops than even the best brands of film.
I went and looked it up to be sure and yeah, looks like empirically I'm off base with the dynamic range question.
That said, subjectively I still feel that way. It might have something to do with digital noise and how the experience of actually witnessing different exposures feels between the two media.
I see a lot of photographers starting out not learning the craft. Some of the convenience of digital can reinforce bad habits. You can shoot a thousand photos in a few minutes, switching between a bunch of modes and options that you don't truly understand, and inevitably get a few decent photos. This isn't a fault of digital, it's just human behavior. I think for this reason, a lot of schools are still using film when teaching photography.
As an artist, I have a use for both digital and film photography. There's something about the way film feels, and the way the process of shooting film makes me feel, that makes me enjoy it so much more. My old Pentax cameras are very substantial, physical objects. The shutter opens and closes, and you can feel it - it's a physical act. Digital cameras don't have the same physicality about them. I still use both digital and film, they each have their own advantages to me and have their place.
Speaking as someone who did lots of film photography over many years. I was actually pretty interested in cinematography back when I was school but the the technical/financial hurdles just turned me off. Super-8 or early videocams with huge battery backs. What I would have given for even a small P&S or cameraphone of today.
Darkroom work was rewarding in its own way (for B&W). But, honestly, it was always a means to an end. I knew people who would spend all day making the perfect print. I never had that kind of patience.
There's definitely a balance. Smartphones have opened a huge world of possibilities that were otherwise inaccessible. I'm amazed that people are shooting feature films on smartphones - that's truly exciting!
I'm not one for strong opinions either way, I think there's a place for film photography and also for digital, and I like both.
I enjoy B&W film photography as a hobby. I do not think I would enjoy any sort of film cinematography, due to the larger scale. A 24 frame roll of photo film is one thing but a reel of cinema film is another!
Nothing about the experience of developing film sounds interesting to me.
Would you mind sharing other subtle nuances of shoot on film vs digital?