Greatest Story Never Told

It starts with a photographer looking for his lens cap . . . and ends with him aboard an pirate ship.

Either way, now that hopefully someone is reading this I was wondering if anyone knows exactly how to argue against someone who always thinks film is better than digital.

He's a reasonable guy but I just need two good points and maybe I can convince him that film really is no better. Its a hassle really.

(This goes without saying...if you disagree then disregard this humble post.)

Thanks.

For one, digital is cheaper because you don't have to keep buying new film. Two, it's easier to make in camera adjustments with digital because you can see the picture immediately after taking it. Those are two basic reasons and if film really was better then why aren't all of the professionals using it?

I wouldn't even consider trying. In general, the advantages of digital over film are so obvious (with the possible exception of large format, which will be short lived, if it still has any life left) that someone taking a "film is better" stand is an ideologue and will not be persuaded.

BTW.. Vinyl is still better than digital!

And vacuum tubes are better than solid state.

20droger wrote in post #15869960
And vacuum tubes are better than solid state.

In some aspects they are better. I have a couple zen triode tube amplifiers that work wonderfully and for the price range I haven't found anything that can compete with them. I have an old Marantz 10B receiver that still works flawlessly with amazing sound quality.

35mm film was out resolved by Digital SLR back with the 1DsII (and arguably the 11MP 1Ds Popular Photography did a side by side comparison of some popular 35mm film stock vs. the original 1Ds 11MP FF and found the 1Ds had better details in crops. Other sources seemed to feel that we needed the 1DsII's 16MP FF to truly bury 35mm film)

As far as I know, that was the last advantage film ever had (when comparing comparable formats). There's nothing left IMHO, even dynamic range is gone.

No chemicals, and or you have full control of the output.

those are the two I'd focus on.

Dynamic range?

James_Shade wrote in post #15868110
It starts with a photographer looking for his lens cap . . . and ends with him aboard an pirate ship.

Either way, now that hopefully someone is reading this I was wondering if anyone knows exactly how to argue against someone who always thinks film is better than digital.

He's a reasonable guy but I just need two good points and maybe I can convince him that film really is no better. Its a hassle really.

(This goes without saying...if you disagree then disregard this humble post.)

Thanks.

Good luck with that. You'd have better luck trying to convert Obama to libertarianism. If he's still going on about the superiority of film, it's an ideology at this point and he's clearly dug his heals in.

I just had a similar conversation with someone I'd just wet.
we were both being shown in a gallery exhibit,. he is a great guy, but is totally convinced that Velvia is still the way for wildlife shooting.

If we dig back into the forum posts, this was a very common discussion in 2003-2005. It became moot with the 5D putting 12MP FF in peoples hand for such a good price.

It's an artistic lifestyle choice, having nothing to do with the economics of it or the convenience of digital.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #15870277
I just had a similar conversation with someone I'd just wet....

Say what?

Sounds a bit messy.

^ hope it wasn't standing at a urinal.

sapearl wrote in post #15870285
It's an artistic lifestyle choice, having nothing to do with the economics of it or the convenience of digital.

The differences aren't just economic or convenient.

sapearl wrote in post #15870285
It's an artistic lifestyle choice, having nothing to do with the economics of it or the convenience of digital.

Nope.. I don't buy it. With all of the post processing options available, including HDR, the advantages of film (if any) are so miniscule as compared to the advantages of digital, that anyone that makes the general claim that "film is better" is simply -- well you pick the word, none of the ones that come to my mind are very nice.

ktan7 wrote in post #15870820
With film, you have a huge latitude of over-exposing. With digital, it is very easy to blow things out and lose information in the blown out part of the photograph.

http://www.kentanphoto​.com
http://www.kentanblog.​com

Only true if you're shooting negative; with transparencies, you've got just as little tolerance for overexposure as you do with digital.

So, to take Jake's (CDS) example, the guy was missing the boat on that one point since Velvia is a transparency film. Low ISO and about as fine-grained as you're going to find in colour films, but very intolerant of blown highlights.

Granted, we don't know what OP's example uses, transparencies, colour negative or B&W (silver) negative. If he shoots strictly B&W he may have a valid point, but then he'd need to make the same argument against any colour film; B&W film doesn't care about the spectral distribution of the light; colour, whether film or digital, has three discrete sampling zones (as determined by the filter in the film or on the sensor's Bayer filter), and can miss narrow spikes in the spectrum under the right (wrong) conditions.