When is Film clearly preferable?

Note that I said clearly better. I don't want this to become a film vs digital debate, please.

One case where I can see it as clearly better: if your digital sensor may be damaged by the subject (lasers, maybe sun).

In my case, one week before heading for the Grand Tetons I found my digital dead. I quickly got out the old Canon Elan IIe, got a new battery, several rolls of 35mm film and I was off on vacation. I had the film developed in Jackson Hole, images burned to CD only and was pleasantly surprised at my efforts.

I also get out my Kodak Retina IIIC folder on occasion, especially when heading to an old car show. Being of vintage 1958, it often gets as much attention as the cars.

When it's 4x5 and the subject lends itself to that kind of camera.

It is very individual. At least for me.

I prefer film for travel and street photography. I prefer fully mechanical cameras for it. Clearly.
I prefer film camera as everyday camera with me, because again, clearly, it will last without batteries for weeks.

I prefer to print from film in the darkroom .
This is the darkroom print, not nick's collection emulation

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/23TZ​UsP

Where punctilious detail isn't needed, or wanted.

I can think of a few cases.
1. Extremely long exposures - With digital, the longer the exposure, the worse the noise. With film, there is no noise no matter how long the exposure.
2. Cost - If you want to get into photography cheaply, you can pick up pretty decent equipment at fast food meal prices.
3. Resolution - nothing beats a 4" x 5" negative except for a 8" x 10" one. The resolution of large format film cameras is astounding.
4. Limited amount of exposures loaded - with only 24 or 36 images per roll, it slows you down and makes you think about each shot not like digital where some folks are coming back from events with thousands of images.

I'm sure there are others but that's all that pops into my head.

IMO it is clearly better when you want the film look color or B&W - i.e. I do think it is better than trying to process digital to look like film.

Clearly better when you want the highest resolution and you shoot 8x10 low grain film. 8x10 Ektar or even Velvia 50 is probably hard to beat and I don't think will be with a commercial sensor any time soon.

When you will be in the wilderness for prolonged amounts of calendar time, and external power sources are simply not readily available to keep batteries charged, a mechanical film camera (no battery) cannot be beat.

I could shoot forever with my Olympus OM-1 even at sub-zero temperatures that cause batteries to give up even if fully charged!

Wilt wrote in post #18814853
When you will be in the wilderness for prolonged amounts of calendar time, and external power sources are simply not readily available to keep batteries charged, a mechanical film camera (no battery) cannot be beat.

I could shoot forever with my Olympus OM-1 even at sub-zero temperatures that cause batteries to give up even if fully charged!

If it is not extreme vacai, them this problem was solved long time ago. By portable solar panels. Placed on top of the backpack. I keep rotating (heating inside of my clothes) frozen batteries and it works as well.

Are you going to scan the film, or print in a darkroom?

"4. Limited amount of exposures loaded - with only 24 or 36 images per roll, it slows you down and makes you think about each shot not like digital where some folks are coming back from events with thousands of images. "


With digital, I don't come back with thousands, but frequently hundreds. When I shoot with my Rolleicord, I'm usually after something fairly specific, and sometimes find myself looking for something else to shoot just to use up all 12 exposures on the roll.

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If you have an old-fashioned slide projector and screen, and want to display images using that vintage equipment, then it would be better (easier) to start out by shooting 35mm slide film in the first place.

There are, of course, some serious drawbacks to doing things this way, but if you are ok with showing "as shot" images that haven't been processed with editing software, and want a really easy workflow, then shooting with slide film would be preferable to starting out with digital and then transferring the digital images to 35mm slide media for use in the projector.

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moose10101 wrote in post #18814981
Are you going to scan the film, or print in a darkroom?

I'm one of those quirkly purists who thinks "shooting film" is just hype unless it ends with a real silver halide print.

This is the type of equipment which is real money trap. Even with e6 done at home, each e6 roll itself cost well above ten bucks, plus, frame for each frame is another dollar.
So, to get this old projector going it is around 50$ per roll these days.
And if it is not e6 at home, then only few labs could do it now.

kf095 wrote in post #18815142
This is the type of equipment which is real money trap. Even with e6 done at home, each e6 roll itself cost well above ten bucks, plus, frame for each frame is another dollar.
So, to get this old projector going it is around 50$ per roll these days.
And if it is not e6 at home, then only few labs could do it now.

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I was in no way suggesting that someone would want to use an old projector as a way of saving money. . What I meant was if someone greatly prefers old slide projectors to modern digital projectors, then shooting slide film would be easier than shooting digital.

Not sure where you got the idea that cost or savings had anything to do with my suggestion. . It didn't. . But I agree that shooting slide film is a good way to spend a freakin' heck of a lot of money that doesn't need to be spent.


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