Do digital photos look different from film photos?

I don't trust my PC not to crash either, but I don't buy 25 cent CDs either. Mine cost 75 cents on average to make sure I get a brand I trust (although they are getting harder to get). If I were really paranoid I could get the Gold CDs and then I would be sure to be good. Cheap CDs are the most fragile media available as they use cheap dye for the CD, which deteriorates fairly quicly. Good CDs use good metallic material which is probably good for 10-25 years (depending on storage conditions) and Gold CDs are supposed to be good for 100 years. All I know is I have not lost one CD-R yet and I have been using them for over 10 years (20 if you count my music (not counting the 3 I lost to scratches caused by too much dust in the desert).

On top of that I am in the process as time permits of copying my CDs to DVD standard. I also maintain a copy on external drive while working on the files. Because of the number of pictures I take these days I tend towards using DVDs of course.

So the argument of CDs or DVDs is valid if you are buy the cheap ones, "Youze getz what Youze payze for", but not if you buy good ones (they don't have to be gold).

back to the thread
The only area that 35mm film beats digital is the area of dynamic range and then these days only for very high-quality B+W film. Larger formats are still better of course, but digital is starting to catch up there as well.

even as recently as two-three years ago, it was fairly easy to tell digital from film, but it is much harder these days and under some conditions it would not be possible and digital might even do better then film. Most of the people still liking film are either because they don't want to accept the change or are out of date and have not relooked at what digital can do these days.

Just my opinion,

That is probably your problem there, you used 400 and 800 film. That stuff is only really good for sporting events and high speed subjects. 200 ISO gives you the best overall for everything, landscapes to people.

My brother used 800 ISO with his camera, he thought 800 meant it was the best, he didn't realize one of the reasons his prints looked terrible was because he used 800 speed film.

I used 200 exclusively and I could take the same picture with a digital and a film and they virtually come out the very same.

Steve Parr. Here's the crunch - they couldn't tell the difference. Now ain't that funny?

I just joined COSTCO & the 12" x 18" prints from them look EXCELLENT, even to me! Reminded me of Cibas. I didn't expect that! Don't sweat the jpg files they prefer. These were from 3MB jpegs! Don't sweat the film/digital thing either. The client loved them, & what's better than that?

i don't think the a80 & mf neg are a fair example. that said, i work in a lab (network admin) and at this point, we are almost entirely a digital lab. that means, you bring us film, we process it in traditional checmicals and then it is scanned and we print for a jpg that lives on our network for a short period of time. we only scan as high as we need to for the size print we are making, as to not bloat our servers.

the other thing to consider is that no commercial printer (not inkjet, one that prints on silver haylide paper) prints .tif files. if you are sending .tif files to your lab for prints, you are waisting space on cd's and slowing them down. we have done extensive testing and you will not be able to tell the difference between a .tif file printed and a .jpg that has been saved properly.

there is also no reason to save a jpg @ level 12 compression, that bloats the file size and gives false expectations, level 10 is all almost anyone needs.

ill play the digital / film comparison game w/ anyone anytime... but we'll do it on a level playing field, not comparing a 2 or 3mp digital point and shoot that is several years old w/ 120 film. ill also argue all day that film grain and digital noise are both an aquired taste. most traditionally taught photogs like and appreciate film grain in enlargements, but can't stand digital noise, and some have difficulty telling the differecene between digital noise and jpg artifacts