All things being equal, which would you choose?

[BobYIL]

justsayda says:
"Think, if you will, of photography without film, but that produced results indistinguishable from film."

What a nice dream... I have been shooting film since half a century. With the introduction of the DSLRs, like many of us, I used a few models and still using them besides some more than a dozen film cameras. For color photography, for hi-ISO, for long trips abroad or multiple passes through x-ray units, for instant "gratification" or against the disasters to happen in labs, digital's advantages can not be denied.

However, as far as B&W is concerned, no digital camera I used so far, including hundreds of the M9 pictures I saw on the net -including the ones from the hands I admired - made me convinced that film is replaceable. For me B&W is the "higher-end" of artistic and aesthetical expression in photography and its quality and standards have been established by film and are still defined by film.

 

[justsayda]

"
What a nice dream... .

Exactly right, Bob: it is a nice dream, and, going back to my original thoughts when starting this thread, one that you may have thought might have came true if you'd have considered the merits of "filmless" photography in the pre-digital era.

Would you have thought, however, that we would be paying thousands of pounds for cameras that after a decade or two of "improvement" still can't rival the qualities of film?

As with other digital technologies, I think we're putting a premium on convenience which, however welcome, is no substitute for quality.

 

[Chris101]

...
While I appreciate the craft element in film processing and printing, if it wasn't necessary to do that in order to get the same end result as with film, then how many people would use darkroom methods just for the sake of it?
...

That IS the point! Just for the sake of it. I DO use digital, and there is indeed craft and process in the computer manipulation of the image, and even a smidge of handiwork involved in digital printing. But the whole concept of doing photography with one's hands, using chemicals and light accounts for something more than the final result of an image divorced from the process.

It's a 'journey being the destination' thing that your question does not address. By including the process of using film in my work, I produce different pictures than I do when the process is a digital one. And it's even different than the hybrid film results that I post online.

It's not a question of is the quality more or less with film than with digital, it's a matter of what and how I make the pictures.


The bottom line is, that people use film and print in the darkroom and/or produce their photographs with computers because that is the activity they want to do, not because there is something lacking with the other process.

...
What I would also say, however, is that having to take a more considered and thoughtful approach - as with film - makes you stop and think about what you're doing more than with digital technology, where the sheer amount of exposures possible at next to no cost can lead to a "scattergun" approach.

I have an F5, and have used it for sports shooting, in 8 fps, spray and pray mode. I got the picture, but wasted 35 frames of a $2 roll doing so.

 

[BobYIL]

Would you have thought, however, that we would be paying thousands of pounds for cameras that after a decade or two of "improvement" still can't rival the qualities of film?

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I hope some members would forgive me for telling these : No doubt that a picture from a mid-range DSLR is sharper than any print I get from my film Leicas. But who said Vermeer was a greater artist than Rembrandt because his paintings were so meticulously detailed? Human perception for aesthetics is not proportional to the resolution power achieved in expression; however we are sensitive to tones (remember Monet or Renoir). Do you think that a certain HCB would be one-fold greater if he would be using a Linhof Technika instead? Do we criticize Salgado for the "smeared" fine details dominating his photographs? When we look at a Haas or an Erwitt picture, do we mind about the lateral chromatic aberrations or bokeh fringing?

Put all the conveniences aside, I tried with my best with the digital B&W, I got the sharpest results of 35mm format, shining whites and deep blacks however most of the cases the tonalities were reminiscent of an overexposed paper developed in stale Dektol. Learned the fact that the adventure of a silver halide crystal through the mysterious world of chemicals needs years more to be duplicated by 0's and 1's. (That's why we still say "film like" for something we appreciate.)

Just my two cents..

 

[rbsinto]

I shoot essentially only colour slide film, so the "darkroom" business does not apply to me.
I shot Film rather than Digital mainly because I dislike electronic devices of any description and that feeling is apparently mutual. They work in ways that are to me, counter-intuitive and as a result I just feel more at home with my clunky old, laughably out-dated, and technologically backward mechanical, and manual focus gear. On those very few occasions that I have taken pictures with Digital equipment, I found myself disconnected from the process, and as someone for whom much of the time it is more important to be out there shooting, than actually doing something with the resulting images, that disconnection is disconcerting.
Besides, I don't think that my results suffer for my choices, so I don't feel compelled to change to Digital.
I don't think that Film is better, only different in some ways from Digital, and perhaps if someone did bring out a line of analog-based, manual focus Digital cameras, and lenses that I felt at home with, then perhaps at that time I'd consider switching. Otherwise, I'll stick with what I l know and love.