Travis Hoge

3/21/06

MSTD 335

Dr. Waite

Digital vs. Film Photography: Is the new media really the best way to go?

In our modern and ever-changing society, many media issues are brought up and faced every day. Issues such as misleading advertising, media trust, ethics, bias, and the right to know are definitely the more prominent newsworthy concerns. But on the outskirts of all the public media topics lies the photography issue. With the invention of digital cameras and digital media, the photography world has undergone several massive changes. The consumers’ conversion from film to digital has taken place in less than ten years, making it one of the nation’s fastest growing media. As pointed out in Chapter 14, “Digital Strategies: The Internet and New Media” of Dennis and Merrill’s Media Debates, people are changing and adapting at an extremely rapid rate. “Every media company is coping with the digital world, whether adapting to it or leading with new media products, and they’ve all come through a major period of adjustment since 2000.” While film photography is quickly being driven away by digital in our modern society, what many people do not realize is that the advantages and characteristics of film greatly outweigh those of digital. The purpose of this project is to give the pros and cons of both methods, but at the same time, explain why film is ultimately the more beneficial medium for photography.

Digital photography is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing technological mediums in today’s society. The abundance of products and the wide varieties of brands, sizes, shapes, and forms have definitely been a huge influence in consumers’ decisions. It seems as if the digital world is overtaking and driving out the film realm. Many pharmacies, grocery stores, and even camera shops are cutting back on the amount of film equipment they are selling because the demand for them has dropped way down. Modern shoppers are leaning towards the digital world because of its convenience, cost-efficiency, and all around ease-of-use. “Prices are dropping, capabilities are expanding, and quality is improving. Whatever your feelings about film, it’s a fairly sedentary technology, unlikely to change dramatically in the next century. In contrast, digital imaging is evolving at a pace that very nearly exceeds our ability to report on it” (CTC#6) (Eismann and McClelland, 1999, p. 1).

Ever since the beginning of photography, back when prints were made from the subject holding completely still for twenty minutes and having the image projected onto photographic paper, the main factor that pushed consumers and customers away from either being photographed or being the photographer was cost. Film photography has always been a somewhat expensive means of recording the past. In order to make prints, you must purchase the camera body, lens, and film, and either purchase developing chemicals and paper or take it to a less-than-adequate photo lab. And if you then would like to have your photos digitized, you have to run them through a very expensive high quality scanner, which may take up to several minutes or more per image. With digital, the viewing window allows you to view your photos as soon as you take them and decide which ones you would like to print. For the more experienced photographers, viewing them right away isn’t that big of a deal because they can most likely control the conditions and settings in their favor. However, the majority of camera-owning consumers is not professional and wastes a lot of money on useless prints. In film, you’re paying for every shot regardless or whether it is good or not (Fallis, 2004).

Going along the lines in the previous argument, where digital really stands out and rises above anything else is in providing instant feedback right there on the set or scene and the opportunity is there to adjust and re-shoot as needed (Fallis, 2004). By using the camera’s LCD viewing screen, you can easily assess all aspects of the image, such as framing, focus, shutter speed, aperture, etc. If the image is not up to par or up to standard, a re-shoot would be in store, no harm done. Once you have invested in the digital equipment, there is no cost per image as there is in film, so experimenting has no limits (CTC#5). There is also nothing more fun and easy than making multiple exposures and shooting away and seeing what you shot instantaneously. There’s the convenience factor, cost-effectiveness, and amusement one must consider when thinking about digital photography.

Another huge convenience and advantage to digital photography is its easy sharing feature. Film negatives are an excellent storage, archive, and duplication medium, but they cannot be erased and reused right on the spot. Where you can expose a roll of film only once, you can use a digital memory card over and over again. And when you are done shooting for the time being, the computer is the best place to go. After uploading your pictures to the computer, your options are unlimited. Many companies have produced several different editing suites and software that can be used to manipulate images in virtually any way, shape, or form. After editing, many people choose to either post them online in a digital photo album or send them to friends and family through email. Both of those options are free, whereas in film, you must pay for shipping to mail the stock, non-edited photos out to everyone. Also, it is completely painless and effortless to create perfect duplication of the digital files, whereas film duplicates come out more grainy and less accurate the more they are copied.

There are many advantages and characteristics of digital photography that make it the more reliable, convenient, and cost-efficient medium of photography. It is growing at an extremely rapid rate and encompassing all technical aspects that film laid down. Every day, new advances are made in the digital world that push it one step closer to the levels of quality and practicality that film embrace. By having everything in plain view on the computer for free rather than paying for prints at the photo lab, digital photography is much less expensive. When it is not necessary to buy film, chemicals, and paper, the wallet does not get emptied nearly as fast. The immediate feedback is an exceptional feature, seeing as how it is no longer necessary to “bracket” exposures or to take multiple shots of the same thing. No more wasted film equals out to no more wasted money. Lastly, digital editing is becoming more and more easy to use every day and the practicality of it is increasing as well. Sharing the enhanced images can be accomplished with the click of a mouse and duplication of them is technically perfect. The advantages and possibilities of digital photography are endless and countless (CTC#8). However, the medium still brings in the second place trophy and bows down to the powerful medium of film photography.

“The question ‘have you gone digital yet?’ is a presumptuous fallacy that is pushed by camera stores and camera makers, since they make big bucks when you buy a digital camera that you’ll want to replace in a few years. ‘Going digital’ is by no means inevitable or even desirable. Digital does not replace your film camera for many kinds of fine art. Even your dad’s twenty year old Canon AE-1 can make technically better images than any digital camera” (CTC#2) (Rockwell, 2006). Throughout the past century, 35 mm film photography has showed the world anything and everything. From 110 degree-wide architectural and landscape photos to extreme close-ups of individual grains of sand, the single reflex lens (SLR) camera has shown the world what it could only dream. 35 mm film has been the leading format of storing and archiving people, places, and memories for years and will continue to do so well into the future. The newer and less efficient competing media, digital photography, is attempting to change and advance the photo world, but evidence has shown that the advantages of film greatly outweigh those of digital photography.

The main deciding factor that is discussed when deciding between film and digital is resolution. When thinking about resolution, let’s just assume that under normal circumstances, adequate lighting, and a good knowledge of the camera, a typical SLR film camera can produce an image equivalent to 20 million pixels, or 20 megapixels. The current top of the line digital SLR can produce approximately 12 or 13 megapixels on the screen. While you can get 20 megapixels on a film camera that costs less than $200, to obtain that much resolution in the digital world, it will cost you well over $5000. And the investment is not worth it. In order to reproduce an image with that much resolution in the digital form, you must also purchase a several-hundred-dollar ink-jet printer that could take up to a quarter of an hour to produce an average-sized image as well as expensive glossy printer paper (Ang, 23). So, in fact, film can produce much more resolution with much less expense. When images are enlarged, much of the detail is lost, due to either the grain in the paper or the resolution of the original picture. Much less of that detail is lost with film, because the resolution is much higher. With a top of the line large-format film camera, a resolution equal to about 200 million pixels can be reached, which blows digital enlargements out of the water.

Another advantage of film photography is its archival factor. When a picture is shot with a film camera, the actual film serves two different purposes. It captures the photograph and also stores it for later development. Even after the film is developed and printed the first time, the exposed negative still stands as the true original form from which duplicate prints can be made in the future. That method does not work with digital cameras. They capture photographs with image sensors and then transfer them into a separate storage device, most commonly known as a memory card. The cards hold the information in a way that is similar to a hard drive. The more expensive and higher quality cameras store images on actual hard drives. And even in some extreme cases, the camera has to be directly attached to a computer. “Obviously, film has the upper hand compared with the clunky hard drives and cables associated with high-end, professional level digital cameras” (Eismann and McClelland, 7). Once captured and developed, film negatives will last over 100 years while CDs and memory cards will most likely be phased out or destroyed sometime in the near future. “Film is future-proof” (Rockwell, 2006).

The technical characteristics and advantages to film are countless. Such things as dynamic range, color, exposure time, double exposures, permanence, cost of equipment, legibility and even immediacy in some cases prove to everyone that film is the way to go. Digital has a big problem with highlights and shadows, also known dynamic range. We take advantage of how prints such as bright sunsets and low lit starry nights look in both painting and film. Due to a basic characteristic of charged coupled device (CCD) sensors and amplifiers, digital often shows many different unnatural color shifts in the brightest and darkest areas of the photo (Rockwell, 2006).

Film can record and reproduce a much wider and broader range of color. While this may not be an important issue if you are photographing portraits or any type of skin, it is extremely important for landscapes, flowers, and anything with deep, dark colors. Reds and greens actually end up looking more like red-orange and yellow-green, respectively, after being printed on any high quality ink-jet printer. Basically all primary colors cannot be reproduced as deep and detailed with a printer as a darkroom can. What one sees on a computer screen is nothing compared to what comes out of the printer.

Exposure time or shutter speed is an important aspect in all types of photography. Digital and film both require the same shutter speeds combined with the correct aperture setting to create the image desired. If for instance someone wanted to photograph the stars one night, they would need an extremely long exposure time. The longer the shutter speed, the more light it will collect. Film cameras can be set on a bulb setting, where you can leave the shutter open for an indefinite amount of time, sometimes for more than ten or fifteen minutes. Digital SLRs have not been blessed with that feature yet. Sometimes, the image sensors in digital cameras allow leakage which adds random white dots into the images shot with long exposure times. This is never an issue with film. The higher end digitals actually have the feature, but color and picture quality deteriorate with the longer shutter speeds. There is also a method used in film photography known as making double exposures, which is a method no digital camera can accomplish without the aid of a computer and editing software.

“Film does not erase itself. Film does not become unreadable for no reason. It doesn’t have file compatibility problems. Traditional black and white film and prints will outlast any of us” (Rockwell, 2006). That says it all. Film is permanent. While digital storage media can be erased or copied over on accident, nothing of that sort is possible with developed film. Several problems can arise in the future with digital photographs that are taken now. In ten years or less, computer systems could completely change and JPEG files may not be able to be read on a personal computer, CD-ROM drives might become obsolete, etc. Anything could happen to jeopardize the length of time that digital photographs can stay alive. Film is permanent.

The costs of digital equipment greatly outweigh the costs of film equivalents. For instance, one could go to the store and purchase a point-and-shoot 35 mm film camera for less than $50 that can obtain pictures with essentially the same resolution as a $10,000 digital SLR. While there are many other factors to consider, resolution is the only thing some people focus on. A single processed 120 format frame of film, developed and printed and everything, costs less than one dollar and has more resolution, dynamic range, hue, and saturation than any digital system available to anyone (Rockwell, 2006). I own a Nikon N75 and brand new, costs about the same as a mid-grade digital camera. The N75 will live on for years, most likely longer than any of us, while the digital will become obsolete in two or three years and will need to be replaced.

Film definitely has the upper hand when it comes to legibility. By simply looking at it, you can always see film. It is very easy to both file and catalog negatives, prints, or contact sheets and then quickly look at them at any time later. There is no way of knowing if in 100 years from now, anything will be able to view JPEG files, let alone the RAW formats that most professionals use.

Another small convenience that comes with film cameras is their power up time. While most people do not notice it or take it for granted, as soon as you turn on the camera or press down the shutter it works as it should. There is no delay whatsoever. When the power button is pressed on a digital camera, there is almost always at least a ½ second delay, which could be a problem if the photographic moment only lasts that long. When new digital cameras are available, the power-on delay time is usually advertised. Even the camera with the quickest time comes nowhere close to the lack of delay that film cameras possess.

Many people believe that one or the other medium is entirely positively better than the other, no questions asked. Neither film nor digital is better on an absolute basis (CTC#9). Different applications require different means of production. In order to make a decision on which to choose, the debate between which is “better” disappears. “The debate exists when people presume erroneously that someone else’s needs mirror their own” (Rockwell, 2006). There are times when digital is the better choice of the two, and vice versa. While most average consumers who use a public lab can get better results from digital; artist, amateurs, and professionals with their own labs and editing suites can almost always get better results from film.

Film is slowly being driven away by digital in our modern, technologically advancing society. The main reason behind the switch is the convenience factor because many Americans are becoming more and more dependent on both computers and other people than themselves. Digital photography is the way to go if you are more into the quick results and sharing ability, but if you are thinking about photo quality, resolution, or storing and archiving your work, stick with film(CTC#10). Film is not going away. It’s not even going out of style. Film is here to stay and there is so much evidence to prove it. While it seems that film photography is rapidly being replaced by digital, what most people do not realize is that the advantages and attributes of film greatly outweigh those of digital.

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