Much has been written on many a blog, website, etc. about the battle between film (AgX) and digital. I'm not going to add to the debate, because I use both, and fully like both, for different reasons. I'm not so sure that film's days are as numbered as everyone would claim - I just think it's being pushed more underground, more of a specialty market. But it is definitely there, and a number of photographers use/choose film for some of their work because of the look and feel. Assuming one is using a high quality camera (and more importantly, with high quality lenses), and the camera has a good (i.e. closer to or actually full-frame) sensor or is loaded with a quality film emulsion that's right for the task, both setups are going to produce wonderful results. Photography has existed for a long time, with many of the best images ever recorded having been done on film. That's not nostalgia, it's a simple fact. So to suggest that photography itself is undergoing a revolution due to digital I think is largely bluster. The marketing of cameras, the continuous non-stop upgrade of megapixels and menus and extra features is the part that's growing exponentially. That's a business shift, not a change in the creative process. The birth of 35mm photography was a change in the creative process, and a true revolution, for it moved photography to the streets, to the battlefields, to capture everyday life and death, where before it was solely the domain of large format, often studio-limited cameras, with posed sittings that spoke nothing of the real world.
I actually think digital has been more of a revolution in the area of motion pictures - it has democratized movie making, where people can now make some pretty good movies on their own (as well as bad ones!), because high quality HD is readily available and cheaply had, and more importantly, the post production is also easier and super cheap (due to iMovie, Final Cut, etc.). Post production used to be prohibitively costly, whether in a film editing suite, or a video editing suite. There are analogies to the world of still photography, where the 'digital darkroom' (i.e. Aperture, Lightroom, etc.) makes it easier to play with images, without the requirement of a physical darkroom space and all of its weird red lights...but let's face it, the arrival of better digital cameras hasn't translated into something new in photography...people aren't taking 'better' pictures with digital, they're not somehow now free to carry a camera because, for example, film didn't let them. Tiny cameras, film or digital, have been in the hands of the masses and the pros for years now. There are a few new features with digital, but essentially they boil down to being able to see the pictures right away, manipulate them quicker if desired, and send them over the web to share. It's the same as music...iTunes and mp3 and digital audio hasn't changed music...it's changed the business, and the way we share and listen to it. An iPod is more compact than a turntable with 12" vinyl, but the songs (even the latest ones) are basically the same. I don't mean to suggest that music hasn't changed over the years, but at it's essence it's still the same creative process - people picking up instruments (whether they're guitars or electronic drum machines or "two turntables and a microphone") and playing music....the fact that it may be recorded analogue or digital is secondary, a means to an end (capturing the music).
What I love about digital cameras is, above everything else, the ability to change ISO between each and every shot if I so desire. And the convenience in processing. But I absolutely hate all of the excess garbage most digital cameras, pro or regular, come with these days. What I hate about film is the inability to switch ISO midway (it's why a lot of pros used to carry two or three cameras around their neck), and getting water/drying stains on my negatives, that kind of thing. So what do I still love about film? Above all, I love its depth and texture, which comes from the actual physical properties of the film emulsion itself. There is sometimes a sterility to digital, though not always. I love the elegant simplicity of most film cameras...many of them are beautifully crafted machines, just like a Swiss watch, complete with brass gears for advancing the film and setting the shutter to fire again, as opposed to a molded plastic container of circuit boards with a lens on the front. And I absolutely love the 'slowing down' in using film. The time I take, the thought process involved in saying "I have only 24 or 36 shots to take...what will they be?" And the anticipation - sometimes waiting is a good thing. Not if you're a news photographer these days of course. But for art, or the making of memories, it's perfectly fine. All the photos in this entry were taken with the Leica MP, using either the 50mm Summicron f2, the 35mm Summaron f3.5, or the 90mm Elmar C f4. Ilford HP5 Plus for film....processed these shots today, and they just remind me, again, of why I love film so much.
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