Why do you choose to use film?

[cfclark]

I use film because: 1) I like the look of images captured on film, particularly medium-format and larger, either printed in the "traditional" method or with a hybrid process; 2) I enjoy working within the limitations of the medium (I'm reminded of Garry Winogrand's comment, when asked about missing photographs while changing film, that "when I'm not photographing, there are no photographs"*); 3) the migration to digital has made it possible for me to acquire perfectly usable, once-expensive equipment that I could only dream about when I got started in high school, and produce good images using that equipment.

The selection of film, and of which film, throws a wrinkle into the process that is not as possible with a DSLR. If I buy a digital camera, I get the feature set with it that the manufacturer provides, and I have that feature set as long as I have that camera body, no more and no less. Every image I capture with that camera is a function of how I use that feature set (and the lenses, if they're interchangeable). On the other hand, what film I decide to use in my film camera, whether fresh Portra 400 or expired Plus-X or something else, and the method I use to process and print from that film, allows for any number of variations, many of which may be out of my control. Many if not most casual digital shooters may be relieved not to have to worry about their photos coming out as they intended, but this is part of the appeal for me.

*Any Winogrand fans who remember this line better than I do, feel free to correct me.

 

[lovetodraw]

I choose film for the same reasons as you do. However, I am very tired of looking at digital post processed images, although many artists are very talented and know the software very well; I just do not like the look of those images. I prefer color from slide film over digital and print film for mundane subjects. Black and white images of film are very special and digital photos does not even come close in the look and feel of film. I also like the fact that I am able to choose between different film types and formats. And then of course the archival flexibility of film. You can go either way and have back ups in digital as well as in analogue.

Then again, I just like to hang on to old way of doing things. I think I have learned more now in the last couple of months about photography when I started to shoot film then I did 5 years shooting digital.
Another reason why I embrace film over digital is that digital photos are literally everywhere. I sometimes wonder how digital photography can be meaningful if you have millions of people using it. The world is overloded with digital images. Above all, shooting film gives me more time to draw and paint now I am not wasting my time to sit in front of the computer and yes I am glad I do not have to keep updating my equipment all the time. Bless film. This is just my opinion.

Happy shooting.

 

[jglass]

On this point about the world being overloaded with digital images, a friend of mine who happens to be a renowned photographer (National Geographic, etc) who shot Kodachrome professionally for years before moving to full frame digital Canons and then back again to --- get this --- tintype on an 8x10 camera, well anyway, this guy likened digital photography to "strip mining."

Well said, although, of course, he and many others do beautiful work in digital. I like film because it's more akin to kneeling in a cold mountain stream panning for gold . . . and silver.