Why shoot film

[hartacus]

It's a refuge.

This. You think about film more cautiously because you have a limited number of shots per roll, which draws you into the moment - for a few short seconds, all that matters is what you see through the camera. Likewise, when you're in the darkroom you're focusing on what your hands are doing in the dark, or you're watching the clock to time the development steps. It's comparable to the mindfulness exercises you might be instructed to do for treating anxiety, which bring you out of the crazy realm of your unbounded thoughts and into the present moment.

Also, film cameras are very cool machines. I have a digital camera that I love to pieces (Olympus OM-D E-M5 II) but it runs on magic like all electronic devices do. I also have a Zenit E that is literally in pieces in a box. It would take magic to put it back together, I'm pretty sure, but the process of taking it apart taught me a lot about how cameras work. They are remarkably complicated but undeniably elegant and you make art with them, and that blows my mind a little.

 

[flavio81]

@flavio81 To be fair to Fuji 1600, those scans were made in 1996 from prints produced by a chain store. I rescanned the prints about 5 years ago but don't have those files on my laptop...I suppose today I could scan the negatives if I dug them out

Yes, the grain appears much less on the prints. And I suspect that while the prints are quite good, the negs are even better.

Film can handle high ISO, and I am quite baffled by the assertion that it cannot. I've always been a fan of high speed films and would pick Fuji Press 800 as my favourite C41 film of all time.

If it's from 1996 then it's more likely Fuji Super HG 1600. Fuji Superia 1600 came later with much, much less grain.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

Why do amateur radio operators still use International Morse Code? Why are new amateur radio operators learning Morse code which is no longer a requirement for licenses?

A lot of ordinary people were surprised to learn that Morse proficiency was required to obtain an amateur radio license (in the USA, until 2007 to use the high frequency bands that usually carry great distances and 1991 if you wanted a license at all), and everyone on the outside assumed it was only there to stop people from getting a license.

Truth was, with Morse, one could use a homemade transmitter the size of an Altoids tin and a wire to be heard thousands of miles away, rather than a $1,000 transceiver, a big antenna, and a power outlet with voice.

Too, a band that could become crowded with about 60 conversations in voice could hold about 1,000 using code.

Code was not obsoleted by voice - now there are narrowband digital modes that are even more effective with low power than CW and a lot easier to learn to use.

Nevertheless, as you mentioned, a lot of hams are still using Morse, some because they don't need to deal with a computer, and some that take pride knowing they are getting the whole job done themselves.

 

[Down Under]

Good morning, everyone. I have a spare two hours today, and I've had too much coffee. Going thru all the posts in this forum, some random thoughts came to mind.

There are some good, intelligent, rational, well thought-out arguments here for film, and a fair few for digital. Fair enough, we are a film forum. So a degree of well-intentioned bias against "the big bad D" is to be expected.

Some of us like film, some dislike digital, some like (or seem to dislike) both. Others like film more, like digital more, or like both equally. Each is different from the other and has its positives and negatives (pun intended). Know and learn both, but please, spare us the creating of fictitious arguments for or against either.

Digital is not crap. For color, it is now (and has been since the advent of high-quality cameras such as the Nikon D90 and D700 in 2008-2009) just as good as color negative or slide emulsions. Not to overlook, without the requirement of processing, mounting or fiddly printing.

I will never buy a 36.3MP FX-Format CMOS sensor however desirable this may be for rendering 69 shades of every color on the wheel, for the basic reason that, on a retirement income and preferring travel to collecting digital camera gear, I can't afford it. My current 10 to 12 MP Nikons do an adequate job for my needs. In the good old days, I used Panatomic-X film for almost all my photography, now and then Tri-X and, rarely, Super X. Now my D700 lets me select all these Eis and many more. Horses for courses.

Digital is less effort, but many digishooters have the regrettable habit of posting 1,257 shots of Baby Puss purring in a basket or 3,489 shots of the day at the beach with the grandsprogs. One friend put 14,000+ photos on his (boring) blog of his two weeks in Hawaii. Hasn't had any views and wonders why? A nice man but much too insecure to be told the truth... nobody cares. Ten or twenty shots, maybe. Thousands, go away!

As to what is the best cheese, well - what cheese do you like? Mousetrap or gorgonzola, an endless variety, in my case limited only by my budget, more than A$20 per kilogram is out price-wise, but with diligent shopping (I never cease to thank the gods of consumer heaven for having given us Aldi) I can often buy even the best and most expensive cheeses for much less than my price limit. The same applies to film and digicams.

Technology scares traditional analogers. I still have TIFFs I scanned in 2000 and I can easily retrieve and edit/print them. Hardware changes (often with improvements) with time. In sixteen years I've replaced all my image storage unitsls two times and am overdue for some new Western Digital portables. As my Italian hair stylist says about my reeding hairline, "is no-problema".

Overlooking the endless facile and poorly thought out arguments, I believe it is entirely possible that my grandkids' baby shots will be accessible in 2036, and with new technology, I or my son will easily produce film and paper images of my digisnaps. In this age, if there is a market for it, someone will invent it.

#37 has it pretty well right for me. Good and useful information. One of the best posts in the entire forum. Ditto #39. Sirius Glass has an incisive mind and is a fine communicator who makes us stop and ponder. Ditto Ditto #41, who always writes a wealth of interesting and thought-provoking information. #42 is the most apt one-liner, Alan always has the best good word for this particular moment.

If you prefer nice grain patterns, film is better. Grain is possible with digital, but with special software, usually a steep learning curve, and much fiddling on computers.

Ad nauseam can easily become ad nauseum and vice-versa...

Anyone who insists digi prints don't compare to analog doesn't know how to print, won't make the effort to learn to print properly, or may be color-blind.

Film does look different to digital. That's why I shoot color digital and black-and-white film. The tonal differences are obvious. I dislike scanning and allocate my po diligent care. I also have good enlargers and I enjoy my darkroom periods as precioumenttime away from the hurdy-gurdy of life's mundane demands.

Digital and film costs generally even out. Film and processing costs, true. Digital cameras with also reliable storage cards, a decent laptop and scanner and a good printer also cost, in fact heaps. Start upcosts for digital are high, for film and darkroom, usually less high, lots of used gear available OL. Balance our the two mediums and it all usually events out to quite close, unless you like to spend big on Leica monochromes or obscure yuppy emulsions and chemistry. Color neg films seem to me to be of the "one size fits all" variety. I've shot them all, and apart from slow or fast EI speeds, the results usually look the same. Only the color shift varies, but even then not by much.

To the "I disagree with this" posters, I will dare to say, please spare us the facile one-liners. Post your reasons. The "I just think that" comment are of little or no interest to anyone. Communicate!

I could go on, but this post would become a new complete post in itself. I could have stopped there, but of course I didn't...

Briefly briefly, why do I shoot film? I have the gear - my 1970s Nikkormats and my circa 2000 Contax Gs produce about equal results, the former are best for B&W and the latter ideal for color tones. I have the darkroom with two top of the range enlargers. Also a large fridge and a small freezer full of film. Films and chemistry are still available, though 120 film prices in AUS are now so high that I now seriously plan to give up MF.

Thank you all, for having given me so much good reading and such fun in responding.

 

[blockend]

I agree. High ISO look yucky. But so too does high ISO film in my opinion. Delta 3200 (1000ISO film) looks very scrappy to me.

Absolutely. Colour "art" photographers like William Eggleston and Martin Parr understood that only medium format film could deliver the kind of seamless rendering they were looking for in a photographic print from a hand held camera. Once grain structures become evident, the medium intrudes into the illusion. There are a few exceptions (Fred Herzog comes to mind), people who worked on 35mm colour slide, but their output was generally reproduced in magazines, or printed small, or was photojournalistic in nature where different visual parameters apply. People working in advertising and fashion used high ISO colour film for dreamy effect, like Sarah Moon, but their general mood is monochromatic, not polychromatic.

Digital colour photography offers something close to colour film art photography, but as ever it depends on the execution. Eggleston reckoned his dye transfer prints cost him $500 each in the 1970s, and I assume Martin Parr has moved away from a Plaubel or a Mamiya for similar reasons, MF film is damned expensive to shoot in volume and quality finishers and hand printers are few and far between. If medium format digital cameras become more accessible (and ergonomic in point and shoot terms), we'll no doubt see a new colour aesthetic emerge that will give colour prints from film competition.

Black and white is different, IMO. It is immediately abstract, and the viewer is more accepting of further abstractions, like grain, contrast and focus compromises.

 

[Toyo]

Good morning, everyone. I have a spare two hours today, and I've had too much coffee. Going thru all the posts in this forum, some random thoughts came to mind.

There are some good, intelligent, rational, well thought-out arguments here for film, and a fair few for digital. Fair enough, we are a film forum. So a degree of well-intentioned bias against "the big bad D" is to be expected.

Some of us like film, some dislike digital, some like (or seem to dislike) both. Others like film more, like digital more, or like both equally. Each is different from the other and has its positives and negatives (pun intended). Know and learn both, but please, spare us the creating of fictitious arguments for or against either.

Digital is not crap. For color, it is now (and has been since the advent of high-quality cameras such as the Nikon D90 and D700 in 2008-2009) just as good as color negative or slide emulsions. Not to overlook, without the requirement of processing, mounting or fiddly printing.

I will never buy a 36.3MP FX-Format CMOS sensor however desirable this may be for rendering 69 shades of every color on the wheel, for the basic reason that, on a retirement income and preferring travel to collecting digital camera gear, I can't afford it. My current 10 to 12 MP Nikons do an adequate job for my needs. In the good old days, I used Panatomic-X film for almost all my photography, now and then Tri-X and, rarely, Super X. Now my D700 lets me select all these Eis and many more. Horses for courses.

Digital is less effort, but many digishooters have the regrettable habit of posting 1,257 shots of Baby Puss purring in a basket or 3,489 shots of the day at the beach with the grandsprogs. One friend put 14,000+ photos on his (boring) blog of his two weeks in Hawaii. Hasn't had any views and wonders why? A nice man but much too insecure to be told the truth... nobody cares. Ten or twenty shots, maybe. Thousands, go away!

As to what is the best cheese, well - what cheese do you like? Mousetrap or gorgonzola, an endless variety, in my case limited only by my budget, more than A$20 per kilogram is out price-wise, but with diligent shopping (I never cease to thank the gods of consumer heaven for having given us Aldi) I can often buy even the best and most expensive cheeses for much less than my price limit. The same applies to film and digicams.

Technology scares traditional analogers. I still have TIFFs I scanned in 2000 and I can easily retrieve and edit/print them. Hardware changes (often with improvements) with time. In sixteen years I've replaced all my image storage unitsls two times and am overdue for some new Western Digital portables. As my Italian hair stylist says about my reeding hairline, "is no-problema".

Overlooking the endless facile and poorly thought out arguments, I believe it is entirely possible that my grandkids' baby shots will be accessible in 2036, and with new technology, I or my son will easily produce film and paper images of my digisnaps. In this age, if there is a market for it, someone will invent it.

#37 has it pretty well right for me. Good and useful information. One of the best posts in the entire forum. Ditto #39. Sirius Glass has an incisive mind and is a fine communicator who makes us stop and ponder. Ditto Ditto #41, who always writes a wealth of interesting and thought-provoking information. #42 is the most apt one-liner, Alan always has the best good word for this particular moment.

If you prefer nice grain patterns, film is better. Grain is possible with digital, but with special software, usually a steep learning curve, and much fiddling on computers.

Ad nauseam can easily become ad nauseum and vice-versa...

Anyone who insists digi prints don't compare to analog doesn't know how to print, won't make the effort to learn to print properly, or may be color-blind.

Film does look different to digital. That's why I shoot color digital and black-and-white film. The tonal differences are obvious. I dislike scanning and allocate my po diligent care. I also have good enlargers and I enjoy my darkroom periods as precioumenttime away from the hurdy-gurdy of life's mundane demands.

Digital and film costs generally even out. Film and processing costs, true. Digital cameras with also reliable storage cards, a decent laptop and scanner and a good printer also cost, in fact heaps. Start upcosts for digital are high, for film and darkroom, usually less high, lots of used gear available OL. Balance our the two mediums and it all usually events out to quite close, unless you like to spend big on Leica monochromes or obscure yuppy emulsions and chemistry. Color neg films seem to me to be of the "one size fits all" variety. I've shot them all, and apart from slow or fast EI speeds, the results usually look the same. Only the color shift varies, but even then not by much.

To the "I disagree with this" posters, I will dare to say, please spare us the facile one-liners. Post your reasons. The "I just think that" comment are of little or no interest to anyone. Communicate!

I could go on, but this post would become a new complete post in itself. I could have stopped there, but of course I didn't...

Briefly briefly, why do I shoot film? I have the gear - my 1970s Nikkormats and my circa 2000 Contax Gs produce about equal results, the former are best for B&W and the latter ideal for color tones. I have the darkroom with two top of the range enlargers. Also a large fridge and a small freezer full of film. Films and chemistry are still available, though 120 film prices in AUS are now so high that I now seriously plan to give up MF.

Thank you all, for having given me so much good reading and such fun in responding.

I could not agree more.
Well said and cogently argued.
Film for me brings me back to a hands-on craft and the opportunity to express myself artistically with my hands.
I can't do this digitally.
T

 

[LAG]

Excuse me Maris

I can see your point of view, although is quite different from the “key” you quoted (focused on choosing), however I must admit that I only agree on a short percentage of your post.

Little reasons to think about …

Essentially, this is not about being the only one (or “uniquely”) medium, because that is another way of comparison (“resemblance”).

All the arguments for film predicated on the appearance of pictures, resolution, grain, pixel count, tonal fidelity, etc miss the point and are ultimately doomed to failure.

You’re almost right, because these aspects you’ve mentioned: resolution, grain, pixel count, tonal fidelity are optional, and I agree that they use to be some of the arguments in comparison, but you have miss the point with your “etc”, you are leaving aside “The Light” in the darkroom, and with that in mind, you can predicate with that appearance of pictures, I assure you there is no failure.

For years photo-realist painters have been turning out works that look just like giant photographs.

Graphite pencil can be used to convincingly mimic black and white photographs.

Mezzotint was the first of many ingenious printing processes celebrated for their ability to deliver photograph-like pictures.

Digital picture-making can do anything including fashioning pictures that look like photographs.

Indeed, but because painters owe a lot to Photography (I am not only talking about the “Chemical Period”), and those likenesses – whatever the medium - owe all to the first reason: “The Light”

...Painting can't do this. Drawing can't do this.

I feel sorry to say that this is not accurate. It’s curious that your signature gives the explanation itself. No offense, but review that concept.

 

[LAG]

Excuse me ozmoose

…For color, it is now (and has been since the advent of high-quality cameras such as the Nikon D90 and D700 in 2008-2009) just as good as color negative or slide emulsions …

I disagree. Because I agree with some other posts before about the wrong point of view that is “to compare with that argument”. Good or bad are subjective views.

My current 10 to 12 MP Nikons do an adequate job for my needs. In the good old days, I used Panatomic-X film for almost all my photography, now and then Tri-X and, rarely, Super X. Now my D700 lets me select all these Eis and many more. Horses for courses.

Some of those Eis and many more = Noise

…As to what is the best cheese, well - what cheese do you like? Mousetrap or gorgonzola, an endless variety, in my case limited only by my budget, more than A$20 per kilogram is out price-wise, but with diligent shopping (I never cease to thank the gods of consumer heaven for having given us Aldi) I can often buy even the best and most expensive cheeses for much less than my price limit. The same applies to film and digicams.

Is not only the type of cheese, there is another issue involved in this thread: People may not like cheese (p.s. the "others")

Technology scares traditional analogers.

In my opinion, someone has already communicated before that technology “has improved since the very first day” and that includes Film photography. Scares? No offense, but speak for yourself, for me "is no-problema".

Ad nauseam can easily become ad nauseum and vice-versa...

I couldn't agree more with that, with no further reasons!

…To the "I disagree with this" posters, I will dare to say, please spare us the facile one-liners. Post your reasons. The "I just think that" comment are of little or no interest to anyone. Communicate!.

I agree, however and as you can see it’s no necessary to write a never-ending post to give one valid opinion, it’s perfectly possible with a short-type one and even with enough information (the very #42 you mentioned is a good example by the way).

Anyway "I think that" if someone need some other reasons, like any other thread, this one is open to questions! isn't it? (perhaps that's where communication fails)

Best

p.s. (p.s.)

 

[Harry Stevens]

Why use a thousand words when 9 will do.......

 

[Agulliver]

Yes, my 1996 photos probably are Fuji Super HG, before Superia came along.

I don't think they look "scrappy" at all. To me, they capture the look and atmosphere of what that event was really like. The lights on the dry ice wold have been captured totally differently on digital.

It's not that digital is bad...it's been pretty good for at least a decade...but film and digital are different. and sometimes only film will do.

I like the cheese analogy. Sometimes I want a melty slice of gouda for my toast, and other times some vintage unpasteurised cheddar on a cracker...

 

[Prest_400]

Yes, my 1996 photos probably are Fuji Super HG, before Superia came along.

I don't think they look "scrappy" at all. To me, they capture the look and atmosphere of what that event was really like. The lights on the dry ice wold have been captured totally differently on digital.

It's not that digital is bad...it's been pretty good for at least a decade...but film and digital are different. and sometimes only film will do.

I like the cheese analogy. Sometimes I want a melty slice of gouda for my toast, and other times some vintage unpasteurised cheddar on a cracker...

+1 on that.

I like film for its aesthetical value. When I got a Texas Leica I dismissed 35mm because of the technical superiority.
Now, as a kid I always wanted to document my coastal hometown and 35mm has that atmosphere. I have found that color neg film is actually quite decent. The 15MP limit I may agree with but aestethics are beyond that. And the hybrid approach is quite nice. Sometimes I dislike myself because if I ramped up shooting, lab costs aren't cheap and ends up with a digital file anyways, but it still keeps the essence of the stock.
I have to make a hybrid print from a Fuji C200 frame exposed with a 28-80 kit zoom, perhaps will be 30x45cm/12x18". Not technically perfect but really beautiful and somehow the grain and color fit the atmosphere very well. Again my 35mm camera decided to take a halt (hopefully new batteries will fix it).

I have a 2010 generation 12mp m43 camera, good, but really I like the results of film. Spain has hard light at summer and color negative seems to handle it very well, and I prefer that non-linearity with sun in the frame, etc. Sometimes I do wish I had a 42MP 135 digital, but I'd still not be able to get away from film. And I don't print large that much!

Plus there's something so freeing about using a classifields $50 AF SLR to keep in the beach backpack, and even getting into risky situations with it. Not happening with a +$1K machine.

 

[Cropline]

With the proliferation of digital from various camera styles and phones, to labs services that are geared toward them, since film has survived in that environment, it obviously serves a valid purpose, unique to each individual. No defense required. It's just that simple.

 

[blockend]

With the proliferation of digital from various camera styles and phones, to labs services that are geared toward them, since film has survived in that environment, it obviously serves a valid purpose, unique to each individual. No defense required. It's just that simple.

Film users are defensive about their choices, nonetheless. This may be a reasonable reaction to the marketing that surrounds digital innovation, or it may be that film attracts more curmudgeons. I find that if people are results lead, intent on serious projects, books, exhibitions, the gear is one of the less important factors in making it, and that's true of film and digital. Equipment is one of the easiest aspects to acquire, even the best stuff might only require selling your best car for a small one, or going without meals in restaurants. By comparison going out in all weathers and travelling great distances, get cold and wet, and putting all your energies into creating a estimable body of work over a lifetime is the hard bit. That's why people focus on the gear and argue about the merits of this over that, making great photographs is much harder than quibbling over shutters and dynamic range.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Absolutely. Colour "art" photographers like William Eggleston and Martin Parr understood that only medium format film could deliver the kind of seamless rendering they were looking for in a photographic print from a hand held camera. Once grain structures become evident, the medium intrudes into the illusion. There are a few exceptions (Fred Herzog comes to mind), people who worked on 35mm colour slide, but their output was generally reproduced in magazines, or printed small, or was photojournalistic in nature where different visual parameters apply. People working in advertising and fashion used high ISO colour film for dreamy effect, like Sarah Moon, but their general mood is monochromatic, not polychromatic.

Digital colour photography offers something close to colour film art photography, but as ever it depends on the execution. Eggleston reckoned his dye transfer prints cost him $500 each in the 1970s, and I assume Martin Parr has moved away from a Plaubel or a Mamiya for similar reasons, MF film is damned expensive to shoot in volume and quality finishers and hand printers are few and far between. If medium format digital cameras become more accessible (and ergonomic in point and shoot terms), we'll no doubt see a new colour aesthetic emerge that will give colour prints from film competition.

Black and white is different, IMO. It is immediately abstract, and the viewer is more accepting of further abstractions, like grain, contrast and focus compromises.

Mostly I see Eggleston shooting Leica cameras, but I've seen him with others. I think most of his famous and well known work was captured with the small format.

https://pleasurephoto.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/wiliam-eggleston-with-leica-camera.jpg

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324715704578481214024861412

 

[eddie]

These digital vs. film arguments always seem to come down to the participants trying to justify their choice to others. There is no need to do so. There's only one person to whom the decision should matter.
It often appears to me as if those who are completely dismissive of one (or the other) aren't secure enough in the work they're producing, and feel a need to put down those who have made a different decision, in an effort to lift their own efforts.

 

[Cropline]

Film users are defensive about their choices, nonetheless.....

How long will this last? It's pointless because it's endless. The world IS full of critics and new ones will continue to emerge.
Film works and always has. Digital won't change that. If you feel a (constant?) need to defend it, that's your prerogative. I'm content using film or both, with a film preference.
At the end of the day, what others think of your preferences don't make a hoot. Shoot it, enjoy it, and let everyone handle their personal problems. Your choice. Carry on!

 

[Agulliver]

If I am sometimes defensive about my choice to use film....it is because there are people who tell me that I should not be using film.

When someone says high ISO film always produces poor, grainy, scrappy images.......given that I disagree, I am going to put forth an opposing view.

I am sure others feel the same.

But the bottom line for me, as someone who uses both film and digital, is that I find film more fun.

 

[blockend]

Mostly I see Eggleston shooting Leica cameras, but I've seen him with others. I think most of his famous and well known work was captured with the small format.

https://pleasurephoto.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/wiliam-eggleston-with-leica-camera.jpg

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324715704578481214024861412

He shot 35mm colour in the early days, but his later work is mostly on a variety of medium format cameras, including a Mamiya Press. Eggleston is a camera magpie, rather like Araki, and there's a film of him with about 20 screw mount Leicas. He certainly shot colour 35mm, and definitely influenced the medium format reportage school that followed him.

 

[blockend]

How long will this last? It's pointless because it's endless. The world IS full of critics and new ones will continue to emerge.
Film works and always has. Digital won't change that. If you feel a (constant?) need to defend it, that's your prerogative. I'm content using film or both, with a film preference.
At the end of the day, what others think of your preferences don't make a hoot. Shoot it, enjoy it, and let everyone handle their personal problems. Your choice. Carry on!

That's what I said much earlier in the thread. I think it's a fear that someone will take film away if they don't defend it. This may or may not be a reasonable worry. There are certainly fewer films around, and some types, like Kodachrome and Polaroid, have completely disappeared. It may also become prohibitively expensive, and there are signs that this is happening in some cases (Fuji Chrome is getting that way), but I agree it won't disappear in my lifetime, though it may be pruned to a small number of manufacturers turning out a very few popular lines.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

He shot 35mm colour in the early days, but his later work is mostly on a variety of medium format cameras, including a Mamiya Press. Eggleston is a camera magpie, rather like Araki, and there's a film of him with about 20 screw mount Leicas. He certainly shot colour 35mm, and definitely influenced the medium format reportage school that followed him.

Interesting. I didn't know that. I had seen references to him with Mamiya cameras, but never read enough about it. He must be better known for his use of Leica cameras for some other reason.

 

[blockend]

Interesting. I didn't know that. I had seen references to him with Mamiya cameras, but never read enough about it. He must be better known for his use of Leica cameras for some other reason.

Some video here:

 

[Helios 1984]

If I am sometimes defensive about my choice to use film....it is because there are people who tell me that I should not be using film.

When someone says high ISO film always produces poor, grainy, scrappy images.......given that I disagree, I am going to put forth an opposing view.

I am sure others feel the same.

But the bottom line for me, as someone who uses both film and digital, is that I find film more fun.

'De gustibus non est disputandum' I should have this printed on a cap and wear it all the time. There will always be punks who thinks that their tastes are the only tastes, don't bother with these individuals and do as you please

Now about the question. Simply put, I like film because I like vintage mechanical devices, because I have to rely more on my knowledge, because It forces you to slow down and be more connected to what you are doing, and finally because of this (It's music to my ears).

Note: just for the records, I also like digital for different reasons.

 

[tomfrh]

But the bottom line for me, as someone who uses both film and digital, is that I find film more fun.

100%

 

[Agulliver]

Now about the question. Simply put, I like film because I like vintage mechanical devices, because I have to rely more on my knowledge, because It forces you to slow down and be more connected to what you are doing, and finally because of this (It's music to my ears).

Note: just for the records, I also like digital for different reasons.

As someone who is far from being a good mechanical engineer, and more adept with electronics....someone who loves computers and who marvels at the technology involved in a digital camera....I'm with you on the mechanical devices. There's few things more satisfying than hearing and feeling the mechanical parts doing their job. Something even more satisfying knowing that in the case of vintage gear, those parts have done their job for 40,50,60,100 years. My imagination wonders how many people have taken photos with a given camera of unknown provenance, how many scenes it has captured...the stories it could tell. The oldest digital camera I have is 10 years old and has only ever been owned by me. I probably have every exposure it's ever taken on my desktop PC.

Despite having a good knowledge of how a digital camera works, there is still something more "real" about being able to feel and hear the mechanical parts of a film camera....hear and feel the shutter fire, manually select a speed and feel/hear the mechanism tension....wind the film on manually or hear and feel a motor drive....it's a more tactile and somehow human experience. Yes, the shutter in my DSLR fires but that's it...the rest is a little LED to tell me the SD card is being accessed and a preview screen.

Then there is something less tangible. Just one example...when I take out my late great aunt's rather crummy Halina 35X, I know she used it in the 60s a lot before she upgraded to a Zeiss Ikon which went somewhere else when she died. But that camera had a lot of use by someone I have a connection with, was loved for a while and kept though rarely used. It's nice to take it off the shelf and let it do it's thing once in a while and occasionally surprise people. The same with cameras I've picked up second hand. Often I have no idea if they were frequently used or used once and forgotten...but these old machines can still do their job.

Having said all that sometimes I feel the same about computers. Hence the Sinclair ZX81 and Spectrum which sit alongside my quad core desktop PC...

 

[Halford]

These digital vs. film arguments always seem to come down to the participants trying to justify their choice to others. There is no need to do so

Except that this is precisely what the OP asked us to do. They asked for 'reasons to shoot film' -- so while not a need, answering their question seemed reasonable, no? Of course bashing other people's choices is totally pointless and unnecessary, but when someone has specifically, effectively, asked for your reasons for your choice, then yes, there is a need to do so.