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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras 05-07-2010, 01:50 PM  
Good reason to use film rather than dslr?
Posted By Ivan J. Eberle
Replies: 112
Views: 22,613
Time was when I shot professionally with just one or two camera bodies (Pentax LXs); I had clients who would hand me a check when I handed off exposed but undeveloped film at the end of a shoot. Those days aren't coming back-- but film reminds me of my craft once being simpler but also more exacting, too.

Now I have an array of cameras from 35mm film to APS-C DSLRs to a P645N to 4x5 view cameras. The past year eighteen months I am shooting more film than ever. Just sent off 36 frames for developing (but that's not a roll of 135, I'm talking 36 sheets of 4x5 film).

Film has not stood still since the digital revolution. My feeling is that there are emulsions available today that are better than anything that's gone before (Ektar 100 in 120 and 4x5 are my latest crushes, Astia 100F and Pro 160S are rather wonderful as well). Dynamic range is expansive or restrictive depending on your film choice. Less is more sometimes, shadows going deep black is terrific with low key work. Low key and high key are areas where film still rules.

But I do find myself using film in 135 format less and less. For one, I used to burn through a fair amount of it at 5 or 8 frames per second, and frankly digital does photojournalism and action based sports and wildlife better because these were low-percentage-of-keepers situations with film and swapping out rolls ever 36 frames gets tedious and expensive and you miss shots that way. Too, not being able to switch ISO's mid roll is problematic with the slow films I tend to always use when I'm shooting film. High ISO work is all digital for me.

35mm film is becoming a small niche market, from what was once an almost inconceivably huge market. But 35mm can be sublime, nevertheless. There's something particularly gratifying about the mechanics of loading a camera, manually focusing, manually rewinding-- probably has something to do with the process being engaging more of my brain and being contemplative than just mindlessly banging away with an automated camera.

I've also enjoyed the process of souping my own films and transparencies themselves are really special (there's an indefinable something about seeing for the first time a pristine transparency that's just been washed and dried on the light table under a loupe).

When I have time to shoot a landscape off a tripod, the natural choice is film, because it's capable of results that exceed all but most expensive DSLR sensors (and, in larger than 645 film easily blows them away). Provided the subject matter is film-worthy, it's use permits more flexibility in how the final image is presented (for instance, you can't make a direct Ilfochrome print on an enlarger from a digital file, but you can scan a slide to make a digital file).
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