This is my favourite image from what is probably the last roll of colour film I will shoot. Never say never, but everything is so expensive now that sadly I can’t justify buying colour film anymore.
I’ve been thinking about switching to black and white, buying rolls of Fomapan and loading it myself. Can anyone share experience with packing film on your own, what’s the cost per roll?
Naive question: Does analogue photography still have advantages regarding image quality, that can't be replicated with digital sensors, or is it more about the psychology of making every photo a deliberate investment?
Not really.
I’ve owned a bunch of digital cameras (never a full frame one) and I now have a Canon 30D which is ancient by DSLR standards. With the Lightroom de-noise AI the RAW files I shoot with that camera might as well come from something made in the last 10 years. I might be exaggerating, but besides the megapixel count, for whatever I use my cameras for, the pictures come out great out of that one.
For me, shooting film is about the random glitches analog media produces. It’s about the sound. It’s about handling an old, mechanical camera. It’s about the achievement of catching a nice moment without any aids. That can’t be reproduced, just by the virtue of the fact that it’s literally just not the same.
On the purely technical side, digital and film is just two different mediums and there are some things you can’t reproduce. Like painting on a canvas or a wall and on a tablet. But for most use cases where you don’t intentionally require an analog image, I would say that digital does just as good of a job and is way more flexible.
My 2 cents.
I like the dinner table analogy, I’ll remember it next time this topic comes up because I think it connects to a wider audience than photographers and audiophiles.
I don't think it does anymore. Perhaps some films still have better dynamic range compared to cheaper cameras though.