There are many pros and cons to both film and digital photography. As to which is better, who’s to say?
With the recent rebirth in film photography popularity, one question on the photo community’s mind is which is better, film or digital? While there are some aspects to film that are better than digital, there is no definite way to determine which is better.
One of the two aspects that factor into preference is the price of entering into each medium and the overall price in the long run. The price to get started in film, assuming you are also buying all your darkroom equipment, is more expensive than digital. Digital, on the other hand, is fairly cheap to get started because all you need to do is just buy the camera and start shooting.
However, it’s the price in the long run that you should really consider. Price for one roll of film is around $5 and the price for all the chemicals you need to develop can range from $25 to $50 depending on whether you are working with color or black and white, which will last until you run out. While it is cheaper to get started with digital, the price you pay is all of the photo editing software, such as Photoshop, Lightroom, etc which can range from $20 per month to $200 annually per program.
That said, there are some excellent free photo softwares out there. There’s Polarr Photo Editor for Mac, which is sort of a free version of Adobe Lightroom, and Gimpshop, a pseudo bootleg version of Adobe Photoshop. The one issue with most free photo editing softwares, however, is that most of them you will realize after a while of use are just a glorified version of the Instagram photo editor.
When it comes to film, cameras and film rolls cannot be cheaper. The most common, and seemingly most popular, type of film is 35mm, which can come in a large assortment of color and black and white rolls. The less popular film types are the 120 type, which cameras for those are as cheap as $25, and 5×7 inch plates.
The second aspect is all on the technical level. Film is a higher resolution than digital and can show details that you won’t typically see in a photo taken with a digital camera. Unlike film, which has a limited amount of exposures per roll, an SD card can take potentially an unlimited amount of photos depending on the size of the card.
Because of the limited amount of film exposures, you have to frame every photo and make it the way you want before you even hit the shutter button while with digital you can just shoot ten or twenty photos and choose from there. An advantage that most film cameras have is that most models do not need a battery, so there isn’t a worry of running out of juice while on a weekend trip. Another reason more people are beginning to shoot with film is because you can get an authentic “vintage” look without the need to apply lots of filters.
Whether you subscribe to the film ways of the past or are adamant with today’s digital technology, it can’t be denied that both mediums have their own strengths in some ways. The argument shouldn’t be whether one side is better than the other, but what are the strengths that each side has. No matter how your preference, be glad in the photos you take.
For a more in-depth analysis, please consider checking out Film vs Digital – A Photo Comparison by TheDarkRoom.com: https://thedarkroom.com/film-vs-digital-comparison/#:~:text=Film%20captures%20photos%20at%20higher%20resolution%20than%20most%20digital%20cameras.&text=Film%20photographers%20with%20a%20limited,pictures%20first%20and%20think%20later.