Digital Photography or Film?

There are arguments to be made for both.  I think it really doesn't matter because it's the end result that matters.  Besides, I would imagine that most people who view the final image will have no idea how it was shot and probably not even think about that.  Are people really going to look at a beautiful classic image of something (a landscape, portrait, action sports shot, etc.), and think, "Gee, was that shot with film or with a digital camera?"  I doubt it.  If it's a great shot, I certainly wouldn't care.  Each one might give a slightly different rendition - maybe a little more silver here, a little more shade of gray there, more or less grain, etc., but it's really the final image that counts.  Each person will see it differently, anyway.  Side by side you might see a difference, but by itself as the only copy of the image and without another duplicate image shot with another medium, will anyone really care how it was shot?

I started photography long before digital was even a thought (I used to worry, as more and more photos were shot, about what would happen if we ran out of silver).  When I learned photography, my camera was manual only - no autofocus, no auto exposure, no auto white balance, etc.  You wouldn't know for sure if everything you shot was going to look good (you couldn't check the back of the camera) and be exposed right until after it was processed, and even if you got everything right, but the processing wasn't done right, you wouldn't get a result you could use.  For example, here is a photo of Van Cliburn (the pianist - he was giving a concert and talk at SUNY Fredonia) - everything was good as far as exposure and focus, but I had made the mistake of using chemistry that was mixed by someone else, and it wasn't done correctly.  This was the result:

I had taken a bunch of photos of him.  This was the only one I could salvage.  It was shot during a break in his amazing performance.  If I had had my current digital camera back then, I have no doubt I would have had some wonderful photos of him.  He was not only a great pianist but a wonderful person.  Meeting and talking with him was like talking with an old friend.  This was shot with a Nikon FTn and most likely plus-x film.

The point of this article is this:  with today's digital cameras, I get almost no photos that are out of focus or that are exposed wrong and with excellent colors.  For example, I shot the below photo with the Nikon FTn (film), but had forgotten to change the ASA of the film, and so metered the scene wrong (for the whole roll of film).

We were both up in the tree.  Never got the chance to reshoot it.  It was shot with Kodachrome, I think ASA 25.  I thought I had 100 ASA in the camera.  This was the best I could get out of it.

With digital today, it's pretty difficult to mess up the exposure, but even if you do, and you've shot with the camera RAW setting, with post-processing editing software, you can probably not only salvage it but get a pretty good image out of it.

Another advantage to digital is the ability to shoot in low light without a flash or strobe, which keeps getting better.  Not to mention shooting perhaps 1000 photos on one memory card.  And if that scares you (maybe the card will get corrupted and you'll lose all your shots?) with some cameras you have can have two memory cards and can record each photo on both cards for safety.  RAW and jpg images won't fade over time, cost next to nothing, and I've probably left out some other benefits.

Considering the viewer won't notice the difference, and with all the benefits, I'm all digital these days.  Now you only have to worry about lighting and composition, and depending on the subject, perhaps posing and expressions.

The photo below was shot at the Muscle Beach weight pen at Venice Beach of a beautiful young lady doing a split. I happened to be walking by, and although the lighting was not ideal, got this shot of her with a Nikon digital camera.