'John Lynch wins The Jessop Competition 2005'
Film cameras page
Advantages of film
Batteries last longer in film cameras. However, some of the higher-end digital cameras use rechargeable batteries and show extraordinary battery life, and film cameras are heavily limited by exposures per film, rather than battery life.
Manual film cameras require no batteries and, being mechanically simple, are able to operate in extreme environments.
Blank media that works in most film cameras (i.e., 35 mm film) is highly standardized and available for purchase in more places and for reasonably affordable cost, while blank media for a digital camera can be expensive (although not on a per-photo basis), and confusing to purchase due to many different types being available.
Film cameras do not require computer literacy (e.g., for learning how to unload pictures from the camera or how to print them) and many people (particularly older people) are more familiar and comfortable with how to produce prints from them.
Digital camera prints are often produced on home printers using low-quality ink and paper that will cause them to deteriorate severely over time, while most film prints are produced professionally with reasonably permanent results.
Inexpensive or older consumer-quality digital cameras sometimes have time lags between pressing the shutter button and actual photo exposure - long enough to cause the photographer to "miss the moment" they were trying to capture. (However, much of this time lag is caused by the camera automatically setting focus and exposure. To mitigate this, many consumer digital cameras have two-stage shutter buttons, where pressing the shutter button halfway sets focus and exposure without taking the picture, and fully pressing from that point takes the picture almost instantaneously).
Some types of more expensive film, especially positive chrome film, offer better colour resolution than many consumer digital cameras.
When taking shots of extremely long exposure (eg. 60 seconds) in very low light conditions (eg. night shots) photographs taken on a digital camera are normally more noisy than those taken on film.
Film performs better for black and white photography with contrast enhancing monochrome filters (eg. green filter for portraits or red filter for sea and sky shots). Black and white digital photographs taken in this manner, or by modifying the amplitude of each colour channel, can be very noisy in some cameras.
Digital single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras (preferred by more advanced photographers) are currently more expensive than film SLR cameras, although pricing for advanced Digital SLRs has dropped significantly.
It is unclear how any specific digital media will perform over long periods of time as a storage system. Careful archiving of film techniques will allow very good image archival over time as methods and media change. In general, however, digital demonstrates a clear advantage over film, as a digital images can be copied an infinite number of times while maintaining perfect quality.
Film photographs offer much greater resolution than digital photographs. Estimates of the resolution of 35mm film (the film most commonly used in low-end film cameras) are generally around 19 mega pixels. At the time of writing (2005), consumer digital cameras typically have resolutions in the 0.3-7.4 range while even the most expensive professional digital cameras can resolve around 12-16 mega pixels. Film, however, is not just limited to 35mm. Medium format films (120 film is 56mm x 56mm) offer 3.6 times the film area (and so resolution) of standard 35mm film (around 69 mega pixels), while Large format films (up to 8 inches by 10) offer 60 times the film area, so around 1135 mega pixels. Accordingly, many portrait photographers prefer film, as do photographers working for extremely large prints (for example, photographs produced for billboards) and medical photographers.
Film tends to be more flexible in dark situations where films with higher ISO Ratings can be selected. In such situations, digital cameras tend to suffer a lot from noise.
In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular . . . sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice. -Ansel Adams
Copyright (c)2005 Ken Rippengale. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".