Well, here is a controversial topic! Film versus digital...
Film is almost gone on the consumer market. Digital is taking over. It's as simple as that. Many of the film manufacturers have already cut back on production and many others are going out of business. Companies like Kodak have shifted their emphasis to digital as well. Other companies like Agfa (a German film company) are going out of business. Still others like Polariod has had to make major changes to their product offerings just to stay in business. Did you know Polaroid now even makes portable DVD players?! What does THAT have to do with photos?
In the commercial photography world, film is far from dead. Many commercial photographers still shoot with medium format film (2.25 " x 2.25" is the film negative size) and also large format film (4"x5" and 8"x 10" film negative sizes) Film has a certain amount of lattitude that makes for very nice images that are not so "contrasty." It's great for commercial images.
But will digital even penetrate that market? In time, I think it will. Right now though, when we talk digital, most people think of it for use on point and shoot cameras and for things like weddings. Virtually every wedding photographer has migrated to digital today. The days of using medium format Hasselblad cameras for weddings is almost over. The Hasselblad was THE wedding photography camera for a long time when traditional-styled weddings were popular. They are very difficult to use for photojournalistic coverage because the cameras did not have the flexibility to move quickly (they are big and heavy). So many early photojournalistic wedding photographers simply used 35mm cameras. Image quality was not as good as the Hasselblad, but the image style is what they were after.
Today, digital has gotten so good that it rivals the best 35mm camera. And, many feel it rivals medium format quality as well. You see, the larger the negative size, the better the quality of the printed image because you don't have to enlarge as much as when you are printing from a small negative. Bigger is definitely better when it comes to film. Advances in film emulsion technology helped the 35mm cameras gain quality, but in general, bigger WAS better.
Today's digital cameras often tout 8 MegaPixels or greater. This means you should be able to easily print 16x20 prints that look very good. The megapixel issue itself does not guarantee quality as I mentioned in an earlier post on the topic. But in general, you can relate larger megapixels to be similar to larger film size. Bigger is generally better when it comes to making big prints.
You can't beat the instantaneous gratification you get when shooting digital as well. You know immediately if you've got a nicely exposed shot or a dark shot just by looking at the viewing screen after you've taken the picture. And you can decide to keep that image or simply delete it. Plus, to save money, you can just print the best images from a group of images and either delete the rest or just store it on your computer's hard drive or burn it on a CD-R. It's just so flexible.
So to recap, film is really on the way out for the general consumer market. It's just a matter of time. But right now, it's still very much alive in the commercial market with larger formats. And don't worry, if you haven't gone to digital yet and you are still shooting with 35mm film, you can still get film for your camera. But your days are numbered as more people move to digital. Film manufacturers will eventually realize the shrinking market isn't worth keeping up with. Just look at what's happened to Agfa.
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