1an·a·logue
noun \ˈa-nə-ˌlȯg, -ˌläg\1: something that is analogous or similar to something else
A photograph is an analogue of the scene as it appeared through your lens at the time at which it was taken. The shutter opens and the light hits the film strip, reacting with the chemicals and burning itself into something we can physically hold in our hands. No matter how many times you change, develop, enlarge, etc., you started by burning light onto a physical object.
A digtal image is, by definition, a numerical representation of what this scene may have looked like. Sure, a sensor may be "analogue" but that's just the beginning. The shutter opens and the light reacts with an image sensor which converts the different wavelengths of light into electrical signals. The processor reads this and the camera's software converts it into a file that your computer can read, and finally it deposits this information onto a memory card.
Is one better than the other? In my opinion, no... They're just different. For what I do, and for what most people do with photography, it's pretty much all the same. I mostly shoot digital. It's easier to work with, it's cheaper, it's faster, and dammit, people like it.
It just seems to me like sometimes digital photography is all about perfection. There are a million websites that can show you all kinds of information on light falloff, chromatic aberration, and all kinds of other lab experiments where they can prove that a $5000 lens is 1.54% sharper than a $200 lens. If you zoom in all the way on a 25MB file, you might find an imperfection. They can show you how much "better" one camera is than another, at some ridiculous ISO somewhere above 6400 when you're trying to capture a black cat stalking a squirrel at night without a flash. It's almost like the feeling is gone, and the engineers have taken over. Like driving a BMW where everything works perfectly, is perfectly sterile, and lacks any sort of personality.
Film on the other hand is more like a Ferrari or a Maserati. It's temperamental, it's expensive, it's always in the shop, and it requires a lot more work to use. So why even bother with film? Because.... Like the Italian cars, there's something more to it. It's got a feeling, a personalty. It's got something extra that you can't measure by running tests and experiments.
I've always liked the 'look' of film. It somehow seems warmer, or more organic, or some other such fuzzy-feel-good word. All of my favorite snowboard videos were shot in 16mm film. Have you ever seen a movie in a theatre that was shot digitally? Video just can't compare. Even in HD. With still photography, the lines blur together, but there is still a difference. One quick example is how each of the two mediums render a red light, such as a taillight on a car at night. The digital image will blow the red out to orange, yellow, or white, while the film will render it as your eye sees it - like a bright cherry.
Shooting film where I only get 24 or 36 exposures (on my 35mm) per roll makes me think about each shot I take. Shooting with a manual camera makes me think even longer and harder about where my light is, the quality, where I can bounce a flash, shutter speeds, apertures, ... everything. And I don't know what the hell I'm going to get until after the prints come back, which means I should be taking notes on every shot to see how my exposures were on each and every frame so I know how to fix all the mistakes I'm invariably making.
I say 'should' because I'm not. I go by feel, for better or for worse.
Here are a couple shots taken on 620 film that expired in the 1970s (if not earlier), with a Kodak camera from 1932.
The photos are terrible, technically speaking. But is there something else there? A feeling that a technically 'perfect' photo from my digital Nikon wouldn't have been able to capture?
You be the judge.
(more photos to come in the following days/weeks/months)
