The filmy divide


Film or digital is the first question any budding photographer asks him self close to 50 times a day. On one side you keep debating if you can match the advancing technology of digital photography and its low cost of operation and on the other hand is an art over 100 years old that requires professional thinking, dedication and lots of operation cash. There is a thrill in each of it, however a photographer beginning to round up his initial gear often reaches a compromise rather than arrive at a conviction.

Photography is expensive and going digital does not actually reduce it any more than film. Though you may disagree on this there are more than one reason why today many photographers starting out stick to film rather than go digital. I say this not because I am old fashioned, dont own a digital camera and my primary inclination is towards film. I would still have preferred to do digital two years ago but wanted to wait till technology stopped fooling people.

The word digital is a big cloud and Mega Pixel is even bigger. If I told you a 100 ASA film was more than 22 mega pixels you wouldn’t believe it because you would always compare your daily photos to those displayed in the digital lab and say “why don’t I get the same results”. Please note that camera and film companies cheat the consumer like crazy. Wow now that’s a revelation isn’t it? Yes it took me over 4 months, close to 40 film rolls, numerous arguments with photo labs, in depth study of CCD sensors to realize that my film based system was no less that a $3000 digital system that was the talk of the photographic community. Still what’s the big deal about digital that makes a community despise its ancestors? Nothing. It is the pride of owning what’s latest that make you feel you are beter of than other and frankly mostt of them dont know what they are talking about.