In the early days of digital one could find lots articles comparing film and digital photography. Which is better? Which has more detail? This is not one of those articles. There seems to be less of a culture war between the two these days, with more of us going back and forth. In fact a photographer recently asked me to help him "learn" how to use an older film camera.
For my purposes, the marriage of film and digital has been a blessing. I shot film cameras (mainly medium and large format) for decades. When I wanted a print, I would send a slide off to a lab or darkroom and hope for the best. Sometimes the results were spectacular: I've still got some nice old cibachromes that have held up very well. But often the results were disappointing.
Then one day a photographer friend of mine mentioned that he had found a new lab that would use a drum scanner to scan his negatives into digital files, and then print the images on an inkjet printer! I tried this new method and was hooked: the lab would even send a small proof and allow me to make suggestions. But at the end of the day, I was still at the mercy of whoever was working at the lab.
Then about 5 years ago I got a wild hair and bought an Epson V800 photo scanner, thinking it might be fun to take a look at some of my 30 years worth of old slides and negatives. I had always been very strict about weeding out weak shots, so the ones I had kept were usually strong compositions but had a bit too much contrast or were a stop underexposed, etc. Even with the simple software that came with the scanner I could tell that I was onto something.
Inadvertently, the big step was when I bought my first digital camera and learned how to use Lightroom software to handle the files. Between trips with my new Fuji mirrorless, I started doing hi-res scans of my old slides and negatives, and importing those into Lightroom to manipulate. As an old film photographer used to about a 5 or 6 stop exposure limit, it was almost like cheating. Those old 'near-miss' shots (at least the few that I hadn't thrown out) were given amazing new life by adjusting exposure, contrast, color cast, even sharpness. Then I bought a Canon Prograf 1000 printer and started making my own prints. Long story short: I'm now going back through a lot of my old favorites and making brand new prints the way I want them to look! And if I want a huge print from one of my old 4x5 shots, I have it scanned on drum scanner and then work on the large digital file myself to get it to look perfect, before sending it off to be printed. When I go on my photo trips I shoot with both digital and film these days...and each has its strengths and weaknesses. But it's the interaction of old film and new digital technology that has really re-energized my photography.
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