Advantages and disadvantages for film/digital street photography

Let me get the important stuff first. Film and digital both have a reason to be and neither is wrong if you want to use it. Neither are perfect but I’ll let you know now that even as an old film photographer, digital has some distinct advantages that are hard to ignore. 

Read on for the defense of film and the disadvantages of digital.

Let’s start with Film. First of all, when exposed properly (a matter of taste and preference) it is beautiful and hard to match. People shooting digital have for years tried to replicate the look of film and have rarely achieved it. There is something to it that’s hard to describe. 

Successfully shooting film feels like an achievement because, among other things, it’s lack of feedback. You don’t get to see it until much later. You have to develop a sense for it. You learn your camera in ways you don’t with newer digital cameras (because you don’t have to due to the instant feedback).

With film cameras you get to know the sound and feel of your camera when it functions correctly and when something doesn’t sound or feel right then you switch to your backup and bring the other to get checked. 

Film makes you more conscious of what you are photographing. Not only because it has become so expensive to both purchase and develop (now you usually scan it too for another small fortune) but because of there only being on average 36 exposures per roll. You don’t want to know the frustration of running out of film just as the action starts to pick up either between roll changes or running out of film all together. 

Due to the number of years and the amount of film I shot as a professional when digital wasn’t an option, I tend to shoot fewer exposures than my contemporaries who were brought up on digital. I do shoot far more than I would back in my film heyday but far fewer than many that I see now that have only ever had digital as a seemingly viable option. 

There is a whole wave of young photographers that are keeping film alive. Due to the economics of it, I don’t see film ever being inexpensive again. There just isn’t the demand. It’s also sad to see how few of the film stock options that were available when I started are still around due to the radically decreased consumption. 

Film makes you feel like a craftsman. A member of a small and cool club that most people can’t understand. 

Lastly, unless you develop and scan your own work, easy with black and white but far more difficult with color. I know you can develop color film at home but it’s more of a pain than Black and White to do. 

Oh, and let’s not forget printing. I personally LOVED the darkroom. Printing from my negatives was one of my favorite parts of the whole process. Again, black and white is much easier to print at home than color. 

Digital has none of film’s drawbacks. The cameras are more expensive (at least for professional grade cameras). 

With that out of the way, a single, reusable memory card can hold far more images than any size roll of film. It can be reused too. The savings in that alone are huge in a very short amount of time. 

Digital of course gives you instant feedback which by itself has made digital so much more popular and accessible to people that were intimidated by the seemingly technical aspects of film and the wait to find out if what you thought was a great set of images instead turns out to be completely awful due to reasons you may or may not recall. 

Digital cameras record most if not all of the information you need for extra insight as to why an image was either a success or a failure. 

Digital cameras now have greater exposure latitude than film, allowing for photos that could not have been created otherwise. 

Digital takes the steps of scanning and developing out of the way and lets you work on and view them almost immediately. 

The downsides are as follows (in my opinion), I feel the look of an unaltered digital image doesn’t come anywhere near the beauty of its properly exposed film counterpart. That’s completely subjective of course but it’s a subjective medium. Once the digital image has been massaged in post it can look amazing. Different from film based images but amazing nonetheless. 

Oh, don’t let me forget to mention how much easier it is to get through security at all airports when not having to ask for a hand inspection of all your film while the line behind you backs up.

Both film and digital are great choices for street photography. 

If it makes you happy then do more of it. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you there is only one way to do it. Use the camera, film, lens that gets you the results you desire. 

As a matter of practicality though, I would consider starting with digital if you are brand new to street photography. It’ll allow you to make way more mistakes while learning and then use what you know to jump to film. 

I am happy film isn’t dead but I do also really appreciate the conveniences of digital. 

The most important thing is just to get out, continue to make images and have fun.