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Film Vs Digital Photography

I thought I’d put my thoughts in for shooting on film and digital for photography. I honestly don’t have a preference, I like them both.

But I’ve always wanted to be able to match my digital photos closer to film.

I’ve been shooting film photography properly for about 4 years now. I’ve experimented with pushing and pulling stocks, filters, and a few other different techniques, and I’ve shot on a variety of different stocks. But recently I went out with my friend Elly for some shots to compare more directly.

For my film setup, I was shooting on Portra 400, rated at 160, on a Canon Eos 1n and Sigma 50mm and 85mm lenses. And my digital setup I was shooting on my Sony A7rV camera in compressed RAW.

I scanned my film photos at 2000 x 3000 resolution, and so resolution isn’t something I want to talk to about as much. I wanted to focus on colour and image rendering.

I think one of the main difference shooting from the start is how different they are from a starting place. Digital RAW photos aren’t made for post processing and there really is way more flexibility with how you want a photo to look. The image is clean, with no noise and accurate colours.

Portra 400 is quite grainy and looks great straight after scanning. If we zoom in we can see that it is nowhere near as sharp as the digital photos, but that adds to the pastel smeary quality that is so desirable. Despite the amount of film emulations and grainy plugins I’ve used, my digital photos still never look quite the same as the real thing.

Putting them side by side it’s clear to me why film is still so desirable. Shooting directly into sunlight backlit, we get to see the real beauty of highlight rolloff, and the imperfections created in the chemical reaction process which adds something more artistic and unpredictable. But this isn’t every photo, and usually half of the roll turns out a disappointment. But it’s still unique and different from digital photography.

So maybe the aim with digital photography isn’t to replicate film exactly. Maybe the aim is to create a unique separate look, which borrows the attributes of film photography but makes a unique and new look.

And so I wanted to talk about some of my favourite presets I’ve been using for photography, and that’s Rebecca Lily’s Pro Set Presets. This video isn’t sponsored by her presets or work in anyway, and I’m not being paid to talk about this, but I’ve used so many different Lightroom presets and hers are significantly more nuanced and versatile, which give a much more subtle but professional polish to photography.

When it comes to editing photos properly, I’ve always thought that subtlety is key, and that’s why I love her presets so much. They’re subtle and push colours and curves in the correct way. But there is a variety of looks which work in all different styles.

It’s not film, it’s completely different look, but it has this faded blacks, and maintains the dynamic range of the digital data in a way which feels more organic, adding texture and saturation in a way which feels more sophisticated.

But back to film photography.

Why do I still shoot on film? Well I think it really is important as a filmmaker to think about composition consistently. Composition and light seem to be the foundations for good photography and shooting on film makes you think carefully before taking a photo. Whenever I look back at my film photos over my digital photography, I notice that my film shots are almost always perfectly composed, whereas my digital photos I often change the composition to try a few different angles when shooting.

But overall, I shoot film just because I enjoy it. The photos I take are way more valuable to me, and they have more nostalgia and longevity psychologically than most of my digital photography.

Even to this day, I always get excited when I hear that a movie is still shot on film. And I make it my best effort to watch it on the best screen possible. There’s something special and different about film, and it will always carry value and nostalgia in my mind for the art form which I love so much.