Old vs. New Tech Showdown
Film vs. Digital Cameras
I've only really shot digital. I got into photography through digital graphic design, so the thought of shooting film seemed abhorrent from the get-go. No instant feedback? Pay per shot? Limited post-production capability? Why bother!
When researching cameras, I read a lot on Ken Rockwell's fantastic blog about film's merits. Could it really be better than digital for dynamic range, sharpness, and resolution? My father-in-law used to shoot professionally in the 80s. He was kind enough to let me borrow his Minolta X700 on a month-long work assignment in Singapore, and I wanted to find out.
Minolta X700
This manually focused 35mm SLR beast has an internal meter and can shoot in aperture or shutter speed priority. It made a splash when it entered the market in the late 80s with it’s full program mode, but where’s the fun in that? I got it refurbished but it was in pretty good shape - just needed a complete cleaning and new light seals. Used Fuji Color PRO 400H film and a Minolta MD 50mm 1.7 prime for the test which was also professionally cleaned.
Panasonic GX-7
I’ve just loved shooting with this Micro-Four Thirds camera, despite it’s small sensor size, for about four years. It’s my primary camera because with it’s Lumix 20mm 1.7 lens it is small enough to fit in your pocket but captures amazing images.
The Shots
I tried to create as much of an apples-to-apples comparison as possible to get a feel for which setup captured better images. The equivalent focal length between the lenses is about 10mm off, so I reframed shots both while shooting and post-shot cropping to provide similar compositions. The digital images are straight from camera JPEGs. All shooting was done in aperture priority with the same selected aperture on each camera. No exposure adjustments depended on the standard metering. I didn’t include any high res originals or 100% crops because who cares… I just wanted to see generally which images I preferred across a variety of lighting conditions and subjects.
Results
I was pretty amazed by how well the Minolta did.
The larger film (compared to the digital camera's sensor size) provided a shallower depth of field that was just striking on the nature shots. I also preferred the Fuji Pro 400H film's color rendering across the board. The dynamic range captured was also greater, to my eye, on film than digital. BUT… that additional dynamic range suffered from noise. In the architectural shots, the shadows are pretty noisy on film. So, that extra DR wasn't really backed up with detail. However, that noise provided a gritty, pleasing image rendering for most of the shots, which I prefer to the glossiness of the digital. I prefer the digital rendering of the night scene, hands down. The indoor scene of the stairwell on film lacks sharpness. This was due to slow shutter speed. It was handheld at 1/15 of a second, which the Panasonic had no issue with due to its image stabilization. Also, changing ISO with a touch of a button sure is handy for low light.
None of my subjects were in motion. If I had shot anything that moved (like kids or animals), the Panasonic would have beaten the pants off the Minolta, which is manual focus. Even for a manual focus pro, I don't think one could out-compete with the continuous focusing of the Panasonic for a bird in flight or a moving player in a sports game.
The digital images I had instantly. It took weeks to get the film. By the time film was developed, I'd already posted several digital shots to my Instagram account and received feedback which was nice. Also, because the digital is shot in RAW, there is much more flexibility in post-production. So much more detail is retained in highlights and shadows with RAW. The examples above were out of camera JPEGs, but the results look very different if I edit the RAW files. I went ahead and edited the scanned JPEG of a film capture to see what edits could do to enhance the film vs. digital capture - look at the highlights on the right side of the image. The detail difference on the background branches is stark. However.. does it matter since that isn't the subject of the image?
Conclusion
So, which is better? Film or digital?
Why choose one? They're both great for different use cases. If you're a hobbyist like me, shoot both.
Film is fun! I love the feel of the Minolta. Manual focusing is a totally different game than letting the camera do the work. Not knowing what's on the film creates an entirely new shooting experience. The anticipation is fun. It's nice not to have instant gratification.
Action shots, low light, or socially I'd grab my digital for ease of shooting, processing, and sharing. For portrait, architecture, or street, the grit and texture of film are beautiful.
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