The Mystique of Film

I have resisted for a long time before giving out my two cents about the neverending debate ‘film vs digital’. I gave up after the next self-delusion I read in a well-known ‘semi-pro’ (purposely not linked) online photography magazine.

It featured the umpteenth column explaining how shooting film ‘gets the experience back’, going full-manual ‘forces you thinking’, having limited exposures ‘pushes you to become more selective’, and all the usual motives connected with the choice of travelling on a horse-powered chariot instead of using a regular car.

There is no need to shoot film to experience all that. Set the camera on full manual, disable OIS and IBIS, use a half-full 4gb card and a half-discharged battery, do not chimp, and, if you can not stand a digital viewfinder, get an SLR or a hybrid-viewfinder Fuji like the X-T100 or X-PRO series. That puts you back in a time when there were no alternatives but using tools with limited features.

That said, there is nothing wrong with going retro and shooting film: if you like it, just do it. But, please, do not turn a personal preference into intellectual musing and do not make a thing of it.