Why Film Was Better Than Digital

[@johnskuttysabu7915]

Correct🎉🎉🎉thanks sulanto

[@MyChevySonic]

I remember my dad screaming at me for playing with his Kodak. The click of the advance wheel and the shutter was so entertaining for me as a kid. I wasted a whole roll of film. He only found out because I went up to him and asked, "Why isn't it clicking anymore, Papa?"

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing that really fun story😀

[@johnskuttysabu7915]

Film photo feels more original🎉

[@sstansm7f]

Thanks Matti! I remember: if you want fine grained image - load Neopan, if you want high dynamic range - Ilford Delta, very sharp - Kodak Tri-X. For landscape you need mirror lift lever, tripod and shutter release rope. For street photography, sport - versatile focusing screen to speed up focusing. For portrait - matt focusing screen. It seems all you need.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for the tips!

[@juhaaavalaakso455]

I scanned all of our old negatives from 1980 and I was blown away about how images look. 4236 pictures. Took months to do that.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing. I have a similar task ahead of me, but I have a lot more to scan. I mean a lot!😀

[@richardt1792]

I live in Los Angeles and have been to several photography museums, old and new, most images are with film. Especially black and white. I like the ability to increase the contrast with B & W using red or yellow filters. I like medium format where I can get 100mp plus images. I have a Canon 5D Mark III for color.

[@ankagie]

I love shooting film, it made me fall in love with black and white photos and it is as you said, simple. I love digital photography too, but I'm sometimes tired of remembering what did I assign to what button 😅 while in film - no buttons, no problem

[@lindanorman2589]

Right on!

[@rodnyg7952]

film is better at capturing the subtle tone gradations in b&w. With all its advancements, digital still can't reproduce the warm and pleasing grain (depending on ASA) of film. I'd say the biggest advantage of digital is the speed of final results, and the detail one can edit. I've had and maintained various darkrooms for over 30yrs., and always developed all my film & prints, but I find it much easier to use software. Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom have become my darkroom

[@markellsworth980]

I am gonna agree with you. I started shooting film on my dad’s Minolta Super A when I was twelve years old. I got an SLR when I was twenty, the original OM-1, shot it for fifteen years, got an OM-4. When we got married I bought the wife an XA-2, and my goodness, we have many tens of thousands of relatively good pictures of life with children. When the camera broke, I got her a Fuji pocket camera with octagonal pixels, some Super-CCD gizmo she liked. I went without a camera. I almost bought a D-7000 as the winner over an Olympus E-620, but I decided to wait. What shooting a full manual SLR film camera taught me was deliberation. I thought about every shot, my brain, because the camera did not have brains. That was the thing to do, think about light, angles, art, because I did not wish to waste film. I think the percentage of keepers was far greater. We are spoiled nowadays. Lazy too. Personally, I love all this camera automation, though I do not think shooting is as fun as once it was. It does not matter, nowadays, how many times you hit the shutter button. Compared to a roll of film, it costs nothing to use up space on an SD-card or 1TB SSD. I think the only hard decision is what ISO to shoot, and though I have not opted to use Auto-ISO yet, I wonder if it would hurt or just make me even lazier. What drives me now is mostly lenses. The first feature to consider is angle of view, not f-stop. Sometimes you have to go for a fast lens for some of low-light shots you may like, but even there, we cheat with high ISO values now, and use an AI to clean the noise. Or if bokeh is your thing, get the lens and set the geometry to goo the back ground. The only thing that still makes me drool is the stacked BSI sensor tech that gives largest percentage of image surface to optical sensitivity. To put it another way. We have gotten very fastidious about cameras and devil-may-care about technique. So yeah. Film was better. We have never had so much camera power as we have nowadays. Just pick any camera, knock yourself out, is my advice. We got more power now than we know what to do with.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks so much for your insights.

[@Craigsplaysgames4u]

When i was 10 me and my family went to Spain and we still have all the photos from the disposable camera which is pretty cool since im now 34

[@FLMUSACanada]

Great video, thank you Matti. This brought back lots of memories. I started out shooting on a 4x5, then 8x10, then medium format for many years. Then I went back to 8x10 right up until last year when I finally went all-digital with a Fuji GFX and Ricoh GR III. Anyway, I remember the labs were a great place to hang out and talk to other photographers, assistants, lab guys etc. You could work for lots of different people in one week, and after a few years some people started out on their own, others preferred staying on as professional assistants, it was certainly possible to make a living that way. Note to everyone: print your photos! Make 4x6 or 5x7 reference prints of your better images. Get into the habit of printing, it's the only proof you'll ever have of being there.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing your backstory.

[@ironmonkey1512]

Similar background and just went GFX this year.. can do just about anything in a smaller package.

[@K7.2023]

i agree with you Matti😊

[@AhmadAliff]

Wonderful insights. Enjoy your stay!

[@mattisulanto]

Thank you! Will do!

[@WhoIsSerafin]

Number one reason the AI overlords have no control!

[@mattisulanto]

That's a good one😀

[@rodmehta5356]

Too right!

[@geogu3images]

Oh yes they do… unless you develop and print your entire body of film work, you can’t escape AI. Anytime you upload your digitized film anywhere online, those images are captured by a database somewhere (AWS, Google, Adobe, etc, usually Cloud). That data ends up in Data Lakes which are just metadata thats commercially available for sale through these corporations. That’s where AI is running wild through the metadata swamp..

[@vers1fier]

Nailed it! 🤘

[@K7.2023]

just for that! thanks man! bye bye A.I. 😂

[@r423fplip]

I am listening to my turntable as I watch the video ! Kind of blue UHQR 45, sounds sublime.

[@buchsg]

Good times when as a wedding photographer you can shoot and send the rolls to the lab… no wasted time behind a computer 😅

[@22fret]

I have returned to film almost completely. Not only because I really like the rituals around it, but also because digital storage units are far too unreliable for my taste. I have lost quite some good pics due to dying SD cards or faulty harddrives. Yes, film has become quite expensive and the choice of stocks is far from what it used to be back in the day, but once your films are developped and framed (I mainly shoot slide film), you'll have them for eternity. I have been shooting with Pentax cameras for ages (K1000, KM, KX, LX, MX and 2 MEs, and I still use all of them). And if I feel like shooting some rolls of 120s, I take out my clunky old behemoth Pentacon six TL with its excellent CZJ MC lenses and expose some HP5 or Velvia. What a pleasure that is. My only digital camera is a Pentax K-5, already 11 years old. Extremely reliable, very good image quality and - the most important point for me - it accepts all the old Pentax glass I have. I guess, I'm a die-hard Pentaxian for life... 😂

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks so much for sharing.

[@hywel3143]

Thanks for your perspective on this as a professional. As a child/teenager amateur in the 1970s and 1980s, I was very lucky to have access to a Nikkormat FT2 manual camera with the pin sharp Nikon 50mm f/2 lens. It had one button battery for the centre weighted exposure meter, and everything else was mechanical. You had no one and no technology to blame but yourself for image quality! I mostly used Kodachrome 64 slide film which had Kodak lab pre-paid processing for those saturated colours, and had to shoot very sparingly with careful attention to composition, focus and exposure because of the cost of each roll. I still remember that sense of anticipation when the processed slides were delivered in the mail. I still have that camera, and it is fully fuctional. I shoot on an "old" Canon 6D these days, mainly because the sensor comes closer than many other sensors to having a natural film-like quality. I am sure other camera makes have sensors with similar qualities, but I do think that having a relatively low number of larger pixels on full frame digital (just over 20 megapixels for the 6D) can help to render film-like images... I would suggest that the quality of the sensor in terms of overall rendering is the most important factor when deciding which camera body to purchase, but I also accept that this is subjective...

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for you insights.

[@kwok-penglooi799]

I can identify so much with this video. I just dug up my dad's Nikkormat FTN and shot a few rolls of film through it. It brought back old memories of sending the film to be developed, but there are new workflows also. I now ask for the negatives to be digitised instead of asking for 4R prints. And shooting fully manual with a hand held exposure meter because the camera's built-in meter was not working properly, was a new experience for me. Thanks Matti for sharing this nostalgic video.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks so much for sharing your recent film experience.

[@BobDiaz123]

I started in photography back in the 1960s. While I was only an amateur photographer, I did shoot lots of photos in black and white. I Used bulk film and loaded my own 35mm rolls. As I recall, it was about $0.01 (1 cent) per shot when I used 100 foot bulk film. I believe it was only $0.10 (10 cents) to make an 8x10 black and white print. By late High School and early college, I worked in a local camera store, so it was easy for me to try out all sorts of camera equipment. Film is analog and while the sensors in modern cameras are analog, the processing of the image is digital. No surprise it's so different than film.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing your backstory and insights.

[@johnkasianowicz6536]

Back in the day, prints sometimes cost a lot even if you made them yourself (if you’re a perfectionist).

[@BobDiaz123]

@@johnkasianowicz6536 Back in the late 1960s, I recall purchasing black and white print paper for around $10 for 100 sheets. The chemicals did add to the cost, but it was still reasonable.

[@aengusmacnaughton1375]

Preaching to the choir here! Definitely agree -- not saying that there is anything wrong with digital photography, but film was/is awesome in its own right.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. Yes, digital is fantastic!

[@r423fplip]

Film is good as long as you put the time in. When I was using black and white film I spent weeks testing it. Film base plus fog, and all that. Eventually I had it dialled in, and the printing was a lot easier. Spotmeter and a Hasselblad 501cm were a great combination.

[@harryniedecken5321]

When I was in high school I purchased a 35mm pentax SPF / 55mm f1.8. I thought that I was pretty smart and really knew what I was doing. It costs me a years pay. Still have it. Comparing the 3 x 5 ish size prints to my parent's old Kodak folding camera that used 120 film, or my uncle's simple looking slides projected on a screen, was very humbling. I just didn't understand what was going on.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing.

[@andreazevedo8325]

Hi Matti!! I would really like to see some of your film shots, looking forward to that video. All the best to you my friend!!

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. You'll see some of my film shots for sure😀

[@TXLorenzo]

Humans are analog creatures and are intuitively attracted to film.

[@markschneider1396]

I bought a restored Yashica Electro 35. The lens is amazing and it takes great photo's. Kodak Portra and Ektar give great results with a dynamic range that seems wider than my digital cameras. But it is expensive, but it forces me to take my time and pick my shots.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing. Those Yashicas are great.

[@trevorbrooks813]

Wow, I've not heard anyone sum up the film days quite so neatly. What a big hit of nostalgia that was for me, reminding me of all my years shooting, developing and printing photos. I still occasionally use one of my film cams but I'm firmly in the digital camp these days. As the saying goes "the past was a different planet". I'm happy to visit back then but quite happy to live elsewhere these days. Coffee on the way. Thanks for another really interesting video.

[@mattisulanto]

Many thanks for sharing and supporting.

[@danncorbit3623]

The wiki article "Comparison of digital and film photography" shows that 35mm film has about 20MP of information in an image, very similar to many digital cameras. Medium format gives about 83MP, large format 4x5 cameras about 300MP and 8x10 about 1.2.GP (billion pixels). So I guess the point is that film quality can meet or beat the best digital cameras. The cost of film and processing is overblown when we consider all the expenses of a photo session. I think the biggest advantage of film is often overlooked. It forces you to slow down , to think and compose. It's easy to get "snap happy" with digital. I don't shoot film as often as digital. But I like my Canon 1-N HS and Nikon F4 35mm cameras a lot. I have a couple TLR cameras that take great images. And if I really want something special, I can use one of my 4x5 cameras. Now, 4x5 film and processing is real money. But it is also real quality. Don't get me wrong, I will always shoot more digital. But there are times when I want to shoot film instead.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing that comparison.

[@chrispatmore8944]

Excellent points. I’m still shooting film alongside digital. I picked up another OM-1 body the other day in excellent condition for just £40. I mostly shoot B&W these days as slide film is way too expensive, and it’s fun developing it at home. Another good reason to shoot film is it makes you consider your shot before taking it because every frame counts, and costs. It also forces you to learn the fundamentals of photography, rather than going “spray and pray” with auto settings on a digital camera. And there’s the archival longevity too. I don’t imagine my digital files will still be around in 40 years time (I definitely won’t be) like my Kodachromes still are and will (could) be, because the tech keeps changing, and digital storage is too fragile and ephemeral. Digital technology has too many failure points. If we’re not shooting film, we should at least be printing our digital photos, preferably on archival paper, or at least in print-on-demand zines or photo books.

[@johnkasianowicz6536]

I had an OM-1 and LOVED it! I gave it and its lenses away many years ago when I stopped doing photography. I only recently got back into it as a hobby.

[@chrispatmore8944]

@@johnkasianowicz6536 The old Olympus OM range definitely has a dedicated, almost cult-like following, of which I am member. It's like the Macintosh of film cameras.

[@johnkasianowicz6536]

@@chrispatmore8944 The OM-1 felt great in my hands, was compact, and easy to use (no fumbling for the meter’s on-off switch, etc.). I still liked my Nikon film cameras, but I preferred the OM-1’s mechanics. I recently bought a used Leica M6 TTL. So far, it feels good, but it’ll take a while to see if it’s a keeper.

[@Martin-nu6ym]

Just added an OM-1 to my system. I have several OM Zuiko lenses I use for digital infrared. I really wanted to get a monochrome camera and then realized that since I have the Zuiko lenses that I should just get an OM-1 and play with B&W film.

[@moviebod]

Very interesting video. I acquired several film cameras in February in a job lot, but not much in the way of lenses. I will have to see if I can get one working. There is an Olympus OM, A fujifilm Camera and I think a Nikon.

[@paulfortman5834]

Film is so expensive now, but I am still using my 40 year old Olympus OM-1 film camera. I plan on buying my first digital camera soon, but I still prefer film.

[@GeorgeStar]

My 40yo OM 2n finally gave up the ghost so I got an OM 2program. LCDs are a bit faded but works great.

[@simonpayne7994]

Having started out on film many years ago, I think the argument in this video that most impressed me was the simplicity of the film based cameras. You had just two settings - shutter and aperture - that was it. Apart from that the ISO of the film was usually recognized by the metering system and maybe you had some sort of automatic mode as a special feature. In the beginning my first camera did not even have internal metering. I had to measure (or guess) the exposure separately. Even the more expensive cameras were really quite simple.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing.

[@ChristopherBonis]

I would shoot more in film if it weren’t so expensive to develop (and buy)! Growing demand; limited supply.

[@mattisulanto]

Prices go up, unfortunately.

[@c.augustin]

I shoot mainly on film, but with a hybrid workflow (scanning the developed film and working in digital from there). Best of both worlds! Getting prints from those digital files is much better than in the old days, when print results were all over the place, even with professional print services - much more reliable today, even when going to the drugstore for prints on Kodak thermal printers. I just like film, can't help it (but own a digital setup, too, and use it for everyday shooting and for scanning). I agree on the simplicity of (some) old cameras, but there were some very quirky ones out there, and some cameras needed special handling (like a Hasselblad 500) that is far from intuitive.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for your insights.

[@lorenschwiderski]

Prints from film can look amazing, without a doubt. Once you add up all the experience of using one vs. the other, and how it fits into this age, most will not look back to film, no matter how sweet the memories may be. This digital era of shooting I find very exciting, and the story telling or art is there, just as much as it ever was, with so many benefits, be it timeline, cost, sharing ability, storage, being your own digital lab... just so many advantages. Yes, film era was special too, and life seemed slower paced, and simpler, but I am now living the moment. How wonderful it is to share photos on a website, without the need of slide film, and carrying about the projector and screen. Photography is different -- still great! The photographer is still using the eye. Great to see a new generation of photographers using film, to get that old time feel. I am old and past the days of film -- not looking back. - Loren

[@Mike-vd2qt]

I'm an atavist, so I recall film camera simplicity (Leica M-3), while loathing digital camera menus and software. My current solution: iPhone 12, download keepers to Smugmug account, select 4x6 prints mailed to home. It is almost the same result that my parents got in the 1960's with a Kodak Brownie camera, and that's a good thing since my fingers would have trouble now with the winding mechanism. :-)

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks Loren.

[@cameraprepper7938]

I did film for more than 4 decades, both as a professional photographer and for hobby photography, I have used many kind of film, from 110, 126, 135, 120, 4x5" and 5x7", color negative, color slides, black and white, but I think that digital are better than analog film ! I am very happy using digital cameras and I do not need to worry of all the chemicals that pollute.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. Today for almost everything digital is better, of course.

[@simonpayne7994]

A further point to make was that film based equipment required a planned, rather slow approach to taking a picture. To top it up, color film rolls and their developing were rather expensive and with a max of 36 photos per roll the user was very careful. This tended to lead to better composed, well thought out pictures. On the other hand, due to the fact that you could not check the results in the camera, there was quite a high failure rate. When I got my transparencies back, if I managed to reach a 60% success rate I was quite happy. Digitally, I rarely fall underneath the 95% mark with what I take home. Of course, a couple of the shots were repeated on site. A few others even receive a bit of post-processing. My main failures today are all compositional. My idea on site looked impressive - i.e. on site. At home, it was none-the-less impressive on my PC screen the same day. Two days later ... Ughhh! Mediocre crap! Technically perfect, quite good composition-wise, but simply not good enough to merit going into my collection. Ergo - delete.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for your insights. Getting those good shots is difficult no matter what camera you have😀

[@hertsman5]

I shot film for over thirty years and I loved it ! I have over 5000 slides in boxes and I have scanned about 2000 of them so far. Alas it's only a memory now - the prices of film now are beyond a joke ! I understand prices have increased but I recently saw ONE roll of Velvia 100 being advertised for £35 - only a few years ago you could get a pack of Kodak Portra 160 for not much more. So unless I can get my hands on some sensibly priced film then it's mostly a thing of the past for me - I am not paying £30/£40 to buy and process one roll of film. I am amusing myself also by asking friends and other contacts if they have any slides I can scan for them !! 😁

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing your film backstory.

[@pisiprkl7913]

Ostin pari vuotta sitten Canon EOS 50 filmikameran Suomen suurimmalta käytettyjen kameroiden kaupasta. Täysin toimiva peli maksoi vähemmän kuin uusi paristo siihen. Erittäin hyvä diili mielestäni. Mulla on pari L-sarjan linssiä siihen ja yks karvalakki pannari. Vielä en ole kuvannut rullaakaan mutta tänä kesänä täytyy ottaa agendalle se. Kiitos mielenkiintoisesta sisällöstä jälleen kerran!

[@TristanColgate]

The variety in film really does add to the fun. I have a couple of 35mm SLRs, a couple of rangefinders, a 6x6 120 foldout, a 6x9, and a 6x6 TLR. There's more difference in any two of those than pretty much any of the modern digitals (yeah, there are true optical digital rangefinders, but your paying a tonne of cash to deny yourself some tech). And there's still a world of large format I could dive into. That's before you even get into films choices, or developers, or printing. It really is a lot of fun!

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. Film cameras really had more character than digital and films as well.

[@klausschubert3003]

thank you so much dear matti, you speak from my soul, my analog fujica stx-1(from the 70ies) had great quality and will soon be revived, i just need a button battery for the light meter and a film of course, so easy after all these years! two lenses of three (135 and 28 mm) have been successfully adapted to my lumix gx7 before and there is a special look when i see the results, i love it.

[@mattisulanto]

Wonderful! Get some good shots😀

[@bfs5113]

I feel a number of the dislikes of the digital technology by some photographers can be contributed from the fact that they weren't tech prepared from an early age. For instance, today's camera menu and manual are Micky Mouse in comparison to the rack of IBM manual and boxes of computer program dump (printout in Hexadecimal) to find a bug, that I experienced during the same period that I started out my photography journey, over 45 years ago. While we lived in a simpler time and progress moved much slower back then, but was it by choice? Such as how much I wished there were information and help readily available when I started out printing in color in my darkroom. Thus, I could paint the town red, instead of wasting time (and money) in the darkroom. 🙂

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for your take on this.

[@devroombagchus7460]

Thanks Matti. You said it better than I could. The Rolleiflex I bought in 1974, is now even better, because of the better colour film stock and faster film. Just the occasional CLA, and the camera is like new.

[@mattisulanto]

Thank you!

[@aviatorman8]

Good points. I wish film were more available and less expensive nowadays. Not many options for developing film as used to be.

[@mattisulanto]

Yeah, film is getting expensive, but it would be fine to shoot a roll occasionally.

[@michaelmygind5061]

Hello Matti. I really love your channel because of you. You have a simple and a straight forward way of explaining things. Danish photographer Michael, who have shot film since 1976. 📷❤️📷

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks so much for your kind words.

[@garypocklington3396]

Your enthusiasm for film photography shines through in this video. You give all the good reasons why it is worth taking the time to try it. As you say with film you don’t get instant feedback. But, that is part of the magic. As you build images in your head of what you have taken shots of. The interesting part is when you develop the film does the final result match what you thought you took? I also believe that you build a database of images in your brain quicker than you do with digital. Which means that you become more aware of photographic opportunities and capturing better images.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. Exactly, film was magic😀

[@alvaro5162]

As a hobbyist, I never liked making a chemical laboratory, although you can develop it anywhere you need to copy a room specifically set up to do it, that's why I prefer digital fron analog. I can take my notebook anywhere, even if it costs more than a well-equipped developing room, it is also useful for other things like watching your videos. 😁 Another reason is that I can decide after taking the photo if it will end up being a color or black and white photo. Also, I don't have the problem of losing or ruining one or several rolls, losing all the photos from a trip, with a digital one in the but of the cases I can lose the photos I took that day because as soon as I arrive at the hotel I already make two copies of the photos. This is impossible to do in analogue and I have seen more than one case of lost rolls or veiled by X-ray machines at the airport. Plus I can carry two interchangeable lens micro 4/3 cameras plus five lenses in a bag the size and weight of my analog SLR and 24-70 f2.8.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing.

[@johnyutzey6504]

Great video, thanks. And of course I agree with all of it ("the look" is probably the #1 reason why I still shoot film about 5% of the time). I'll add one more reason: film slows me down and makes me focus on fundamentals, a good exercise from time to time that hopefully carries over to my digital shooting. Oh, and by the way, the Nikon F3 had a 20 year production run if I recall. Don't think we're going to see that again anytime soon.

[@VictorReynolds]

Although not a full time film shooter, I do use Polaroid. Polaroid is the best of both worlds: a physical image with instant feedback. I recently put a roll of Kodak Colorimage 100 into my father in law’s Argus C4. I’m learning that a occasional use of film keeps one photographically limber.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for adding the slow factor, film does that.

[@Ortopedija1989]

That is the reason, i like my Rb 67

[@superkrell]

I use a very simple digital camera, Leica MD 262, the digital camera that shoots like film with no LCD screen and luckily it not only retains its value but because of its rarity sells for more than the purchase price I paid. This no doubt is the exception not the norm. The film camera for me is a Nikon F2...!

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. Simple is beautiful.

[@richardwalker4518]

I'm an old time Film guy and yeh, it had a certain je ne sais quoi, but equally it was all I knew at the time. I became a compulsive slide film user, as i quite liked the experience of viewing them with a projector on a screen. I still have a couple of film cameras and should use them more, one very good one (OM4ti), but it is quite easy to be seduced by the convenience of digital. You can so easily get used to being able to vary the ISO as needed to often silly levels without having to change films or pack a second camera with a fast film. And fast film was horribly grainy, lets not forget. Not all beer and skittles. With the digital you need a good backup strategy, but boxes of slides or prints end up filling shoe boxes, cabinets etc. Pros and cons, but I really should man up to taking the OM4ti for a spin again soon!

[@RiccardoKuebler]

Thanks Matti for that video, I really enjoyed it: it's exactly my feeling. Last year I did a disaster. After two decades of digital photography, I opened the box of my large format camera and discovered I still have around 50 4x5 Polaroids of several types. I opened Pandora's jar! Summarizing, I started over again with film large format and discovered again how great it is. I started over again doing prints. Recently I did scan around 30 films from a trip in Mexico in 1994 and am amazed from the character of those film pictures. Plan is to do a book. I still do digital photography, but film photography seems like a latent addiction came out wildly after 20 years.

[@caw25sha]

Doesn't sound like a disaster 🙂

[@RiccardoKuebler]

@@caw25sha I mean economically 😅

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. I do hope your book will materialize one day.

[@Mike-vd2qt]

Well, I agree with most of your video, and thank you for that. I've been looking into buying a 35mm camera body (I used to own a Nikon F in the 1970's-90's, also an M-3). But the prices today are high. Cheapest cameras are Minolta SRT 101, Pentax K-1000, and these are about $150 with no way to repair them. There is a fellow in the UK called, "Mr. F" or "Mr. Nikon", he will sell you a Nikon F2A body refurbished for $1,500. I also agree with you about how simple film cameras used to be once you got the hang of exposure. Maybe one simple out for me would be a used Olympus OM-D em-1, skip the horrible menu, shoot J.peg, and leave it on Auto. :-)

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing your opinion.

[@mikesch0815]

Hi Matti, I have meanwhile adopted a way of thinking from the "good old" analog days and always find it purposeful in digital photography as well: What is the target medium of my shot? So, am I planning a few photos for the web or Flickr, or am I specifically playing with the idea for shots that I will hang on the wall or that will go into a valuable photo book? That changes the way I look at photography considerably - and especially when I end up with a high-quality print, many things are much more important than the sensor size or the brand name of my camera. For me, a printed photo (as a fine art print or in a good photo book) is still only a real photo. All the advantages that monitors bring are also their downfall - such as excessive pixel peeping or, in the end, video over static photos after all.

[@robertmeyerson1618]

Thank you for your thoughts. I use to walk around with 2 Nikkormats--one loaded with color film and the other with B&W. (Those were the days). To me it was all about the lenses. Today I use a simple SONY a6000 in manual mode using old Nikkor, Tamumar and Canon glass. Clients? They all think they're photographers.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing! Clients indeed😀

[@Sven-R]

Looking forward to seeing your channel to changing to Film Photography content going forward 😉

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks, but don't hold your breath😀

[@artistjoh]

I just bought film for a Nikon FA. Ortho 25 ISO film with a good lens looks like medium format with gradations of tone that digital can only dream of. However, I also bought some film for my Pentax 110 Auto camera. 110 format is the same size as MFT and proves that film can also be objectively much worse than a digital sensor. However, using 110 is a great way of exploiting film grain for artistic effects and getting experimental.

[@mattisulanto]

Thank you.

[@geogu3images]

I must admit that myself and many of my photo community, have or are considering going back to film for much of our black and white images. Ilford is still in the business of supporting that media. The other option is going with a dedicated monochrome digital camera for photo-centric black and white. It’s also why Leica and now Pentax have dedicated monochrome cameras and are eagerly awaiting our money for that filmic digital experience. Cha Ching!

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing.

[@InArcadiaSum]

Through the Seventies and later I had Nikon F2AS, F2SB and F3 cameras, plus my own complete darkroom for processing and printing colour and B&W film and slides. I loved it, and looking at my old prints and slides, the photographs I took were more to my liking and somehow more interesting than a lot of today's digital stuff. Much was down to being able to take photos in challenging conditions e.g. in the London Underground, wet days at London markets, lots of interesting characters and so forth.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing your backstory.

[@caw25sha]

I think people were and are more forgiving of imperfections in film, whether in the process itself or the conditions in which the photo was taken. These days we have been conditioned into believing a photo should be technically and creatively perfect. If you believe a photo should accurately represent the real world then a perfect photo doesn't accurately represent an imperfect world.

[@jeffdrew625]

Thanks! Matti, you nailed it! Yes, so simple that every person could deliver great, unique results given the efforts made. Great stroll down Memory Lane!

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks and good to hear you enjoyed the video.

[@mattisulanto]

Ricardo's channel: www.youtube.com/@WTFphotography

[@andyjones5192]

Print your pictures! Everything else is just data. On the other hand when I picked up my mirrorless camera today and looked through the EVF…it’s like a miracle. Exposure, Fokus, Depth of Field all in my viewfinder. Something we could only dream of in the film days. I am happy we have all the technology. It’s an offer we can take or just step down and use film or full manual on our modern digital cameras. It’s good times we live in.

[@ddsdss256]

I shot film for over three decades and very much enjoyed the process, but since transitioning to digital, I've yet to seriously look back, as I can do so much more (and so much more easily and precisely) with digital than I ever could in the darkroom. I don't recall ever processing color film myself--too much hassle, plus I had a great lab. That said, I do prefer the look of film (digital can be too sharp/harsh/high-res/"intense" and often doesn't look as "natural" as film) and I do sometimes use DxO's excellent film emulations (although I tweak them to get the look I want). Prints (film or digital) still look way better than any screen-based image, and IMO, a digital file is not a true photograph--only a print.

[@richardt1792]

You're from Finland. Do you know about the Kamera Store that is rebuilding all types of film cameras, training repair people, and selling repaired film cameras?

[@mattisulanto]

I know of them, yes.

[@mikskinner6431]

This is crazy but true. I'm listening to you whilst I edit. And here I am adding grain to my images! Perhaps one day the camera manufacturers will start taking notice of what us photographers actually want from their cameras?

[@lensman5762]

I am not far from being 70 years old and I have had a camera in my hand since I was 12 years old. Todays photographic gear is not about the photographer nor photography, but share holders in all these multinationals who make these imaging computers we call ' camera '. And with the onset of AI, the situation is not getting better.

[@Joerghartmannphoto]

I am 60 years old and agree 100%!

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. I suppose everything is like that from cameras to groceries.

[@lensman5762]

@@mattisulanto Very true. I am not a sceptic, but I firmly believe that a lot of the events in the world are all pre-planned. G7 summit, G10 summit, G20 summit, and all the other secret meetings and three to six months down the line, this war breaks out, that revolution happens, this and that raw material become scarce, price of fuel shoots up by 100%, etc etc. Sad state of affairs in the world these days.

[@WTFphotography]

Thank you so much Matti!!! The video is spot on!! You had a pretty good point on the film camera value. If manage to buy it right, there is no loss, it value will mostly remain the same or in most times increase.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks bro!

[@martinhommel9967]

Thanks for your thoughts. I shot film until the early 2000s. The biggest issue with film photography is that it is a semi digital process and you end up with an inverted digital print of a negative. I used to develop and print in my own dark room. I recently acquired a Fujica AZ-1 and I am really looking forward to using it in earnest. I am not sure about the film look. Quite often the film look turned out to be an ugly colour cast. Digital is more convenient and caused democratization of photography.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing. I hope you'll have a bunch of fun with the Fujica.

[@caw25sha]

Automatically produced prints from colour negatives can be mediocre. I believe the machines tried to dial in filtration to "correct" any colour balance errors they detected.

[@keldmikkelsen5246]

Two things about film photography are unfortunate: (1) film negatives can get scratched, and (2) colour film negatives that have not been properly developed will become discoloured. Otherwise, I agree with most of what you said about film photography. I have taken my best photos with film cameras. And I prefer film photography's rendering of the subjects - colours and grain/"noise".

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. Sure the negatives can get scratches, but they can also get lost or eaten by the dog. My point is that anything can happen. Your memory card can get corrupted or eaten by the dog, you hard drive can brake down and you'll lose everything if you don't have a proper backup.

[@keldmikkelsen5246]

@@mattisulanto I agree (never had a dog though)! And I have and still use film cameras. The combination of film and a film scanner is a very good replacement for the old darkroom.

[@Craigsplaysgames4u]

sorry about the amount of comments lol but This really does feel like a sign im instantly excited i can feel it going through me i always wanted to go with film and whats the chances of this video showing up when all i did was think about getting a film camera it will sound crazy but it feels like the universe is using you to send me this sign lol i vividly remember the feeling of being shocked and sad when i was younger when i realised the sound a digital camera made was just that a sound one that could be turned off i loved the sound film cameras made you could feel something happening

[@aengusmacnaughton1375]

Matti -- would love to see your personal favorite film photos in a future video.

[@GetOffMyyLawn]

I went on a road trip around 2000 with my Nikon N65. I shot over 30 rolls of film... Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Death Valley, Joshua Tree... so many National Parks. When i got home, I was super excited to get my film developed. When I got the photos, i noticed a "scratch" on half of the images. Somewhere on the trip, a grain of sand or dirt got into the camera. I will never shoot film again... digital FTW.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing. Well, things can go wrong in so many ways. You can have a corrupted memory card, you can lose the memory card, your camera can brake down or something else can go wrong. Digital is not 100% safe either.

[@GetOffMyyLawn]

@@mattisulanto True... and lessons can always be learned (blow out the film path when changing rolls). I guess the upside is, many years later I scanned the film, and was able to fix the keepers with some effort in Lightroom.

[@wickie4801]

Hey Matti, aside from Pros & Cons of film - it remembers me to the rebirth of analog LP. For years it was dead. Now it's vivid. I think of this as "everything was better before". That's not true, you know. For example: how glad people felt as the new CD format came... Every thing has +/-. I only think, there are waves of memories - youth, retro, vintage, good old times and so on. Perhaps it's only gloryfying. Theme "analog Film" - I'm much more glad with digital filming as analog, just because of costs. Conclusion: you can think like that, but you don't have to. PS: YES - SIMPLICITY is the great point that lacks most today.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing your view on this😀

[@tonprobe]

Please open your vault of analog photos for us. 😎

[@tanburiney1469]

Started photography with Instax, and I always admire vintage Look. But besides from that i love the spontaneity of photography. I know I should plan the shoots but I'm resisting this idea. For me, from spontaneity the art will bloom. And you sir, have contributed my phylisophy about this matter . I'm so glad there're older and wiser photographers to listen their experiences across the globe.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing, good point

[@philipcupid6660]

Dear All, I am going to have a good try to load film in my 35mm cameras and also try to use my digital SLR cameras so I don't lose my mind... Good video!!

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks and good luck😀

[@crsantin]

I would definitely shoot more film if I had a good lab somewhere nearby. I know how to process at home but I don’t enjoy it. Scanning is unpleasant. You make some good points but this video is guilty of romanticizing the past. Film wasn’t always so great.

[@borderlands6606]

Photography is more democratic now, but images are more ephemeral. They come, they go, whereas photographs used to be treasured heirlooms and keepsakes. This is unfortunate because printed books have never been cheaper or more accessible.

[@quazisanjeed6395]

Would love to use film. However, abstain from doing so due to environmental concerns.

[@bngr_bngr]

I hated dragging 30 rolls of film post 911 thru all the airport security. Then going to Europe and feared getting one’s film run thru X-rays. I think today, it’s more difficult learning film photography just shooting one roll at a time.

[@c.augustin]

I think it is actually easier, as you can learn the basics with a digital camera, so you don't waste money for film to make your basic errors. And with color negative film (or with Ilford XP2 Super) you have extreme exposure latitude, you can't do anything wrong. It was much harder in the 70s and 80s (when I started with photography). Granted, old film cameras offer much less automation, but as long as there's an exposure meter in the camera, it is rather easy.

[@MinimalWave1982]

Only Aperture and Shutter ? also no ISO on analog cameras?

[@Sven-R]

I had ISO on my analog camera. It was still named DIN & ASA, where DIN was the German norm (Deutsches Institut für Normung) and ASA the American Standard Association. ISO was orginially a combination of ASA/DIN. Nowadays we only see the ASA value when we talk about ISO. DIN 21 was ASA 100 and ISO 100/21°, while DIN 24 was ASA 200 and ISO 200/24°

[@mattisulanto]

Yes there was ASA/ISO dial, but you set it when you loaded the film. You did not change the ASA/ISO value while shooting, it was fixed to one value according to your film. So the only controls you had were aperture and shutter.

[@Sven-R]

@@mattisulanto Of course, the film had an ASA/ISO value. The dial only let the camera know, which ISO the film had in order to adjust the exposure signal (in my case it were three LEDs close to the viewfinder. Red on top (overexposed), green in the middle (correctly exposed), red at the bottom (underexposed).

[@MinimalWave1982]

@@mattisulanto Maybe u want to make a video in the future of good analg cameras still wort buying..

[@boboneill1828]

What I miss least about film is the poor archival properties of some films. E6 (I think) has not lasted well for me. My best preserved film photos are on Kodachrome 64. I did manage to scan most of them before they deteriorated too far. Thank goodness for digital, although I loved my OM4 Ti and OM2 SP.

[@TristanColgate]

I got an om4ti a few months ago, it's such a joy to use. As much as I try and keep things manual, the spot meter in it is great. FWIW, the "archival properties" of digital, pre-Google Photos, turned out not to be that great. I think I have a missing decade of pictures from my first digital cameras.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing. I have E6 films from the 1970s and they look good still. I guess it depends on how they were archived and maybe even on how the precessing was done. Kodachrome had a good reputation though when it comes to longevity.

[@caw25sha]

I've got a large number of my uncle's Kodachromes, some dating back to the early 1950s, and they are still perfect. He stored them carefully, as do I. Beautiful colours in the first generation as well.

[@ruuddirks5565]

Prints from film have something special that digital cannot match.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. I have to agree 100%😀

[@marioarias9942]

I disagree, you couldn’t get the sharpness you can with a digital camera. Only slide film or black and white delivered good results if you did it right. There’s a nostalgia that people like on film that’s returning.

[@Craigsplaysgames4u]

Ive been obsessed with cameras since i can remember i uster collect old film cambers from the car boot sales when i was a kid lol but i never followed up with it i did have a few Fujifilm finepix camers and i took 1000s of pictures which was good but then came phones and i slowly lost the passion for it which to be honest i think was because of actual digital photography it didnt feel real

[@eagleeyephoto8715]

There is a strong supoort for film , mainly new kids in the block.If you shoot 100m rols of film back in the days you would appreciate digital.I also have to desagree that film is better, better things survive don’t they ?

[@caw25sha]

The reason I don't use film any more is time. If I go out and take 100 digital photos I can get home and copy them to my computer in seconds. Developing and scanning 3 film would take hours. Printing them in a darkroom would take a weekend. All time far better spend taking more photos. However I do miss my FM2 and HP5 days. Please remember to show us some of your film photos when you get home.

[@gruntaxeman3740]

At full frame size, it is the lens what matters and some old Canon EOS 5D still shoots good images. Biggest difference is that new cameras writes faster and there are a lot of advancement in videography. But for still photos older cameras works fine. And film vs digital... major difference is that digital is exposed from white, avoiding that important things are not cut as highlights are lost. Film is exposed from dark, to get sure that there is enough light in dark areas but there is shades in highlights. And digital cameras surpassed film cameras long time ago so in image quality there is no advantage. Digital cameras have in my opinion, neutral colors and those can be graded. In film, part of grading happens in film stock but there is no advantage as digital image can be graded. I think that film was more important in cinema, there it has stronghold and was something like 2010 when digital cinema cameras started to get equal quality with Super35 film. I could color grade with similar look than film but not going back using film.

[@eldiabolico3750]

I shot film in the 80s and 90s and although it has a 'romantic' feeling to it, the time, cost(s), time and chemicals involved in the whole process made it IMO a real ordeal... I should also mention the times that the photography studio ruined my work during the development. We had to carry 2 x everything and shoot with both cameras in order to get some 'backup'. At some point I used my basement as an improvised 'Blackroom' but the complains from the neighbor's due to the smell make today's 'Lightroom' a bless :) Sure Film still has some benefits like the prices for used bodies having dropped considerably and some brands still have a unique color and feel that cannot be replicated by any 'Fujifilm recipes'... however, film is getting more and more expensive and the labs developing it more scarse. I will stick to my digital gear and hope that Cellphones in the next 5-10 years don't make FF obsolete as well...

[@NikCan66]

I have digital and film cameras but prefer film look

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. Who wouldn't😀

[@MrPixelution]

film rolls today is so expensive

[@lungarotta]

What you say is partial truth, but it's not the whole truth. I have been taking film photography for years when I was young, developing films by myself and printing them at home, so I know what it's all about. Quality was OK and I was crying when I saw the pictures I took with my first digital cameras! But this quality had a cost: first the films, especially the slides, costed a lot and you could only have 36 pictures out of them, and if you were a beninner most of them were either overexposed or underexposed, so in the end you got very few pictures out of a 20 euros roll. When I was travelling I could not carry with me too many rolls, so that limited the number of pictures I could take, while now I can easily and freely take thousands of pictures for free. Then there is the cost of laboratory equipment, the professional ones were quite expensive and an amateur like myself could not afford them. I had a durst enlarger which was good for amateur but you didn't get the quality of a professional ones. The printing paper costed a lot too, and so the developer liquids etc. Then you have the cost of the time spent in the dark room, hours and hours in the dark! At the beginning it was fun but after few years I got fet up. So in my opinion film photography has a sense for professional but not for amateurs.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Nothing is the whole truth and this was never meant to be either😀

[@Craigsplaysgames4u]

Like Keanu reeves said digital is ok but your still dealing with zeros and ones and hes right digital is an imitation of the real thing its not real its not the same as the silver in film absorbing light and getting that raw image

[@philmtx3fr]

Hi Matti, film are so much better than digital that 99,99% of people use digital,instead of film :) Don t you think there is a problem here. You list 4 reasons for explaining your position but I am afraid that there are 10 more reasons explaining just the contrary :). I use films (black and white only) but I won t say film is better than digital, it s just different. The flexibility you have in digital during the shooting and during post processing is without limit. And it s far cheaper with the number of picture you take :). One point I totally agree. The modern camera are too much complex. The only cameras which stay relatively simple are Leica with just the minimum buttons and simple menus. This permits to concentrate on pictures and not on hardware. I swapped to Leica Q and I really love it.

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks for your observations.

[@philmtx3fr]

@@mattisulanto But you are perfectly allowed to think the contrary 😜😜😜

[@Perski2844]

Nikon F100 was not a simple camera like most of the cameras of the end of the film era.

[@mattisulanto]

You are absolutely correct. That was about when things started to go complicated😀 However, film never needed to be that complicated. You could still take the same photos on some old film camera.

[@blindsouris]

Hahaha been there ( from 1965 ) I will never coming back... Tri-x pan, Kodakchrome, Nikkormat, dark room I know well. Beter digital for me, but why do I need to update my camera? buy news lenses? I practice photography I am interested in light not technology, not a neophile, I still use manual lenses of the same old era, shoot manual exposure and focus, fixed ISO and you have the same as a film camera for who like. But I can understand that for people who never knew this era are puzling and curious, so why not to try, even buy a Paterson cuve can be fun but dark room again? No thank you. :-)

[@mattisulanto]

Thanks. Of course, never going back either, but good to remember😀

[@buyaport]

Honestly speaking, you seem to be a bit out of touch with what is going on. The prices for usable film cameras are still rising, film stock is in high demand, even with prices over 15 € for a roll of 35mm color film. Companies selling refurbished cameras like Kamerastore in Finland are viable, and Pentax is even considering to make new film cameras. So this may be a niche market, but definitely very much alive.

[@mattisulanto]

I don't think I said film shooting was or is cheap. I only said film cameras CAN BE affordable and they don't depreciate like digital cameras. I also said there are a lot of film shooters even today.

[@jakobsoegaard1886]

Film was not that simple…when the film was exposed…you need to chose developers…do you want to press the film and then you had 20 different developers I use to like ilford id11…and ordinal for trix…..I don’t miss the days in the dark room…I love digital…apart from as far I recall making high quality a3 size Monochrom copy on paper base…was cheaper than having a company deliver similar in digital

[@weisserth]

Why the title in the past tense? Everything you state is still true today. Just shoot film today. Yes, it's expensive. But it can still be worth it.

[@mattisulanto]

In the video at 1:49.

[@quack2thesequel]

Another argument against thes epeople who always want to dump the past for some weird reason or anxiety about moving on, film is STILL, even fi you have new things, a great look, it's another texture, it's like saying oainting in gesso is outdated cause now you have a tablet, compeltely dumb, some of us love the process, te texture, the feeling, etc, scribblind in a screen with a plastic styles or whateve rmaterial, is not the same as laying down watercolor, sorry. Why not preserve knowledge and different styles instead of always coping out to "WOW DUDE THIS IS THE FUTURE!". Also, ease of use is not something I and many ithers are interested in, nor is excessive cleanliness, cause life isn't a digital screen.