Four Good Reasons to Shoot Film

Let me start with a confession. I’m of a generation when finding reasons to shoot film was not a question one could ask; because photography was film.

Perhaps my vintage status makes me well placed to compare the virtues and value of celluloid versus digital.

Back in the early 2000s, I remember friends declaring digital would never match the quality of film, that it would never really ‘take off’. That’s the thing about new technologies, or ideas even… they start off marginal, until one day they aren’t.

We all know the reasons not to shoot film: it’s expensive and fragile. Plus, film-based photography is a whole lot harder to master. Film cameras demand a certain knowledge of the craft. Film has to be carefully exposed. It must be stored in the right conditions. It’s fussy and bulky and, well, old fashioned.

Even so, shooting film does offer some definite rewards. Here are four reasons to scour eBay for a cool analogue camera and get back to photography’s roots.

1. Style: That Unique Film ‘Look’

If you’re a hipster, you might be thinking by ‘style’ I mean the aura of ‘analogue chic’ that has turned film cameras into fashion accessories for the urban trendsetter.

Think again.

Put aside the superficial allure of retro-cool and think instead about the ‘look’ of a celluloid image. Because images shot on film do have a distinctive ‘look’.

Rather like hi-fi purists debating the merits of vinyl versus CDs or streaming, photographers like to argue over the virtues of digital versus film. Ultimately, it’s a question of preference (although for most professionals, shooting digital is now a requirement).

Nevertheless, there could be times when you want the film ‘look’ because it matches your creative goals - the grain, the depth of tone, a certain ‘warmth’ and softness that is lost in the pixel-perfect clarity of a high-resolution digital photo.

Photo by Pixabay

2. Intent: Taking The Time to Get Things Right

Film is slow. Everything takes that little bit longer, demands that little bit more concentration.

Shooting film imposes a more clearly-defined process on your photography: feeding the film onto the spool, winding forwards shot-by-shot. Remembering the sensitivity of your film, the number of shots on your roll.

Slowing your photography down, gives you time to think and, yes, photography is a thoughtful process, or at least it should be.

Let’s compare the process of shooting digital with film:

Shooting with a Digital Camera

The shutter is pressed and in a matter of seconds your digital camera has recorded tens of images. Your exposure might, or might not, be ok but you can correct that later. Somewhere in the blizzard of content you just created, there might just be an image of value – that you can re-work to your satisfaction.

Shooting with a Film Camera

Now try the same thing with a roll of film. You press the shutter mindful that you only have, at most, 35 images left on your roll, a realization that forces you to evaluate each photographic moment. But before you even press the shutter you need to be sure of your exposure, because if you’re over or under, the shot will be lost.

By forcing the photographer to slow down by limiting the number of shots available and by demanding a mastery of the medium, the film camera prompts the photographer to invest greater intent into each shot.

Does it result in better pictures, well that depends on the photographer, but it certainly encourages the photographic process to be more thoughtful.

AI-Generated Image

3. Technique: Learning to Be a Better Photographer

We’ve talked about how film photography forces us to slow down and concentrate, imbuing our creative process with greater intent and thoughtfulness.

I’ve also alluded to the unforgiving nature of shooting with film – if you get the exposure wrong your errors are literally etched in celluloid for posterity and, even when digitized, can be difficult to correct.

All of which means when you shoot film, you can’t fudge it.

Your digital camera will likely be stuffed with technology that can ensure your exposure is always good, and your pictures always sharp. If you do make a mistake, you can probably correct it in post. Not so with a film camera (or at least not with many of the simpler, earlier ones).

Shooting with a basic manual film camera like a Nikon FM2 (my favourite film camera), means you’ll be forced to learn the fundamentals of photography, knowledge that can inform and enhance the way you shoot, even when you return to digital.

With a basic film camera, you’ll have to understand the relationship between aperture and shutter speed. You’ll have to learn how much latitude you have in your exposures before your film becomes irreversibly over or under exposed. In short, you’ll be sharpening your photographic skills and improving your technique.

Photo by Rodolfo Clix

4. Durability: Cameras and a Medium That Were Designed to Last

It’s an often-overlooked point but film cameras and film can be very durable.

Let’s start with the cameras.

The simplest analogue cameras, like my preferred Nikon FM2, are purely mechanical (they might have some electronics for the light meter but the camera still works even when the light meter doesn’t).

They have springs and cogs and levers, which means that when they break, you or a repair technician, can poke around and actually fix things.

Many of the earlier analogue cameras have rugged metal bodies too. It’s not recommended, but I’ve dropped my FM2 and picked it up, noted the dent in its body, and carried on shooting. I wouldn’t recommend dropping a modern digital camera.

Analogue cameras, and film for that matter, aren’t just physically hard-wearing, they have proven technologically durable too.

Film cameras were not locked into the kind of technology race that makes modern digital cameras obsolete every three to five years. You can use a film camera for decades – the proof being that many models now 40 or 50 years old are still working just as well as when they were made.

Of course, some cameras are better than others, and camera makers did compete, but essentially if the hardware lasted, which left it up to the human software, the photographer’s ‘eye’, to take great pictures.

As a physical medium, the durability of film is evident. Digital images are composed of pixels animated by code and electric current, if either is missing, a digital image vanishes just as quickly as it was created – which leaves us endlessly backing up our files.

Film exists, light is seared into its celluloid surface, etched there for posterity. We can still enjoy photographs that were recorded on film over a hundred years ago. Will digital imagery prove as durable?

So, whether you’re rediscovering an old Nikon FM2 or trying film for the first time, there’s still plenty to learn from analogue photography in our digital age.

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Written by Yvan Cohen | Yvan has been a photojournalist for over 30 years. He's a co-founder of LightRocket and continues to shoot photo and video projects around Southeast Asia.

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