This is a nubie question but I need to ask it to help resolve a discussion with a friend who has recently switched from digital - a Leica M9- to film - a Leica M6 I think.
He says that the "truly great photographers" only use film and I found this astonishing given the huge possibilities of digital technology.
His arguments for film are
- film has a more natural look
- film has greater dynamic range
- film images are more beautiful. They have a certain something that is difficult to pinpoint.
So I wonder what your opinion is. For instance is it really true that a Canon 5d Mark 2 has less dynamic range than a Leica M6?
Aren't there techniques - such as adding grain or noise - that make digital images look as natural as film images?
Why do so many people say that film has that certain something? Why isn't this purely a matter of taste?
I pass over the "truly great photographers" only use film remark as it is ignorant unless he honestly considers the only "truly great photographers" to be ones who either stopped making photos or died more than ten years ago.
- "film has a more natural look"? Which film? Not Kodachrome, not any Ektachrome or any Fujichrome or color negative film that I ever used. All are interpretations of the real world. For that matter the reduction of the world to shades of gray in black and white photography is perhaps the greatest fundamental abstraction in photography.
-"film has greater dynamic range" some black and white negative films may but no color film ever had greater dynamic range than a current model medium or high end digital camera.
-"film images are more beautiful. They have a certain something that is difficult to pinpoint."
That is the most honest claim he has made. Why? Because it is purely subjective. He
prefers the look that film produces. and since creative enterprises are subjective enterprises that's the single best reason I've ever heard to choose and use
any creative tool