Any discussion of film's purported advantages over digital at this stage must necessarily be tempered a knowledge of the disadvantages, inconveniences, and loss of image quality inherent in scanning. After finally getting into digital last year, I used to think I would shoot film occasionally, but my experiences in scanning my old Kodachromes have been so disappointing and time-consuming, that I think I will never return. Medium and large format films are of course a somewhat different story, but for 35mm, as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much history.
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PSA
I wonder what kind of scanner you have been using for the Kodachromes?
I use a CanoScan FS4000US and manage to get better, crisper prints (b/w, mark you) now, in the office, than I did from the same transparencies when they were commercially drum scanned and reproduced four colour litho on large calendar pages some years ago.
But you have a point - it is very easy to forget about the down sides that film provided, sweet little surprises like scratches, dirt that dried into the emulsion, fingerprints, X-Ray casts (mostly greenish skin) and all manner of damage. And the spotting.
The practical truth is that the F3 is never used despite a freezer with lots of film in it; the D200 gets whatever photography I find to do. But that´s now on an amateur basis and I know I would be thinking something else, at greater cost, if I were still earning my keep. Also on a practical level, the darkroom has long given way to the lightroom and there is no going back anymore. Kodachrome probably doesn´t exist now, outwith my freezer, and Lausanne may have stopped processing it - I have not checked this out for ages. E6 is now a huge problem in my part of Spain and so even 120 film wouldn´t help me much... I never liked colour negative.
But, it sure was nice and easy looking at one´s pics on a lightbox and making quick edits!
Black and white was an odd sort of animal - on 35mm I used a lot of FP3 and its later iteration FP4 and also HP3 and HP4; on 120 I used TXP 120 and found that the slower films didn´t work as well for some odd reason. All of them went through D76 1+1. There was no time for funny developers in what was a frantic hurry whenever I got busy.
Today, if I had the darkroom and the loose cash, it would be a 500CM and whatever is closest to TXP. I think (I know) I would still scan, though, so that would mean even more money to Victors´old company! You might have been excused for thinking that photography would become less expensive as time rolled by...
Rob C