As I sit here looking at comparisons of film vs. digital, I wonder if in twenty years I'll still be able to buy my favorite film, tmax 400? Maybe. Right now, I'm a photography student at the college of Santa Fe, and I've spent a semester shooting nothing but t-max, producing quite a bit of work in several different directions. I've come to depend quite a bit on the look of the films I use (tmax 400 & 3200 mostly). The specific way the tones are rendered on the film from real life works for me. Now the question: Is there a camera that I can use to reproduce this look? The main problem as I see it is that you couldn't really simulate the grain of either of these films, and that is definitely part of my style.
I write with a certain kind of pen because I perfer the feel of it, and he same goes for my film- I use a certain type and develope it in a certain way (5 min at 75 degrees for 400) to derive what feels right. All of the digital work I've done thus far is way below par for what I do in the chemical darkroom-scanned slides converted in ps to black and white, scanned tmax, none of it "works" for me. What can I do? The best thing I suppose is what all of us should be doing: go out and shoot while I can. Pick up a used dslr and learn the feel of the digital image. Any suggestions?