Why does film look better than video

Of course, VHS tape is analogue. Remember that the grain particles are random. I suspect that this is one reason why relatively cheap 8 bit video cameras are able to take such surprisingly good pictures: the sensor noise helps to smooth over the lack of colours in an 8 bit system.

At some point, the sheer precision and ultimate resolution of digital systems will make all of the above discussion irrelevant. In fact some might say including me! Tags: Technology. RedShark is a multiplatform online publication for anyone with an interest in moving image technology and craft. With over 50 contributors worldwide, full-time developers, editorial, sales and marketing staff, it is the go-to site for informed opinion and know-how for the quickly changing video, film and content creation industries.

We may have solved the mystery of why film just looks better. The art of noise. Media Composer gains full support from Postlab's cloud workflow How the global chip shortage is just the start of the supply chain problems. Popular Quantum Computing just got desktop sized. Keep in mind that film photography is more expensive, but the photos often look better.

See if […]. Great article. Not a professional by any means, but nothing beats film. That is, when in the hands of the right developer.

I can use a digital to scout areas I want to shoot, and record comments. With a digital I can shoot, record comments about when I think will be the right time for that special composition. For the most part, digital is the more common method of taking pictures, but there are benefits to […]. Whichever gives you the happiest experience. When it comes to commercial shooting the client needs will determine what platforms you are able to bring to the table, but when doing it for your own reward — try out all kinds and see what suits you.

I shoot both. I only use film when I want a slow day, ie. Heck trying to focus on them running around is enough to drive one to some bad habits. Point is, both has there place. Film photographers have to learn aperture, shutter speed etc.

I want to see what my eye through the lens saw, not a manipulated Light room version of. She knew the beauty and soul of film. For me, this was a request I could keep. In a day of photographing, two rolls of film would be considered a lot. I am a quiet photographer, and wait for the moment of connection with my subject, or when I let my own defenses down.

I have nothing to compare film to digital aside from my iPhone, but will forever be an analog photographer. A few years ago I purchased a used Leica M 8.

Long story short, I spent lots of time learning how to process digital files, post-process, etc. Today, I use the digital M8. Some of these images find their way into work that I use … most do not. Having a relatively inexpensive and quick sketchpad has proven valuable to me. For the bulk of what I do deliver, show, etc.

I rely on films. Pure and simple. Of the two workflows, film is slower and more expensive but therein lies its hidden strength. I bought my first 35mm SLR while in high school. Got a mm telephoto lens for it as well.

But could you enlarge the resulting photos to a huge size even after cropping and get super sharp and beautiful prints on glossy paper. Once married the wife wanted color so I mostly shot speed Kodak film. Prints seemed to fade so did a lot of slides for many years.

Most ended up stored for years in boxes I am just starting to go through now. Here is what I am finding out now. Many of the color prints are fading, etc. And professional photographers keep the negatives so there is no way for me to reprint them. So much for lasting for decades or even hundreds of years. I just opened a box of slides and discovered pictures of a day trip I remembered well but had forgotten I had taken pictures at it.

But the slides have deteriorated to the point that in many much of the image is just washed out, gone forever. Most likely the processing was poor but there is no way to know at the time that the lab cut corners. Is film superior? Maybe, but I am 68 and at this point in my life i have other things to do than spend hours in a darkroom to get a few finished prints.

Had that happen a few times…. Found myself not carrying the SLRs places because of the weight and bulk…. I have multiple backups including one external hard drive I store off site so even if my house burned down I still have them.

Hard drive even has scanned PDFs of all important financial, legal, etc documents. Try doing that practically with paper. I should be able to make new prints of any digital photos at any time in the future with no loss in quality from the original. Above this desk is a print measuring 20 x 30 inches of a stunning landscape taken out the window of our car while my wife was driving and where there was NO safe place to pull over. Several others we decorated our house with are even larger.

You are obviously selling a product, so your bias comes as no surprise. But nevertheless, yes, film is great, just like analog guitar pedals sound for the most part better than their digital counterparts.

However, picking on fuji for doing a bad job with their sims is really unwarranted, nobody else has even come close to providing something that looks just as great as analog than their Pro Neg Hi at iso Also, analog is really, really bad for the environment.

Does it look exactly the same? Is it worse or better? Hard to say. I always find myself rolling my eyes when I see these debates, even more so on a site that has a clearly vested interested in one format over another. The fact of the matter is that different tools work better for different people. I can produce work that keeps my clients and customers happy — from assignment work for the likes of National Geographic and New European magazines, to my various documentary photography exhibitions and photobooks released and sold over the years.

I will happily shoot and produce work in either film or digital. I also find it funny when some suggest film photographers know how to compose better, that they work more methodically and so on. All I really see in these debates is one side trying to one-up the other using silly straw clutching arguments. The deciding factor in the quality of your work is you and your brain, your eye for a good image. Shooting film is not going to magically give you that, just the same as digital will not.

Lastly, film is cheap? I live in the UK now I am from the Netherlands however and own 2 digital, and 2 film cameras. These cameras ARE of a vintage that they will start having problems. Takeaway point here should be: Both are great, both work perfectly well but only if you apply the creativity and hard work to produce a winning image.

It is pleasant to see that hobbies and professions could stir up such emotive passion. During films heyday I could not find one 35mm product to give me the sharpness and the lack of grain that I felt I needed at the time for the portraits I took over the forty odd years as an amateur hobbyist.

It could be because 35mm was a compromise format initially intended for movie use. Having attended various exhibitions and won various awards for my portrait work during last century, I like to think that despite my age and gradually failing eyesight I could still tell a good picture from a mediocre, in terms of image fidelity. Over the decades many of us have parted with vast amounts of money in many cases enough to buy an additional home in pursuit of our hobbies so we will always be ready to justify this expenditure and vigorously defend it, no matter what.

Nostalgia is now a lucrative niche business thanks to the fact that as our senses get curtailed with age, our emotions and loyalty to our traditional ways strengthen along with our bank balances. I use mine exactly as I use my film camera, aim, focus, set exposure, recheck composition.

If in a situation you can not control, digital is nice because I can take many more and hop for the best, but these situations are not my style. I enjoy the process of slowing down and actually thinking about the photo.

Let me get this straight… you compare a film photo with a raw file and then say a mm film negative has more detail that a 35mm digital camera? Yes, because your article would fall apart. The bias here is absolutely staggering. If you love film, I get it. I love cars with mechanical gearboxes. And as far as the color science, reproducing the color rendition of a specific film is not gimmicky.

A lot less gimmicky than this article. Remember that the whole scanning process is a concession to digital to allow comparison.

Not everyone especially those using film intends the ultimate expression of their image making to be on a screen. Printing in the darkroom at any size, 35mm vs a full frame print on any printer is not a fair fight… there are no dots to compare in the emulsion and it is, of course, far sharper than any dotted print could hope to be.

Likewise, speed is not an attribute that film can really go toe-to-toe with digital. I regularly shoot my EOS 1N side by side with my 5D mk ii with the same lenses and the 1N images are more pleasing, full stop. I print up to A2 with a nice inkjet and with an enlarger in a darkroom at home and both make sharp images at that size.

Anything bigger makes the walls of my house look too small. Why would a sensor from a film scanner have any better performance than a leading DSLR? My last comment was way back in May of whoa, where has the time gone?

If you love Photography as much as I have for the past 50 years or so any decent digital or 35mm camera will usually produce quality, highly acceptable photos and prints but, with a few caveats. As I can attest, photography is a lifelong, fascinating learning process that has its rewards and disappointments. Fortunately, the latter get fewer and fewer as one progresses along the learning curve regardless of the type of camera used so, when you get a crappy photo and you will analylize the mistakes in it and do better the next time under the same conditions and camera.

This next comment is purely subjective and personal. To date I have 48 of them around my bedroom shelves and every one of them is fully functional. Virtually every Japanese camera and model is represented, the prize being a mint condition, VietNam era Nikon F with 3 Nikkor-S lenses I luckily noticed in a dumpster. An acquaintance recently was short of rent money and sold me his Canon 60D digital and film EOS with 3 Sigma lenses and Canon EZ strobe in a HF foam lined hardshell case for, would you believe, bucks.

So now, on shoots, since the lenses work on both cameras, I can opt for film or digital. Pretty neat, huh? Happy shutter bugging. I still shoot film and have a darkroom but I also shoot digital. Digital has more accurate color rendition vs film stock. Film companies decide how the colors should look, not you or nature. After Kodachrome left a lot of photographers switched to digital for that reason.

Even film photographs today are manipulated by computer after- see Harry Gruyaert for example. Ceiling clouds. New York Public Library. Pentax Z. Man with hands in prayer. Wisconsin, Cindy in Madison, Wisconsin Downtown LA, Downtown LA, pentaxz.

Top of Henri Pouch: Fits 5 rolls of mm 35mm film. Hand gesture of woman. Photograph outlined in red, when the man looks over and notices me. Berkeley, cindyproject. My grandfathers funeral. As such, they have a lived-in look. A filmstrip saved from and shown again today has clearly seen some shit.

Little imperfections such as scratches or so-called "cigarette burns" take it away, Ed Norton appear on the strip, and quiet crackles and pops develop on the audio track.

But, in many ways, these imperfections are an argument in film's favor. Film is transportive; it inspires nostalgia, especially among film buffs. Compared with that, digital video can look antiseptic and polished. This is some of what Tarantino means when he calls digital projection "television in public. These technical distinctions dictate the daily push and pull of the film industry, but for the garden-variety viewer, digital and analog are no more than two visual modes for a film to work in, each with its own individual vibe.

Neither is better than the other, only more well-suited to the story the filmmaker has chosen to tell. Director Danny Boyle , for instance, used various film formats to subtly communicate the passage of time in his recent film Steve Jobs , which takes place at three product launches in three different years. And if you know to look for it, the switch in formats in each time period is easy to spot. Manufacturers produce filmstrips in four different sizes — called gauges — each with its own properties and applications.

The measure of a gauge refers to the width of a filmstrip, with wider stock providing sharper definition and more detail in the projected image. Most major releases shot on film — including the current number one film in the world, Star Wars: The Force Awakens — are printed on 35mm stock; a lot of movie theaters use digital projectors but might bust out a 35mm rig for special occasions, often meant to court cinephiles.

The next rung down is 16mm, a cost-effective alternative intended for low-budget student productions or amateur use. There was a time when use of 16mm was in common in the realm of TV. For instance, observe the world of difference between the look of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 's first two seasons shot on 16mm and those that followed it shot on 35mm, once the series' budget grew.

The lowest gauge of film stock is 8mm, which was cheap enough to produce that it was mainly reserved for home movies and experimental projects. You might remember the J. Abrams film Super 8 , into which low-grade home movies figure prominently — its title comes from the name of a specific brand of 8mm film. That only leaves 70mm, the largest gauge and a recent subject of minor kerfuffles within the film world. Still an enfant terrible at 52, Tarantino made waves with his announcement that his latest feature The Hateful Eight would play in glorious 70mm at various "roadshow" locations around the country, complete with additional footage exclusive to the 70mm version.