I tried to make this digital image look like film. So what?
Far be it from me to criticize one of my fellow PetaPixel writers, but I feel it necessary to counter Bimal Nepal’s recent ‘Stop making digital look like film’ op-ed.
The first photograph that I ever took with any real purpose was on film. I made my own pinhole camera, I used my Dad’s old SLR camera, I even tried out my college’s medium format Mamiya RB67.
I developed my own film, I screwed up doing it. Then I messed up printing my negatives, overcooking the dodge and burn. I kept going. I eventually moved to digital.
I add grain but I feel like the colors and the sharpness always gives it away.
Admittedly when I was a student, I did think it was dumb that we spent so much time learning film photography. Digital had already been the go-to format in the professional industry for a number of years. But now I’m glad I did it.
After years of tweaking the white balance on digital cameras, refining the RAW file in Photoshop, and trying to make my digital pictures look great via a series of filters, clone stamping, and adjustment dialog boxes — often confusing myself over how my photos should actually look — I started shooting film again.
And you know what, film is awesome. You don’t have to worry about your white balance anymore because the chemistry magic has already decided what it will look like. And guess what? Those evocative colors are still better than anything digital can produce.
Nothing compares to a real film photo where the colors and vibe are superior. This one, shot on Kodak Gold, even has a scratch on the negative.
It’s only natural that digital photographers turn to film for color inspiration. I’ve been enjoying shooting film again myself — my Canon AE-1 has seen as much use in the past couple of years as any of my digital cameras. But film inevitably comes with its limitations, the biggest one being cost.
So nowadays, when I’ve shot photos on my Canon R6, or even my iPhone, I will often edit them to look like film. I’ve used the grain filter, film simulators, presets, you name it.
And you know what, I like the results. An image captured on celluloid has a certain je ne sais quoi that a digital image just doesn’t have, so why wouldn’t I try to recreate that?
For this one, I used a film preset but held the grain. The tones are decent.
And it’s not just me. As digital cameras have become so good, as lenses have become so clear, people have grown tired of picture perfection and Generation Z, in particular, now seems to favor flawed images with interesting artifacts over digital mastery.
There’s room here for all. We’re all on a journey, and if people want to experiment with film presets then more power to them. Maybe those shooters will one day invest in film photography and turn their backs on digital.
If I were still a press photographer pounding the streets doing eight jobs a day, would I be using a film camera? Of course not! Would I be delivering clean, digital images to newspapers and magazines? Absolutely.
But since I don’t do that anymore, I take photos purely for my own amusement, I want my photos to look like they were taken on a film camera, whether they were or not, thank you very much.
The filmic look on digital.
Photography’s a big tent where rules are made to be broken and photos can be taken, processed, and printed in any way the photographer sees fit. That is called artistic expression.
Image credits: Photographs by Matt Growcoot.