Digital Versus Film Camera

Camera Courtesy -fotosearch.com

People who use film cameras, whether these people are professionals, amateurs, or fathers taking photos of their kids, are dwindling. You can easily feel like a dinosaur walking around with your good old 35 mm film camera. Switching to a digital camera, however, can be a wrenching experience. This is especially true if you and your film camera have spent countless hours capturing all kinds of images in all kinds of places. And there are all those new words you have to learn like megapixels, firmware, digital zoom, grayscale, or PictBridge.

Still, if digital cameras are not better, why is almost everybody making the switch? Here is why:

• There are no film and developing costs. With digital photography you can take all the pictures you want, view and manipulate them in your computer, and throw away those you don’t like. And you can do all these at zero marginal cost.

• The 35 mm film rolls typically come in 12, 24, or 36 exposures. Memory cards or memory sticks used with digital cameras can store literally hundreds of photographs. There are even extreme cards that can hold thousands. If you want your film camera to have the shooting capacity of the digitals, you will have to carry a load of film rolls. Otherwise, you will have to be more selective with what you shoot.

• Digital cameras allow you to immediately view your pictures via the LCD screen. Thus, if you are not satisfied with the photo, you can take another one, and another one until you are satisfied. You do not have to wait until your photos are developed and printed before you can see them.

• Since digital photos are digital media files, they can be edited with the use of photo processing software. Colors, contrasts, and brightness can be enhanced. Redeye can be banished. In the case of film-based photos, you will have to scan them before they can be edited with computer software.

• Digital cameras are more adaptable to changing shooting conditions. In one photo session you may have to shoot outdoors with the bright sun in the background, then move indoors where the light is low. Maybe you have to shoot both stationary and moving subjects. A digital camera allows you to adjust its settings for each picture you take. With a film camera, you will have to change your film if you need to go to a different setting.

• While printed pictures fade over time, digitally stored photos do not change their quality. If you keep your digital files you can always have new prints whenever you want to.

With all these advantages, it is really not surprising why film-based cameras are on their way to becoming relics of a bygone era.