I’ll start off by saying this is not about which is “better”. I shoot both digital and analog, but I have various reasons for choosing which medium I shoot. My goal of this article is not to convince the reader to choose to shoot one or the other, but rather to consider using both, and to explain my thought process of why I think each has its place. Furthermore, practical, environmental, costs, and other factors which may influence the photographer’s choice of medium are beyond the scope of this article and will be treated separately in later posts. This is purely an explanation of my thought process as a result of qualitative comparison.
First, the subjective bits:
Above all, you should choose a medium that inspires you to shoot more. This may sound trite, but hear me out. Have you ever picked up a musical instrument that just makes you want to play it for whatever reason? Or a bicycle that just makes you want to push harder? Or even a jacket that makes you feel a certain way, etc. Design is important and links into our psyche at an emotional level. Consumer companies like Apple understand this. Camera manufacturers like Hasselblad, Rolleiflex, etc. certainly understand/understood this. Fuji has made great improvements, as a modern example.
There’s also the matter of the aesthetic of the final product - the images. Even those born after the advent of digital and near extinction of analog photography seem to garner a nostalgia for the grain and color treatment of film. Indeed, it seems that the majority of premium (and expensive) presets that I’ve seen for professional photo editing software are intended to emulate various film stocks. This is a very interesting phenomenon. We now have a generation and a half of photographers who have perhaps never shot film, who are aiming to recreate the “film look” digitally. Funny, no? But tastes - like everything - change.
Now onto the objective bits:
I should preface this by saying that if it’s corporate work, I generally don’t have a choice - it’s going to be digital for a variety of practical reasons. So the first assumption is that you have a choice. We will also assume that the photographer confronted by this scenario has the equipment and skills required for both. When I do have a choice, the first question I ask myself when deciding if I’m shooting film or digital is: “what is the intended use for the final image?” In most general terms, will it be printed, or put on the web?
Here are the points of the discussion on which we will elaborate below:
If it’s intended for a screen, you might as well shoot digital.
If it’s intended to be printed, consider film (especially for larger prints).
If resolution or potential for larger print size is important, shoot film (Hot take, I know. Read below).
If it’s intended for a screen, you might as well shoot digital
Let’s start by considering a few empirical limitations regarding the quality of our images on screen (digital or analog are both digitized if they're on a screen), from a printer (digital), and from a darkroom print (analog). Here, we will discuss contrast ratios. This will be expressed as something like 50:1, which would be read as “fifty to one”. “Fifty Shades of Grey” would have a contrast ratio of 50:1. That means 50 possible levels between the lowest and the highest luminosity levels, or the brightest white and the darkest black.
The most important limiting factor, before diving into the technical geekery below will be the resolving power of the human eye. After all, if we can’t see any difference, it’s kind of a “tree falling in the forest” scenario in terms of extra detail. Of course, there is no single answer as to what the human eye can detect, but thankfully this topic has been researched at length by medical professionals and MRI manufacturers in order to produce images at the highest quality possible, on extremely specialized and high-performance screens in order to detect cancers and other bad situations as early as possible. Read the article, but the short answer is, the healthy human eye can detect 1000+ levels of grey (or any tone per color channel).
Many digital cameras are capable of shooting RAW, ARW (NEF for Nikon) formats, with bit depths of up to 14 (resulting in 16,385 levels). Professionals will almost always shoot in RAW (or equivalent). However, there are two limiting factors for how we will see these files: either on screens or printed.
On our screens, we must consider the format and bit depth of the output file. 99% of the time, the images you see on the web are .jpg, .gif, .tiff, .pdf, and will have a bit depth of 8, which gives them exactly 256 levels of grey. Like all technology, this will likely evolve someday. But in 2024, that’s where things are.
Contrast ratios and equivalent “bit depth” of film varies, but in any case it’s in the 1000s, and on screen would be reduced to the file format and screen limitations. Again, our eyes wouldn't be able to detect higher than 1000:1 on any format, anyway. We’ll discuss film more below.
If it’s intended to be printed, consider film
Anything that goes through a computer will first be limited by the bit depth of the file being printed. So if it’s a .jpg, that’s going to be 256:1. 16-bit TIFFs will give you (up to) 32,769:1, which is way beyond what the human eye can differentiate, and even more beyond what the highest-performance printers on the best quality papers are able to produce. Since there are so many possible permutations of printers, ink, and paper, it’s beyond the scope of this article to give a definite metric for this. But the 5-10 hours of googling around have suggested that your best professional “fine art” prints (digital) on glossy paper will yield about 300:1 (and about 100:1 from matte papers). Not bad. But again, that’s not going to be from a .jpg or other 8-bit file, and that’s under optimal conditions.
Now let’s consider the analog side. Here, numbers aren’t as easy to provide, since there is so much variance in materials, and nearly infinite permutations of film stock used, storage conditions of said film, developing chemicals and conditions, temperature, agitation, and technique. We can try to compare grain size (since the grains, or particles of silver halide, are the equivalent of the photosites or pixels in digital, and are what react to and thus “capture” the light), but this changes from film stock to film stock. Ilford Pan F 50 will have much smaller grain than a higher-speed Ilford Delta 3200 Pro, for example. So while I am intuitively convinced that greater nuance in grey values can be achieved in analog, it is an argument that is difficult to present in general, yet quantitative, and absolute terms. I posit that while there are virtually infinite possibilities of depth values achievable, a reasonable expectation would be well beyond what a healthy eye can see without the aid of a microscope. I am led to this belief due to my own experience of examining the negative of several hundred darkroom prints at the grain level, and marveling at the unique beauty of each grain, as if I were looking down at a colony of bacteria in a Petri dish. If any spectrometry experts are reading this, please feel free to message and educate me. Otherwise, I’m convinced that film’s contrast depth is easily beyond what an unaided healthy human eye can perceive, so we will cap it off at 1000:1.
We should also talk a bit bout the contrast qualities photo paper, the light-sensitive papers that are used to make darkroom prints. Note that this is not the same as printing from a printer. Darkroom prints are made using the negatives as slides to project them onto photosensitive paper, which captures the negative of the negative, resulting in a “positive”, or a representation of the image such as the eye would see it (albeit in monochrome if shooting in black and white).
An iPhone snapshot taken in my darkroom while developing a print.
Here, much will come down to darkroom technique and materials. As with digital printing, the contrast between the darkest black and the brightest white will be in part determined by the brightness and reflective properties of the paper used. As with digitally produced prints, darkroom glossy prints will always achieve darker, inkier blacks, and whiter whites than matte papers. Furthermore, paper quality will play a role in achieving the optimal result.
There are two main categories of darkroom papers: resin-coated and fiber-based. While resin-coated papers (especially Ilford’s Multigrade V RC Deluxe line) have improved substatially in the last decade, the standard in the fine art and gallery world remains fiber-based paper, due to its robustness, thickness, resistance to degradation, and increased silver halide content. There is no ink involved. The pigments that you see are particles of silver halide and they will not fade, contrary to ink from digital printers. However, because of the complexity of factors and difficulty in obtaining emperical metrics to compare, my conclusion here (as stated above) is to consider film based on merely the print quality criteria. I'm realizing now that the resin-coated versus fiber-based topic is worthy of its own post, so we will just say that Morton Photo currently only uses the highest-grade fiber-based paper and leave the rest of that discussion for a later post.
If resolution or print size is important, shoot film
When discussing resolution in digital terms, we often refer to megapixels. This term is widely misunderstood and not as important as the industry marketing machines would have you believe (more on that in a future article). A far more useful way to estimate the image quality of a camera is its sensor or frame size. From here on, we will use the term “frame” since it applies to both digital and analog formats, while “sensor” refers to only the former.
The predominant digital frame size used by professional photographers in 2024 is called “full frame”. It measures 24x36mm, and is based on the 35mm standard from analog cameras. When this format was introduced in 1892, it was referred to as “micro” and “miniature” format - its predecessors now known as “medium” and “large” format. 35mm was created with the intention of targeting consumers with more accessible and portable cameras. 35mm, medium, large and even “ultra-large” analog formats still exist today in various sizes.
There are a plethora of smaller digital frame sizes, all the way down to the tiny (but impressive) sensors we have in our smartphones. These days, most people (non-professionals or for non-professional use) use their phones to take pictures, and a dedicated camera is becoming more and more of a rarity. For reference, enthusiasts who do have a dedicated digital camera might have a 1-inch frame (compared in the diagram below). There are some pretty nice cameras in this format. From there, we go up, all the way to the “medium format” standard in the digital world.
Comparison of the predominant digital frame sizes available in 2024
Indeed, in this comparison 35mm “full frame” seems to be a big-hitter, and it is, relative to its smaller siblings. That’s why it’s the professional standard for digital. Digital medium format setups (along with corresponding lenses, etc.) can cost 2 to 10 times as much as shooting full frame. If it’s ever really needed, it’s usually rented.
To this day, and since before the advent of 35mm film in the consumer market, medium format has been considered the “medium” of professionals in the film stills photography world. There are a variety of frame sizes in medium format, but they are all shot on what is called 120 film (or 220, which is no longer manufactured). Now let’s compare a few common medium format film sizes (all of which are larger than digital medium format sensors) to our dear 35mm frame. There are a multitude of larger analog frame sizes in the domains of large and ultra-large, but these are all frame sizes that I use in my work:
Full frame (FF): 24 x 36mm = 864 mm^2
Digital medium format: 36x48mm = 1728 mm^2 (2x FF)
645 back: 56 x 45 = 2520 mm^2 (2.9x FF)
Rolleiflex 6x6: 56.6x56.5mm = 3192.25mm^2 (3.7x FF)
Mamiya RB67 67 back: 56 x 69.2mm = 3875.2mm^2 (4.5x FF)
Mamiya 6x8 back: 56 x 75mm = 4200mm^2 (4.9x FF)
A comparison of the frame sizes of a digital full frame sensor next to my Mamiya 6x8 back, which has a 4.9x greater surface area than the full frame digital.
Logically, the greater the surface area of the frame, the greater the corresponding potential to capture detail and information. Even ignoring the cost of equipment (any of these analog format cameras can be acquired for a fraction of the cost of a digital FF camera), there is simply nothing in the digital world that comes close to even the smallest of analog medium format frame sizes, and therefore potential resolving power.
If it’s going to be printed in black and white, shoot film
This is perhaps the least intuitive side of the discussion. In order to compare the digital and analog methods, it's necessary to understand how each apparatus captures information (light).
On the digital side, almost all sensors are actually designed as color sensors, then the images can be translated to black and white in editing software by desaturating the color channels. There are exceptions, notably Leica's Q and M Monochrome series. Due to supply and demand factors, monochrome sensors are usually more expensive than convenional, red/green/blue channel color sensors. Let's have a look at how these RGB digital sensors work.
Illustration of a Bayer array filter for digital sensors.
According to Wikipedia:
"A Bayer filter mosaic is a color filter array (CFA) for arranging RGB color filters on a square grid of photosensors. Its particular arrangement of color filters is used in most single-chip digital image sensors used in digital cameras, and camcorders to create a color image. The filter pattern is half green, one quarter red and one quarter blue, hence is also called BGGR, RGBG,[1][2] GRBG,[3] or RGGB.[4]"
Each of the squares you see in the RGB mosaic above represents a photosite (or a pixel). Indeed, when you look at the surface of a digital color sensor, you will see a greenish-reddish-bluish sheen. This is why! The R filters reflect back G and B, the G filters reflect back R and B (not R&B, that will be reserved for a future post on music), and the B filters reflect R and G (illustrated above).
Behind each of the painted/filtered squares on the Bayer filter is a sensor that measures only one thing - luminosity. Monochrome-only sensors would be the same, but would not have the colored Bayer array filter above them. And on the film side, each grain of silver halide is the analog equivalent of these photosites. They all only detect degree of brightness.
In color digital sensors, this information is processed internally in the camera's firmware by interpolating the values obtained by the RGB-filtered photosites, giving an indirect calculation of what colors are passing through the lens. These values are then interpreted in the camera's firmware, each applying their brand's own "color science" and "special sauce". This is why you'll notice that colors appear a bit differently from different digital cameras, especially across different camera manufacturers.
Here's the kicker - notice that in our Bayer array, photosites are arranged in squared sets of four; with one red, one blue, and two green used to determine the color and brightness value of that particular area of the image. While manufacturers will count this as four pixels, in reality this is four photosites used to calculate a single pixel's tone and luminosity. Through the filtering process, and each camera's "interpretation", tonal information is lost. Furthermore, it takes four times as many photosites (and therefore surface area of the frame) to evaluate the same tonal value as a monochrome digital sensor, or analog film frame would. So when comparing digital versus film black and white frame sizes, you would really need to divide the digital sensor size by four for a fair comparison. This is before taking into account the larger physical frame sizes available in film (usually at a much lower cost than even full frame digital equivalent). So for a realistic comparison of useful surface area, you would multiply the difference in the physical surface area (demonstrated below) by four.
Accordingly, my MamiyaRB67 using a 6x8 back will have about twenty times the detail that you would get from a full frame digital camera if the end result is a black and white image.
Once viewed in editing software, the photographer may then desaturate the RGB color channels to create a monochrome image. This process will not surprisinly give less information than would a monochrome-specific sensor (which as mentioned above, do exist, but they aren't very common and tend to be more expenive). So if you're going to shoot black and white digitally and want the best results (and if price isn't a limiting factor), you will need to do so using a sensor designed for this - a monochrome sensor. So not your Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, etc. cameras more widely available in the consumer market.
Conversely, monochrome (or panchromatic monochrome as it's sometimes referred to) film is designed for the purpose of capturing levels of light in individual grains. There are no color filters inherently involved (although of course these can be used on the camera lens according to the intentions and desired result of the photographer), there is no interpolation to achieve an average greyscale value, and no proprietary "secret sauce" firmware between the image that passes through the camera's lens and what is captured on the frame. This is why analog enthusiasts will often gush about how naturally skin tones render on film. Professional photographers (myself included) usually spend a great deal of time and effort editing their digital images in order to achieve something closer to these natural tonal values, which are inherent to film. Viewed side by side, the digital versions will usually disappoint.
This does not mean that black and white images shot digitally are bad or worse, or that they are automatically better if shot on film. If it were only so easy! My intention in this article is to simply present my rationale for the choices I make on the matter. Hopefully it was either useful or at least an enjoyable read.
Comments