All my friends are giving up on film
Can you tell the difference between film and digital?
“Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t shoot film anymore.”
There seems to be a strange phenomenon amongst my group of photography buddies. I met most of them during the early days of my film photography podcast circa 2018-2020. I won’t disclose too much, other than they’re a diverse bunch scattered all over the world.
As well as the person who gave me the opening line of this post, another told me (almost proudly?) that they didn’t shoot a single roll of film in 2024. A third only shoots with their Leica digital now. A fourth well-known person in the community hasn’t shot a roll in years.
These are people I became friends with over our shared love of film, yet they seem to have temporarily or permanently abandoned it. We hear a lot about the film photography revival, but if long-time enthusiasts (in my albeit, very small sample) are not shooting film anymore, it’s a bit worrying.
I must confess, I don’t shoot as much film as I used to. In 2024 I shot around 60 rolls - but most of that was on overseas holidays. This typifies my “use case” for film - for special occasions. Gone are the days of burning through a roll to test a camera, or shooting my neighbourhood just for fun.
In contrast, I shot over 90 rolls of film in 2020. Yes I was a bit bored during the pandemic, but that wasn’t the only reason. Shooting film was cheaper then. I know this will ruffle some feathers as every time cost is mentioned with film, people trot out prices from yesteryear to show you it’s ‘just as expensive as it’s always been’.
But consider these prices from 2020:
a dev and scan from a top lab in Australia was $13 AUD (about $9 USD)
you could buy plentiful stocks of the wonderful ‘Made in Japan’ Fujifilm C200 for $7.50 AUD a roll (about $5 USD).
These days the cheapest roll of colour negative film is usually Kodak ColorPlus at $19 AUD ($12 USD) and a dev and scan will cost about $17 AUD ($10.50). While the lab cost has risen with inflation (and then some), the real devil here is the cost and availability of colour film.
You may be wondering by now why I have a series of similar photos in this post. If you haven’t figured it out already, one is digital, and one is film. Can you pick the difference? Take some notes and then when you’re finished, scroll to the end to see if you’re right.
All this has made me reflect: why do I shoot film? I’ve already established that it’s pretty much only for special occasions, but is there any difference in my film and digital shots from my holidays?
In this post there’s only a small sample to compare, but in 3 out of the 4, I prefer the film versions.
If I had to articulate why I continue to shoot film alongside digital, it’s for 3 reasons:
I love film cameras
I love the colours of Kodak and Fujifilm emulsions
I feel more of an accomplishment when I take a banger on film.
I’d love to hear why you (do or don’t) shoot film in the comments.
12 things you must photograph in Japan
You may have noticed all the photos in this post were taken in Japan. I’m super excited to be going back for my 6th trip this year! In May I’ll visit Osaka, Toyama, Tokyo, Onomichi and Kinosaki Onsen.
Japan is paradise for photographers - there are so many interesting things to capture. If you haven’t already, check out my video ‘12 things you must photograph in Japan’. This video features images shot with my Ricoh GRIII and Olympus OM-1 (digital). Soon I’ll be doing a 35mm film version of this video, so stay tuned!
If you’re keen to see even more photos of Japan, I have a free Japan travel photography guide on my Japan Pics Substack.
The Lucy Lumen Podcast
Lucy Lumen is back on the airwaves! Check out the new season of her fantastic podcast featuring interviews with photographers and creative people from around the world. I loved chatting with Lucy on a recent episode about creative side hustles.
Film or digital answers
Here’s the order of the photos: film / digital / film / digital / digital / film / digital / film.
Let me know how you went in the poll below.
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
Cheers
Matt
NO! Don’t give up!
it makes no difference what your friends are doing, you should do what you want, what you like and what you think it's better for you. here are some of my thoughts:
https://open.substack.com/pub/perfectlight/p/why-i-shoot-black-and-white?r=2b8uel&utm_medium=ios