By Stephen M. Schaub

Film is not dead…yeah we know. Today I received a catalog from KEH proclaiming that Film Is Not Dead on the cover. Additionally, I also got a copy of an interesting study recently done by Kodak- to summarize:

9,000 professional photographers in the US were surveyed and over 75% said that they will continue to use film even as they embrace digital technology.

68% preferred the results from film to digital
48% find that medium and large format films capture superior quality
48% like the traditional photographic look
45% find film has better highlights and shadows
42% like film’s wide exposure latitude compared with digital
38% like film’s archival storage

The article goes on to state that Black and White in film is a big reason most photographers are still keeping film around (90%).

So what does all this mean?

In a nut shell…do both. Shoot film! Shoot digital! Do what you want and let the advertising hype just pass you by. I also received a copy of PDN today (current issue)…not surprising that almost every ad and new product review is about digital…how is that for reflecting what photographers are interested in (see above survey as a reminder).

We maintain that a good film scan is near impossible to beat in terms of quality and cost. Digital capture does have a place but… for now the Photographers have spoken.