Now, with that title, you may be thinking I must be a bit of a dinosaur, and maybe I am…but seriously, film may still have a place (even though you won’t ever see Kodachrome again).

Today, digital cameras are everywhere. You can buy them in camera stores, grocery stores, pharmacies, just about everywhere. They are reasonably priced and compact. But, they have their disadvantages. What do you do with all your photos? If you’re a serious shooter, you’ll end up needing multi-mega bytes of storage on your computer if you shoot high-resolution images. And what if your computer crashes? You lose it all. Personally, I have two back up drives for storing information, and I regularly burn DVD’s too. But, these can all become outdated, fail or become unreadable. I’ve already experienced early CD’s that I can’t read anymore. Bye-bye pictures  :(

Film, although older and viewed by many today as passé or antiquated may still have merit. Let me explain.

Film is a time-tested media, which lasts for many decades with proper storage (basically cool, dark and dry). I have family negatives nearly 100 years old, and I can still use them! Will you still be using DVD’s in 100 years? Probably not even another 20 years.

And, film cameras have also become really, really cheap on the used market. You can now buy a professional quality film camera for a fraction of what they originally cost. And, used lenses to fit them are also reasonably priced. So, someone who is just starting out in photography could conceivably have a bagful of film gear that they may not be able to afford in digital.

And, in my opinion, if you want to really learn photography, there’s nothing like learning how to properly expose film (you have to…you can’t just check the digital screen on a film camera, since there won’t be one). Learning why a camera does what it does will help you understand how to get better exposures and when something goes wrong, you’ll know why. Yeah, I guess I’m a little old school. But, when you learn that stuff, you’ll be a better photographer.

Also, megapixels aren’t a factor with film. ASA or ISO of the film determines the quality of the image (along with quality of the lens…but that applies to both film and digital). The lower the ISO number, the tighter the grain, and hence the better image quality.

Ah, but what about cost of developing and printing? Yup, that costs money. However, if you want to control costs, most labs will process negatives for you for a few dollars. Who says you need to get all those prints done? Most labs will even print out a ‘contact sheet’ of tiny frames for a wee bit more. If you want to use your pictures digitally, many flatbed scanners are able to scan 35mm film also. You can find them for well under $200.

So, pick a few of your pictures from the negatives, and then scan them into your computer. You’ll have the negatives as originals should the computer die, and so, peace of mind never losing your pictures. You’ll have the best of both worlds.

Something to think about anyway!