Film is infinitely better and cheaper than digital.
I have done it both ways now, and film is so much cheaper
than digital there is no comparison. Film is also infinitely
superior in quality---by at least 3 orders of magnitude.
As an example, scanning Fuji ASA-800 film on my 2400 * 2400
dpi HP scanner, I am not even close to seeing any grain in the film.
And Fuji 800 is a much faster film than any digital camera--with
regard to any specific contrast and resolution standard.
A scan of a 35mm negative at 2400dpisq (a real 2400 not
"virtual 2400") creates a file roughly in the 40-70 meg range that
would swamp any camera if it had to store it. A proper 40,000dpisq
scan from say a Nikon coolscan would be Signifiacantly more
troublesome.
Film has dramatically higher color and contrast depth than
digital pictures. A disposable camera produces much superior
photos to even the most expensive electronic camera---and not merely
because of pixels--but because of resolution and contrast or "depth".
You might think that scanning from a print would be better
than scanning from a negative--after all 2400 dpi on a negative gives
a total resolution of only about 3300 by 2200 for the picture,
whereas the print gives a much higher resolution scan. But it turns
out that the negative has greater depth. And so I have found
negative scans to be far superior than print scans---even though I
don't have a Nikon Coolscan. ( I have an HP 5490c scanner---don't
get it--get one compatible with "Vuescan" software---HP is notorious
for not supporting their hardware with drivers and I am afraid that
this scanner is no exception--the odds of ever seeing an OSX version
of the driver are getting slimmer and slimmer and apparently the
scanner's USB port runs from a parallel to USB converter inside. So
the scans are great--but in system 9 only)
For years, film has evolved to en extremely efficient medium.
Everyone knows (or should know) that there is a difference between
Kodachrome and Ectachrome--not to mention KodaColor and Fuji and Agfa
and so forth. Kodachrome and Ectachrome both give "accurate"
colors, but those colors feel different and have a different mood.
As another example, print film (eg Kodacolor) has a much
wider exposure range (plus or minus 4 stops) compared to chrome (viz
slide) film. And chrome is an order of magnitude superior to
digital.
For all practical purposes, electronic photos are useless,
except for use online--where you expect bad quaility and don't have
the bandwidth to show good quality, or for snapshots where you
neither enlarge nor crop. And if you don't do these things:Why go
digital anyway??
Furthermore, when it comes to taking pictures, the electronic
camera requires a huge supply of rechargeable batteries and there is
always a delay when shooting--so you cannot use electronic cameras to
take any action shots. I have tried a couple of cameras and they
all want to do stuff before you shoot--instead of letting you shoot.
Printing photos off the computer and onto a printer is so
difficult and requires so much time, I think I could probably do it
faster in a basement darkroom. I have spent hours on a single photo.
I just don't have that kind time for any but the special photos. And
I do take that time for special photos.
I do spend a lot of time on special photos--but now I start
out with film--and then crop. You can't crop electronic photo's
because by the time you are finished cropping there is no picture
information left for the enlargement.
Finally, be aware that ink jet ink fades within 4
years--even if the picture is covered in a book. Epson claims to
have archival quality inks--but I haven't seen any "quality" reviews
of these. (even color photo prints fade to black and white over
time---but ink jet prints have no underlying black & white). (I use
a color laserwriter--but I have no idea how many years these prints
will last.
My 35 mm Nikon FA batteries last 7-8 years-and it will still
operate at -20 below with no batteries at all. Even with seven or
eight sets of batteries, I cannot take electronic photos in the field
over the course of a day. For example, no one can take electronic
photos of a soccer game because of the bad lenses, the low
resolution--AND because of the batteries. I have seen some great big
batteries--but I have not seen any that could stay on-full for 3
hours--even though some video cams do.
With a film camera, you can tell from the mood of the picture
what lens you have used or what film you have used. I have only
played around with a few digital cameras but my impression is that
although lenses are very critical for 35mm film--Nikor, Canon,&
Zeiss lenses offer a superior quality that could be visible to a
soccer mom-- I am not sure how much good a better lens will do for
digital photos because I am not sure the recording medium is there
yet.
A very good 35mm SLR camera is fairly cheap. My local shop
does double 6x4 prints with free film for $2 plus 20¢ for a
double-print. Digital cannot possibly compete with this--even for
just the cost of your ink-jet paper. 40 6x4 digital photo prints
cost $10 for the paper alone.
You know if you don't print out your snapshots, they will
never be seen by you or your children. I have pictures that are over
100 years old--and the quality is unbeleivable--but I don't have the
negatives. (they may have used glass plates.) We also have 50 year
old picture too---again no negatives because they simply get lost.
So will your negatives and your computer files.
For $400 you can get both a great 35mm SLR and a great
scanner, and your printing costs will be much lower. You can scan in
the prints or scan in the negatives. You can also crop and enlarge
the shots--something you cannot do effectively with digital shots.
This will all be much cheaper faster and easier than digital alone.
Actually now that I have finished writing all this gunk I
went online and noticed that the Epson 800 is still going for $447.
That's a huge honkin' amount of cash. I have one and before it is
useful you need to get at least a 128 meg ($60 ?) memory card, and
at the very least $25 bucks more batteries and another charger (it
takes 2 ordinary nimh batteries at a time and they last about 10 -15
minutes on full--more on energy conserve(but then you have to wake it
up). Taking photos at any but the highest resolution is a waste of
time. An AC Adapter for using it hooked-up is another $30--but I
don't use one.
The software for this camera works great and this is the
minimum resolution you should use. Remember that just because the
picture has 3.5 megapixels--that doesn't mean that you will want to
use the whole picture. The manual was written by someone who thinks
in japanese, and the electronic options are sort of weird--I don't
use them.
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