I hate when people say shit like this. First, it discounts the skills of the photographer. A person made this photograph and used years of experience to get this shot. That is 95% of what made this photo great. But sure, let’s give all the credit to a strip of plastic. I believe if he had a digital camera back then, it still would have been a great photo.
Second, it discounts the three technical things that helped make this photo great. The lens, the format, and the lighting. The lens I won’t go into much detail. Put good glass on a camera, you are going to get sharp images with good contrast.
The format and the lighting are the interesting bits. They worked together to allow this shot to even be possible. And, again, the photographer had to know how to leverage those aspects–and back then that was no small feat in a fast paced environment.
You see, as far as a camera is concerned, an indoor arena is super dark. To this day, people still have trouble taking sports photos indoors. But raising the ISO wasn’t an option back then. You’d have to put in a new roll of film and it would degrade the quality of the photo due to grain. Clean images at high ISOs (or ASAs) weren’t a thing back then.
So they used medium format cameras which had larger film which allowed more light to be captured for each photograph. More light means a cleaner photo. But that still wasn’t enough. So they placed giant strobe flashes in the rafters. You can see one firing on the top left. These special lights sent out a very brief but very powerful flash of light. It was so powerful that they could use ISO 100 film to get the cleanest image possible. Today, if you are shooting indoors without special lights, you’d be lucky to get your ISO down to 6400.
If you have good lighting and a good lens and an experienced photographer, you can get amazing images–film or digital. In fact, if I have good lighting, I could probably get professional results on an iPhone these days. Besides knowledge, lighting is so much more important than pretty much anything else. And because good lighting is so vital, I would wager the reason you will no longer see a modern photo that looks similar to the one above is because they no longer allow giant flashing lights in the rafters.
I get that people are nostalgic for film. And it can have a certain ineffable look in certain photos. But it was so much harder to work with and you could not take as many great photos as consistently. The photo above may have been 1 of 4 photos that photographer got that night that were any good. And he would have an anxiety attack waiting for them to be developed. He didn’t know if he got focus. If the strobe fired. If he got his framing right. Film could give you a panic attack if your livelihood depended on it.
Film, for the most part, looks worse most of the time. You have to get the stars to align to get a film image to equal or surpass something digital. Especially in a chaotic environment. It’s a bit like music. The best music stands the test of time. We either forget or don’t know about all of the shitty music that happened years ago. Just like the best photos from the era of film are the only ones we still look at today. But if you go through your family’s old photo album, I doubt you’ll find anything shot on film that comes close to having the clarity, colors, and contrast as the photo above. It took great effort, experience, and often great expense to get photos to look that good.
Sometimes I think some people just want things to be harder. They don’t like that newer cameras are easier to use. Forget that it allows artists to not think as much about the technical aspects and focus on the art of taking a photo. Old school photographers want newbies to suffer like they did. So they rant about how film is better so they can always have a way of feeling superior.
I still want film around. I want people to still learn and love the format. I just want all of the bullshit hardship olympics to stop. Some people like film for the same reason some like vinyl records. In truth, vinyl often sounds worse by objective measurements. But the worseness has a character to it. A warmth. Certain music sounds better with that lower fidelity. Just as certain photos can have a stronger emotional connection if they have that film look to them. It can make SOME photos better. But not because the objective quality is better. Because it gives you a better feeling.
There is also fun in the process. Because film takes extra work, you have a stronger sense of pride when you really nail a photo. Photography becomes more about the journey.
Today indoor sports photographers all use high end digital cameras. They don’t have to strap lights to the rafters because they can control the ISO and still get sharp images. They can also do burst shooting which allows them to get more consistently amazing photos. They can also check immediately to make sure they got the shot and avoid those panic attacks. And because equipment is easier to manage, photographers can carry multiple cameras on their person–giving them more options in focal length. Which made possible this award winning photo with a super wide angle lens.
Film is different, not better. It can sometimes produce images that digital has a hard time emulating. But digital has surpassed film in almost every objective technical measurement of quality from efficiency, convenience, dynamic range, and resolution. The only film cameras that can still keep up with digital are large format cameras. They can be scanned in at similar resolutions as digital medium format cameras. However, they rarely have optics that match in sharpness, so digital still has more advantages.
The best pro photographers I know of that are working today all use digital for most of their work. Many of them are old enough to have used film. They have the skills and resources to use film if they wanted to. And they don’t. If they believed film would give them better images, they’d probably use it.
Joe McNally is about as old school as it gets. He has been photographing amazing things for decades. He took many amazing photos on film.
But he still manages to get some good looking photos on the horror that is digital.
The small number of pros that still use film typically don’t care about it being better or worse. They just love the process of using the format. Or they enjoy using vintage gear. They like learning the skills needed to physically develop photos. To dodge and burn without Photoshop. It can make the art more tangible for them. And that is beautiful. But I can’t remember a single one of them saying film was superior. Just that it was the right format for them personally.
“I like the look and feel of film more than digital.” is an individual’s opinion that I will respect.
“Digital photography will never look as good as film.” is nonsense.
This is a photo taken during a high school basketball game.
This photographer didn’t have the resources to buy an expensive medium format film camera. He didn’t have the ability to attach multi-thousand dollar strobe flashes to the ceiling. This shot would have never happened if he used film.
Shaming digital photography is crapping on how wonderfully accessible this art form has become and belittling the people who can’t do it any other way.
Love film all you want, just don’t make it a competition.
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