I appreciate (and have spent much time learning and practicing) analog film photography, but I've been all digital for about ten years now. I miss some of the capabilities and tactile aspects of film, but it's just no longer practical for what I want to do achieve. Polaroid 55 (and then New55) broke my heart, and that was the last straw.
Arguments about whether digital is sufficiently "pure" are uninteresting to me. It's a different medium, emphasizing different techniques.
At this point, the biggest difference between film and digital is economic. A 50 year old analog film camera in working condition is perfectly good today and compatible with the latest film and, depending on the mount, lenses. But a digital camera (requiring a higher initial investment) is an instant relic permanently wedded to the sensor technology of its day.
Use whatever works for you.
@mattblaze I use digital for many years. But I am tempted to occasionally use film again - to remember it and for the slowness. I am on rather old digital equipment. One thing about digital that bother me, although maybe smart, is that I understand some new lenses rely on software compensation of imperfections rather than make the lens optically better. Correct understanding? Any thought?
@hehemrin No, I don't think that's right. Modern lenses are far more free of optical distortions than they ever were. But digital makes it possible to profile a lens and further correct it as part of post processing, but they aren't generally designed with that in mind (for general purpose lenses, at least).
And as now digital exceeds the resolving density of film, those imperfections become increasingly important and visible.
@mattblaze Thanks, hopeful. It's easy to forget that on the screen we can magnify a photo as if it was of a wall paper size of film photo.
(on the other side, I have been amazed by old family album photos from eg 1930s, prints in size like 6x9 cm, how very many details I can discover when I digitize)
