Wow. Kodak just launched a new film. I occasionally use film still for something arty farty, but haven’t used a roll of film for many, many years. It would have to be around 5 years since I photographed a wedding on film and that was a special request. As great as it is that Kodak are still improving film, it’s a dead technology when it comes to weddings.
Sure there are a few old school photographers still shooting weddings on film – but that’s what they have always done, and they don’t want to learn how to shoot weddings digitally. For me it is a no brainer. It isn’t just the number of photos you can take digitally that attracts me as a wedding photographer to digital. The main attraction is the versatility of digital. I can be shooting in a really low light situation, like inside a dark church, with my camera sensitivity set to a high ISO value. Then I can go outside and shoot in bright sunshine and just bump the ISO value down to a minimum.
You can’t do that with film unless you rip the roll out and put in a new one.
Film photographers argue that film gives you a distinctive look that digital can’t match. That’s pure rubbish. You can easily replicate the look and feel of any type of film digitally. The film wedding photographers just don’t want to learn how.
What film offers is a type of magic, if you are still developing your own film and printing your own images. When I shoot film it is in limited amounts. I usually process the film myself before scanning the negatives and working on them digitally. It’s a shame I don’t have access to a complete darkroom anymore. There’s nothing quite so magical as seeing an image appear on a piece of photographic paper.
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