digital and film

I was thinking today about why we don't seem to like digital as much a film. The differences between the two are really rather minor at this point, in fact I would argue that film has in most ways been exceded by digital. Digital is simply better. Sharper, faster, cheaper, more colourful. But yet- it's not quite film. Most people who argue this point have never used medium format digital and thus usually don't know what they are talking about when they argue film is still better. It isn't. But there are lots of other factors, namely format size and lenses that make a surprisingly important perceptual contribution to the 'look' of an image. Especially concerning digital.

I postulate that actually the thing we like about film so much is it's imperfections. It's quirks from processing. The saturation or undersaturation of colors. It's not perfect and I think we like that. Digital is nice. But digital tends to be 'perfect'. It also tends to be grossly in-focus. (on the APS size chip sensors)

But it's true. There's something about film. Digital is better, but there's still something about film.