Why Shoot Film?

First, let's start with "why not shoot film?" That's actually pretty easy. Unless you're merely a poseur who is shooting film to be seen shooting film—in which case you won't care about some or all of these reasons—there are some genuine reasons to not even consider seriously the prospect of shooting film:

1. It's a royal PITA. Seriously, everything from procuring film (of any size), storing it safely, carrying it (airports or not), loading it, using it, developing it or paying someone else to develop it for you, archiving it (soooo, you scan it, eh?), etc., is a pain in the butt.
2. Depending on your motivation for shooting film (again, not merely for props), it still remains much more difficult to get reliably the look/feel/mood/atmosphere you are seeking with film than it is with digital. Realistically, with a decent modern digital camera (everything from a top end mirrorless to an iPhone), you can dial in the look you want at a near-zero level of effort. You cannot do with that film as easily. In fact, it's very, very difficult. You've got to know your film stock, have it available, along with the right tools and lots of practice to get the lookj you want predictably.
3. Film does not give you instant feedback. We can make fun of photogs for always chimping their cameras (looking at each image on the back screen), but there is a real advantage to knowing whether you got the shot, or need a mulligan. Film cannot do that, not even Polaroid or Instax.
4. Film is environmentally unfriendly. I have no idea how film and digital compare if you analyze back all the way through the production chain from initial manufacture of camera and film all the way through archive, but it's not difficult to believe that the processes and resources required to make and develop film are inherently less positive for the environment. Modern cameras are more resource-intensive than vintage ones, and with a vintage camera, you're not consuming new metal or plastic resources, but that's a narrow and likely transient environmental advantage. Everything else favors the use of digital, especially if you have the discipline not to upgrade constantly to new equipment.
5. Film is expensive, and no amount of shooting improves the ROI. In fact, unlike digital which is always approaching a near-zero incremental cost per shot on a true asymptotic curve, film gets more expensive with each shot. There is no avoiding this. And with film prices continuing to climb, it's unlikely to ever improve.
6. Film is tangible, and you can hold negs and slides in your hands and review them on light boards, but it remains impermanent. You might be able to archive and store your film images to outlive yourself and your kids, but eventually, fragile film becomes brittle and will break.
7. Film requires discipline if you want to remember what/where/when you were shooting. Some more recent film cameras, some of the last Nikons and Canons, have good, if primitive EXIF recording capabilities. But it's still largely on you as the photographer to keep a record of what you were shooting, where, how, what medium and what settings, etc. And even if you do that well, you are still at risk of a poor connection between the data you record and the image itself. For example, this past week, I made two images of El Cap on 8x10 Provia film. They are the same composition with two different aperture and shutter combinations. When I get the images back, I may be able to discern which is which. But the odds are probably against me. Digital has no such problem. Now, all my film loaders are numbered and labeled to facilitate my voice memos and note-taking. I kniow some pros notch their film loaders sop that the margin of the film contains an indication that corresponds to the number of the loader. I haven't tried doing this, but I might. Still, there is something to be said for a little mystery.

Okay, that's a short list of very solid reasons not to shoot film. Let's talk about why you might want to do so anyway.

This image was made on an iPhone 18 up at Washburn Point in Yosemite, just a few hundred yards east of Glacier Point, about 25 minutes before sunrise. (If you go, don't short shrift Washburn; its perspective on Half Dome is more oblique, more of a true profile, but the prospect itself is more serene, and it lacks GP's crowds.) In this image, you can also see two very different cameras. On the left is an Arca-Swiss Field Metric 8x10, and on the right, is a Phase One XT. The former images 8"x10" sheets of film that have to be stored and loaded, unloaded and processed in darkness. Sometimes, you cannot even buy the film you want to shoot. The latter produces 151mpx images on a 53.4 x 40.1mm CMOS BSI sensor, about the same size as traditional 120 roll film 645. The files are huge and a pleasure to work. It's a beast, but compared to the Arca, it's a race car.

Both require a tripod. Their similarities end there. With the Phase, I can arrive at a location and be imaging in the time it takes to deploy my tripod, lock the camera in, and power it up. Less than a minute if pressed and I know exactly where I want to be. The Arca is a tad more cumbersome. It's big, bulky, heavy, and borders on unsafe to use in windy or unstable conditions—think rushing river water over slippery rocks, or snow and ice, or ocean shoreline.

Soooooo, why shoot film, especially something as beastly burdensome as the Arca 8x10? In many ways, it's the same answer to another question: why brew your own beer? Why do anything in a manner that is more difficult, more challenging and, ultimately, more rewarding? Now, that's begging the question. But, there are some soid reasons that are more than rhetorical:

1. It slows you down, making you more reflective, contemplative, and more immersed in the moment. This is one of the most commonly cited advantages to shooting with film. But honestly, I think it's BS. Reflective, in-the-moment imaging is a skill, a state of mind, not a function of the tool you use. Yes, shooting in large format will slow you down; you don't have a choice. But it doesn't perforce make you a more contemplative artist. And if you're shooting 35mm or even some 120 equipment, that doesn't have to slow you down at all (though the cost of each frame might make you shoot a little less frequently or some fewer images). Just ask any film era photojournalist. Shooting a motorized Nikon or Rollei isn't the least bit "slow." But if shooting film does slow you down, and it does cause you to pause and be more in the moment, and this helps you become a better photographer, then yes, film can help produce this outcome. It's still on you to make it happen.
2. Conversely, shooting film is a process. Whether it actually slows you down or not, you will not get "good" at it until you do slow down and understand each step of the process of film shooting and how you perform it. This is the difference between learning color and light as a painter, and simply paining by numbers as instructed. Again, this is up to you to make happen. It doesn't automagically register in your cerebral cortex.
3. Vintage film and equipment produces a look that cannot easily be replicated in digital imagery. There may have been a time when this was true, But I'm pretty sure it's not true any more. One can replicate almost any film look in digital now, right down to the differential in lens-film resolution. It's almost trivial to go to another extreme and put a pinhole shutter on a digital camera and get that dreamy, vintage look. We've done that on both the Phase and the Leica M11. It's fun. But if all you want is vintage lloks, there is a ton of software to make it available at the touch of a button, including right on your iPhone.
4. It's not dynamic range, but maybe it is. I know some film photographers claim that film has an advantage over digital when it comes to highlights, that it somehow "magically" holds the highlights while delivering shadow detail. Um, no, this isn't magic, but it is a little bit of fantasy. Modern digital's dynamic range beats film by orders of magnitude. What digital also does though is clip highlights harshly, so you go from highlights with detail to completely blown out with no possible recovery. It hits a ceiling, and it hits it hard. Film, at least color negative film, offers a gradual, softer roll-off, more like a shoulder, and once the RGB crystals are loaded up, highlights simply become compressed. This can look decidedly better than a digital image with blown highlights. But it's not better dynamic range; it's simply a different way that DR is handled. But little of that applies to chrome or reversal film. My favorite slide film is Fuji Provia 100, with Kodak Ektachrome E100 a close second. Both have fairly narrow dynamic range, and present significant challenges in high contrast and high dynamic range compositions. But that's what I love about shooting chrome: you must meter every important element of your composition, and understand how it relates to the other segments and then, to borrow a phrase, "choose wisely." It can, say "can" again, and maybe even "should," lead to a better composition. Now on shadows? Film doesn't hold a candle.
5. Trust and faith. These may sound like odd aesthetics for photography, but they're real, and you may be more likely to experience them if you teach yourself ( nor learn from someone) to be a better film photographer. Because you can't chimp with your film camera, you have to make sure it's working correctly before you rely on it for critical imagery. That means making sure you know how it works, and to recognize when it is performing properly. That applies to the film itself, as well as the equipment. You need to have the skill of knowing how your film choice and equipment choice will behave in a given compositional setting. Attaining this skill will help you trust the decisions you make. And it's all on you. Faith? Thats the part where you take a leap toward what you don't yet know based on the pieces you already trust.
6. It's Christmas! Whether you process your own film, or send it to a lab, getting the film back, or maybe downloading the scans, is like when you were a kid Christmas morning. The anticipation, the surprise, the reward, maybe even the disappointment, are all part of a very human desire to be delighted.

When all is said and done, and maybe too much has been written, why should we (want to) shoot film? Your reason is your own, and it can be whatever reason(s) you want. For me, it's first because we still can, and second because I believe it contributes to me being a better artist. This image of Yosemite's Cathedral Rock in snow, titled Ecclesia Nivis, is an example. Imaged in March of 2025, it illustrates Cathedral Rock and its reflection in the seasonal Wosky Pond on Slaughterhouse Meadow.