# How does film work by SmarterEveryday



## Chaitanya (Jun 14, 2021)

Smarter Every Day posted a video on the entire process of film shooting.


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## Sporgon (Jun 14, 2021)

Interesting video to see the dip and dunk process. From the early naughties I continued to shoot MF film in bright sunlight but have recently stopped and sold off my MF gear as with today’s digital it doesn’t offer much in the way of advantage but continues with the restrictions that always saddled us with the MF film gear. However I still enjoy shooting 35mm film and it’s remarkable what you can get out of it when using excellent gear and technique with fine grain film.

However I disagree with him when he says “you can’t get the same effect from digital as with film”. I can make digital files identical to film scans to the extent that I cannot tell which is which. It requires some fiddling, adding a decent grain simulation (RNI) and blurring, but once you have the skills it’s possible to make the digital files identical to the various different film characteristics. One of the things you have to remember is that film, once enlarged, just isn’t sharp like digital.
IMO people can learn a lot about what makes a pleasing image from using film and learn to copy it in their digital work flow. Film does handle highlights and highlight headroom better than digital and eventually blows out more gracefully, but again as long as you have optimised your digital exposure with today’s cameras the difference is not as compelling as it was, and unless you’ve reached that point in exposure, there isn’t a difference now. Also with 35mm film, to be good your image has to have compelling content, you can’t reply on marvelling at the detail as you can with a large mp digital camera file !


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