But, in many ways, these imperfections are an argument in favor of cinema. While good film material may represent a substandard experience in terms of pure empirical quality, it has the soft look that we associate with old films. Cinema is conveying; it inspires nostalgia, especially among film lovers. Compared to that, digital video can look antiseptic and polished.
This is something Tarantino means when he calls digital projection television in public. The television can also look antiseptic and polished. A few years ago I bought a used Leica M 8.2 because I wanted a digital “box” that I could use with my Leitz lenses, from 28 to 50 mm. Although most cinematographic photographs end up being digital in one way or another, for many the process of using the film allows them to access parts of their own creativity and vision that they may not be able to access with a digital camera.
For me, movie cameras are superior to any digital camera I've ever used in terms of the speed of reaction to the shutter button. I also realized that if I sent all my digital photos to a professional editor to correct the color and process them to make them beautiful (which is basically what you do with negatives), they would also look great. You can't reproduce with digital filters what you get with quality films or slides, and I love shooting 120 rolls in medium format with a negative that is 400% larger than “full frame” digital cameras. Eunice Beck records digitally with Phil Chester presets, while I used Kodak Portra 160 and Kodak Portra 400.
As the digital camera evolved, the quality of high-end digital reflex cameras is superb and, in many ways, even better than that of film. In addition, the website that compares cinema with digital is called Darkroom and sells “shooting movies” t-shirts and developing and scanning movies, so I'm calling B. Many people are leaving their 35 years in droves for more “convenient” digital images, so I've been rescuing them from garbage cans, second-hand stores and friends' closets for the past 10 years or so. I really liked it and bought a Plustek scanner to digitize the images, which I edit in DxO PhotoLab.
I misled the most diehard Leica fans by saying that my monochrome digital Fujifilm photographs were taken with an analog Leica and no one even asked me with 70 x 50 cm prints. Now, the hard part: processing my B&W negatives, scanning and editing them in PhotoLab 4 took a long time, but the results were MUCH better than what I got with my digital images. More creative control in processing, affordable access to excellent equipment (I use a 7-year-old digital camera that works very well with analog lenses). The owners of mirrorless digital devices were happy to be able to take pictures enriched with simulations of “Veliva” and “Provia”.
