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Interesting to see all the negative comments on the article over on PetaPixel, and quite often the same cynicism towards film shooters here on HN, usually along

Interesting to see all the negative comments on the article over on PetaPixel, and quite often the same cynicism towards film shooters here on HN, usually along the lines that it’s just a fad or only a passing phase for hipsters. But exactly this sort of internet ‘wisdom’ was putting me off trying film around 15 years ago, and yet these days I see more people carrying film cameras than dedicated DSLRs. If you’re shooting color-reversal film - say, something like Portra from Kodak, then believe me, digital cannot match that exposure curve, and the beauty of those colors. I shoot about half digital - half film these days, because of the cost. But it’s the film images that are truly special.

pathartl 4y ago
It's interesting how in this age of displays and video we're finally shedding the idea of 8 bits per channel. The stuff I've been shooting in film I've been scanning in with a Flextight Precision II which has a sensor that claims to have a 16 bit DAC per channel. Scanning in RGB 16 bit definitely helps with color banding. However, it's kinda like having access to a video camera that records in 16K, but you're only going to be able to view it on a 4K display. What's really interesting is if you use an old film recorder like a Lasergraphics LFR M3 (something in the $25,000 range in 1998) and don't mind dropping to a max resolution of 8K and 12 bits per channel, you can somewhat preserve that RGB16 image back to film. Like yeah, this was professional level equipment in the tens of thousands of dollars in the late 90's, but some of the consumer technologies still haven't caught up. It speaks volumes to how limited the human eye is and how much technology surpassed it a long time ago.