> This is a bunch of retro-grouch reverse-snobbism hogwash. The advice isn’t bullshit, but neither is it some technique that will “improve your photography sig

> This is a bunch of retro-grouch reverse-snobbism hogwash. The advice isn’t bullshit, but neither is it some technique that will “improve your photography significantly.” People who draw will do all sorts of weird exercises to develop their skills. This includes targeted practice, and yes, digital artists will sometimes practice with pen and paper. I see that practice as being kindred with the photographers who shoot on film as an exercise. Mostly, it just encourages you to spend more effort visualizing the end result before you press the shutter release on your camera. It’s not some powerful technique to unlock your skills, but neither is it snake oil or hogwash. It’s easy to get stuck in habits, and one of the habits you can get into in photography is to just take a ton of pictures, hoping that one of them will look good. Maybe you just keep taking pictures and making adjustments until you get the right picture. Spending some time with film just forces you to break the habit. It would be nice if you could just tell somebody to slow down and think about what they’re doing, but we’ve got these messy human brains which don’t always follow our instructions as well as we’d like. > Even the most serious, dedicated, methodical beginner will find it all exhausting unless they're practically autistic. We used to teach film photography to ordinary high school students, maybe age 15 or so. I don’t think our current generation of high school students is substantially different. > Film has terrible dynamic range… This depends on the type of film you use. B&W film has phenomenal dynamic range. Color negative film has excellent dynamic range. Color positive film has narrow dynamic range. If you shoot slides, you have to be damn precise with your shots. B&W negatives are very forgiving as long as you don’t underexpose them too much†. The dynamic range of B&W film is probably higher than the capacity of your lens to produce a high-contrast image. If you took pictures pointing your camera into a laser beam, or pointing into the sun, your picture would get overwhelmed by flare. †Likewise, digital is very forgiving as long as you don’t overexpose.