1. Aesthetics. The Look of Film vs. Digital
First of all, this is not a scientific experiment. Many of my declarations of “winners” between film and digital are subjective, and many of the variables in my comparisons could be manipulated. For instance, color or grain could be changed in Photoshop to an extent. However, I still think all of these are useful baseline comparisons for understanding the differences between film and digital photography.
All of the film examples were shot on a Contax 645 with Zeiss 80mm/2.0 lens on 120mm Fujicolor 400H film and processed by Richard Photo Lab.
All of the digital examples were shot on a Canon 5D MkII with various lenses and processed by me in Photoshop.
Color:
The number one thing I hear about the look of film is that skin tones look great. Color on film is often dependent on specific film types. It is also dependent on the lab that processes it. But based on what I’ve seen, the hype is true. I prefer the color that comes straight from my film. Here are four examples of the color that came out of my cameras. The top two were film, and the bottom two were digital. See the technical specs above.