They all take the same exact pictures. It's literally a machine that opens and closes a curtain to let light reach film in specific "quantities".
What makes an analog camera better than another? Price, reliability, and repairability.
Different digital cameras produce results different from one brand to another. Film cameras don't. They produce the exact same results.
You can opt for a fully manual camera, or a programable automatic camera to do the job for you. The pictures will still be the same though.
It's funny back in the day photographers hated grain, and film companies like Fuji and Kodak were always trying to get the finest and most unnoticeable grains. Nowadays it's not quite so, grain and imperfections are sometimes desirable and more attractive.
I think most film photographers nowadays are just hipster snobs, but there is also some people interested in making longer enduring images, negatives that contrary to a digital file they can manage with their hands, pass on to another person, images that will slowly decay over with time and develop new characteristics, like these very same people are getting biologically older!
I've shot many different film cameras, both stills and motion, and many digital cameras, with many different lenses. I don't think one is better than the other, but I do think digital has reached a point where it has technically become "better" than film, and now you can easily replicate a film look with a digital camera. We don't project film anymore, we see it in our digital screens, we edit it with digital software, and we have digital cameras that have far more dynamic range and resolution than film, so I honestly believe you can get the same look. But it's not about the difference in look that matters to me. It's mainly how we relate with the "shortcomings" of film, and how that experience of only having 36 exposures or 5 minutes of expensive motion impacts our workflows and our minds.
Film is good at reminding us that there the pursuit of perfect is futile, and what truly makes something special relies solely on how excited or focused you are when doing it. Film easily puts photographers or a film crew "in the zone". Like if they were all smoking this metaphorical joint. Of course it feels special, you can't control it so much because you can't imeditally see its results, and its expensive and requires development and all these photo-chemical wizardries... In an age of the instantaneous gratification of the digital, film teaches about slowing down and embracing imperfections. I believe that's a good thing.
But I honestly prefer digital, any time of the day, any project... Or maybe, let me put it this way... I want to prefer digital.
I think about this:
If I were to visit a community of people who never handled any type of camera, and I would give them two cameras to choose from to film their daily lives or stories, one film camera and one digital camera. I think the excitement and commitment to producing special images would be greater on the digital camera, because the look is irrelevant to them, they would just want to see the images they're getting. I want to be that way. I want to feel as inspired with a digital camera as I am with a film camera. I've learned everything about film procedures and workflows, I developed my understanding on what makes it special, now I try to take that approach into the digital domain. And there's a lot amazing vantages, its so much cheaper, it produces much less waste and consumes much less resources, etc.
I've been a fan of Fujifilm X digital cameras because I embrace the film emulations as if they were real film stocks, I tuck away the back screen to fool myself I'm making something special, but I use full auto on 95% of my photos, and that sponteneity has given me results I really like! I only shoot JPEG, dont care about raw. There is nothing more to go after in post production that will add meaning to the photos.
If I were a DOP on an artistic job I would shoot with LUTS and Textures baked in the camera, dont care about colorist or DIT.
You know what they're doing with movies shot on film nowadays? Including in many films I worked on as Focus Puller? The colorist removes all the "noise" from the scan, with these new AI algorithms, make them perfectly clean and digital, and then they add digital grain to the image! I look at the results and say "wow, that looks good". But... Something just seems wrong here... You imagine the chemical waste that developing film generates? And besides that - I know what I'm talking about, that's why I'm not a YouTuber - what's the point of shooting film? So we shoot film now just to make the DoP and Director and team feel special and more engaged with the job? The answer is yes. Is that worth it? My answer is NO.
I'm a bit tired of being a Camera Assistant, because I see times and trends passing and transforming. And now I feel that we spend hundreds of thousands in gathering conditions that make the team feel special about what they are doing, and thus that will result in a better film. Yes, I believe that happens, whenever I shoot film everyone is more engaged and focused. But again, is it worth it? Now that we are digitizing film, denoising it, and applying another film look on top? A DoP earns a lot of money, so does a director. Do they really deserve to feel special in being given the opportunity to shoot kms of film? Isn't there a resource and climate crisis going on? And also an economical one?
I love digital, and I love film. But honestly, we would be building a better future if we killed film and all its resources and chemicals. Maybe digital just need a new revolution, and I believe Fujifilm started this revolution with the film simulations and the tucked away screen of the X-Pro3. That hybrid Fuji Instax Evo or whatever its called, its a digital camera with a printer built in, maybe this is the right approach. Trying to make digital more palpable and less predictable.
I forgot to speak about lenses, what I think about lenses... I love lenses and optics, I would love to study more about that topic as I find it fascinating for scientific purposes. For narrative or artistic purposes, I find it a bit futile discussion... There are more "perfect" lenses and less "perfect lenses". They are responsible for at least 50% of the final look, but I don't really care about them... I like lenses that are small, light and weather resistant, and I also love auto focus (I'm focus puller, lol). But I also love old lenses that breathe and distort and vignette. So I'm not sure what to tell you about lenses. Get the cheapest, if you're shooting motion, get the one that breathes the least. Ordinary people notice breathing on lens rack focusing, and I believe it takes them a bit away of "the zone". It's like a subconscious visual reminder that what they are seeing was staged and someone is behind the camera manipulating it. But that can be desirable in some project, I just personally dont like it that much. I also don't like super sharp lenses, neither the most common of mortals. We like a bit of imperfection, a bit of glow, a softer contrast, a naughty flare... But hey, your audience doesn't care what lens you used, so my main advice about lenses is: don't waste much time thinking about them, just choose something you like and live with it.
This is an interesting topic for me, so maybe I'll update it in the future.
This series of what I think about stuff is written in the most informal way I can, I dont delete anything and just type as if I were whatsapping someone.
