What's the difference between a film camera and a digital camera?
Film uses a silver halide base technology which means we have a piece of plastic or the film base coated with an emulsion with a silver solution, so that when the light strikes the film, the silver tarnishes, turns dark and then is developed to create a negative. The negative is then put in an enlarging machine and printed. That's how we get the prints we see. That's how film works. Digital works a little bit differently in that you have an imaging chip that sees the light coming in, converts the light to electronic energy, and is then processed and saved on a memory card. The memory card is then taken to the computer and then you can print it there. So the bottom line is we have two tools: digital camera, film camera. Both take pictures. If you want a comparison, the way I like to compare digital versus film is you have a synthesizer or you have a piano. One makes acoustic music, one makes digital music. You have a barbeque and you have a microwave oven. One is analog technology- the barbeque. One is digital technology- the microwave oven. They both cook food but the taste and feel of the food is different. The taste and feel of the music between synthesizer and piano is different. The taste and feel of the picture between digital is different because film is a living, breathing thing where as digital is electronic. We generally find in the analog world we have more feel, more soul to the picture where the digital world is very cut and dry. And that's why I feel film and digital will still coexist for many, many years.
