For Those That Regularly Use Film Simulation..Why not shoot film

[BWColor]

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Is it cost, high ISO performance, lack of immediate feedback, something else?

Of course many shoot digital and film, so this is directed at JPG film simulation.  It strikes me that jpg is the fastest route to an end product and film is way on the other end of the spectrum.

[bobtodrick]

I shoot primarily digital.  A smattering of film.  Have a well equipped darkroom capable of printing both B&W and color.  Gotta admit it does not see much use lately.  I can pretty accurately simulate my favorite B&W film (Tri-X) digitally and the current Hahnemuhle paper I am using has the look and feel of Kodak Elite fibre base paper that I used when it was available.

Instead of hours in t he darkroom I can sit at my computer for 45 minutes, sipping a Scotch and put out an end product that is in my opinion equal to what I got out of the darkroom.  And then there is the issue of making multiple copies...if I needed to do so in the darkroom each print would have to be dodge/burned/adjusted...all taking time.  Now I make the adjustments in Photoshop once and then print out however many I need. (I usually to editions of ten prints).

To me photography is all about the final image.  I know there a people who feel the journey is more important than the destination, but not me.

[lct]

Too painflul to develop. When i had no digital cameras i preferred transparencies and having to use a screen was rather painful too. Digital has been a liberation for me. YMMV.

[Chris W]

Cost and hassle.

I dipped back into film about three years ago. Developing was extremely expensive, then the actual film stock started to go up too.

I have boxes of negatives from the 90's and it's painful scanning them, then cleaning them up (for dust, scratches etc).

I'm not that fussed about grain, so for me film simulation is more about trying some different colour or B&W presets, which I usually tweak quite a bit anyway.

[Eoin]

Film is so 1990’s, develop with chemicals, washing, drying, printing, developing, washing, drying, cleaning up and disposal…. I spent countless hours of my life in a darkroom in pursuit of the print and have happy memories.

In 2025 and for at least a decade before, film as a medium holds no attraction or relevance, given the relatively simple digital workflow. 
 

 

[250swb]

And with so many people now saying they only use unmolested out-of-camera JPEG's has the craft of photography finally been forgotten?

Fortunately there are many people who don't mind rolling their sleeves up and doing a bit of work. It is the law of diminishing returns as to how much better film Tri-X  is over computer generated Tri-X, but it is the sort of thing a craftsman can appreciate, care about, and artistically put to good use. But for all you guys having to do odd-jobs this weekend and feel you don't have the time remember this, that shelf doesn't really need to be level does it, the lawn can last another week before cutting, and you can always stop in bed feigning a bad back. 

[Chris W]

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Wow, every line dripping with contempt.

Most of the best photographers I know are professional. Not one would ever consider shooting film. Many are taking artistic images, not just shooting as a job, for news magazines or demanding clients. They just don't see any benefit to employing film.

[lct]

The Real Leica Man is supposed to suffer to make good photos Just kidding.

[250swb]

7 hours ago, Chris W said:

Wow, every line dripping with contempt.

Most of the best photographers I know are professional. Not one would ever consider shooting film. Many are taking artistic images, not just shooting as a job, for news magazines or demanding clients. They just don't see any benefit to employing film.

Well if it weren't for 'time' being trotted out ad nauseum about the switch to digital and the argument was instead led from some sort of intellectual standpoint you wouldn't all sound like lazy slackers. 😁 

[evikne]

I started photography as a serious hobby in the late 2000s. Back then, a digital SLR was the hottest thing you could get your hands on. My experience with film development is limited to a few elective classes at school.

So I started a little too late. But after I migrated to Leica and digital M, I have been greatly influenced (especially on this forum) to try film. However, I have not yet been able to afford to buy another camera, and I am afraid that film development would also be too expensive. 

I have tried out a number of film simulations, not primarily to imitate any particular film types, but more because I like the analog look in general.

So I will probably continue like this, both for convenience and economy.

[Carlos cruz]

On 8/21/2025 at 3:36 PM, BWColor said:

Is it cost, high ISO performance, lack of immediate feedback, something else?

I bet everyone at the start with digital cameras fell for high iso, that you can switch mid roll, immediate feedback. But there are some things one misses from film days, each process and stock had characteristic look, element of surprise after developing, printing.
 I still prefer neatly organised negs with contact sheets to terabytes of raw files on external disks. It took me few years to learn that with digital every push of the button generates costs too, mainly your time in front of the screen. I still keep my film cameras in vain hope I’ll shoot them more often.  

[Erato]

Paradoxically, the more cameras (lenses), the less creative.

Point of Diminishing Returns, it's relevant to product line investment and returns, ROI, the ratio of manufacturing productivity benchmarks 

Law of diminishing marginal utility refer to QoE, it's all about customer satisfaction oriented benchmarks.

Edited August 30 by Erato

[Stuart Richardson]

I guess the thread has quieted down a little, but I would add an extra use. I don't use film simulation all the time, but in certain contexts it can be useful. When I was making a book and exhibition out of one of my projects, I used an older, much more intensive film simulation program to help make the images match better in a triptych. I had an image that was a collage of 4x5 and 6x7cm photos, and then two photos from the Leica S006. I used TrueGrain to layer a film grain over the images, because at the very large sizes I wanted to print them at (140x170), the smoothness of the digital was apparent in comparison to the film photos they were next to. Of all the film simulations I have used, TrueGrain was the most accurate looking one to me, as it layered actual scans of film grain over the existing image. The grain was often too intense though, so it required a lot of attenuation. It also offered curves and spectro-mapping, but I don't think either of them were as useful. In general, I have never found a "one click" film simulation that looked anything like an actual film. Every time something says it is "Portra" or "Kodakchrome" etc, it never looks like it to me. I still use film from 35mm to 8x10 in B&W, E6 and C41 and do all the processing and scanning myself at my studio. Film simulations are generally just a slight shortcut, but still require a lot of tuning.

The only other one I use with any regularity is the Cobalt Imaging Tmax simulation. It is not perfect, but it does tend to help restrain the highlights and give a bit more of a "tmax" vibe than the Adobe monochrome profile. But I still adjust every photo individually.

 

 

[jaapv]

On 8/22/2025 at 7:01 PM, evikne said:

I started photography as a serious hobby in the late 2000s. Back then, a digital SLR was the hottest thing you could get your hands on. My experience with film development is limited to a few elective classes at school.

So I started a little too late. But after I migrated to Leica and digital M, I have been greatly influenced (especially on this forum) to try film. However, I have not yet been able to afford to buy another camera, and I am afraid that film development would also be too expensive. 

I have tried out a number of film simulations, not primarily to imitate any particular film types, but more because I like the analog look in general.

So I will probably continue like this, both for convenience and economy.

Vintage non-Leica film cameras - often very good ones- cost virtually nothing

[pgh]

Film simulations are mostly a misnomer. What they usually are, or can be, are useful starting point for a consistent and stylized look in batches of digital images. 
Actual film, especially color negative film, is too dynamic from image to image to accurately make a good simulation as far as I’ve seen. I love color negative but if you make your own profile to invert the same film stock across multiple situations even with consistent exposures they vary enough to tell you any simulation is just that, and really well scanned film looks like something approaching a fairly neutral digital file more often than not (in terms of color, not texture). 
Love me some 35 and 120 though. 

Edited September 9 by pgh