To be a graphic designer in the fast-paced professional design world takes a lot of creativity, and plenty of savvy technical skills. To name a few, a graphic designer must know a lot about web interfaces, typography, sketching, and professionalism when dealing with employers or clients. Aside from all of these skills, these days graphic designers have been incorporating photography into their work more and more. In fact, photography classes have even become a staple in most graphic design degree programs. However, a graphic design school student begins to learn about photography, how are they to know the advantages and disadvantages of shooting film photography vs. digital photography? Below is a thorough breakdown of the benefits and pitfalls of both photography mediums.
The truth is that film came first. Film cameras have obviously been around for much longer than digital ones. In fact, the first image was captured on film in 1826 by a French scientist named Joseph Ni矇pce. Since then, film has come a long way. In the early 1900's the first film cameras were mass-produced and made available to the general public. Since then, cameras have become regular household items for the masses. Though digital photography has risen in popularity since the 20th century, many people still prefer to shoot with film for many reasons. First off, film is rather easy to obtain. If you have a solid camera, you can pop into just about any chain drugstore and buy rolls of film to load your camera with.
You can also buy a disposable film camera for just about the same price as a pack of film. Secondly, many argue that the quality of image on film negatives is higher than the average digital camera's image quality. Additionally, negatives are light and easily stored, and if you keep them in a small box you have access to reprint your photos whenever you want. When you keep negatives, you have physical copies of your images that don't take up digital space, and aren't in danger of being lost if a hard drive or a computer crashes. You can also scan your negatives onto a computer if you should wish to store them that way. Film images often come out with extremely saturated color and an old-fashioned looking, grainy touch. Graphic design school students might find that they can use this old-fashioned effect to their advantage when working with photography images.
On the other hand, the possibilities of digital technology seem endless in today's world, and digital photography is no exception. Once you spend the money on a digital camera and memory cards, your images are free, whereas you must pay to develop negatives when working with film. Since the images are less expensive to produce, you have the freedom to shoot many more images, and put less pressure on each exposure to turn out well since you can shoot a limitless amount of images. You also have the advantage of instant feedback when working with a digital camera.
Instead of waiting until your negatives are processed, the LCD screen on the camera lets you see the image immediately after you have shot it. You also have the advantage of being able to digitally change the film speed and shutter speed settings, whereas on a film camera you would have to adjust them manually. The digital camera certainly has many advantages over film photography methods, however there are some major setbacks as well. Digital images can only be stored, well, digitally! That means that there is a risk of losing them if hard drive or computer technology happened to fail on you (which it often does).
Whether you choose to shoot with a film or a digital camera, you must keep your images fresh and creative if you want to achieve success as a graphic designer!
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