Film vs. Digital (Not What You Think!)

To yesterday's "I Feel Old" post, Steve Jacob wrote:

I bought my first SLR in 1981. I bought my first digital camera in 1999. It's now 2019. I have officially been a digital photographer for longer than I was a film photographer. It just doesn't seem like it because time passes so much faster when you get older.

Interesting thing to look at, I thought.

I caught the photography bug but good in 1980 when my Mom's first cousin's wife asked me to do a portrait of their family (we summered with them so I knew them well), and by 1982, after two years of being frankly obsessed with photography, I had enrolled in photography school. Although I used a digital camera for the first time in 1997 (a loan from Agfa of venerated memory), I didn't own my first digital camera until 2003. But I gave up my darkroom in 2000 so I hadn't done any developing or printing since then (the film I exposed in 2000–2003 I never developed. It's still in a box in the barn).

But actually I'd been pretty interested in photography since 7th grade (age 12) when I shot six 12-exposure rolls of Kodak Instamatic film on a class trip to Washington D.C. I did another six-roll project, with an SLR this time and 36-exposure rolls of 35mm, on a European trip when I was 14, and had a show in the dining room of my high school when I was 16. So really, I was a film photographer from 1969 to 2000, 31 years, and I would have to go till 2034 before I equal that in digital.

So my numbers are 31 and 16: 31 years with film (1969–2000), 16 with digital (2003–2019).

How about you? You don't need to give us the rundown; just the numbers will do. Plus any comment you might care to make.

I'm going to be disappointed if there aren't at least a few people whose first number is zero—and I'm curious to see whether there's anyone whose second number is zero!

Mike
(Thanks to Steve Jacob)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Fritz: "Fifty-four and 16."

Dennis: "Zero and 16. Not counting some use of disposable cameras on family trips and whatnot. Got a Canon point-and-shoot in 2003, been at it with a variety of equipment since with a lean period between 2014–2018."

Bill Pearce: "Thirty-one, 20. The first number includes the transition years, where I shot film and had a lab scan it so I could use PS as needed and then place in publications. I miss the direct to-the-point nature of film. For the last ten or 15 years of my film career, I went out with a Hasselblad and a couple of rolls of film and never even used a light meter. The tyranny of menus was never a problem. I have seen no evidence that all the micro adjusments and the 'flexibility' of bloated camera menus have improved photos the slightest bit."

Bob Curtis: "Sixty-five and zero."

Mike replies: Hard core!

Peter: "It's interesting the assumption is that people start in film and move to digital—maybe reflective of the age of the readers here (older), whereas many millennials start in digital and move to film. As an oldster myself: 12 (film), two (digital), 12 (film)."

Sixblockseast: "About 16 and 14 for me. Transitioned to digital around 2005 with a Canon point-and-shoot, made my way to Samsung mirrorless in 2012 or so, and now Fuji since 2016, so I actually never owned a true DSLR! I do not miss film one bit, especially not the widely varying quality of retail developers/printers."

Greg: "Sixteen analog and 17 digital All my digital photos are sorted, backed up multiple times and sorted in different locations as well as tagged for fast searching (under 1 minute if I have the right key words). Scanning the slides and negatives I have left is this Winter's project."

Doug Vaughn: "Film 26, digital 19, film again 5."

Henning Wulff (partial comment): "I have glass plates that my grandfather shot as well as slides, so he made that transition."

Joost: "Film: 0-ish, Digital: 15. Though I've at times done some analog shooting, as a kid with my parents camera, later for fun, no more than 300 exposures. I did develop and print most of those myself. The feedback-loop for analog was just too long for me."

David Bateman (partial comment): "Seven digital, then two film, now eight digital."

Comments

[Charlie Ewers]

33 "serious" film (doesn't count my childhood Brownie Bullet), 17 digital (interrupted by a very, very brief foray into 4x5 film).

[John Krumm]

I first started with digital in 2002 maybe, with a 3 mp Canon, maybe a G series I forget, but it was nice. It was bought by the PTA for the school newspaper I advised, picked out by me, but I had fun playing with it and learning it. We printed some pretty massive spreads with those files too. So that's 17 years (got a Fuji 3mp superzoom a year later that even shot raw).

For film, I used cameras on an off, all non seriously, from maybe 1971-2003. So 32 years. Never used a dark room, so digital has been my only "serious" time with the hobby.

[Malcolm Myers]

18:19.

Although I still shoot a lot of film so perhaps it should be 37:19.

[Kenneth Wajda]

1974 started in 35mm film and never stopped. Added digital in 2000. Added Medium Format and Large Format film in 2008. So, 44 - 19 - 11. Why does one have to stop using watercolors just because they start using oils?

[Chip McDaniel]

I started as a film photographer in 1970 and have pursued it ever since, although I did have a few multi-year fallow periods with photography when education and career intervened. Now that I am retired, I spend a lot of time shooting.

Since 2005, I have had digital cameras and have come to use them exclusively for color photography. I still shoot more film than digital though, because I prefer to shoot black and white, and I seem to be able to produce better B&W work with film. At some point I will try to devote enough time to learning to produce digital B&W workflow that I like. I use mostly medium format film, and I like the deliberateness of it. As do many other photographers, I think my hit rate is higher by being forced to slow down and think by a big, clunky camera.

[Rene]

It was 1971 when I first encountered photography in a serious way. I was a budding freelance journalist on a trip to the Middle East. A friend generously lent me their Minolta SRT 101 for three month while I travelled through Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan reporting on life there for everyday people. I had less than a day's instruction and the camera manual to help me understand what to do. I shot about 50 rolls of transparencies as I was planning a slide show for talks when I came back. Strangely most of them were well exposed!

I continued to shoot film until 2011 when I was going to Japan and didn't want to hassle with film and X-ray exposure, etc. (Remember those concerns?) when I bought a Pentax DSLR on Mike's advice (via a private email). Shooting with Olympus m43 today well into my 70's.

[William OBrien]

Mike,
Interesting question;
Film = 49 and Digital = 18.
Darkroom Years 43

Bill

[David Zivic]

FILM-48 years and still counting.
Digital-13 years and still counting.
I still do a roll every year with my Nikon F3.
I live in a small Pueblo in Baja. I need to take the bus to La Paz and walk 2 miles, in 100°F temperature to the store. The proprietor waits until there are enough rolls to do a batch, usually about a month. He gives me a memory stick for the photographs. Often I use 2 lenses over 50 years old. One a Nikkor, the other a Nippon Koguka. They have been aftermarket AI ed. I have a Novaflex adapter and I use them also on a Sony mirrorless camera.

[Keith]

This is a more complicated question than it first appears. But lets simplify, and assume you mean 'serious' photography, not dabbling with point and shoot snapshots. In that case my numbers are zero and three.
There was about 10 or 15 years of sometimes carrying around a cheap 35 mm point and shoot, developing the film in a lab every once in a longish while, always surprised what we got back.
The first digital camera was bought about 2004 and was stolen so I have no idea what it was. The second was bought in Europe out of necessity in 2008 or so. It was a Nikon Coolpix 8 megapixels, 1600ISO point and shoot, w a 3x digital zoom 5.7-17.1 mm f2.8-4.7 lens. I have it in hand and I'm almost tempted to charge the battery and try it out. Then an iPhone 4, and 6 from 2010 to 2016, then a T6i, then 6Dmk2. So are my numbers 15 and 14?

[Roger Bradbury]

42 (1967 to 2009)
I started off with a Diana camera at about the age of 8, and shot just one 12 exposure film with it. Then in about 1971 or 1972 I used an SLR for the first time.

I carried an early Dacora Dignette (also sold as an early Ilford Sportsman) with me everywhere until sand got in it.

10 (2009 to 2019)
In 2009 I bought a DSLR, and I don't use film very much now. I would still like to get a darkroom running again, though.

[Ned Bunnell]

33 and 17. Another set of numbers you should have asked, for me, is 6 and 6.

[Okay, I'll bite. What is the significance of 6 and 6? --Mike]

[mark]

Film, 1964 - 2011= 47 Still have these cameras....35mm, 6x6,
6x7, 6x17 and 4x5.

Digital, 2006 - 2019= 13 Full frame and Micro Four Thirds

[Dave Stewart]

Using my own cameras:
- Film since 1981
- Digital since 2004
As the number of years for both is still increasing, digital years won't overtake film years!

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

I am 39 and 16. Discovered photography watching a classmate's print come up in the developer in the school darkroom and thought that was the coolest thing ever. I was 12 in 1964. In a couple of years, I discovered the second best thing about photography and that it was a great way to meet girls. It's been love ever since.

[Larry Mart]

My numbers are 43 and 18. Serious photography began at age 12 and this month I turned 73.

Film cameras included just about every format through 8x10. My first digital was a Sony F707.

[David L.]

Film: 53
Digital:13

[Robert Ardinger]

1971-2003 film with darkroom. Digital 2003 to present with several transition years (2003 to 2009) with continued use of film and darkroom along with digital. After 2009 darkroom used only for film developing and all printing done digitally. Still with one film camera used once a year or so (maybe).

32 years film and 16 years digital.

[John Igel]

28 & 16

[Richard Alan Fox]

48 years of film.
16 years of digital.

I photograph every day and look forward to the next.

[William Schneider]

Dad had a darkroom, so I had a head start. My first camera was the Ansco Cadet seen in this cropped-in photo from a 1959 Canadian vacation.

So,

52 years film
15 years digital, with some overlap

BTW, I have memories of my home-town camera store before Japanese cameras became popular. I recall seeing mostly Kodak Retinas in the front display case.

[Michael Eckstein]

Film-48 years
Digital-21 years

[Al]

Hi Mike,

Film from 1972 or so until about 2003 or 2004. Film started with Minolta SRT101, ended with Nikon D80 I believe.
Digital started with a Canon 3.1 mp super zoom on a trip to Tunisia in October 2004. I bought it to see if that digital thing was any good. It surprised me. Digital since then.

[Hugh Lovell]

My numbers are 39 and 20.

[David Evans]

Film 46 years 1956-2002 (but only about 40 with an interchangeable lens camera)
Digital 17 years 2002-2019

[Stephen McCullough]

Hi
Mike

Film from about 1972 to 2003, then again from 2012 in a small way - and now about 50% of my photography is film

Digital since 2003

[c.d.embrey]

I tossed a Kodak Baby Brownie Special (1938 - 1954) https://camerapedia.fandom.com/wiki/Kodak_Baby_Brownie_Special into my duffle bag in 1960. I used it to document my time in the US Army.

My first SLR was a Pentacon Six, that I purchased in the late 1960s. It was stollen in the early 1970s. I replaced it with both a Canon Elan 7n (film) and a Canon 20D (digital) in 2006. During the intervening years I shot motion. Do the thousands of feet of film I ran through a movie camera count?

[Benjamin Marks]

Quote: "the film I exposed in 2000–2003 I never developed. It's still in a box in the barn." LOL. Me too. I even have some 8x10 sheets from 2007 or so . . .

Really got into photography in 1978 (with a borrowed camera). Actually developed my own prints (1984) before I owned my own camera (1985).

First digital camera was a Sony Mavica in 2000, but I didn't really start burning electrons until the purchase of a Canon Rebel in 2004 or so.

So: 19 and 19, but there's some overlap there. If you need the periods to be contiguous, then 23-film and 15 digital.

You know, though, last week I was trolling (in the old sense) on e-bay looking for some Neopan 400. I was thinking of treating each shot on a 36-exposure roll as if I were exposing it in a view camera -- that is, one image per subject, carefully composed, 36 different subjects in different lighting situations. Trying for 36 "keepers" out of 36. Just thinking about it. Does that mean I can re-start my "film-clock" in this thought experiment? ;)

[Patrick Cooney]

41 years with film followed by 23 years with digital, to date. With a bit of luck, my total digital years may yet catch up to my film ones.

[Christer]

10 no camera, 64 film and 7 digital. Makes 81.

[JOHN K FRIAR]

34-14

[Victor Bloomfield]

27 years film (1973-2000), 18 years digital (2001-2019). When I traveled overseas, I tended to shoot about three 36-exposure rolls of Kodachrome a day (expensive!). Now it's about 100-150 digital exposures a day. So the reduced cost of digital hasn't led to lots more shooting. And, after editing, a 140-slide show (one carousel) is comparable to a Blurb book of 100-150 photos for a major trip.

[Andreas Weber]

I must have gotten my first own camera around 1985, my first digital exposures were from 2001 (with a compact) and I actually switched to digital in 2006 (with Nikon's D200).

[dierk]

my first negatives are from 1956, made with the 6x9 Agfa Box of my mother and I still have them. Since then I took many thousand pictures on film and slides.
Since 2001 I shoot digital most of the time and have been glad not to use chemicals anymore.
Since last year I shoot analog again from 24x66 panorama, 6x6 to 6x17 and 4×5" and with two pinhole cameras

and I love it more than digital now :-)

[Paulo M]

Film= 35 years; Digital = 15 years

The transition year was 2005 when film and digital coexisted peacefully, but by the end of that year I got a Canon 5D and the rest is history. But I did developed ALL my exposed films.

[Jeff]

37 and 10

[Omer]

Film: 1975 to 2000. Burned out and quit photography.

Digital: 2007 to 2019. My first digital camera was in the first iPhone.

While my film years double my digital time, my digital stuff is double that of my film gear.

And now, of course, I’m trying to emulate film.

Think I’ll go out and steal something.

[Keith B.]

41F/13D (63 years old currently)
1965: Diana camera. Instamatic 104 until...
1969: Praktica Super TL. Pentax, Nikon, Olympus, Contax RTS, Leica, Pentax, Nikon until...
2006: DSLR, DSLR, etc.

[Ken Lunders]

36/17

[Francisco Cubas]

24 and 15

[Jim Henry]

50 film starting with a Brownie Hawkeye
15 digital;currently a Sony A7 III.

@Mike: You and Vivian Maier. You don't have the same excuse, tho.

[Joe Holmes]

36 and 16.

[Stephen Cowdery]

41 and 13.

I still shot 120 film after getting a digital P/S in 2006 but it was airport xray hassles with film that ended it for me. The first couple of digital cameras I had weren't very good, but now they are all great.

[AlanH]

54, if I go back all the way to when I started shooting film at about age 12. 40, based on starting serious LF photography. 19 for digital.

[JohnW]

Bought my first 35mm camera in 1962 and my first digital in 2006. So 44:13. Of that 18 years with a Rolleiflex and 27 years with Canon film and digital gear. Even more madly in love with photography now.

[Tim Bradshaw]

My numbers are 30 and zero.

30 is based on 1989 when I bought the first Pentax MX I owned. I took pictures, and processed film & made prints before this, probably back to the early 1970s (I was born at the end of 1962), but mostly only in the sense that everyone does that (well, perhaps not processing & printing, but a lot of people did do that too).

Zero is based on: well, I have a couple of digital cameras which I do use & I might buy more if they die. But I take far more photographs with film cameras than digital; I have never printed a digital image, but I spend as much time as I can in the darkroom (we are going to build a new one this year), and I have no intention at all of changing that.

So, is that zero? I think it is.

Why do I have no intention of changing? I enjoy making prints in the darkroom (and I enjoy it even more on the rare occasions where I'm proud of the photograph itself) and using simple, well-made cameras. On the other hand I've worked with increasingly overcomplicated, increasingly ephemeral machines for longer than my whole working life, and I stopped enjoying it a long time ago. So, well, I think I'll keep doing what I enjoy.

(None of this is intended to be rude to anyone who uses digital cameras!)

[James Bullard]

Approximately 45, 1957 to around 2002 with film. About 25 years with digital. There is overlap because I didn't consider digital a 'serious' medium until the first 4MP camera that I could afford came out. I had 'messed around' with digital starting in the mid 90s.

[marcin wuu]

Got my first camera at the age of eight or nine. East German Praktica LLC, a horrible contraption, but I guess I was lucky - back then if you were on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, what you had was usually a semi working Zenit, and let me tell you, if there's a camera that defines the term "the worst slr ever" it's a Zenit. Slowly upgraded to more manageable Canons and Minoltas. Got my first digital around the turn of the century, a Sony Mavica, 1.3mpix, running on 3,5" diskettes. Six photos of "high quality" (yeah, right) makes in onto one such diskette, or four seconds of VGA video. Then, around 2010-ish went back to film for good - the digital just doesn't cut it for me. So my numbers would be roughly 20-10-10, film, digital, film respectively. Altough the second film period is more of a hybrid - shoot film, scan and proceed in Photoshop as if nothing happened.

[Egils Zarins]

36 film, 18 digital.

[John Y.]

I started fairly young, getting quite a bit of use out of the family’s disc and later 110 format cameras. Call it 1986 (I distinctly remember using it a lot on a trip to Montana that year). I evidently showed enough interest and aptitude that a family friend gave me an old Minolta SLR on long-term loan sometime in junior high; I ultimately got my own SLR around 1994 or so.

On the digital side, I got my first digital camera in 2001 and experimented with using it as my sole camera on a lengthy road trip, but I was ultimately unhappy with the resolution and primarily used film until I got the first digital rebel when that came out in 2004. This probably marks the point when I was primarily digital, although I didn’t divest of my film cameras for several years.

So, call it 17 years film, 16 years digital. I guess next year is my turning point. Funny to think of it that way, because those consumer cameras in the 80s feel like ancient history, whereas that digital rebel feels like just yesterday.

[Frank Figlozzi]

Film Exclusively: 51 years (1951 - 2002)

"Overlap years" - some film, some digital: 12 years (2002 - 2014).
My first digital camera was an Olympus 5050 but I just couldn't stop using my Nikons: N-80, N-8080 and D-90.

Digital Exclusively (with Fuji): 5 years (2014 - present)

I don't think I'll live long enough to see my digital years equal my film years.

FrankF

[John]

26-19 not counting the overlap of several years where I had digital but mostly still used film.

[Ronny Nilsen]

Film: 21
Digital: 15

Went digital only in 2004. But I waited too long to switch. DSLR surpassed the image quality of SLR a year or two earlier...

[John Holland]

Film: 46 years and counting (still shoot about 15-20 rolls a year)
Digital: 15 years

[Denis Mook]

32 and 18

[Sal Santamaura]

59 and 11. This morning I toned some 5x7 and 8x10 contacts as well as enlargements from roll film. Last week I made inkjet prints from digital camera-originated files. It's all photography. :-)

[Tom Burke]

30 (1975 to 2005) and 20 (1999 to 2019), with about 8 years of overlap. For 10 years or so, starting in 1985, I did my own D&P at home, so those would be my most intensive film years.

[Michael Purcell]

Developed my first print at 5 years old,got a minolta TLR when I was 13, used the first digital in 1995 and purchased my own in 1999. So that would be either 72 or 66 years film and 20 digital. Still process c-41 in the kitchen sink.

[Dogman]

My first camera was a freebie, ordered through the mail with a clipped coupon from some item or other my parents purchased. Sometime thereafter my parents gave me a Christmas present of a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye outfit--camera, flash, flash bulbs. No idea what years those were, I just recall those fixed focus box cameras of the time.

My first adjustable 35mm camera was a Mamiya-Sekor 500 DTL with 50mm f/2 lens. I got interested in photography after visiting a friend one weekend. My friend was using a borrowed Pentax Spotmatic to take pictures of people so he could make sketches. I liked his drugstore B&W prints he had made better than the drawings he had. This must have been in 1972 or 73 based on my fuzzy memory of the time. Within a year I had a darkroom and a couple of used Nikon F bodies with a few lenses (and a suffering checking account).

My first digital camera was bought in 2007. It was a Canon 30D DSLR with 8MP. I had been using Canon film SLRs so I already had several lenses. But I really disliked that camera for the first year or so that I owned it. Finally in 2008 I made a photo that I liked a lot and I decided digital might not be so bad after all. And, of course, today it's all digital.

So that's 35 serious years (give or take) with film, 12 years with digital with a little overlap and several non-serious film years that preceded everything.

[Dan Gorman]

26 and 19 for me.

Bought a Canon FTb in 1974, after playing around sporadically (and none too successfully) for a couple of years with an ancient Argus rangefinder. Other than a series of family snappers and travel cameras (and the Argus, a gift from an older brother), the FTb was the only film camera I ever owned.

Bought an Olympus C2500L in 2000, and never went back to film in a sustained way. Bought a Canon 20D in 2004, and a Canon G10 in 2009. None since, although I confess I do hanker from time to time ;)

Happy shooting!
Dan

[Fred Haynes]

I almost decided not to comment, but after reading a few, and seeing how much I have in common with others, I figured ‘why not’.
It started for me at about ten or eleven. My parents saw my interest, and I think my first camera was a little Ansco plastic thing meant to look like a twin lens reflex
One of my fondest memories was a 8th grade teacher, who was also the principle of the school who taught his class to make a pin hole-camera. And we all took pictures of the school on a sheet of print paper, and developed it too!
He was a lovely man my teacher, who I didn’t appreciate as much as I should have!
I had a dark room in my parents basement when I was in my early twenties, and photography took a back for ten years until I married and had kids in my mid thirties.
School events made for some not very good pictures, the film camera was put aside until a 1997 vacation to Italy where my wife took a Nikon point and shoot. When I saw the results that she and I got with that little Nikon, I decide I have to make a switch, and a few years later, bought a Olympus E-500.
So I could say, with a bit of rounding out, 50 film, 20 digital.
Fred

[Eolake]

1973-98, 25 years.
1998-2019, 21 years.

Although the first camera was a super-cheap plastic camera at ten, and then a pause til fourteen when I got an Agfamatic for my confirmation and got *completely* hooked.

My first digital was a nikon D700. It had a dynamic range of like 3 stops.

[hugh crawford]

26 - 29 with about 15 years of messing around with electronic image making before digital cameras became available during the film days so maybe the electronic photography goes back to experiments with color xerox and analog newsphoto fax machines so maybe it’s more like 26 - 45 or so. Also not counting ten years of taking pictures without going into the darkroom...

So maybe 36 - 45 ?

My hands smelled like fix from about 1969 to about 1995 and I’ve been doing digital photography from around 1990 until now, but the changeover was about 1995 since prior to that the digital photography was with a video camera attached to a computer. Actually I briefly owned a Canon still video camera that recorded an analog video frame on a little floppy disk. I had to use a frame grabber board to get the pictures on to a computer because it would only hook up to a tv. Wrote my own Amiga software to print mural size inkjet prints in 1988, and even had a business selling it. The 1995 - 2000 photos are worse than the first camera phones.

[Bob Keefer]

44/12

[Clay Olmstead]

Enthusiastically, thirty-nine and nine.

[Bob Keefer]

Also I still have film cameras and a complete darkroom, including plenty of paper, chemicals and bulk Tri-X. All untouched for 13 years. I'm going to use them again someday. Honest.

[Jim Simmons]

Film: 1970-2015 - 45 years
Petri 7s, Nikon F, Leica CL, Leicaflex, Pentax 67, Arca-Swiss 4x5

Digital: 2002-2019 - 17 years
Leica Digilux (1.3mp!), Olympus EPL1, Fujifilm X-E1, Fujifilm X-t1, Fujifilm X70

I still have the 4x5, film and Jobo processor to serve a VERY slow-moving project.

[Yves]

Started photography for good in 1985 with a nice Nikon Fe until i bought a Canon Powershot G1 in 2001. So 16 and 18 for me.

[Bill]

30 and 19. Transition in 2000 but shot some film as well for the first 2 or 3 years after the transition. Essentially none after acquiring D70 in 2005. Can’t say I miss it at all. Don’t miss vinyl either...

I do miss my Pentax spotmatic which was stolen from my car in 1994.

[Scott Abbey]

Got my first 127 Brownie in the late 1950s, call it 1959.
Got my first serious cameras - my father-in-law’s Rolleicord and my Minolta SR-T 102 - in 1975 (my son was born in 1976).
Got my first usable digital P&S in 2003?
Got my first DLSR in 2005 (my son’s son was born in 2005 - see a pattern here?).

So the simple answer is 44 (1959 - 2003) and 15 (2003 - 2019).

[NikoJorj]

Film 1990-2001, digital 2003- : 11-16 so far.

[GKFroehlich]

If I only count the time since I got really serious about photography, then I’d have to report 32 years as a fairly heavy user of film (Minolta —> Contax —> Nikon SLRs; Hassy and Pentax MF).

If I also count the earlier years, when I used film only sporadically (back when I had to mow lawns and wash cars to earn the money for film and processing), then I’d report 39 years as a user of film (Kodak Brownie Holiday —> various Kodak Instamatics —> a brief dalliance with a horrid Argus C-3).

I’ve been shooting digital now for 16 years. There was about 1 year of overlap, shooting film and experimenting with digital, after which I abandoned film completely (Nikon Coolpix —> Nikon DSLRs).

-gkf-

[Chad Chatterton]

Maybe... 10++ vs 16~
I was born in 1970. I couldn't really say how long I've used film because even though my Father had a darkroom and some of my earliest memories are being in there with him helping out, I used my camera very sporadically. I can say that I got my first digital camera around 2003 and have been shooting consistently ever since though. In fact I shoot more today than I ever have.

[Greg]

16 analog and 17 digital

All my digital photos are sorted, backed up multiple times and sorted in different locations as well as tagged for fast searching (under 1 minute if I have the right key words).

Scanning slides and negatives I have left is this winters project.

[Peter]

36 - 6 - 17
1960 - caught the photo bug at age 11. 36 years printing in a darkroom.
1997 - spent $1000 for a Nikon Coolscan and never mixed another ounce of Dektol. 6 years in transition, shooting film and scanning it.
2003 - bought a Canon S50 (a 5 megapixel P&S) and have not shot a roll of film since. 17 years full digital.

[Steve Jacobs]

34 (film), 18 Digital. First flim camera-- used Kodak signet 35 in 1967. 1st digital camera -- Canon G1.

[Peter Conway]

36 / 13

BTW, here's a snap of my darkroom the last time it was put to good use - did a great job when we gutted our kitchen and had no sink for 5 weeks. If you look closely in the upper right-hand portion of the photo, you can just make out a strip of B&W negatives from the last time I used it for photography.

[Bandbox]

Film, 59 years, 1946 to 2005, and digital, 12 years, 2007 to present.

Started out with a Baby Brownie and 127 film and owned many cameras over the years, all formats from 35mm to 8 x 10, until I threw in the towel on film and went digital. I love digital's convenience, versatility, and quality. It's kept me going in photo. Don't miss the darkroom a bit.

[longviewer]

I guess 1974-2001 with film - oh that's SLR, not counting Brownie and Instamatic shots - so maybe 70-01? Not sure when the Kodak DC260 showed up but 2001 is a good enough guess.

So 31 film, 18 digital. Parity will come in 2032, God willing!

[Rich Beaubien]

37 years with film (1963–2000), 17 with digital (2002–2019).

My first camera was a Herco Imperial Bakelite Box. I was the oldest of six and my mother designated me as the 'family photographer' because my father was incapable of using a camera.

My first 'serious work' - when I took a plastic rocket to the top of Bob's Hill and ended up with a roll of photographs of a plastic rocket on a rock. My mother told me not to do that again.

In 2001 I flew to London from Boston with my first digital camera, an Olympus C3040Z. I had purchased it as an experiment. It was the only camera I carried. Just 3.3mp but I knew film was in trouble during that trip.

[Arg]

38 and 12

38 = Instamatic Electric Eye, AE-1, T90 (pocket XA, Minox GT)

12 = G7 (Canon), 7D, GX7, E-M5II

[Richard Tugwell]

59 20

[Mark Sirota]

I just don't know how to make this calculation. I had an Instamatic as a kid, and bought my own camera with my own money (a Pentax MX and a 50mm) at the age of 13 in 1979 (I think). But I sold it in college (about 1988?), and didn't really pick up a camera again until 1998 (I think), when I bought first into APS then quickly got wise and got an F100 in 1999. Then I "went digital" in 2006 with a D200, but I still shoot film too. So what's the right number(s)?

[Wolfgang Lonien]

Three and ten.

I don't count the years with the cheap 126 film cassette cameras, that didn't last too long.

But for about three years I used a Canon A-1, and in 2009 I bought my first Olympus E-520 DSLR. Now using Micro Four Thirds, and sometimes an Olympus OM-2n.

[David]

10f - 4d - 4f (last two with my own darkroom). Big chunks of time away from photography. Have to admit that every time I see a print from a digital camera it looks unappealing, flat, overly linear in its tones, no character, so it’s back to ‘real’ photography for me!

[Tony Ayling]

40 years film; 17 years digital. Started with a Nikonos underwater camera back in the mid 60s and graduated to a Nikon F2 in an underwater housing in 1974. Used tri X for B&W and Ektachrome for colour. In 2002 I got a Canon S40 point and shoot in a cheap Canon underwater housing and never looked back. Digital is so much better for underwater use. No more struggles with coming up to change film every 36 exposures! With digital I have got more into normal land photography but still love to try and record the amazing things I see underwater!

[David Bennett]

When I was just into my teens, I would watch/help my Dad develop and print B&W film in the kitchen, and later on he developed colour film. I think it was slide film and I recall a batch that had bubbles on the film surface that showed up when he projected them on the door of the dining room.

I had some money for my 13th birthday, and I wanted a half-frame camera because it was small. We had a tussle over whether it was a good choice and I remember my Dad exchanging comments with the owner of the shop when I bought it, because the review in the photography magazine was positive.

I think it was a Konica half frame. I remember the wind-on lever, which was a little jewel. I bought a canister (about a foot across) of gun camera film. Inside, the film was in separate black paper packets. I cut them to length, shot, and then we developed and printed them.

I shot a bit in my twenties and thirties and then stopped. Except I had an SX70 Polaroid camera and did some experiments lifting the emulsion and dragging it onto a piece of art paper, which I liked. Then I remarried, and started shooting again with various Nikons.

I have an FE2 that I bought to replace the one I had then - a kind of touch point with the past.

My first digital camera was a little Canon compact and that must have been around 2003 or 2004. I bought it specifically to get into Digital, knowing that at some point I would change over when digital cameras were good enough.

I have thought often that we no longer have 'pre digital' eyes and if we regained those eyes we would be repulsed by some of the images we like today. I was looking at a photo of a bird just a few minutes ago. It is so sharp, so much detail. I think I would have thought the image artificial if I had viewed it twenty years ago.

[Leslie Ashe]

44 and 13

[MikeR]

1962 to 2001, beginning with printing in a USAF-subsidized darkroom on the Pinetree Line. Two film cameras.

Since 2001, at least 12 digital ones.

So, that's 39 vs 18. Year:camera ratio is 19.5:1 vs 1.5:1. Isn't there something seriously wrong with that?

[Doug Anderson]

51 - 8 - 10
1952-2003 Film
2003-2010 Digital
2010-2019 back to Film

[Rod S.]

My serious photography:
45 on film (1974-2019) and zero on digital.

Have used 6x12 or 4x5 for architecture since 2008. 4x5 negative film, either Portra 160 or Ektar 100, works beautifully. I have scans and prints done by pro services, which saves me getting involved with minutiae.

The digital Fuji XT-1 gets used only for snaps when I want something better than a phone. Still haven't downloaded the files from the last few times I used it.

I bought a used Phase One P45+ back for tests on a technical camera but its operation in the field (focusing, especially) is cumbersome. And I've had no time or inclination to learn Capture One. Will give it another go before I give up.

[David Lee]

My first film camera was a Kodak Fiesta, 127 film, then I got a Kodak Instamatic, 126 film, an Agfa instamatic, same film, and then my girlfriend, now my wife, gave me an Agfa Optima 35 camera. I still have it. Great lens. After that, with my first paycheck, I got a brand new Pentax ME Super, which I still have, box and everything. Then becomes blurry. More Pentax bodies, including my beloved LX, then I switched to Leica, got a Minilux during that period, incredible lens also, and my first digital was a Lumix. Then Fujifilm and then it’s 2019 and I still suck as a photographer.

[James Hildreth]

41 and 17. I started at age 11 with an old German folding camera I found in the closet. A year later I used it to photograph the cast of my 7th grade play about George Washington on 120 film using flashbulbs. I was mentored by a neighbor who used a Rollieflex TLR so my first “real” camera was a Yashica-Mat, also TLR. I loved shooting black and white with that camera and became enthralled with the work of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. I learned to use a hand-me-down Weston Master IV for exposure. In college my brother-in-law’ gave me a Yashica Electro 35 so now I was shooting 35mm. My first SLR came in 1973, a used Nikon F (no meter) which I bought from my mentor who was moving on to Leica by then. I used a hand-me-down Weston Master V with that one for many years but moved on to newer Nikons culminating in an FE2 that served me for almost 20 years until I sold it in 2011. I continued to shoot black and white and also color slides, preferably in Ektachrome. My first digital came in 2002, a Canon Powershot S200 which I shot haphazardly. I finally succumbed to a Digital SLR when I took a vacation to Yosemite (at last). It was a Nikon (no surprise there) D7000 with which I am still shooting. I’m willing to wait a while to make the jump to mirrorless, probably it will be Nikon APS-C. I look forward to using an EVF with my old eyes.

[Mark Barnes]

46-0

[Severian]

Guessing a bit but I think close to 30 and 17 if you count one of those horrid little 126 cartridge cameras with a fixed aperture and shutter speed that I used in the mid 70s. When I got an Olympus OM-10 around 1978 or 79 I thought I had really arrived.

[kirk Tuck]

Film from 1972 to present. Digital 1996 to present. Still mixing it up.

[Sherwood McLernon]

36 and 20. First reasonable film camera was a Russian Lubitel twin lens reflex followed by an Olympus OM1 and various others. First Digital camera in 1999 was a point and shoot Epson that would take 8 photos and store them in internal memory, followed by various Nikon, Canon and Sony cameras.

[Jon Porter]

61 years film – from a German bakelite camera in 1958 to the current three 120 SLRs.

13 years digital – currently on my 29th and 31st digicams.

[Henning Wulff]

52 and 15. I'm counting digital from when I first started shooting more digital than film; there were probably about 5 years of some digital before that and I still shoot some film.

I have glass plates that my grandfather shot as well as slides, so he made that transition. My dad shot almost only 35mm, both B&W and slides but things were relatively stable during his time. In the 50's I shot with a couple of different roll film cameras and lastly a Yashica 44LM. When my dad died I inherited his Leicas and 6 lenses, as well as his Focomat which I had used with him and which I still have and use. I shot Minox up to 8x10 and long roll panoramic and now digitally m43 and FF. I'd like to also shoot LF digitally, but the Betterlight solution didn't appeal to me enough for the cost, and nothing else has really come along. So I still shoot film for that.

[D. Hufford]

From pre-teen in 1971 to apx 2000 film: 29 years.

Digital 19 years. Still dabble in film occasionally long enough to remind me why I changed to digital.

[Ilkka]

I started with film around 1976, seriously from 1979. I started using digital in 2004. I basically stopped using film around 2010.
So film around 34 years. Digital 16 years now.