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)

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Amazon.com • Amazon UK • Amazon Canada
Amazon Germany • B&H Photo • Adorama

(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

[San Wazrzone']

26 Film - 24 Digital = 50 and both totally productive and satisfying to this day.

[JOHN GILLOOLY]

My guess is around film 11 and digital 20. My inherited working rig from my professional photographer father was an Nikon F3 and FM2 shooting mostly bw film in the early 90s. It rather quickly moved to mostly color neg and a small bit of slides for some work.

I did one of those American Photo Workshops to Morocco in 1998 and the Nikon rep on the trip was Steve Heiner (still with Nikon) and he was shooting with and marveling at the first iteration of the Coolpix "twisting body" digital camera. (Maybe the Coolpix 900?) I bought the camera upon returning home and eventually the D1 immediately when it was released.

While I owned the D1 very early, most work was still shot using film - at this point with N90 bodies. I used the D1 where useful, but it was especially painful to use with speedlights. When the D1x arrived, I converted completely to digital and I don't believe I've shot a roll of film since.

[Martin D]

33 years Fim - 10 years disorientation - 1 year digital.

Film started properly with the Rollei 35 that my godfather gave me for my confirmation. I still recall the moment, about one year into that time, when I pressed the shutter and knew I had done something significant. My last camera in that period was a Fuji GW690, perfect simplicity. Not a perfect camera, but perfect simplicity. And, ah!, the joy of putting a 6x9 Agfa Scala slide onto the lightbox, loupe in hand.

I hated the destruction of the old analogue universe by digital. I kept a few Leica screw mount cameras and used those occasionally, and I got myself a Sony Nex 5 to take family pics, but my photgraphic spirit was crushed. My twin daughters arrived in the middle of that period and the Nex 5 was fine for keeping track of events.

Finally, last summer I took the plunge back into serious photography, with the Fuji X-Pro2. A happy man ever since! Still have two or three Barnack Leicas in the cabinet, and next to my desk stands my Canham DLC metal field camera, with the Sironar 210mm mounted. My daughters enjoy the magic of the image on the ground glass.

What kept me connected in those middle years of disorientation? Your blog, Mike!

[Hotspur Closser]

15/13

Started out with a 110 when I was a kiddo, but everything changed when I borrowed my dad’s Beseler for a photography class in grade school, and I started shooting 35mm.

Bought my first digital in 2001 (anyone remember JamCams?) but didn’t adopt the format until 2006 with my first Canon Powershot— an A610, bought for my honeymoon. My, how I still miss that li’l camera. (I miss my ex-wife even more, if I’m being honest.) Gone from Canon to Oly to Fuji, and seem to have settled on Fuji for the forseeable future. (They can have my X100 when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Damn dirty apes.)

[Ernest Zarate]

Film started when I was a freshman in high school, 1968, with a then-old, now ancient, Practika camera. Last film camera I purchased was a Mamiya 6. Used film up through about 2004.

First digital camera was Panasonic DMC LC5, with 4 MP, purchased in 2002. A little overlap there. Most recent digital camera purchased is Canon 5DS R.

Have recently reclaimed my Toyo 45CF 4x5 and purchased a box of Tri-X. Won’t process or print, having long ago gotten rid of all my darkroom equipment (except my Gra-Lab timer). Luckily there is a lab near me that processes LF sheet film. Then I’ll scan for positive. Who knows what the future holds?

What’s old becomes new again. Or maybe I’m trying to roll back my own clock!

[Mim]

If you start counting with the ownership of my first camera (a basic SLR) I'm a few months shy of 20:20.

If you count from the start of my photography obsession it's more like 27:20. But I'm not sure that the years between the ages of 5 and 12 count ;-)

[Steve Biro]

29 and 15.

After messing around with my parents' Brownies and Agfas when I was younger, I saved my money in high school and bought myself a 100-percent manual Minolta SRT-200 in 1974. My only lens for five-plus years: a Rokkor-X 50mm f/2 prime.

My final film shots of any consequence were taken with a very nice Vivitar 35mm pocket zoom on a trip to London in 2003. A year later, I was shooting with a 4mp Casio Exilim EX-Z4. By the time I returned to Europe in 2007, I had a surprisingly good 6mp Canon S3 IS superzoom.

In 2008, I bought my first DSLR, a Pentax K200D and there was no looking back.

[Peter Williams]

First serious film camera 1974
First serious digital camera 2004
So 30-15.

[Mark Kinsman]

38 film - 17 Digital
First camera may have been box Brownie my parents gave. First Digital was a Nikon Coolpix 4500 which i still have in a closet somewhere.

[JimH]

56/22

I started in 1957, stopped using my film Nikons in 2003 when I bought a Nikon D100, still shot a few photos with antique cameras over the next ten years until I bought a Graflex 4x5 for a short project, my last film work.

Build my first darkroom around 1960 around a Leitz Valoy enlarger. Ran the darkroom for an astronomical observatory from 1964-1967. Used spare bathrooms for years as we moved around. Final darkroom work was in the early 90s when I taught the kids how to do it, but decided to quit when the skin started peeling off my fingers and I worried about what I was putting in the sewer.

Bought the first H-P VGA digital camera built by Konica in 1997 for web work and went full digital with the Nikon D100 in 2003.

And now I've sold all my digital cameras and I'm strictly an iPhone photographer.

[Peggy C.]

Film 32

Digital 20

With overlap from 1999 thru 2006 when I went completely digital.

[Olivier]

Seventeen and twenty!

[James Weekes]

37/17

[Dan Khong]

Film 56 years: 1963-2019
Darkroom 50 years: 1969-2019
Digital 16 years: 2003-2019

[Steve Higgins]

If you include cheap plastic cameras (I had an original Diana-F!) and Boots (UK pharmacy and such) re-badged Bierettes etc, about 35:15.

However, frames taken is probably the reverse, at least - film was always expensive for me, especially when I got my first SLR (Zenit 3m) and standardised on Kodachrome.

[Jeff Buttel]

55 and 19. Doing both since 2000. All my printing has been digital since 2000 though

[Mike O'Donoghue]

58 film and 10 digital. iPhone3 was the transition back in 2009. Still use film from time to time. Ran a roll thru the F4 last week in Arles. Can’t part with the 4x5 Technika and darkroom. Just exposed and developed 6 4x5 negatives this week. Most pictures taken last 5 years with iPhone6.

[Hans Muus]

From 1962, when at age thirteen I learned the basic darkroom skills, up till 2003 = 41 years of film, the last five of them without a darkroom of my own, followed by a photography pause of another five years, and from 2008 up to the present = 11 years of digital.
@ned bunell, would the question have been number of film - vs. digital cameras owned?

[Mike Plews]

41, 16 and 1? All this film talk has me in the mood to load up the Rollei and take a walk. It's been dormant for a while.

[Antonio Ramirez]

27 and 14 for me. Started with film in 1977, at the tender age of 11, with a GAF 100XF 126 cartridge camera bought by my grandfather. A Christmas gift of a Yashica MG-1 by my father followed shortly thereafter. First digital was the original Canon EOS Digital Rebel in 2004 and while I still shoot a roll now and then, it's been mostly digital since.

Off topic, I just wanted to say that even though this is probably the first time I have commented, I have been a consistent reader of your blog for several years now. It is always a pleasure to read. Thank you very much.

[You're very welcome. Thank you for reading. --Mike]

[Terry Moore]

This essay made me smile as I sit here at the computer taking a break from packing for a week-long trip. The shutter in my Zeiss 50mm f4 for my Hasselblad 501CM broke on my trip last weekend--it's pretty much all I've used for the last three years. So as I pondered what to take this time I thought briefly about taking a digital body but I felt guilty about not using using the various film bodies more. I ended up packing the Nikon F6. My wife is going to use one of the F2s. Knowing me I'll borrow that from her. 45 years with film and 19 with digital concurrently--I'm stepping away from the computer now that I'm alarmed by being old enough to have done something for 45 years.

[John Bennett]

32-15-2

Sold my last digital camera (a Fujifilm X100T) in 2017, and returned full-time to film. I have no intention of going back to digital.

There are so many marvelous "lifetime" film cameras available (Olympus OM-1n; Hasselblad 500 C/M, Zeiss Ikon ZM....). With digital, you're always chasing the latest technology. And the image quality is still, well, "digital."

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Well there’s good news and bad news, Mike

BAD: You’ve now disqualified yourself as a “social media influencer” for new photo products aimed at the 20-35 year-old age group. No free trips to Japan or test samples of the new A7R IV for you. Sorry.

GOOD: Meanwhile you’ve come onto the radar for several pharmaceutical and elder care companies!

[David Jolley]

26 and 18 for me. Like you I started young; age 10 when I bought a kids starter darkroom kit that would develop film and make small contact prints. I was using a Brownie box camera at the time (1964)

[Chris]

My stats are 38+ film, 6 digital (P&S only), 7 film... recently repaired the camera I bought in 1978 and used it again!

(The + is because I'm not quite sure when I started, and I have no prints or negatives from before 1967 when I got my Werra 1, which is where I counted from... though I did find the previous camera in my sister's barn. It was a Dacora Digna. I didna keep it!)

[Alexander Thorp]

21 and 14. After being given a 110-format camera as a child (what an awful format) I graduated in teenage years to my father's old Zenit SLR. Better cameras followed before my first digi, but one effect of digital was to give me the chance to try out film cameras much more expensive than any I would have bought in the film era when these got offloaded for dumping prices by their (presumably pro) owners in the early years of digital. I had a look again recently and saw that it seems harder now to get a good Pentax 645 or Broniqa SQ for a good price than it was eight years ago. I guess that most are now firmly in the hands of people like me who take them out for a spin once a year whilst enjoying digital for the remaining fiftyone weeks.

[psu]

I did maybe 10 years total with film between shooting in high school and then later dabbling in the 90s.

Digital since 2003 or so... so 16.

I still have a bit of nostalgia for the look of Tri-X and D76 and fiber paper ... but not enough to go back to fighting the skin rashes and breathing fixer.

[John Krill]

Film: 48 years
Digital: 12 years.

I still have the first film camera, a Kodak 135 Pony. It still works.

I still have the first digital camera, a Nikon D40X. It doesn't work. It stopped working after 5 years and 95,000 frames.

[David Wilson]

21 and 14. I spent virtually nothing on equipment during the 21 film years, one body, two lenses, obviously a lot on consumables. In the digital 14 years I have spent a small fortune in a vain attempt to keep up; justifiable in the early years of digital, not now. Still spending on consumables like Adobe subs, photo storage, a new laptop capable of processing ever larger files.

[Pierre Charbonneau]

48 years film, 18 digital.

All digital for work, film and digital in a share of 50% for personal photos.

[RKWallen]

film 39, Digital 19

[WJW]

Started with film in 1974 and shot until I cleared out the darkroom in 2014. First digital was a gift in 2000.

So 40 for film and work for digital but overlapped by14 years.

[DavidB]

Oh, this is easy. Count the years of film and count the years of digital. Right? Right? Uh, no.

Should I count the years of Polaroid and Instamatic and similar? Or just the years of SLR? What about the years when I did not own a camera at all?

The transition from film to digital was provoked by two events. The first was the loss of the local photo processing lab. The second was an unsympathetic airport security person who insisted that my film go through the X-ray scanner. You want it hand checked? Hah!

I should have switched to digital sooner. Then I wouldn't have so many film slides to scan. I still have a few thousand to go.

P.S. What an interesting and fun set of comments!

[Ben]

10/15 film
3/7 both
16 digital

I started shooting film in ‘97. First digital p&s in ‘03, more serious digital in ‘05 I think, but I still shot both until ‘07. After that occasionally I shoot with a rolllie for fun, but just a few rolls a year. My last serious film use was in ‘10.

So, for me it wasn’t a clean transition, and numbers really depend on what we mean by shooting: a few rolls here and there or what?

The interesting thing for me is that I had a very simple setup when I shot film—Pentax and two lenses, replaced by M plus two lenses, with occasional borrowed TLRs—and now I have multiple digital bodies and a brace of lenses. I never subscribed to photography magazines, but photography on the internet really took off while I was transitioning to digital. Plus my financial situation changed pretty significantly over that same time.

All of this is to say that for me, the transition was complex and tied closely to a number of factors, both personal and societal. And experience aside, I believe I am a better digital photographer than I was a film photographer, as I’ve always been more at home with computers than the darkroom, and I tend towards color photography. Through it all I’ve been an amateur, and happy about that :)

[Helcio J. Tagliolatto]

47-0

[Bill Tyler]

40 and 20

[William Langford]

43 and 16, I started with my Dad's Argus C-3 in the 7th grade, bought a Yashica-Mat TLR (for $5.00 every two wk.s until the total was $30.00) in the 8th grade and shot my first wedding. That was 1960.
Old Timer

[Walter Foreman]

I was given my first camera, a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye, for either my ninth birthday or for Christmas 1952, either way, 1952. In 1963-64 I began to ponder composition and lighting seriously, using first my father's Kodak Duo-620 and then the first camera I purchased for myself, a Miranda DR. As of now I took my last film photographs in 2010, using (as I mostly had since the 70s) Olympus OM. (I always shot mostly Kodachrome, and where I live even E6 processing had become problematic.) Like Mike I bought my first digital camera in 2003. So I guess that's 58 years in film, 16 in digital, with seven years overlap.

[Bruce Alan Greene]

If I've done my math correctly...
43:11

I began photography at age 7 with a plastic brownie :)

But... I started scanning film 9 years earlier, so it took me a while to buy a digital camera :)

I still shoot some film, but all my post processing and printing is done digitally. And it's not always easy to see the difference between the capture mediums.

My approach though is not so different with digital. I do shoot a few more frames, as it doesn't cost more, but really quite few. I spend much more time "looking" than "snapping"!

[Scott]

I started with you in 1969 and never really stopped, so 50 for film and about 13 for digital.

[Joe Lipka]

Started with film in 1970. Worked in hybrid mode to make platinum prints from digital negatives from 1990 to 2004. Went completely digital in 2006 and been that way ever since.

Sold the last of my view camera gear a few years ago. Still have some old photo gear in the brewery, er, I mean my darkroom.

Here's the interesting thought. I had a 4x5 view camera for about 40 years, but a bunch of digital cameras since 2006. I wonder if that's common among TOP readers.

[Animesh Ray]

54 and 11. I still shoot film occasionally.

[Not THAT Ross Cameron]

Following from Peter’s comment (digital first), ignoring the frustrating time trying to use a borrowed Voigtlander Vito CLR from a great Aunt on a couple of holidays in the 90’s (due to lack of knowledge);
- 12 digital (Nikon) if more enthusiastically than proficiently
- 0 film, but I’m just embarking. Off the back of a TOP suggestion, I do have a Nikon FM2n in a local shop for CLA, and recently received FM3a in mail. Glad I can use AI/s lenses interchangeably :)
Next, I have to work out whether to pay for prints or scanned files? No capacity for dark room...

[Tony Ayling]

I forgot to say that in my 40 years of film I owned a total of five cameras: Nikonos, two Nikon F2, Nikon FE and Nikon F70. In my 17 years of digital I think I have owned 21 cameras and currently have 8 .......and still suffer GAS!

[Bear.]

30 & 17

[Paul Braverman]

Can’t give you a simple ratio.

I was all film until about 2003. During those days I was a better-than-average kid and vacation photographer but didn’t have serious aspirations. My thing was “posh” point-and-shoots. Had them all: Leica Minilux, Nikon 35tii, and my favorite, the Contax T2.

Decided that it was time to go digital. Went to the old J&R on Park Row in New York. Made the mistake of asking to see a Leica X. Once I held it, I knew it could never leave my hands. Shot .dng—no lengthy conversions—and came with a free copy of Lightroom.

I got serious around 2012.

I was mostly digital as soon as I got the Leica X, but always had a film camera for variety. Now those days are coming to a close. My Mamiya 7–my last film camera—is currently listed on eBay. I haven’t used it seriously in years and the camera deserves better. It wants to be used. It’ll be all Fuji for the foreseeable future.

[Yvan Sirois]

1972 to 2002 film, for a while hard a darkroom then digital with a relapse in 2005.

[John Peltier]

First time comment for me:

You might find this interesting because of some similarities in our situations. I think I'm about your age (63 soon), live nearby (Farmington NY), have seen several of my typical subjects in your photos or words (Canandaigua City Pier, all around the Finger Lakes rural scenes...).

I too started with the Instamatic, for me about 1968. When either I could afford or get my Dad to spring for a roll - I mean cartridge - every shot was like gold: rare and precious (remember those flash bar things?).

In 1977 while in college, as a present, I was gifted a trip to the local small town camera store, Blumenthals in Olean, and was told to pick out a reasonable camera of my choice. I studied those micro print ad pages at the back of Popular and Modern Photography to try to get a sense of prices and ultimately ended up with a Ricoh 500G fixed lens rangefinder. Great little camera - 40mm f2.8 that was really good stopped down, black which was pretty cool at the time. I shot Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Tri-X and Ilford. I shot all subjects with that 1 lens, and have been grateful for that to this day. Character studies for the college art professor (free critique), intramural sports, landscapes on backpacking trips in the Adirondacks, portraits, Grand Prix racing at Watkins Glen. Back then you could get paddock passes pretty easily - some of those chromes of mechanics hovering over torn down Lotus, Renault, and Tyrell chassis and Cosworth Ford engines are favorites of mine to this day.

I received an excellent condition used Nikkormat FTn with the standard Nikkor 50mm 2.0 as a special gift in 1982. Raising 5 kids I had a hard time justifying another lens - but I knew how to work with 1. And that was my workhorse until 2002 when I bought a Nikon N80 and I eventually ended up with a nice little lens set for that.

My first digital camera was a Canon S100 in 2009, used sparingly now but I still like the files. Then a D90, and now seriously into Fuji for 3 years. I'm printing now, selects of all my stuff, even the Instamatic vintage, and curiously I find I'm losing my GAS. We'll see if that's permanent or just a phase. Thanks for your work and maybe we'll see each other out there some day.

[Bob Travaglione]

FILM 33, DIGITAL 19

[PDLanum]

I started with a Brownie Box in 1962. I first went semi-digital (el cheapo Toshiba point and shoot in 2002 or somewhere around there) fully digital in mid 2005 (DSLR).

So 43 years film (shooting), rangefinders, TLRs, monorails etc. and 14 shooting all digital.

First SLR 1968 so, SLR years 37, DSLR years 14.

[Paulo Bizarro]

My first film camera, bought with one of my first salaries: Olympus AZ300 superzoom in 1989.

My first digital camera: Canon Powershot PRO1 in 2004.

So this gives: 15, and 15. Even.

[Ramón Acosta]

13 and 17, my first DSLR was the original canon rebel 6mp . I still have fond memories of the time I spent in the dark room.

[Chris S]

6 and 12

[bokeh]

30/21

[Howard]

31-16. Early teen in 1972 with film until my first DSLR; Fuji S-2 in 2003.

[Tim Smith]

30 and 15-ish.

[Andy Holman]

35 film 16 digital
I don't miss film at all.

[Jim Fellows]

27 for film and 17 for digital. That includes about a four or five year overlap when I had only a digital Point and Shoot and film SLR's. All Pentax cameras.

Jim Fellows

[Jernej]

almost 0 film & 20 digital

[Carsten Bockermann]

Film: 28 (1976 - 2004)
Digital: 15 (2004 - 2019)

[Dan Seely]

Started in 1966 with a Minolta SR-1b; started converting to digital in 2001-2002, so let's say 35 years film, 17 years digital ...

[JG]

I would've responded previously, but I am not sure how to classify the nearly a decade where I shot film, scanned it, and then printed digitally, because this involved both processes ... thoughts?

Similarly, how should those folks (such as Carl Weese) who make platinum prints from digital negatives count those years?

[Saiful]

31 & 15

[Arnaud Réveillon]

Zero and 19.

[rob mckeen]

Film31 digital13

[Rob Spring]

First film camera 1972. Darkroom 1974-2009. Last film shot in 2005, although I recently had 10 rolls of Tri X developed and scanned that found in my old darkroom. Digital cameras 1999 to present.

[David Bateman]

7 digital, then 2 film, now 8 digital.
I may get back into film, still have freeze draw full of 120 film, got a peterson tank and a black bag. Stopped as all good local developers went out of business.

[Geoff Wittig]

14 years of film and 17 years (so far) digital, with essentially no overlap at all.
I started shooting print film for photos of our (then young) kids, and transitioned to slide film within a few months so the output better reflected my own choices.
My end goal has always been a really nice print, so I was scanning slides starting in the 1990s with a crude HP consumer scanner that required sticking a SCSI board inside my PC and setting DIP switches (Remember them? Good times!) at random until it worked. I migrated to a Polaroid (memories!) hi-rez scanner and eventually Minolta's 5400 dpi device. As anyone who as done it can tell you, scanning slides is a colossal pain requiring endless dust removal (physically and digitally) along with repeated iterations to get the best compromise in exposure and sharpness.
The instant I got a camera that matched or exceeded the image quality of scanned slides (Canon's original Eos-1Ds), I don't think I shot another slide. Still have a half dozen boxes of Fuji Provia 100F gathering dust on a shelf, and not a shred of regret or nostalgic remorse.

[Rick Graves]

Film years: 19
Digital years: 17

[John Berger]

OK, add me in ! Serious film at age 11 (as serious as 11 year old can be) with my trusty Imperial Six-Twenty which amazingly I still have. SLR and Kodachrome serious film with Mamiya Sekor 1000 DTL followed by Nikkormat EL, F2, F3 High eyepoint and motor drive (for the fast rewind! couldn't afford to mash the button and pay for processing) and even a Nikonos in there. Oh, yes, and LENSES-lots of them! Whew! Digital with a few compact Olympus and Canon P&S, but D70, and then D200 brought me to sufficiency and happy with digital....oh and i phone shared with wife has taken over family documentation and wide angle event coverage and the D200 does telephoto functions. So tally me up for oh my, gulp, 50 years film and 16 years digital. Does not seem possible looking back at all of it, but it was just one step at a time while it was happening. And I have noticed that wherever I go, there I am !

[Alex Buisse]

0 and 14

The Nikon D50 was my 20th birthday gift. I was making a living exclusively from photography six years later (and, fingers crossed, still am). I have shot a few film cameras (Nikon FM, Leica M3, 4x5 and medium format) and enjoy the process tremendously but don't have the time to really focus on it. Maybe someday.

[Dennis]

Let's go with 28 (film) and 15. (Different Dennis). I might have started with digital a couple years earlier, but still used film for most stuff, because the early Kodak digicam was pretty bad.

[Don McConnell]

Counting from my college days when I started taking photographs ‘mindfully’ (rather than just playing with a camera as a kid) - Film, 16 years. Digital, 17 years.
I still dabble with film occasionally, but not enough to consider myself a regular.

[David Miller]

45 years of film, culminating with a Hasselblad X-Pan which I eventually left on a train during a hurried transfer in Leeds station. No, (I don't want to talk about it.) Succumbed to the inevitable and replaced it with a Canon 5D (for which I already had good lenses. Flogged the rest of my film equipment shortly thereafter (except for a Mamiya TLR that I keep promising to start using again … but haven't yet. Too busy.)

Now 10 years digital, migrating eventually to a trio of Fujis with which I am completely satisfied. No GAS; the Fujis do what I want, and in my seventies I have no plans to pursue new rainbows — I am kept fully engaged with the same photographic ambitions and challenges that have enriched my life for the past 55 years.

[Eli]

Film 3, Digital 16

[Paul]

17 years film
14 years digital

[01af]

Film only: 30 years.
Then, digital only: 10 years.
After that, digital and film: 4 years and counting.

[DENNIS M]

33 FILM/ 14 DIGITAL

[David R.]

film: 1992–2006 = 14
digital: 1998–2019 = 21

Shooting film in an intentional way since a photo class in 8th grade. Started with digital while running my college's media lab, experimenting with rough-hewn digital cameras at some point in the late 90s.

I still have a roll of color 120 print film that I need to send away for processing, but it's more difficult now that the local labs are all gone. Alt process printing is going to show up again, but I'm busy with other types of work at the moment.

[william cowan]

I started film seriously at age 13 and have only gone up in format from 35mm to 8x10. Digital years are still zero.

[Peter Dove]

film: 1978-2005 digital: 1994-present, so 27 & 25 with 11 years' overlap

[Bruce Walker]

Film: 15 years (1970 through 1986 [approx])

Digital: 12 years (2007 through present)

With a 21 year no-shooting gap where I got on with my IT career. I'm not counting that I was actually introduced to digital in 1996 or so with the Kodak DC40 which we used for website employee profile shots.

[Robert Fogt]

31 film / 16 digital (Age 73)

[Timo Virojärvi]

26 and 15. Counting by SLR/DSLRs and ignoring Agfamatic 300.

[RubyT]

For the scatter plot:

Film: 1978-2007; 2011-ongoing
Digital: 2003-ongoing

[John VanDomelen]

Mike

Started with a cheap film camera when I was 16, got a Nikon Ftn while stationed on Guam, bought a 2nd one in Vietnam, used them until I bought my first digital very low pixel count point and shoot in the late 90’s. Used mixture of digital and film until the Nikon D100 came out and never looked back. The best advice I got from a friend when I started doing digital was after culling the stinkers to label the remains with: who, what and where, IMMEDIATELY. The quality control issues that Nikon suffered from led me to switch completely to Fuji 4 years ago. Got my dials back that way. So my numbers are: Film = 44 yrs, Digital = 22 with about 5 years of overlap.
John

[James]

My first "Documented" roll of film = 1959.
Last major trip using film = 2007
So 48 years of film only.
2007 - 2008 = overlap
My first "Documented" digital only trip = 2008
So 11 years of digital.
BUT some analog fun time occasionally since then........

[AllanC]

Film: 29
Digital: 15

[James H]

Film - 5
Digital - 17

I took my SLR and a digital Canon G2 to London in 2002. Got hooked on digital on that trip and only took a couple of rolls of film. Never looked back until...

I recently found some film I bought for that trip in a cabinet. It expired in 2003. Stuck a roll in an old Olympus Stylus p&s (which I also found in the cabinet; it needed a new battery) and had it developed and scanned. Got a couple of decent images so I may have to try another old roll.

[Nature Lover]

Digital 20 years,
Film 0 years.

My digital 'career' is an easy number since I date it to the Nikon Coolpix 950 in 1999, followed by the Canon D30. My film 'career' is a more difficult item to date since I ranged from dilettante to less from 1973 to 1999. Let us say digital was my awakening. I barely did any film photography, and only printed a couple of times with a friend in the U.C. Berkeley Genetics lab way back then.
That 3 mp D30 allowed me some wonderful images. I still have one of the Petrified Forest NP I printed on an Epson 1280 at 24x28cm (9.5"x11") on my wall. From a technical standpoint it compares well to those from my Canon 5D MKIV.
I'm posting to round out Sarge's scatterplot.

[Phil Stiles]

54 years of film. 14 years of digital. My first camera, acquired at age six was a "Dick Tracy" model that I bought with fifty cents and two Wheaties box tops. It shot 127 film, and I still have some "crinkle cut" prints. I went digital in 2005.

[Terry Farnell]

40 years with film, 4 with digital (2006-2010) and the last 9 years with film. Film is for my 'serious' work, digital is just for throwaway internet stuff. Printing is in monochrome in the darkroom and I've had a permanent darkroom for 23 years.

[PeteS]

52 on film, 22 digital

[Sal Santamaura]

I should have added that this was my first camera:

https://camerapedia.fandom.com/wiki/Kodak_Six-20_Brownie_Special

It was my grandmothers, and was given to me when she died. Note that it's not the flash-capable version. That prompted my parents to get me one of these a few years later:

https://www.brownie-camera.com/44.shtml

I should have used the Six-20 to make time exposures rather than bugging them for flash. The smaller 127 negatives were no match for substantially larger ones from the older camera. Although I still have an unfixed "POP" print made with a Starmite II negative on 1040s-expired Velox that I exposed to the sun. It's tucked inside my father's early-40s copy of the Kodak book "How to Make Good Pictures." :)

[Keith]

27 years film, 1982-2009. Bought my first SLR at age 13 with money earned working on a local farm. Rode my bike 5 miles each way to work there. Must have really wanted that camera.
10 years digital, 2009-present. Bought my first DSLR with money earned doing electrical contracting work on the side, mostly at local farms. No.....I didn't ride my bike this time.

[Anthony Shaughnessy]

About 6 years with film - Pentax MZM and colour slide film, 11 years now with digital - Pentax K20D and Olympus OMD-EM10

[Navin U]

Film - 20; Digital - 14

[Robert Fogt]

I have fond memories (and still a few photos!) from earlier photo activities, like traveling to Europe with my parents in 1959 and shooting some transparency film with my father’s Yashica 44, but I think it’s fair to discount such things for this purpose. So I would probably have to say that my enthusiast/professional years started ca. 1971, in the darkroom at Chicago’s Columbia College, processing in Microdol-X all the many rolls of Tri-X that I’d run through my battered old Mamiya C33. (Which was kept wrapped in a heavy scarf behind the spare tire of my old Volvo.)

I started working as a museum photographer in 1985, and continued with film until 2003. In that year I was hired to illustrate an exhibition catalog of objects in the collections of various small historic sites, museums, businesses, and private collectors, spanning the length of the Mississippi from Minneapolis to New Orleans. I was to visit over two dozen locations, in a little over two weeks time, covering a 2,500 mile round trip. I would be setting up my makeshift studio in basements, attics, living rooms, and unused office spaces. There would be no film processing along the way, hence no feedback whatsoever on any of my work.

This was the first time I’d proposed doing such a project with my relatively new Canon D30, and the catalog designer balked at the idea, expressing doubt that digital photos were “good enough”. I argued that shooting in those situations and coming home with a great amount of unprocessed film would be inviting misfortune, that there were bound to be some “oopsies”, and that in every one of those instances, digital would certainly have been much better than film. I prevailed, and wound up doing the entire project with that D30, tethered to my laptop. I don’t think I have exposed a single roll of film since then. Although now retired, I still actively photograph friends and family and travels……all digital. I have some fond memories of the film years, but of the process……..not so much!

Short Version: 31 Film / 16 Digital (Age 73)

[Shaun O'Boyle]

1977-1999 film, 1999-present with digital. Have been hankering to shoot some film lately, still have equipment to develop film, but the enlarger and big trays are gone.

[Bob Gary]

Mike,
I guess I have to comment to get on the chart! I was going to hold back, because although I’ve been doing film since the 50s (Ansco Shur Shot, great negatives!), and transitioned to digital in the early 2000s (Olympus/Nikon), I don’t consider myself a photographer... but a designer by previous trade and artist by affliction... oh well... philosophically, that’s 0/0?