There are only two things that I love film for over video. One is the shallow depth of field, which If you really care that much, a DOF converter can be purchased or built farly inexpensively.
The one that can’t be simulated so easily is the super wide latitude that film gives you when it comes to picking up light. That’s what really makes film look so special and “lifelike”. Sure, you can simulate it by tinkering with your color curves, but the bottom line is that video is just not catching the light in the same way that film can, at least so far.
It won’t suprise me at all though if some genius figures out a way to widen the latitude of video. I’ve often thought that if you had a camera that could capture enough frames per second, you could theoretically do some sort of interleaving – Even frames are underexposed, odd frames are overexposed, and the processor blends the two into one frame. Okay, so the idea’s a bit crazy, but sooner or later, someone will invent a way to do it, and then film will go extinct completely. Let’s hope for nostalgia’s sake that Kodak is the company that invents this technology. I’d hate to see them go out of business. 🙂
