Topic: Film is the real black..

[FiatluX]

Found this older article, don´t know if it has been posted before?
But I love the conclusions! 

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/real-raw.htm

[SLVR]

I'm sure Ken's a nice guy. But it's a known fact that his articles should are reader beware.

[Francois]

Well, you know, he is Ken Rockwell...
I think his reputation for being super picky about trivial things does follow him like his shadow.

[jharr]

Yeah, he sort of makes it sound like film has infinite resolution, but it doesn't. Every film has grain. It's fundamental to photochemistry (as applied to photographic film). I usually scan 35mm at around 8-10 MP. So that isn't super high-res, but it is sufficient for posting online (actually I down-res to about 2MP for posting). So I don't always get the "amount of information" argument for film. There are so many good arguments for shooting film, I think that one falls a little flat. I like to shoot expired film, so I probably get less information than most film shooters since I have enhanced grain and sometimes fog. I tried getting natural looking grain in digital photos and never could get it right. So I shoot expired microfilm and develop it in Rodinal. Artistic quandary solved.

I think the article makes a point, just not the best one(s).

[hookstrapped]

The important thing is he has a link at the bottom to pics of his growing family.

[charles binns]

Mr Rockwell is certainly a marmite character for most people.  I find his website can be quite useful though his comments must be taken with a tonne and a half of salt. 

I do find the way that the controversy he provokes in some people quite amusing but fair play to him, he has created a website that, as hookstrap alluded, supports his growing family.

I won't comment on what I think of his photographic skills as that would be controversial.  

[Ed Wenn]

"Ryan enjoys a hot dog" (which won't mean anything to you unless you spend 10 minutes going through his online photo album :-)

Ken's the reason I hunted down and bought a Tachihara 5x4 field camera and it's been a solid camera for me, so he'll be forever in my good books 

[Late Developer]

I don't have a problem with the bloke.  He doesn't receive free kit from manufacturers and no-one forces any of us to read his site or take any notice if we do.  I treat his stuff as reasonably informed entertainment and, if he can make a crust out of what he does, fair play to him.

As for his assertions over film resolution, I think James has summed it up well.  Film and digital have their limitations and I certainly wouldn't drop either on the basis of one aspect of perceived benefit that the other demonstrated.