Digital vs Film economics
"Wait it's not dead!"
My “advanced compact” camera is getting on in this digital age (six years old) and I’ve been looking at what I will replace it with. Features wise it stands up well against current cameras but the sensor is noisy and the processing is slow. So while comparing the features of the current cameras I started to think about what the equivalent costs would be if I just used film and some of my older cameras. So lets say I choose Kodak Ektar at $7.50 per 36 exposures and pay $3.50 for developing (I do my own scanning) that’s $11.00/36 = 0.30 per image. So if I were to shoot 15 images a week for 52 weeks that’s 780 images times $0.30 is…… drum-roll…… $240 per year. With the current cameras I’ve been looking at costing twice that much I think that it’s actually economical in the short term to continue and even increase my film use. The bonus for me is of course the pleasure I get from using the older cameras.
Of course when I want to do something where getting the image is critical I will still use my DSLR which is gratifying as well.