Through Two Lenses vol. 1
Two lenses, one scene. The same light filtered through two different ways of seeing. One shaped by the modern world, the other holding its place in a world that often feels impatient.
Digital photography is practical. It lowers the barrier to entry, accelerates learning, and opens creative paths sooner than film usually can. Film, meanwhile, carries its familiar list of challenges: limited dynamic range, a temperamental development process, temperature sensitivity, rigid post-processing, and the recurring cost of stock, development, and scanning.
And yet, film encourages reflection. It asks for patience, intentionality, and, at times, a small measure of faith.
When comparing film and digital side by side, it helps to consider what each medium chooses to reveal. Film stocks interpret color much the way digital sensors rely on their own color science. Neither approach is inherently better; preference often comes down to how a viewer connects with the rendering.
And then there’s the emotional palette. Film often carries a quiet nostalgia, a softness that feels instinctively human. Digital offers precision—clean, accurate, and unmistakably contemporary. One seems to invite the viewer into the frame; the other presents the world as it is and leaves interpretation to the observer.
Portra 400
Canon R6
Light falloff reveals another subtle difference. Film often eases from highlight to midtone with a gentle roll-off, softening the transition where digital tends to define it more crisply. The shift isn’t dramatic, but it shapes the way brightness moves through the frame. One tapering with a quiet fade, the other tracing the edge of the light with greater clarity.
Portra 400
Canon R6
Dynamic range presents opposite tendencies in the two mediums. High-contrast scenes can challenge both, though in different ways. Digital often pulls detail from the shadows; film tends to preserve what remains in the highlights. Each handles contrast truthfully, just in its own voice.
Portra 400
Canon R6
Grain is one of film’s most recognizable characteristics. It once signaled limitation, and now carries a sense of authenticity. Digital noise, by contrast, never really adopted that role. It still reads as a technical flaw rather than a feature. Grain is an innate feature, noise can be avoided.
Ektar 100
Canon R6
Film and digital aren’t opposites so much as different ways of interpreting the same moment. Either can be precise; either can be emotional. What changes is the path you take to get there — and the experience you want to remember.
