Camera basics - film

You might think that in this digital age, there's no need to talk about film, but the concept of film is valuable, and still applicable. Film varies by quality (duh) and by speed, called ISO (or ASA, the same thing). Film such as ISO 100 is very fine grain and very insensitive to light. Thus, it can be greatly enlarged without difficulty and can be used in very bright light.

"Faster" film such as ISO 800 has less fine grains, but it much more sensitive to light, so better in low light conditions. Typically, you have to get up to ISO's like 1600 before the graininess of fast film is really evident.

You can adjust ISO on most digital cameras, and the results are light sensitivity and graininess. I find that ISO 400 is a good balance between the extremes, but different speed films have their place.

The film quality itself is important too. Cheap film and cheap processing make for bad pictures. It's worthwhile to spend a little money for decent film and a photo processor that you trust (not the local supermarket...).

In digital cameras, this quality corresponds to the image sensor known as the CCD. A low quality CCD will give you low quality pictures. It's why, no matter what lens or how many megapixels, a cameraphone will never take as good pictures as my Nikon d70.