Saw a shop owner argue that digital scanning ruins the whole point of film photography

I was at a camera shop in Brooklyn last Saturday and overheard the owner telling a customer that scanning film onto a computer is basically cheating. He said if you're not printing in a darkroom, you're missing 80 percent of the process. His customer pushed back hard, saying film scanning lets more people actually shoot film without needing a whole lab setup. I get both sides - I've got a flatbed scanner at home and it saves me money, but I never get that grainy texture right in the scan. Is the darkroom the only real way to do film, or is digital scanning okay for the rest of us?

2 comments

2 Comments

webb.jordan1mo ago

Reminds me of when I tried developing black and white in my college bathroom and the RA thought I was cooking meth or something. The darkroom purists are right about the magic but wrong about the gatekeeping.

flores.tessa1mo ago

Hate how everything gets treated like it's suspicious or criminal these days. Feels like we've lost the ability to just let people have weird little hobbies without making it a whole thing.