At some ISO levels film is available that shows less grain / noise than digital cameras.
There are special types of film, such as for infrared light, that have no equivalent in digital.
Other than high-end digital SLRs, film cameras can offer much greater flexibility in changing the depth of field for an image.
Film is capable of much greater resolution than digital photographs. Estimated equivalent resolutions are:
35mm film - 19 megapixels
120 film - 69 megapixels
Large format 1135 megapixels.
This compares with 4–7 megapixels in new compact digital cameras (as of January 2006), 6–17 megapixels in professional SLR digital cameras and 297 megapixels as an extreme case for very expensive digital backs.
Note that it is impossible to provide an accurate comparison between images exposed on film, scanned from film or captured by a digital camera. The maximum amount of pure digital information that can be extracted from a 35mm frame by the best film scanner is about 90Mb (RGB). Kodak Kodachrome 25ASA and Fuji Velvia 50 ASA are the reference films discussed here.
About 30% of the film information cannot be retrieved primarily because of its extremely wide dynamic range. A digital image is two-dimensional whereas film contains that illusive third dimension, depth. This limitation is not normally of concern because most images are reproduced on two-dimensional media, but it is a problem when photographers want to image the file back to photographic film.
Test equipment: Leica M7 / Kodachrome 25ASA / Heidelberg Primescan(8,000dpi) / LVT Saturn 1010 Digital Film Recorder (3040lpi).
A film camera does not require a computer to download images to. However, a number of stores with one-hour photo labs can now make prints of digital images using the camera's memory card. In addition, newer photo printers that use PictBridge technology can make prints of digital images without a computer.
Film and prints can be easily stored in a file cabinet. Digital images stored on a computer can be lost if a hard drive fails; CD-ROMs may be a good alternative, but no one knows if computers that can read them will be widely available 100 years from now. If you need to legally document something, film should be used. Digital imagery can be easily manupilated without detection. There is no company, as of January 2006, that has software that can detect what, if anything, has been altered. Original film negatives that have been altered are easily detectable. Film is essentially "jello on plastic"; any attepted alteration will mechanically damage the emulsion, (the jello), which can be easily detected. This brings up a legal question of the admissibility in courts or other areas such as insurance claims. (It should be noted, however, that "photo radar" installations, and other road-rule enforcement cameras, almost exclusively use digital photography, and have been deemed admissible in court.
For most consumers in prosperous countries such as the United States and Western Europe, the advantages of digital cameras outweigh their disadvantages. However, the professional photography community is split on the issue. Problems some professional photographers have voiced include: editing and post-processing of RAW files can take longer than 35 mm film, downloading a large number of images to a computer can take away from valuable shooting time, shooting in remote sites requires the photographer to carry a number of batteries and add to the load she/he must carry, all cameras break from time to time — film cameras can often be fixed on the spot but digital cameras often can not. As time passes, it is expected that more professional photographers will switch to digital.
