Very unpersuasive.
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Film has a broader range of colors than what's possible on a digital display. It has no brightness endpoints, either - there is always a highlight or shadow that can be pulled out later.
Digital displays are perfectly capable of rendering thousands of colors, so many they can't all be seen by the human eye.
Digital images can also be printed, subject to the same process and media limitations as film.
The point about "brightness endpoints," whatever they are, is unclear. Could you clarify what you are trying to say here? It's true that the large dynamic range of digital sensors has proved a design headache, and it's easy to introduce blown highlights in images, but the same applies to film, surely?
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Most DSLRS have a 12-bit linear range (pro models might have 14), but they can't match the range of film.
Since film is an analog medium, this point is completely meaningless.
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the negatives can be seen long after I'm gone. I wonder sometimes whether software 50 years from now will be able to read the digital .png/.dng/.tiff files I shoot today.
Negatives last longer than digital files? You must be joking. This would depend on archival techniques. Why is old movie stock now being restored digitally? The necessary software will be available, you can be sure of that.
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Images shot on film are not compressed in any way.
Again, a meaningless comparison between analog and digital. Film images are certainly subject to mechanical and optical limitations.
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Film never needs sharpening,
Wrong. The term Unsharp Mask has been adopted from film.
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never needs white balance adjustment,
Film invites all kinds of darkroom adjustments. The adjustment of images is a positive, creative possibility, not a limitation.
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and never needs noise reduction.
Noise is a digital phenomenon. The nearest film equivalent is assumed to be grain. Ever seen a film image with absolutely no grain? I think not.
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I have to think more about aperture, shutter speed, film speed, composition,
So a digital photographer never thinks about these things? I think you are confusing digital photography with "point and shoot," normally a sarcastic term that can be applied to a lot of film cameras and photographers.
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No megapixel race. I've read that the effective resolution of film is 25 megapixels, blowing away any digital body I have now.
It seems that you are the one introducing a megapixel race. The quality of the final image (prior to printing and its limitations) depends on a lot of factors, not simply effective resolution. In any case the quality of a digital image depends to a great extent on the overall size and design of the sensor, and the size of its photosites and the distance between photosites, not the number of megapixels per se. It's in this sense that the megapixel race has come to be seen as a dubious tool of marketing.
Some digitals can already go above 25MP. Admittedly, they won't suit everyone's budget and certainly not mine.
An interesting defence of film says that there's something about the interplay of light and film emulsion in an enclosed space that can't be rivaled by digital. In other words, the end image is superior, but superior in ways that are extremely subjective and very subtle. Couple this with the sarcastic put-down of processing in software as "manipulation," and you have the basis for film snobbery and a very aggressive backlash in the art world. Still, I think it's pretty clear where photography is headed, and digital tech is constantly improving, at a very fast pace.