Why does my school require students to take a film photography course as a prerequisite to all others?

I don't deny that people still shoot in film, and I know that the controls are nearly identical from film to digital on newer SLRs, but why do they make us take a film class before we can move onto digital? The majority of my classmates will, I assume, be working in digital after this class.





I've been told that this isn't unusual, that many programs require film and darkroom experience before moving to digital. Still - what's the benefit?!|||Film photography is where you will learn to master the basics. You will have a much better understanding of the relationship between f/ stop, shutter speed, and film speed when you are forced to deal with a permanent image on film. You have understand why an overexposed negative yields a very light print, why an underexposed negarive yields a very dark print. You will learn what techniques you can use to compensate for underexposure or overexposure.





Working in a physical darkroom, if you're so lucky, will also give you the foundation for why you do the kinds of things you do with a digital darkroom on your computer.





If all you ever want to be is a snap shot taking photographer, then learning photography from the ground up is a waste of time. But if you want to be a solid professional or a highly skilled amature photographer, then you need a solid foundation from which to build your vocation (or avocation).





Take the time to master the basics and you can master any area of photography. By not learning film, you are ultimately limiting you potential as a photographer.|||I believe it may just be to learn the art. There isn't much brain work to digital (in my opinion). I personally hate digital, and will only shoot with film. It may be to help students learn the 'roots' and basics and appreciate the art.|||Nihl hit it pretty good.





For one thing, film enforces good technical camera control and an understanding of all aspects of photography.





Except for some personal uses and maybe a requirement from a customer that I shoot transparency or something, I shoot strictly digital.





I have shot around other photographers who learned shooting digital and I often hear "I'll fix it in photoshop". I learned on film and there is a quality difference between my photos and theirs. I have much more in camera creative control than they do and my imagination is very different.





I am so fundamentally grounded in the essential elements of photography that I literally see things differently. I am basically a better photographer than they are.





I absolutely believe that anyone who wants to be a really good photographer should learn to shoot in film first. It forces a discipline on you that photography teachers have learned through experience few students will impose on themselves. If students would learn digital photography by shooting strictly within the limitations of film, it wouldn't be an issue.





My take from experience is that the photographers I know who came to digital from a solid film background are generally more flexible, more capable of solving lighting problems and more capable of seeing the potential of the situations they face.





What you are learning from film IS photography. That doesn't mean you can't learn the same things starting digitally. If there was camera software that limited WB to daylight and tungsten, didn't display a historam, and there was a way of billing the student 25 cents for each exposure whatever the quality while NOT allowing you to erase images, that would be a start. Then get rid of adjustment layers and everything else in photoshop besides the dodging tool, burning tool and contrast, then go ahead and learn digitally.





There is another reason for learning from film and that is you usually have to produce a contact sheet. This may not seem like much, but it is important. This allows you and, more importantly the teacher, to see where there are systematic errors you may be making so that they can be explained to you and you can learn to do things right instead of learning to correct them.





There is nothing like film to show your mistakes and that's a good thing. It's your mistakes you learn from. Nobody remembers that they learned to walk by falling on their butts most of the time and that learning to run needs very solid walking skills.





My two cents.





Vance|||Because flim photography is the original, before you can appreciate the effets of the digital camera you have to know where that effect came from, film photography. Withouot film photography we wouldn't have digital. You have to take that class not only to learn the controls, as you say, but to appreciate where modern photography came from. Learn the history. That will make you a better photographer and help you to appreciate your medium. Plus you may like it better! I always have, but I like old school stuff rather than new technology!! Best of luck in that class, just go with it you'll have tons of fun!!