I've seen the show over the years, but I confess that I am not a big fan - not like Michael and Holly and their two sons Philip and Eric. Bender decides to become a "paparazzo", but insists on using a film camera, going so far as to point out that his negatives will outlast any digital files.
Other characters question why are you using film? Digital cameras have been available for over 1000 years. When asked where he can still get film developed, he opens his chest to reveal a fully darkroom inside -- and later in the show, he access his darkroom (with trays of developer, stop and fixer) to makes some prints.
Benders says, "No digital camera can capture the quality, warmth and grain of good old film." but the Professor character claim this is silly your eyes are based on digital sensors! Clearly there is no way that Bender should be able to tell the difference.
Aside from the question about how a robot with digital sensors can make a value-based judgment about the quality of film, he does raise a good question: is film better than digital?
Bender is right - film will outlast digital. Any of the B&W negatives, some of the color negatives and even the color transparencies that I have shot and processed myself (ok - even the stuff that was processed by someone else) has a better chance of being around in 5 years than any of the digital files I shoot today. That's because digital files are only as secure as the medial you store them on. And I've already had my primary hard drive corrupted by missing sectors. Thankfully I have all my images backed up on other hard drives. But my luck might run out one day.
And even assuming that the images don't get corrupted, I'll still have to transfer and convert my files that I can open TODAY with image processing software over to files that I can open up with tomorrow's image processing software. I estimate I'll have to do that every 5 years or so. Already the files I scanned on my old HP ScanJet IIcx as Twain files on my Mac Quadra using Photoshop 3 aren't able to be opened on my new MacBookPro with Photoshop CS4.
Yet I have negatives and slides that were shot before I was born that I can print from TODAY almost as easily as when they were first shot. I can even scan and them directly into my computer.
I have many friends who claim that digital is superior to film because of the ease of use. You can buy a camera for a few hundred dollars - or use your cell phone - and take photos and post them to the web almost immediately.
But is that a good thing? How much does all that digital access cost? You really need a computer or some sort of smart phone to access those digital images. And the cost of my first digital SLR and zoom lens (covering the three primes plus one macro lens), laptop, software and other gear equaled the investment I had in 3 formats plus lighting equipment 2 years out of college (1986). All that to generate image quality I can do with gear I already own that's only worth a few hundred dollars now.
But I can't really show up on location and shoot photos and deliver proofs to a client an hour after the shoot when I shot film. But then again, almost all my clients own digital cameras and can generate images that they feel are almost as acceptable as the images I shoot. Image standards are lower now than they have been at any time in my professional career. Other professionals admit they don't even white balance their shots anymore.
So I agree with Bender.
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