I've been picking up photography as a hobby. Many people gravitate towards the latest digital camera, myself included at first. The newest cameras are impressive. High-end sensors can shoot in low light, and with such high ISO without making the picture grainy that almost any shutter speed and aperature can be used and the picture will come out good. Also they have such high megapixels that you can take a shot and decide later what to zoom in and crop. I have a decade old DSLR I bought for my wife, which was not getting used much. Getting some use out of this is what gave me the idea to try photography. Even given it's age it is capable of making great photos, given some learning and practice to work with its limitations. I bought a telephoto lens and a 35mm prime lens second-hand, so I've got no reason to get caught up on other gear, I have all I need to make great photos.
As I've been doing more research, mostly watching youtubes on photography, I found some people are shooting film instead of digital. Some even using fully analog and mechanical cameras. This intrigued me. I asked my Dad if he still had his old camera, however my Mom sold it. Many of the popular film camera models have marked up prices, but I got a camera one model better than what my Dad had in the early 80's for $30 on ebay. Good to save some money there because film and developing are expensive. It's about $15 for a roll of 36 shots since it is having a resurgence in popularity along with inflation. Developing is also $15 or more for a good scan which can be done better nowadays than in the past to get them back as digital files.
I don't plan to shoot film only, it will be much cheaper to use the digital camera. However it seems that most people shooting digital are almost expected to photoshop their pictures, as phones do by default nowadays - editing them to make them flashy. I learned that editing digital RAW photos was originally needed because camera sensors don't capture light exactly as our eyes do. To ensure the picture looks how the photographer saw it, some adjustments to color/lighting may need to be made. However many go beyond this, cropping and replacing the sky entirely, or making some colors pop much more than they did in reality.
I'm really not interesting in the aspect of photoshopping a picture to get likes on social media. I'd rather learn and get good at the skill of photography. That's pretty much the point of this article - all the major photography software now come with Artificial Intelligence to change your picture for you to get you the most likes on social media. Why are some people shooting film? I believe it's to show, either to others or just themselves, that they are actually getting good pictures with their photography and it's not just AI which created a good picture.
Whether I use my film camera or DSLR - which I will apply minimal/default non-AI corrections to in software as there as some preset corrections for each camera sensor - I will make sure to the best of my ability there is no unrealistic editting being done. Then I can know for myself that I got a good picture when I do. Having some experience doing so with film will prove to myself that I can get some good pictures, because AI can't analog. I make good pictures the timeless way.