The wonder of 16mm

Spike Lee with Krasnogorsk camera.

There were a couple of things I read long ago.

One was an article about the making of a 16mm made-for-TV movie. This was in the days of analog television. They filmed it using a 16mm camera obviously, but all the other equipment was stuff designed for 35mm. There was a photo of a little 16mm camera mounted on what seemed like an oversized dolly. They didn't exploit any of the advantages of the smaller film guage and treated it like it was 35mm and, I don't know if the audience could tell, but the director of photography thought it looked as good as anything shot on 35mm (at least when it was shown in a TV screen.)

I've also seen in more than one place recommendations that 35mm still photographers carefully compose their shots rather than taking dozens and dozens of shots and hope one comes out okay, as news photographers tend to do.

So, okay. I mention it here because I watched a lovely test roll someone shot on 16mm film using a Russian Krasnogorsk camera. Sure, it looked better than most digital videos I've seen, but was it because film just looks better, or because film is so expensive you treat it differently?

I read all the comments on the video. They all gushed about how good film looked. One brave soul did say that he had come to like digital video better, and maybe it's an arbitrary aesthetic. 

Perhaps forcing yourself to do all manual settings on a prosumer camcorder would simulate the experience of having to slow down and not waste film.

But I happened to look on eBay. 16mm cameras were built to last, and you can get them incredibly cheap now.