Carbon footprint, eco-friendliness, being green, etc.? Someone will hate me.

Maybe Canon can answer that question, or Kodak, but I don't see how we can. You'd have to know what the footprint of film manufacture and processing (and printing) is, you'd have to know if you intend to print chemically or digitally, the differences in battery technology between the old and new.

Presumably any already existing camera is already manufactured so depending on whether you take into account it's manufacture or not would influence your answer. Your Kiev DID require some manufacture and I'll bet it was highly manual and more than a little toxic (the chrome plating anyway).

So this is a question you can answer any way you want -- all you have to do is to set the specifics to match what you want and you can either get the answer of using existing cameras or film cameras or digital cameras.

And it's complicated by the fact that many film photographers these days actually scan their film and proceed digitally from there. When I use film, that's what I do. So I still need a computer, a printer, printer paper, printer ink, etc., all with a potential manufacturer footprint.

Neither one, but your or any person's use of a computer/internet, purchase of any goods or foods produced in a foreign country all have a much greater eco footprint than your photography hobby or profession. So in the grand scheme of things, any single individual's use of resources for digital or or silver based photography is so insignificant it is really totally irrelevant.

Very good and thoughtful answers so far. I'd say digital is likely a lot worse than you think; the manufacture of silicon chips is highly polluting. This is made worse by the fact you need to upgrade every 18 months or more. So all the old cameras, computers, hard drives etc. which end up in the dump just add to the detritus of our society. Unlike other past cultures, which are known by their great monuments, ours will be known by the stuff we threw away. Our trash will last a lot longer than the badly constructed modern buildings we have.

But that's neither here nor there. In the old days people bought one or two really great cameras and kept them a lifetime, as they did their slides, negatives or prints. Sure, film manufacturing is not eco friendly, but remember that all of the big film manufacturers like Kodak, Ilford and Fuji all exist in countries with tight environmental laws. Most of the manufacturing has been cleaned up.

I've also wondered about this. To compare the two we need to do some many assumptions about user habits that it's not even worth it. Do you print the digital files? Do you scan your negatives? How often do you replace your equipment? How do you store your digital photos?

If I had to venture a guess I'd say digital is more environmentally friendly.

1. The manufacturing and disposal of digital cameras have a bigger environmental footprint than that of non-digital ones due to the extra electronics and batteries.

2. After you bought the camera, film seems to have a larger environmental impact. Sure those batteries use energy, but so does the production and processing of film, which have more significant impacts than energy consumption. So the more you use the camera, the largest the benefits from digital would be.

3. You might argue that storage of digital files have a long-term environmental impact as it would require energy and hardware. If you scan your negatives this advantage would obviously disappear.

For a professional photographer the biggest impacts would not be related to film vs. digital, but more with travel, studios and lighting equipment.

There are clearly a lot more things to consider. Hopefully someone who really know what they're talking about will jump in and enlighten us.

Not all cameras require batteries. I prize my Leica M3 2-stroke. The clip-on meter is light powered. I also love my Canon Elan IIe. It can run on 4 D cells for a great many rolls of film, with or without motor wind. Digital cameras as a rule use batteries. The cameras do not last as long, partly because they become obsolete.

Is a camera of any kind any worse than a throw-away cell phone?

People still use 50 years or older film cameras. Do you think anyone will be using a digital rebel in 2058? Digital cameras are disposable, while film cameras improve over time as film improves.

I have noticed that this year even the used camera section of the stores are full of digital cameras. Me, I'm shooting with Canon F1s which are at least sixteen years old and Mamiya TLRs which are at least 25 years old. And gelatin is a by-product of animals which we are going to eat in any event.

This is an interesting question but it also really depends on where you are, and the capacity of your sewer system etc. If you dispose of your photo chemicals in a city that has a well-developed sewer system that can process and handle the extra waste, then I'd say that film by far, is a better option.

Comparing the manufacture of film to digital cameras is like comparing a typewriter to a computer. No one's ever complained, as far as i know about a typewriter (especially the manual ones) being horrible in landfills. Computers, computer screens, computer batteries, computer chips etc. all contain highly toxic elements either to manufacture or dispose of. Also, as someone pointed out, it's VERY rare to dispose of or get rid of a good quality film camera. The Pentax K-1000s that I have are old, and still run well. If I'm in a pinch I still use my grandfathers K-1000 that traveled with him to Vietnam many years ago. I highly doubt I'll ever be able to gift my GRAND kids the Canon P and S digital camera that I use now.

This thread actually makes me like film more now that I consider the manufacturing. Yes, film manufacturing COULD be very bad, but as someone pointed out Fuji, Ilford and Kodak are all in countries with fairly tight rules. EFKE I don't know about, I really doubt that Croatian eco-law is quite as well developed as say, Japan's.

Either way, it all comes down to the fact that a film camera can be used for 100 years with minor repairs if cared for well, whereas a digital camera has a life of MAXIMUM 10 years, with a closer maximum (more realistic of 5) and most people probably using them for 2.5 years total before tossing them, or giving them away. Also, after a point the cost of a new battery (they only hold so many charges) just isn't worth it. The computer I"m writing on is nearly to that point, it's worth probably 250 or 200 bucks, and a new battery would be 75 or 100. In one more year, 5 years to be exact, if the battery dies, the computer goes to the thrift store right alongside a bunch of other digital junk that I've got.

At one point, you can evaluate the carbon footprint of an object on the basis of it's cost. For instance, consider that almost everything that goes into film is a petrochemical, except the silver. So some part of that cost was oil that was at least partly released as carbon. On the other hand, a good percentage of the film base is carbon, so that carbon is sequestered as long as you don't throw out the film.

Or look at it another way. Most folks spend many thousands of dollars a year on some combination of gasoline, diesel fuel, home heating oil, natural gas, and electricity. Few folks can spend more than a small percentage of that on photography.

Chip making does use prodigious amounts of energy and water. Keeping a clean room clean is an energy-intensive proposition. Also, the dopants are rather exotic elements, some rather nasty ones. I know that at least Intel paints their chip plants as environmentally sensitive, and they recycle the vast majority of their wash water now. On the other hand, used chips are not handled well as waste, at least in the US.

DSLRs probably have between $100 and $400 of chips in them (wholesale cost). Much of the rest of a camera is pure plastic. Obviously the energy to make all those dumped a lot of carbon. On the other hand, the plastic itself is mostly carbon, so again that carbon is sequestered. (Probably forever, unless it gets burnt.)