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Apologies, I overestimated the weight of a propak of 120 film by 100 grams (one of many inaccuracies, no doubt), so the total weight is more like 300kg. I don’t think it makes much difference to the conclusion. Given the three trips film needs, and assuming a Japanese origin, that’s about 3 900 kilometre-tonnes of transport, compared to the one digital camera’s flight from Japan of 132 kilometre-tonnes. It's unlikely any single photographer outside of Hollywood would really use 10 000 rolls of film these days, but there's a lot of us nitrate junkies in total. Guess my trusty ‘Blad travels to the mantelpiece.

Hi, Greetings from Australia and thanks for your summary. I Googled to find out just this topic and found very little info besides yours on which to base my decision (which is unlike Google!). Strange that photographers, often the conscience of humanity, don't turn their scrutiny to their own trade more. I'm no expert and my approach is guesswork. It goes this way (using myself as an example): Like many photographers I have a beloved film camera kit which I would like to still use, but ask myself, “can I justify the environmental footprint in these dire days?” My film kit is Hasselblad so a digital equivalent is about 20mp, say a Canon 5D Mark 2 body, with my lenses adapted, as the most economical digital alternative. I could use a Phase P25 but that’s more expensive, or a higher megapixel back but that’s a step up, so we’ll keep it level. On the digital side of the environmental ledger: A complex, precision-made new camera and all the materials, chemicals, energy, water and transport required to make, package and deliver it from Japan to Australia. I have no feel for the quantities involved, but more than some tens of litres or even gallons of toxic waste water is hard to imagine for an instrument one holds in the hand. Plus the energy and materials I need to earn the $4000 Australian dollars to pay for it – a month’s photography, in my case. If it's service life is, say, 120 000 exposures, I will need about 4 terabytes of disk storage, doubled for backup, and all the materials, chemicals, energy, water and transport required to make, package and deliver those 8 disks from Malaysia to Australia. My last large digital camera made 70 000 exposures in 2 1/2 years before I decided it was too worn to rely on (it was a Kodak so service and spares disappeared during its life), so 120 000 is not an unreasonable number of exposures for a working photographer to make on a camera with ongoing support. Plus the energy to run the camera, disk motors and necessary computer to make, edit, organise and store those 120 000 pictures. Not an insignificant amount of power (and ongoing to view the images), but I have a solar power system, so it is actually the materials, chemicals, energy, water and transport required to make, package and deliver those panels and batteries. I've seen a figure of 8 years needed for a solar panel to generate enough power to justify it's own existence. I'm sure that's a wobbly guestimate. Solar batteries last about 8 years before their lead gets recycled. The camera will probably last 3 to 4 years. This is a wooly picture of environmental footprint, but it establishes an order of magnitude. On the film side of the ledger: Assuming my Hasselblad lasts, I don't need new equipment, only perhaps two services and the transport and spare parts needed during that 120 000 exposure term. But I need the materials, chemicals, energy, water and transport required to make, package, deliver and refrigerate ten thousand rolls of film, then transport that film to the lab, process and wash the film, dry it, package it and return it to me. If a propack of film weighs 250 grams, 10 000 rolls would weigh about 500kg (half a ton), not an insignificant air bill. Given that I work in remote places, that 500kg may have to travel 3 000km or 2 000 miles (sorry about the metric, Uncle Sam). Plus the energy and materials I (or my customers) need to earn the $90 000 Australian dollars to pay for the film and the $110 000 needed to pay for its processing and postage – 50 months of photography (!) If each roll is washed for the recommended time at the recommended flow rate, that film would contaminate and flush into our waterways at least 60 000 litres (14 000 gallons) of precious treated freshwater alone, along with 80 litres of toxic bleach at the recommended replenishment rate. E-6 uses five such chemicals. And then I need to scan and store the digital tiff files anyway (which are three times larger than the more efficient raw digital captures), because, lets get real, no stock agent or customer is going to want those film originals. I can argue that I would be more careful with film and therefore would need less to produce the same number of usable images, but doubts niggle. I can take one test image on the digital camera and get the picture right, whereas I may feel obliged to bracket with film, multiplied by changes in composition, or polaroid, another dirty business. Past experience shows that film photography is very wasteful. Even if the number of film images is halved, the order of magnitude difference in footprint between digital and film appears to remain. I love my film camera, I love it's image quality and the look of a film image, I love the discipline of film photography, and I much prefer working with transparencies on a light table than starring comatose into a computer screen all day, but I get the feeling that, environmentally if in no other way, it all lives in a time now past. Wayne Lawler http://ecopix.net