Even with many beginner DSLR's, digital photography can be a whole jumble of buttons and options that may throw off a lot of beginners. Most regular film cameras on the other hand, will limit you to setting the aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation. Having the right exposure is one of the most important things to learn in photography and being limited to the three settings above will help you master it.
A number of photography classes will prohibit students from setting their cameras to automatic mode. Such a rule won't matter much to students who make use of digital cameras since it will just be a matter of frequently tweaking the settings such as the aperture and checking the resulting photographs taken until the pictures are perfect.
Such is not the case for film photographers. With no ability to immediately check the effect of the different settings on the photographs, student must pay greater attention to the amount of light present so that they may set the camera accordingly. Students will be forced to make note of the aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings in their camera and the changing light conditions.
While digital photography has given us the ability to instantly check photographs and delete bad ones, it also has propagated a spray-and-pray mindset among photographers. Rather than carefully framing a shot and taking the picture at the right time, many photographers today would rather take as many pictures as possible and simply weed out the bad ones later.
With film photography, every picture taken means one less potential shot the photographer can take later. The cost of film will also factor in persuading photographers to conserve film rolls. Such a condition will challenge students to find the best angle and lighting before taking a shot.
The instant gratification given to us by today's digital cameras has somehow spoiled photography students. Instant results and the ease with which photographs can be deleted means that students have put less value on the pictures they have taken.
For film photography, students have to go through a lengthy process before they are able to view their photos. The film must be developed with a mixture of chemicals and the photographs are printed by exposing photo to a certain amount of light for a period of time. Any mistake in the process will ruin the photographs or even negatives, making printing impossible. Thus, students must learn to go through the whole process carefully and patiently. When at last a perfect photograph is printed, the emotional gratification a student will feel for the work well done is incomparable.