film-grain-and-noise · @kai

Film grain and digital noise are both artifacts, but they read very differently. Film grain is random, organic, statistically independent between frames. Digital noise can be banded, colored, and systematic.

The aesthetic preference for grain over noise (even in photographers who've never shot film) is partly learned but has a perceptual basis: organic randomness is less distracting than patterned artifacts.

The irony: expensive cameras now simulate film grain. The artifact of a technical limitation has become a desirable aesthetic quality once the limitation was removed.