People are still fighting endlessly on the Web about the relationship of film and digital photography.

Most, of course, prefer digital for its convenience and because that’s where all camera companies are putting their energy. Some zealots preach “Film is better!” and then go home to their vinyl records.

Me, I like them both. Film is what I love for making hand colored photographs. I also like the slower process of working with film, including the mystical time alone in the darkroom.

And digital is great for its quick utility.

Lately, though, I’ve come to appreciate digital as a kind of sketchbook medium. I can use my digital camera to take notes when I’m shooting large format, for example, and as an aid to previsualizing the photo I am trying to make.

This afternoon, home recuperating from minor surgery, I spent a half hour in the woods shooting flash-blur photos with the LX — bracketing exposures, trying different kinds of movements — before it dawned on me I could do all the experimentation with the K20D and be a little more methodical about understanding the process.

Set the camera to pop out a BW jpeg and you can see, instantly, the scene in black and white.

OK, it’s not the same. But it’s a guideline.

And it’s instant. It helped me to figure out some things about what works, and what doesn’t, in flash-blur black and white — without spending several days or weeks in the process.

What works best?

A subject that is closer than the background and clearly separate. A flash exposure that’s dead-on, or a half stop bright. An ambient exposure that’s about 2/3 stop low. And an exposure time of about 1/15, so you get that nice blur effect.

The photo above gets a lot of what I am after: It has a look that grows from art printmaking as much as from photography.

Now to go shoot some more film, using the same technique but with film’s more beautiful tonality.

photo: Blackberries (digital), 2010