Is there an actual double-blind study that proves that digital still cannot beat analog in certain realms? Because I'm having a hard time believing that this "analogue renaissance" isn't just pure marketing hokum.
If nothing else, it's a stylistic choice. Choosing how a film should look, the colours and tonality etc, is a creative process and has aesthetic and therefore subjective goals. You can't really say which one is 'better', only that they're different.
This is the best thing i've read on the whole film vs digital debate: http://www.fototazo.com/2015/04/the-meaning-of-films-decline... # TLDR: most film advocates claim all the wrong reasons for shooting film, and i say this as someone who is primarily a film shooter.
The most compelling reason to shoot film is because it gives you access to a range of camera and lens technology that is impossible to replicate with digital without significant compromise in quality and/or shooting style.
Nolan shoots on IMAX cameras with modified Zeiss lenses that give an extremely shallow depth of field (witness some of the scenes in The Dark Knight Rises).
Tarantino shooting on Super Panavision 70 could not be replicated on digital without extreme cropping of a wide angle digital source, which would change the depth/perspective, or stitching (difficult if impossible in motion picture shooting). See also panoramic cameras: Fuji 6x17, Hasselblad X-Pan.
Large format and even medium format, because the available digital backs have not yet reached the size of a full 6x6 negative. The digital back manufacturers claim they are "full frame" but when used on actual full frame 6x6 cameras they are anything but (this is not a resolution/quality argument, it is a "oh, my 100mm lens is now actually cropped" argument).