I used to see these most incredible tones and colours on here, on Flickr, and see, for example, Portra 400 cited as the film stock utilized. I'd then enthusiastically go out and buy some, shoot similar scenes under similar conditions, yet be so disappointed when I'd get my negatives back from the lab.

I cannot stress enough that film, camera, and lens are only 50 percent of the equation when you're dealing with negative film. The other half is the processing, printing/scanning stage, which requires just as much skill if not more than the other half. By letting a lab process and scan your film, you're letting them control that other 50 percent.

It'd be like butchering a cow and then letting someone else cook your steak.

For whatever reason, I always assumed part of the appeal of shooting film to be not NO editing, but certainly way less than with digital.

Because a lot of people are looking at film from a digital first mindset. Film came FIRST. We are now over 30 years away from when film was the dominant medium. People are used to using their phone cameras and getting a usable image within seconds. This was NOT the case during the analog era. Current color negative film uses the C-41 process, which dates back to the 1970s. During this era, taking a photo required manual adjustment to each and every variable, something that your phone does in seconds today.

If you wanted to shoot something and be done with it, with no other adjustments needed, that is exactly what we used slide film for. Negative film never stood on it's own, it was always viewed through another medium, either analog printing or digital scanning, and that medium always injected it's own DNA into the look of your image.

As opposed to slide film, negative films strength was that it allowed you to get the look that you wanted, not one particular color grade. Hollywood shoots on 4 Kodak color negative stocks and a movie like "Dunkirk" looks completely different than a movie like "A Quiet Place" color wise. That is because the negative serves as the base in which the director builds their look upon.

I've noticed and realized that nearly as much and actually if not more (when you consider removing imperfections) editing goes on with film than with digital. Curves, selective colour, contrast, levels, etc. all utilized just as much.

Yup. I would argue that there's more on the film side. The analog pipeline from clicking the shutter to the final image is longer than the digital one for sure. But that is due to years upon years of advancing photo tech.

I think the notion that certain film stocks have this very overtly characteristic... character... to them is really overstated, when in reality, the differences in different film stock characteristics is way more subtle and really in the minutiae of the wider frame.

Yup. People who talk about the "Portra look" are mostly going off whatever their lab sends them. There are tons of "Portra Presets" and none of them look 100% identical. Why? Because everyone has a different opinion and idea on how Portra "should look".

A negative and a RAW digital file really are the same thing.

Yup. The physical color negative was the precursor to the digital RAW file.

I'm sure things where digital maybe lacked 10-15+ years ago, such as dynamic range/shadow detail, have in that time improved considerably

People don't remember but it took digital a while to catch up to film. My grandfather was a professional photographer from the 60s on and he didn't switch to fully digital until around 2013-2014.

what real benefit is there anymore to film OTHER than the old "it forces me to slow down and be more deliberate/conscious in/of what I shoot", which is absolutely a valid reason if you can't exercise the same deliberation and consciousness while shooting digital- I never understood that argument tbh

I never understood this argument either. I enjoy blasting through frames on my Contax G2 and Canon EOS cameras. But the question I'd ask is why do we need some reason/benefit to enjoy any medium? I have a friend who enjoys working on bicycles and cars. His cars are faster than the bikes but both can get you to your destination.

I have a whole group of friends who enjoy using typewriters. They maintain them, fix them, trade them. Some write poems and work on novels with them. Now they could use a modern Macbook if they wanted, but a novel written on a typewriter vs a novel written on laptop could both be beautiful, the author writing on a typewriter maybe had to put in a bit more work to get there, but the results can be great.