these days most filmmakers work with digital due to the fact its cheaper and more flexible when filming. It is believed that film looks better in quality.
do you think its a good thing the increase of popularity in digital cameras over film cameras such as 16mm and 35mm? and do you think film will fade out and be replaced by digital?
Perhaps not entirely, but yes, in the big picture I do think digital will overtake film for most big productions. Technology is so advanced that it's now tough to distinguish between film footage and digital footage anyway. Perhaps ironically, many productions are now shooting with film and digital cameras and colorizing it all to look identical anyway.
Age will have a lot to do with it. Many filmmakers now learned to shoot with film, but as 21st century film school grads take over the industry, they will all bring their digital video techniques and training with them.
The documentary "Side by Side" concludes that they'll coexist for a long time, but I suspect that if digital continues to improve steadily, film will fall off a cliff in a decade or two. If digital movie cameras can capture the direction of light rays and allow manipulating focus and depth of field in post, film will seem like stone age tech. Film students will probably continue to make token 16 mm shorts as a rite of passage, then never touch it again.
share"If digital movie cameras can capture the direction of light rays and allow manipulating focus and depth of field in post, film will seem like stone age tech."
The Lytro light-field camera does just that, so it's curtains for film.
Since, unlike with vinyl records, the cost of DIY movie film is beyond the reach of the most reactionary film die-hard, the end of film movies will end when making movie film is no longer profitable. I think that day may come much sooner than many people believe.
The OP says "it is believed that film looks better in quality." The fact is that True Believers have already spent all their money on vinyl records and steam-powered cars. While this tiny minority of crackpots would just love to go see the Zapruder film at 18.3 fps with an "analog is always better" optical sound track, chances are that they won't have the $50 to pony up to pay for the expense of using obsolete stuff just because.
I suppose it's human nature for some people to suddenly fall in love with things that they spurned when they were easy to get. The cold hard fact is that the motion picture industry has always been about making money. There is no room for nostalgia if there's no money in it. Film is a costly old dog with no new tricks, and that's that.