Checking if empty or using a try/catch?

I am spinning up a application in Laravel 5 and I am relatively new to the framework. I am manually authenticating a user and the question I'm asking could be across the framework. I am checking if the user's credentials are correct, by querying the database and using a firstOrFail. I was wondering if there are any advantages to using a try/catch and catching the error or checking if empty?

try {
    User::where('email', $request->email)->where('password', $request->password)->firstOrFail();        
} catch (Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\ModelNotFoundException $e) {
    // Display error
}

versus

$user = User::where('email', $request->email)->where('password', $request->password)->first();
if (empty($user)) {
    // Display error
}

via Chebli Mohamed