Digital v Film again

[mayebaza]

I use both but currently I prefer film. My reasons are based on the embryonic nature and high susceptibility to obsolescence of DSLR. A 10-year-old conventional SLR can quite comfortably keep company, in quality terms, with its latest contemporaries. I fear it will be defiantly not so with DSLR. However, in five years time, when average new computers reach a 10 Gb CPU speed, we will all be using digital.

 

[clive_kenyon]

Austin,

It is always good to hear from you on technical matters. I totally agree with your comments about each sensor and image handling system having its own characteristics which will affect image quality. I was as you can imagine talking comparing different size sensors given all other things being equal.

On the basis that you have not disagreed about my mathematical interpretation of a 6Mp full size sensor giving the same image quality as a 4Mp sensor of 2/3 the size can I take it to be read as correct?

Also, the Sigma theory of their 3 million independent pixels giving the same result as a similar sized 10Mp CCD on the basis of the conventional sensor lumping three pixels into one. Is that also correct?

Assuming the answers to both the above are ‘Yes’ then to take the new maths as Marc calls it one step further; Would it be correct to assume that the Sigma SA9 produce more then double the effective number of pixels than the Contax N Digital? (This is calculated on 2/3 of 6Mp giving 4Mp which is then divided by 3 making 1.33Mp for the Contax and just over 3Mp for the Sigma.)

BTY,
Glad to hear that there are others enjoying their film photography. We must be 'Who's left' that Marc asked about!

 

[fotografz]

I believe a bit of clarification is in order, as it seems these discussions gravitate to highly technical debates that take on a life of their own.

I am NOT a film hater, and in fact use film a great deal considering all of the digital gear I have at my disposal. It seems when I point out that fact , some of you ignore it. IMO, both mediums give us a fantastic array of choices as photographers.

In the end, all any of us can do in discussions like these is draw on our experiences. So, all that I'm saying is that in my experience, digital is here to stay, and is bigger and better than is implied by some posts. Most people I know, in advertising, or as photographers in general, evaluate images with their eyes, not a calculator. In that arena, digital is shocking a lot of naysayers...and will continue to do so.

It is also my experience (as stated before), that in the right hands the visual end results, even from the Contax ND, are spectaular, no matter what mathamatical formula is quoted in rebuttal. The display photos I've seen people like Irakly produce are seductively beautiful, and stand up when exhibited shoulder to shoulder with his film work. No one at any of Irakly's shows went up to the prints and put a loop on it, nor did they whip out a calculator. To my knowledge, not one person asked him what medium was used.

I have experienced the same thing. I've made 13X19 prints from a cropped file that originated from a Canon D30 that brought tears to the eyes of the Bride. My traditional film buddies have been shocked by some of my larger digital prints, and wouldn't believe it wasn't film until I proved it to them.

All of that said, I do believe these posts have value to people like me in that it reminds us of films' unique characteristics and charms.
So much so, that I've decided to shoot my next
wedding exclusively with film. As opposed to my commercial work where the Art Directors no longer want film for their jobs, I am in control of what I shoot for weddings. I've been considering doing this for awhile now, and our discussions here have swayed me.

 

[mike_nunan]

Hi Marc,

I can't speak for the other contributors but I didn't have you pegged for a film hater. I do have (slight) reservations about the level of enthusiasm for digital that abounds in certain circles, because I think there is a tendency to get swept along by it and perhaps make expensive investments that will not look so great with the benefit of a few years' hindsight. For ex&le, Michael Reichmann of luminous-landscape.com has been somewhat guilty of this (as even he admits, sorta). This is very much an amateur's perspective, because I don't look at gear as "paying for itself" with certain jobs over a shortish time period. That won't stop me buying a 300D if I can get one for the right price from HK or Singapore though.

But I digress... Basically your points are well taken, and I'm not arguing against you. I think threads like this are hugely valuable, if only because they illustrate to the uninitiated exactly how complex and fast-moving is the world of digital capture in 2003. I know that before I began my own lengthy walk up the digital learning curve, I was blithely assuming that digital would "catch up" with film once there were enough pixels in the sensor, and that was about the only parameter which mattered. How wrong could I be!

Best regards,

-= mike =-

 

[paulcontax]

Hi Austin, Clive and others=20

I'm a film user too :=20

YOU ARE NOT ALONE !

I'm totally satisfied with my Contax/Zeiss equipment and although testing = some digital gear I will stay with the film equipment because it produces = so much better pictures !!!! (Perhaps the 12MP EOS1Ds will compete....)

;-) Paul

 

[fotografz]

Mike, you make a good and valid point in focusing on the cost factor. My first real digital camera was the Canon D30 mentioned above. It cost me $3000. Which was $1,400 more than the top of the line EOS pro film camera. It's worth $600. max today. Had I not been able to write off the camera on my taxes, earn extra income by avoiding volumn film costs and scanning charges, and actually charge a digital capture fee, then I would still be strictly shooting film. If I did not make money with my gear, I probably would have one digital SLR and that would be it.

As to your second paragraph, I believe digital has caught up...given two factors however...
1) you can economically justify a camera like the Canon 1Ds @ $7,000+, or have work that justifies a newer type MF Digital back @ $12,000. I use other DSLRs like the 10D and even the Contax ND for less demanding work
where convience, speed and ability to confirm shots are paramount. IMO for ex&le, these cameras do not compete in any way with my Leica M cameras which I use for my serious personal work.

The last note is to recap my agreement with Clive that a traditional wet print from a good film is superior to 90% of what can be produced on a desktop. And that includes desktop scanned film as well as digital files.
Few amateurs have the where-with-all to pay for high end 8000 dpi scans. The digital domain is a great equalizer.

 

[clive_kenyon]

Marc,

I have n’t got you down as a film hater. Naïve, contradictory, yes. But not a film hater as I am not a digital hater or Luddite as other would portray me. Two months ago to the day you announced that you could not separate an image from a Contax ND from a photograph taken on a Rollei medium format camera. Yesterday you said that you could tell the difference between a medium format photograph and one from the digital back of a Contax 645. Either the ND is better than the 645 film back, your eyesight has improved or you have changed your opinions again. You also don’t help your case with comments like your “Who’s left (using film)” when these words are being read by some of the several million who still use film and have no immediate plans to change. The world in which you operate does not reflect the photographic world as a whole by a long way.

Check out the long standing photographic magazines and look at the reader’s submissions and competition entries. Hardly a digitally captured image amongst them. Visit club exhibitions and count the digital entries. It won’t take you long.

Go to Niagara, Grand Canyon or any other tourist spot and take note of who is using cameras and what they are. I wager that you will see more 1980’s models than digital SLRs. These people may have a summer holiday and Christmas on the same roll of film. Some of them may only spend a few dollars a year on film, but there are millions of them.

I like many others would love to change to digital and take advantage of its merits. The one single issue that stops us is the image quality and that is why I have posed those questions. If Austin or other qualified person confirms these theories it would explain why a digital image from a 6Mp DSLR is visibly inferior to an image scanned from film of the same file size. There has to be some reason and the manufacturers sure as hell are n’t going to tell us.

 

[coyot]

> For the last year, since I purchased a Canon G1 and then an ND, I have been a huge proponent of digital. Yes, film is good, but digital makes a significant impact on my personal shooting because of the workflow.

Last night, at a local bar, I was blown away by some digital prints a friend showed me. He is shooting with a Canon G2 (4 megapixel). The images were printed at a local copy center (Kinkos) and costs 2 bucks each. Yes, you could take a "loupe" (Clive) and find deficencies. The prints were remarkable with their visual impact. They were great shots. Gritty. Very cool. Some were stripped of color (now black and white) and some were sepia toned. They looked geat. All of us looking at the shots patted Matt on the back with a "great shots".

If Matt had been shooting film, he probably would not have made those shots. Why? He has been very, very motiviated by the digital experience. In the last 6 months, he has shot over ELEVEN THOUSAND shots. Yes, some are discarded as poor shotse. But he experiments, taking shots everywhere of everybody.

With my ND, I have only taken a couple of thousand shots in the last year. One problem with the ND is that the size of it makes it a hassele to take to the local club and "grab" some shots. Film shooters have a similar problem shooting with their slr compared to a compact. Matt's smaller camera is less intimidating. It is fun for him to shoot friends and environments.

I would like to know of ONE person on this list who has shot 11,000 images with their film camera in the last six months. I dought there is one. Yep, we can argue that the "machine gun" approach Matt has taken does not compare to the planned shots, and careful exposures most film based photographers tend to shoot. But you can not deny that the digital experience is absolutley changing the way alot of people are capturing their experiences. They do NOT think of the costs. That is a great freedom.

Look around at the twenty to thirty something crowd at a nightclub. There will be three or four people shooting with their digital compact, and perhaps one uses a film camera. The digital camera generates more excitement, with friends reviewing the images shot, immediatly!

And finally, their is a new digital disposable camera that is about to come to market. Something like 1.5 megapixels for under twenty bucks.

Film will be here for the next twenty years. And after that ... some of us will still shoot with film, but we will be ordering film from mail order specialty shops.

Just my prediction.

Michael.

 

[derekstanton]

Marc, I'm with Mike. I've followed your posts on the various forums for some time, and I've never read anything you've written to be anything other than objective. Don't feel you need to validate/justify your comments because of a misinterpretation of your motives. Your commentary is quite valuable as it is, and I'd hate to see you bogged down with continually having to (re-)explain yourself. I would think that adults would be able to read any piece of material and take from it as desired, instead of reacting as if the writer were meaning to dictate to everyone.

 

[clive_kenyon]

Michael,

Take a few minutes to consider what will happen to those nighclub images. A few minutes is about the time they will last before being confined to the camera’s memory. The next time they will be accessed is when the ‘Memory Full’ light comes on and the user hits the ‘Delete All’ button. Gone for ever.

Someone over here recently made the point that the saddest part of the digital revolution is that we will never again come across old shoe boxes full of photographic memories.

As for taking 11,000 images a year; It reminds me of Oscar Wilde's statement about photographers being like cod fish in spawning a million eggs in the hope that a few would make it.

Unless your friend can teach me how to take 11,000 great shots I would rather take my time, compose the shot I want and try and make sure that I get it right rather than trawl through a couple of hundred, let alone thousand shots looking for a few keepers.