> Interesting comments about digital, Dan.
I share your sentiments. Sorry if this goes a bit off topic, but I'll try to be brief.
I know the digital camera age is here to stay. I have witnessed many of the local (within 150 miles) camera shops and professional labs going under due to the lack of business and the changes of the digital age. I had friends at a few of these places and I feel for them. They have watched their clients switch over to in-house digital, and not need them any longer. It is like the horse and buggy being pushed aside by the automobile in some ways. I have even advised in a small business discussioin group that I belong to that this change is upon us and tried to help a few people realise that now is not a stellar time to break into a new business that offers professional scanning services (of negs and 35 mm slides) to professional photographers. I've had experience shooting with the new digital studio stuff....I've really enjoyed learning how the Better Light system mates up with a Sinar View camera, done a few shoots with it ... neat stuff (wish I owned it). And, I've done a little shooting with a Fuji Digital system (35 mm type) as well...borrowed from another studio.
You'd think by all this that I'm ready to jump headlong into the digital age. But, you'd be wrong if you guessed that. I'm not ready. I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling when viewing my work taken digitally. It all needs so much manipulation to come up to snuff yet. I'm very good with photoshop, don't get me wrong, but I don't WANT to need to use it on my images. I enjoy looking at a transparency and seeing the colors as I expect them, and knowing when I go to produce a brochure that the colors have to come up to the transparency I'm holding on to. I hope you know what I mean. I won't ramble on about it any more. I am resigned that digital is here, I sort of like it, but I don't want to give up my transparencies either.
(Ah, one minor note...I helped a friend get their university set up with a new better light digital system for archiving their collections. Please be aware, that I've learned that the Smithsonian (we compared their methods for sake of reference) not only does digital archives of everything in their collections...But..they also do transparencies and hold those off site in a secure location as a "just in case" step. The images that they archive to disk will eventually be out of date with technology, and they will need to make further copies (transfer the digital files) to new media as technology changes. Please know that the CD's that we can burn to on our desktops have a shelf life of about 5 - 8 years (best quality) and they degrade, the surface coating is different than the pre-recorded music CD's you buy. DVD's have a longer life, but again, technology will change, and if you want your images to last 100 years (like Ansel Adams) then you will need to keep up with technology and make sure your digital images are always readable. )
Sorry, this was a longer post than I intended. Hope it was somewhat helpful to someone.
-Lynn