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Film vs digital
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:56 pm    Post subject: Film vs digital Reply with quote
I not see any benefits to shoot with film cameras any more, perhaps I am wrong can you explain what you think about.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 8:01 pm    Post subject: Re: Film vs digital Reply with quote
Attila wrote:
I not see any benefits to shoot with film cameras any more, perhaps I am wrong can you explain what you think about.


Digi cameras are far more convenient, the pictures are instant and there's no developing cost so you can shoot 1,000s of pics if you like and just select the ones you like. Besides being fun to use, I thank Him up there every time for being able to shoot pictures for my job and email them within minutes in a report. Going to the lab twice, waiting for the pics and then sticking them in a paper report for mailing was a real time-consuming chore.

But I still like using film too. For starters, opening a new film canister and loading the film in the camera seems much more sexy to me than sliding in a memory card, but maybe I'm strange! Shocked

The real reason though, is that because the number of pictures is limited and they cost money to develop, it makes you think much more about the pictures you actually want to take and about how to use the camera most effectively instead of just pointing-and-shooting. That's the fun of photography for me, and I still do it with the digital camera. I'm just about to start doing my own B&W developing too, a completely different side to photography, so that's another reason to stick with film.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 8:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I did own developing on B&W films and on slides long time ago, that was fun it is true, but this time I really like fast and great result of digital cameras. I keep film cameras for wide angle shooting only , because I don't want to spend $$$ for 5D just for a couple of wide angle shooting. What is really confused to me how can I make quality scan into my computer.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 8:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hmm, about archiving you have 100% right this always scary me. I figure out in every year I make a copy from my all DVDs. I store just the best pictures in raw to save space and I am planning to keep a backup copy from all pictures at my MUM's house.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 8:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Attila wrote:
What is really confused to me how can I make quality scan into my computer.


I'm learning this slowly myself Attila. Do you have a film scanner already? I bought a really old and cheap Agfa flatbed scanner to play around with for starters before I decide which better one I need. It does a reasonable job. At least, better than the scans of slides I had done by Jessops recently.

I found a website by a man who scans pictures of airliners. He explains in simple English how he does it:
http://www.saap.co.uk/aascanning-printing.html

PS How do you enter word to click on, rather than enter the full URL like I've done above?


PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 8:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Seymore wrote:
And even the backups (CD or DVD) have a shelf life


Well, that's something I didn't know before. What happens, do they fade like prints or something?


PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thank you guys! I am looking this article Peter.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I gave up film to go digital years back as I thought I needed it and I would stop wasting hours every day in the darkroom.... now I miss film photography (even the smell of the film when you first open the canister) and spend too many hours a day in front of a faceless computer instead, but I won't go back, digital is too convenient and is so much cheaper when you factor in processing costs etc.

Some people do say that digital sensors make photographers lazy but I don't agree with them, I think it's the cameras and lenses at fault as everything is auto now which is why I'm using a DSLR but in manual mode with old manual lenses... as far as I'm concerned it's the best of both worlds.

About archiving, yes things can go wrong, but they could go wrong before with film too, the big difference is that you can easily make an identical copy of your digital file, it's a good thing not bad.
In the past if your slide or negative got damaged then that was the end but now if your raw file gets corrupt it's no problem, you just restore it from one of your many identical backups, you couldn't do that with film.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Backup, backup and backup this is the key in my conclusion.


PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Attila wrote:
Backup, backup and backup this is the key in my conclusion.


That is most definitely the way, the DVDs that I use are less than 30p sterling each whereas a picture can be priceless.

"Wasting" however many DVDs it takes to feel safe is easily worth it in my opinion, most of us used to (or still do) spend something like Ł3 on 1 roll of film... that is 10 DVDs, it's well worth it.


PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I love digital. But, looking around for a camera I could have in my pocket all the time, with: a fast aperture; good performance above 400ASA; at least some control over exposure; zero start-up time; no shutter lag; and, above all, cheap so I wouldn't mind losing it, there was nothing that came close, except, maybe those nice Fuji F31fd that are currently on sale. But it has a mediocre lens, and they aren't exactly cheap even with the discount.

So, I ended up buying a Ricoh 500G rangefinder and two Olympus XA2. Combined, all three cost me less than Ł15.

Sure, shooting film costs a little - but if your film camera isn't your main camera it's no big deal: you don't take many pictures with them - but the important thing is that you have them if you wanted to take a picture.

The best camera is the one you have in your hand when you want to take a picture!

For me, the film cameras are there when I don't want to take a digital camera with me.

Girls really like the Ricoh 500G too.


PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Girls like ... Smile important feature Laughing


PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 7:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Attila wrote:
Backup, backup and backup this is the key in my conclusion.


And transferring the files...
Thr fantastic thing about digital data is that you can copy it without loss.

Thus, I have my files on the harddisks of two computers, an external harddrive and several CD/DVD. Call it paranoia, but I feel rather safe with that. Wink


PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
OK, now I am in an internet café, where the connection is much faster. Wink

As far as the comparison between film and digital is concerned, I wrote an essay about it some time ago. You can find it here (in German, but perhaps bablefish works...):

http://www.look-ttl.de/wp/?page_id=96

And a little later, I wrote a dialogue between a film fan and a digital fan which is not to be taken too seriously. It is meant to convey some arguments in a rather entertaining way:

http://www.look-ttl.de/wp/?page_id=135

(I fear that bablefish will not do any good here... Wink )


PostPosted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 3:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Seems to me that you all have missed the main issue.

The fact is that even 35mm film has better resoulution that the best current 35mm format sensors out there, and of course most sensors are still not even full frame. If you want to step up to medium format film, then there's no comparison.

Of course in my case, this doesn't matte, because most of the time my shots aren't that good, anyway. Why would I want better resoulution?

So far as backup, even film has a "life"

So far as digital backups, probably the best method is to

1 print your best shots, and archive them, uh, just like you always have prints

2 create multiple digital backups, including several Cd/DVD's, or at least two hard drives.


PostPosted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 3:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
440roadrunner wrote:
The fact is that even 35mm film has better resoulution that the best current 35mm format sensors out there...


Yes? Who says so? I have read several resolution tests that compared different sensor chips and film material. And they came to another conclusion!
So, this "fact" is not really a "fact", unless you talk about the Gigabit film which is unusable for normal photos.
The natural grain (esp. from ISO200 onwards) decreases the theoretically possible film resolution.

And then, both a high-end sensor and high-end film can resolve higher than most lenses can. So you only would realize a difference if you used excellent lenses.

Plus, medium format film material does not effectively offer a higher resolution than 35mm film, it is the same material! You only need to enlarge a 35mm film to get a, say, 13 by 18, more (about 5x) than a medium format film (about 3x).
OK, it has a higher resolution in relation to the whole picture, but not in relation to one mm on the film - the film material is the same.

Well, this discussion is closer to a religion than to science, I guess.

I enjoy using both film (in ca. 10% of my shots) and digital (90%). Very Happy


PostPosted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 5:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
""Plus, medium format film material does not effectively offer a higher resolution than 35mm film, it is the same material! You only need to enlarge a 35mm film to get a, say, 13 by 18, more (about 5x) than a medium format film (about 3x). ""

That statement is entirely incorrect. Of COURSE medium format provides more resolution than 35mm IF IT IS USING THE SAME film. Of course, a square cubit of medium format is going to be the same as the very same sq cu of 35mm, but that is not what defines the OVERALL resolution of any given complete picture.

The fact is, that if, say, I took the same shot frame using a "1/2 frame" 35mm, and the same frame using the same film strata and using a larger format camera, and blew BOTH COMPLETE frames up to the same size, then whatever I used with the larger format, saying the quality of the lenses being equal, is going to have better resolution.


If this were not true, then we'd all have been using, say, 8mm film instead of something larger. There would be no need for larger format film over all these years.

The fact is that good quality 35mm film can provide more "effective pixels" than the best 35mm format digital that is out there. It all gets down to "light sensitive devices per square cubic whatever" and 35mm STILL beats the best digital stuff there is to date.


In my case, though, I freely admit that I've finally scraped enough together to "go digital." Most of my pictures are not that critical, and the cost of film and processing will eventually, pay for my Canon--if I live long enough. I just bought mine this spring, and have already shot over 9000 frames. I'll leave it to someone else to figure equivalent 35mm film/processing costs.


PostPosted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 5:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
My problem with film how can I scan into the computer in good quality. I don't large print for exhibition also don't like much small prints as family photography 99% for me need in digital.


PostPosted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
440roadrunner wrote:
"That statement is entirely incorrect. Of COURSE medium format provides more resolution than 35mm IF IT IS USING THE SAME film. Of course, a square cubit of medium format is going to be the same as the very same sq cu of 35mm, but that is not what defines the OVERALL resolution of any given complete picture."


Just read my text to the end, and you will see that I exactly say that!!

Of course it offers more line per image height. But very often people tend to believe that medium format offers more lines per mm - and this is not true.

This can't be emphasized often enough!

BTW, this is also the reason why a medium format lens will not produce better resolution when adapted to a 35mm film camera just because it is a medium format lens. If it provides a higher resolution than only because the design is a better one. Sometimes it isn't, but in most cases it is, since medium format lenses are mostly "professional" lenses and as such better than "mainstream" or budget 35mm film lenses. They are not "better" than professional 35mm lenses, they only cast a bigger circle.


PostPosted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
440roadrunner wrote:
"The fact is that good quality 35mm film can provide more "effective pixels" than the best 35mm format digital that is out there. It all gets down to "light sensitive devices per square cubic whatever" and 35mm STILL beats the best digital stuff there is to date."


Yep, and there was a U.F.O. in Area 51. This fact is also "out there".
And the Americans never went to the moon. You can find good "evidence" for that as well.

Sorry that I am sarcastic, but you just believe what somebody has written somewhere. In a way I also do, but I refer to the findings of a reputable and approved professional photo magazine and I at least try to distinguish.
There is a great variety of film material. Of course there is some kind of film that can reproduce a higher resolution than all the sensors we can buy, but not the regular film you find in all those places if you need one.
And if you consider the resolutionwise best DSLR, the EOS 1Ds MII, you will get some 140 lines per mm. You have to look hard to find a film that offers that.
And what about those new 50something MPix Canon chips?

"Facts" sometimes can be rather flexible things...


PostPosted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Since a good HQ (and I mean really HQ) slide scanned on a good HQ scanner can produce 20-25+MP, theoretically it is still true that film is better but it's not quite as simple as that.

Is a 10MP sensor better than a 6MP sensor? it doesn't work that way (I chose 6 over a 10+ deliberately), there are too many variables and the digital/film argument is the same.

We could discuss signal to noise ratio, sensor size, pixel size/spacing, dynamic range etc. all day long but honestly there is no point, we are now at the point where you'll be happy with a good digital camera or a good film camera, so stop worrying about it and take some pictures.


PostPosted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 8:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Super Tak wrote:
...we are now at the point where you'll be happy with a good digital camera or a good film camera, so stop worrying about it and take some pictures.


Well spoken! I agree.


PostPosted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Whew, Carsten, I'm so glad...thought I'd have to turn the hose on both
of you! Laughing


PostPosted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
For difficult photography, and for testing, I only go with digital.
For instance, in this Budapest vacation, digital is what I used inside the theater, because it allowed me to check the results and the exposure immediately, something that is crucial for the result where you have no control on the lighting and position and movement, etc.

All tests I make are done with digital (also for financial reason).

Where I really enjoy the film, is for the vacations. For two reasons: you can take with you a full frame camera without risking thousands of Euros investment - and number two, I really enjoy a lot the slide shows of my vacations. After years, I still make the slide shows of my old vacations, and enjoy them very much.
Yes I know, projectors exist also for digital images. But they cost a fortune, and I am not sure yet of the quality of the projected image as compared with a good slide.

Another thing I enjoy film for, is because of the medium format, and the black and white film.

I plan to keep using both, although for a number of reasons, my use of digital is largely prevalent these days (like, about 80-90% of my shots are digital).


PostPosted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio, welcome back, BTW! Did you shoot any film in Budapest? Just
curious.

Bill
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