Thanks, Ren. Thanks, Holger. Thanks, Tim.
--------------------------------------------
Holger, I'll answer your question a little later. Point44. I'll answer yours a little later, too.
--------------------------------------------
Bob,
Here's a copy of the question and answer. (It's pretty long, so I'm posting it in two parts.):
> Can anyone express their need for film, or their need for digital or
> anything relating to my topic? I am describing the differences in my
> paper and how digital cameras (SLRS) are just like film cameras
> except for the film. Anything I can use would be a great help. Also
> any pictures of differences or how the film has "warmth".
I've been meaning to put some of these ideas into writing, anyway; and this is a good opportunity to do so while getting some informed feedback, So, here goes:
I switched about three years ago from shooting exclusively slide film (35mm, mostly Fuji Velvia, some Fuji Provia), to shooting almost exclusively with a digital camera (first Canon 1Ds, then Canon 1Ds Mark 2). I'm trying to think of something I miss about shooting film, compared to shooting with my digital cameras, and I'm having trouble coming up with much. The two cases I can think of where I still prefer film are:
(1) Several hour nighttime exposures of landscapes with star trails. In such cases, it seems that film will still have less grain than digital will have noise. (Though I expect "stacking" digital exposures will produce better results than film; I just haven't tried this, yet.) There can also be issues with camera batteries dying during many hour exposures at below freezing temperatures. (In cases where you can be close to a car, this can be easily remedied by plugging the camera into an electrical socket on an inverter running on the car's battery.)
(2) Exposures where the sun is large in the frame. Sometimes these can look sort of odd with digital.
One other consideration has been that full-frame, very high resolution digital cameras are somewhat large and heavy for backpacking, air travel, etc., compared to 35 millimeter film cameras. This consideration has recently been mostly nullified by the introduction of the Canon 5D, which has full-frame and high resolution in a much smaller, lighter camera body.
Other than these rarely relevant, small issues, I've basically never looked back. It's all been positive, without any downsides.
Some people will find the initial costs of starting up with digital to be a downside. The start-up costs (including more expensive camera bodies, plus memory cards, perhaps a computer upgrade, hard drives for storage, file conversion software, etc.) can be considerably higher than buying a (non-digital) SLR camera and a roll of film. For people who simply can't afford to buy into a digital SLR system, or for people who barely scrape up enough money, but find it onerous to do so, the high start-up costs of digital probably seem like a disadvantage. However, if you shoot a lot, digital ends up much cheaper in the long run. When I was shooting film, top-quality film and top-quality developing were costing me 35-50 cents per shot. At these prices, it only takes about 10,000 to 30,000 shots for a digital sysem to come out cheaper than the continual costs of film and development. Yesterday, for example, if I'd been shooting film instead of digital, it would have cost me over $100 dollars in film and film processing. (I was shooting mostly Steller's jays and California scrub jays in flight, with acorns in their mouths.) Beyond the costs of film and processing, I used to have to additionally pay to get slides drum-scanned, if I wanted to print them as well as possible. This would cost me $25-100 per picture I wanted to scan for print. And further still, the costs of making high quality prints now is but a small fraction (less than a tenth) of what I had to pay when I'd get custom prints made.
Some people also may feel that the time spent processing digital files (when compared to having a photo lab process film) is another downside to digital. Again, that doesn't accord with my experience. Firstly, you can set your camera hardware and software to make default auto-corrections (which is tantamount to what you are getting when you have your pictures done by a photo lab), and it takes no more time than using a photo lab to process film. It is only when you choose to make an extra effort to achieve processing quality beyond what you'd get from a photo lab that it takes more time. Secondly, time spent buying mailers, packaging film for shipment, and mailing it to processors, or the time spent dropping film off at labs and picking film up from labs was not inconsiderable. Thirdly, the positive side to more time spent on processing to get the best possible quality is that I can take total control over the final image, instead of leaving it in the hands of photofinishers. No matter how good the photofinshers may be, nobody else has as clear of an idea as I do about exactly how I want my pictures to look. Lastly, post-processing can sometimes even be entertaining: sort of an exploration of perception and meaning, combined with a facinating puzzle of how to get from where your picture is to where you want it to be.
--Mike
No seriously, the tallest outcroppings do look kind of like people. Lovely photo.
