Are famous photographers using digital or film?

What are famous photographers mostly using nowdays: digital or film? Any examples of specific photographers and

what camera/lenses they are using would be very interesting. I did a small online research on National Geographic

photographers, but I couldn't find this information.

 

thanks

You could find some information here..

 

http://www.betterphoto.com/forms/linkall.asp?catid=2

I would believe, without being able to prove it, that most still living "famous photographers" use film because that is where

they started before the age of digital photography. Future "most famous photographers" will be more and more digital,

because that is where they started.

Famous for what? Photojournalists pretty much all use digital (with a few exceptions). And many fine art photographers use film.

Brent Stirton of Nat'l Geographic fame uses a Canon EOS 1ds Mark III. This is according to a Canon website I found.

 

 

 

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/23/what.matters.thirst/index.html">Brent Stirton</a>

Hector, I posted the wrong link, although that one is an interesting article. This one is to the Canon Professional Network and will give you exactly what you are looking for...at least those who use Canon equipment: <a href="http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/ambassadors.do">Canon Ambassadors</a>

Both, obviously.

I think Ansel Adams used film.

Ansel wished he could use digital. Ken Rockwell has been touting film of late.

 

Most living well known have gone digital to meet cost or time contraints or to free up creativity. A few still do film and a few more do a small % of film.

Thanks for your responses!

 

Elmo, I checked the links and they are very interesting.

Why are you asking? Photographers get famous for their work and not for the camera they use.

"What are famous photographers mostly using nowdays: digital or film?"

 

I am using both, thank you.

Okay, I was only playing.

 

I think that the answer would be digital. I prefer film and love it, but the truth of publishing is, low overhead rules in

manufacturing reportage for entertainment. That's what most news organizations do. I haven't actually seen a reporter

packing a film camera since the early 90s. All of the reporters I have seen lately have had digital equipment; no

exceptions.

 

In terms of actually manufacturing the document, it'll get down to a digital or paper end product. Web, video feeds, stills

for TV news or the latest edition of your favorite magazine. You basically can't publish paper anymore without somehow

succumbing to digital. The desktop publishing revolution has been so pervasive, that it's not just for home users

anymore. Those same applications have been used by professionals in publishing for, actually, a longer period of time

and more intensely than even the marketing of pub apps would have us believe. It's common; for a publisher to have

their own customized, built-in computer system for hacking together their paper or mag or book or whatever. Also, it's

common to see those same systems used in conjunction with top-end consumer products.

 

It gets down to the galleys. How are you going to physically get this document created onto the massive sheets of

paper used to build the big stack of pubs? 20 years ago, it'd be common to use an optical galley; this thing was actually

a large sheet of paper with light blue ruled lines on it; onto this, you cut cut and paste, with scissors and glue, examples

of the text, printed by any means, to create one conglomerate page that would be photographed. That photograph of the

galley page would probably be photolithoed onto a printing press plate; or, used to somehow, anyhow, create the plate

needed. Nowadays, many of the contemporary large printing presses are actually like super-sophisticated digital

printers.

 

It would make little sense to do part of the process digital, part of the process physical, and then interweave them; it

doesn't make as much sense commercially because not only would you get the benefits of both, you'd get the

limitations, too. Working in a pub factory has enough headaches; I assure you, anyone who's fed a head or checked for

color drift by throwing away armfuls of rejected pubs knows, no one needs to make this harder.

 

So, the professional thing to do is to streamline it. Eventually, the job will get so hard, artistic standards and ethics go

out the window. Using a system because of personal opinion or preference is a waste of colleagues' time. So, most

every publication is probably digital.

 

I hate to say it because I love film; I dislike the digital systems; but, from working on a newspaper factory line, I'd have

to admit, you're gonna want to chop overhead. So, it's unlikely that any reporter is using anything other than digital. Not

to say they might not shoot a roll of film on occasion or that older experts won't be working some magic with older techniques; but,

because of the inherent difficulties of publishing, it's all digital.

Is there a connection between fame and the photographic medium or tools?

 

How many NG photographers are "famous"?

 

And how long will the clever substitution of the word "or" rather than "versus" keep the jackals at bay?

Lex, you can be such a cynic at times. I'd like to take the man at his word, that he was simply curious. I hope this

thread does degenerate into the tired old non-argument. I appreciated John's insight into the publishing world. I'm

glad I just take photos for fun and don't have to worry about actually paying the bills with a camera...that's what this

website is about right?...fun...right?

I meant does NOT degenerate into.

John Sexton still uses film - he's touting the new TMAX 400 on the Kodak Website. They have a pretty nice

interview with him- check it out.

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/pressCenter/newPodcast/podcastPro.jhtml?pq-path=11792

 

Aside from this, I agree with the poster above- Digital is the future, and thus the great photographers of the

future will most likely shoot digital.... Film will most certainly be a niche thing for awhile longer...

Reading artist's statements on photoeye.com film seems to be the medium of choice for most of their featured

portfolios. Magnum portfolios are also mostly film too, no surprise here I guess.

 

One of the books that fascinate me is "The Sea" by Philip Plisson, amazing photographs and sea panoramas

stretching over 4 pages wide... He uses 35mm digital and film, Fuji on 617 format, Contax on 645, Hasselblad and

Mamiya...

 

I believe it would be a good thing if conscious photographers would give film a try of film from time to time...

There are such amazing films out there just yet and I have the feeling that photo enthusiasts have a kind of

...how to say it… duty...to keep the roots alive... Threads like WOW digital vs. film with about a thousand

answers is just crazy talk and to nobody's benefit…

Pros use what best accomplishes the work they do. Today that means digital almost exclusively.....

Well, I know that Annie Leibovitz (I'm pretty certain she would fit your brief of being extraordinarily well known, if not to say overexposed, no pun intended) used a digital SLR for her infamous shoot with HRH Elizabeth II last year. She still uses her RZ67 on occasion, I'd bet, though.

 

Speaking of Ansel & Annie, a funny bit from Leibovitz's "A Photographer's Life" exhibition currently on in London:

 

Explaining her decision to go airborne to capture views of Monument Valley different from the thousands of others taken by other photographers from time immemorial, "I persuaded myself that Ansel Adams would have rented a helicopter."

Many of them use lenses.

Ronald, how do you know that Ansel wished he could have used digital?

What will the pros use in the future? Maybe not film, since those who grew up on film will be long gone. But, it might not be digital either.

But, today, those who need digital, sports and press photogs use digital. But, for those who don't have the same demands. Getting the photo published right away,etc. Use what ever they want.

Jim Rakete uses Leica and Tri-X mostly. Wim Wenders uses a Plaubel Makina mostly. John Sexton uses film. Lee Friedlander uses film. Robert Frank uses Polaroid nowadays. Steve Pike and Inta Ruka are useing Rolleiflex, the same Mamiko Konishi and Toshiohiro Oshima. Just to name a few.

The OP didn't ask for Professionals, he asked for famous photographers. But who defines fame? Most google hits, highest income, once in NG?

I think it would be better to ask what the famous photogs are using case by case. Last week I was channel surfing and stopped on Ovaition Television. They were doing a week long "Masters of Photography" series and to say the least, it grabbed my attention. All of the photographers covered had one thing in common, they all still use film in one format or another. All but 3, maybe 4 used digital as well. It just depended on what they needed, some carried around a pocket digital, some would walk thru central park with a professional grade DSLR, some would use a digital MF for studio work. Others, like Sally Mann, don't use digital at all. Each format has it's application.

 

If you pick up a copy of Silvershotz magazine, even though they are expanding the coverage to digital prints in the future, for now it's still prints made from film in a darkroom. For anyone interested, that hasn't already gotten copies of it http://www.silvershotz.com/ . I noticed that many of the photogs in that magazine use film almost exclusivly for fine art, and use digital for things that had to be timely published, e.g. magazines, online, newspapers, etc. I also read somewhere that many famous photogs use digital for the color gamut, but I wouldn't want to be quoted on it.

Many famous folks consider "lighting" to be more important than camera gear; but then lighting is something few on photo.net care about.:)