The sky is not falling ...

Thought you all might find this article interesting:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/i

ndex.htm

 

After reviewing my work from last year (my first full year of SLR

digital) for the annual journalism contests, I'm personally starting

to wonder if I spent too much time in the learning curve with

digital or "chimping" and not enough time working the subject

matter.

Try this without the space in index, or go to Camera Works on the

Washington Post website and look for the VanRiper article.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/index.html

very true and interesting article to read, indeed. Thanks.

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/index.htm" target="_blank"><b>LINK</b></a>. Thanks for this link, Dayton. Nice to have a little reassurance about film sometimes. I like his point about the volume of images one can acquire with digital. Do we control the images or do they control us?

Kind of echos the reasons that I have not "gone" digital. I freakin' hate working on the computer.

<i>

The point is this: There is plenty of room at the photographic table for both film and digital technologies � and there always will be.</i>

<br>

<p>

this is complete bullshyt. i do many commercial assignments and nobody ever asks for film anymore. digital is that assumed medium these days, and if you dont shoot it you dont get work.

Maybe so, but not everyone does commercial work.

i was commenting about the article..not personal work...unless ur personal work is weddings, in which case ud be completely nuts

<i>Kind of echos the reasons that I have not "gone" digital. I freakin' hate working on the computer.</i><p>

 

Most people don't do their own developing and printing with film, and they don't have to with digital. Labs are doing digital just like film now.<p>

 

So unless you're doing all your own darkroom work, that comment is irrelevant.

Another goofy thing...the article quotes Kodak about China, saying people have yet to buy their first film camera. That's like talking five years ago about how most people in China have yet to buy their first home phone. Nobody bought them, they just bought cellular. In the "Third World," people are skipping the technologies they never bought. Kodak is just wearing blinders.

 

In Vietnam, every lab I saw advertised "digital," people bring their cards or cameras and they got prints. Vietnam is a lot poorer than China, but except for the dudes that took your photo at the scenic locations, everyone with a camera had digital.

"digital is that assumed medium these days, and if you dont

shoot it you dont get work."- their loss, not mine.

 

Tom

I still shoot mostly film, by the way, but I'm not going to wear blinders and pretend things are going to stay the same. Especially the stuff about China in the article. It's obvious van Riper hasn't been over there when he parrots Kodak's goofball pronouncements.

"digital is that assumed medium these days, and if you dont shoot it you dont get work."

 

ah, nope.

Jeff

 

I wonder if all the labs you saw in Vietnam advertising digital did film developing as well - I think we have to assume so, and are you sure everyone/most was using digital.

 

Without further proof it would just seem to be that the facilities exist for digital use, but by the same token most could still be using film - who really knows?

 

Regards

 

Bruno

<p>I don't know what the tastes of a single person signify (probably very

little), but China was mentioned in the article and above. A digitally

pointing-and-shooting Chinese friend of mine temporarily in Britain asked

me to bring back from Japan -- where they're much cheaper -- a P&S film

camera (a "µ" something or other). "I've already got a digital

camera," she told me. "Now I want a film camera." Which I got for her,

and which I believe she is

now contentedly pointing and shooting with in China.</p>

"The point is this: There is plenty of room at the photographic table for both film and

digital technologies � and there always will be".

 

"this is complete bullshyt. i do many commercial assignments and nobody ever asks

for film anymore. digital is that assumed medium these days, and if you dont shoot it

you dont get work".

 

Grant, this may be true for commodity commercial work, but it isn't true as a blanket

statement. Our ad agency receives thousands of photographic solicitations for

commercial applications each year, a majority of which are still film based. There are

NYC based commercial photographers still shooting exclusively film, and they're busy.

I know, I tried to get them on a few jobs. We select the photographer for their talent

not what type gear they use. Same reasoning for a large number of agency Art

Directors I know.

 

That said, we have also had our share of budget sensitive jobs due to the economy,

and some incredibly tight time lines. In those cases digital is preferred to eliminate

film, processing and drum scanning costs, or to make an impossible deadline. Those

are usually for fast close publications (like retail), or where quantity dictates

economies (like catalog work). For smaller accounts with tiny budgets we often look to

digital, but for our national accounts we leave it up to the photographer.

 

And this doesn't take into account any of the "stock" images which mostly originate

on film.

The quote from the article that most rang true with me was, "Film has more latitude, pure and simple."

 

I've been using digital SLR's for about two years and I've virtually stopped using colour transparency film. But negative film, especially black and white negative film, is a different matter. The Canon 1Ds that I now use delivers about five stops of latitude, and most digital SLR's are similar. The Portra family, or most B&W in a PPK developer, gives eight or nine stops. Apart from overcast days, or in a studio, that's a difference that really shows itself in the final print.

 

I'm puzzled why many wedding photographers are switching to digital when they previously preferred negative stock for the greater latitude. I guess they find the workflow and film cost benefits overwhelming, but it's still odd in the context of the previous orthodoxy.

"I'm puzzled why many wedding photographers are switching to digital when they previously preferred negative stock for the greater latitude."

 

'Cause they finally found out no one ever cares about the detail in dark suit or tux as long as the bride and her dress look good?

All I can say is that I'd rather slave away at photoshop for a week rather than spot and

etch prints for an hour.

 

That is all.

Gary, the latitude issue may be true in higher digital ISOs. But If you shoot 100 or

200, and error in favor of the highlights letting the darks go... then recovering

shadow detail in post work is an easier task then you might believe. Previously, I used

Fred Miranda's Shadow Recovery action plug in for PhotoShop, now it's a built in

image adjustment in PS CS. I get full tones in the bride's dress and detail in the tuxes.

 

I once had a flash not fire for a critical shot. When downloaded in PS it was almost a

pure black frame. I merely hit Auto levels as an experiment, and BAM there was the

image. A bit of noise in the darks, but that was easily fixed. The camera was a Nikon

D1x set at ISO 100. The shot had to be at least 4 stops underexposed.

 

I think the digital latitude problem lies mostly in the area of overexposure. Get detail

in the lights, and the image will be fine.

I often read on photo.net that almost all wedding photographers have gone digital by now.

<p>

I can assure you that that is not the case in the Netherlands, and probably more European countries. Most photographers don't give any proofs to the couple, but design an album theirselves (or just give the negatives on the lower end of the market).

<p>

My local lab even advices not to work in digital when you are doing weddings, even if they do a lot of digital in other fields.

<p>

<a href="http://www.fotografiewimvanvelzen.nl">Wim</a>

Ah, another digital vs film article. Same old, same old conent.

I guess that's to be expected as there is nothing new to say on the subject.

 

Godfrey

Actually, I find this a pro film, pro digital article. Each has its own uses.

1) The demand--or lack thereof--for film and hence its future, lies in the hands of amateurs, not pros, whose photography makes up only a minor % of the total.

 

2) The *vast* majority of amateurs do not appreciate the esthetic differences between film and digital, but they do appreciate the lack of needing to buy, keep and carry film--more in fact than the ability to avoid processing time and costs because most of them take their cards to a minilab just as they did film--as well as the flexibility in end-use. Many snappers today prefer to scroll their images on a monitor as opposed to rifling through a stack of 4x6's, and the ability to e-mail pix to their friends and relations without needing to have negs scanned to CD.

 

3)The vast majority of amateur snappers who account for the lion's share of film usage are like putty in the hands of today's sophisticated marketing techniques. And those marketers have one mission written in boldface across their contracts: KILL FILM SELL DIGITAL.

 

4)As others here have finally awakened and realized, the "third world" will not be the savior of film, it is quickly and gladly embracing digital.

 

5)It will be the *first world* countries that save film, because that's where people are with the money to pay what it will cost. It will have to be made up in sporadic batches (like Leicas are produced), deep-frozen, and sold mailorder. It will not be available on local shelves except perhaps in major metro areas or where a lot of arsty photogs hang out. And it will be very expensive.

 

6)This forum probably represents the most conservative film-loving bunch you'll find (after all we're enamored with a camera that the manufacturer refuses to develop a digital back for)and most everyone here has at least one digital camera and many have left the Leica fold and still others I suspect are shooting mainly digital but don't admit it on the forum. Film may not be dead but it's already been beaten into submission everywhere in the world.

Marc, this may not be the forum to pursue this, but I'd welcome a second opinion on exposure metering with a digital SLR.

 

I try and push the histogram as far to the right as possible without burning out critical highlights, it's a tightrope walk where half a stop can make all the difference. I've tried bracketing, spot averaging with the Canon FEL button, fill flash, and simply putting my faith in evaluative metering. Apart from waiting for ten seconds after each shot to compensate from the histogram, no one strategy has been even close to infallible.

 

In the context of a wedding, which I guess outside of the formal shots can be a fairly fast moving affair, how do you set exposure?