Go Digital now, or wait?

[simann]

Ok, I'm contemplating going digital, but I read of so many problems

with this medium at the moment its not a very easy decision to make.

So, say I spend somewhere in the region of Euro 1500 for an SLR

digital camera only to find that I need to spend another large

amount on a computer photo program to correct all the things that

this Hi tech. instrument can't accomplish at the time of taking the

photograph to produce an acceptable end product, One of the Things

I'm talking about is White balance, which seems to be quite a

problem at the moment on all except the small PaS cameras. (by the

way can anyone explain to me in plain English, just what is White

Balance,). Is it worth it, or do I stick to Film???

[Greg M]

Sounds like you would be better off investing in a film scanner and doing it that way for now, although even going that route also involves buying the software needed to manipulate the images. Digital is like doing film photography AND buying the necessary equipment to do you own color darkroom- if you want nothing to do with adjusting the final image after pushing the shutter release you are better off sticking with film. The difference is digital "processing" is a lot less frustrating, but you do have to make the initial investment in the materials, then you have to learn how to use it all.

 

The difference to me between the two is complete CONTROL you have with digital. I shot mainly print film and always was frustrated with the totally inconsistent film processing and printing I had to put up with unless I was willing to invest $25 a roll to have it processed at a local professional lab and then maybe have 8-10 images I wanted to keep.

 

You might be better off for now investing in a small, inexpensive digital P&S so you can view the LCD prior to the shot and play with the white balance setting and actually see the result of each setting before the picture is taken- then you'll get a better idea about what it is. White Balance simply setting the correct color balance to render the scene in it's proper color as seen by your eyes.

[zapped]

If you shoot RAW, WB is easy to adjust in a "raw developer" like Photoshop CS or Capture One. I find it much easier to adjust and also produces more pleasing results than when I do the same operation on a scanned image or existing JPG by using the middle eyedropper in a Curves layer.

 

There is no question that post-processing is required to maximize the quality of your final images, and Photoshop is a huge expense. I say "maximize" intentionally --- it's not really necessary to post-process for everyday shots you might share with friends & family on the web, or for 4"x6" prints. For bigger enlargements or that truly special landscape or portrait, you're always gonna want to do some touch-up because digital makes it so easy.

 

If you're really curious about digital but don't want to spend huge dollars on a digital SLR outfit, maybe try a point'n'shoot from Canon (A70/80, S400, S50) that comes with Photoshop Elements 2 bundled in. You'd be able to do most of the Photoshop corrections (including some layer-based operations *with* layer masks) and produced excellent prints at least up to 5"x7".

 

After a year or so shooting with such a camera you might find you're sold on the concept of digital photography, at which point you could also do the PSE2 --> Photoshop upgrade.

 

Good luck,

[Spearhead]

This depends on a) how much film you shoot, and b) what you are doing with your photos. Much of what you discuss is irrelevant - if you are taking your film to a lab now, you can do the same with digital media and the lab will do as good a job as they do with film.

<p>

White balance is explained in depth <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/learn/Glossary/Digital_Imaging/White_Balance_01.htm">here</a>. By the way, ten seconds of searching will turn up plenty of detailed explanations like this one.<p>

 

If you want real control over your photos, use digital, as mentioned above, unless you are planning to learn to use a darkroom.

[waldenl]

What exactly do you consider "an acceptable end product?" Any idea how much tweaking goes into making a good high-end print from film? It's just all done at the lab. Just about any digital will product an acceptable snapshot out of the box.

 

As for white balance, what is white? Look around the room, is the back of this page white, is the snow outside white, is the light from the bulb white? If you can see so many different whites how do you expect the camera to record the correct color as "white" unless you tell it what the correct color is. That's white balance.

[daniel_taylor]

Too much is made of the "problems" of digital post processing by people who are used to letting a lab make all the decisions for them.

 

Quite frankly, most high end digitals probably produce better images straight to printer than your local 1-hour lab. You can take those images further by using post processing software.

 

Look for a camera that comes with Photoshop Elements, which has all the tools you need to take your best photos that extra step. Digital capture actually requires fewer post processing steps than scanned film, and the steps are faster/easier. If you get a DSLR you might also want to get Capture One DSLR LE. The improved workflow and tools are nice, but NOT absolutely necessary (especially if you don't shoot RAW very often).

 

White balance is setting the sensor to match the color temperature of the light illuminating your subject. For example, sunlight is warmer at sunset than high noon. Normal light bulbs have a different color temperature than flourescent bulbs. White balance is basically you or the camera figuring out the color temperature so that white looks white, and all other colors fall in line.

 

White balance can be a nightmare with film, even when scanning and using Photoshop. Just about any digicam made, set to auto white balance mode, will out perform film in this regard. Sometimes the camera doesn't get the color temperature just right, but I find my 10D images much easier to balance post-shot than scanned film. Again, the complaining about digital post processing is much ado about nothing. It's just not that hard.

 

If you've got the cash I think you're cheating yourself not to add a DSLR to your camera collection. You'll be amazed at the quality and will start to use it all the time. You'll still occasionally shoot film, especially if you have MF equipment. But a DSLR is a very valuable, flexible, and capable tool.

[Ed_Ingold]

Different light sources have different color qualities, described as color temperature (deg Kelvin). Color temperature is equivalent to the light emitted by an ideal black-body radiator heated to that temperature. It is opposite the normal concept of cool (blue) vs. warm (red) colors, because emitted light becomes bluer as the source gets hotter. If you had chemistry at some time, a muffle furnace approximates a black-body radiator, when looking through a small hole in the door.

 

For example, incandescent room light has a color temperature between 2400K and 3200K (typ. 2900K). With film, you would use a bluish filter to compensate for the reddish quality. Outdoors, light on a cloudy day is bluer (6500-7000K) than bright sunlight (5500K), and you would use an orangish filter to compensate.

 

White balance is the electronic equivalent of using reddish or bluish filters (or different film) to adjust the image to the color temperature of daylight: about 5500K. Your eye/brain does this automatically, so that a white object looks white in nearly any source of light. Film/Digital is not so forgiving, because you look at the colors away from the original environment.

 

Simple digital cameras often rely completely on automatic white balance. That works pretty well in most circumstances. Digital SLRs are designed for a more advanced user, who generally wants more control. While these cameras often have an automatic white balance option, many users set the w/b to a fixed value. That way, pictures are more consistent from frame-to-frame, which makes post-processing easier. Pictures in a church, for example, are influenced by the background (i.e., stained-glass windows) and different qualities of artificial light in various places.

[l._nelson]

White balance is like choosing tungsten or daylight film.

 

The advantages of white balance are that you have lot's

of choices, can change as often as you like and customize

it to your exact lighting conditions.

 

If that seems like too much work, just leave it set to

daylight most of the time and switch to tungsten when

you go inside. Just like film.

 

I personally don't recommend automatic white balance since

it can lead to disturbing shot to shot variability.

[rich_waite]

Hi Simon,

 

White balance has never been a problem for my Canon DSLR (shooting a d-rebel). I use auto white balance 99.9% of the time for my outdoor shooting and the camera nails the scene exactly as my eye's saw it. By shooting in RAW format, however, one can always change the color tone of the photo by altering white balance post processing. When shooting indoors, one just selects the white balance for the lighting being used, tungsten, flourscent, etc. It's a piece of cake really.

 

As far as post processing time goes: depends, depends, depends! If one takes the time to try to get the photo exactly right in the first place (as one usually would when shooting film), there really is very little post processing. I have no patience for spending hours on an image in PS as some do. It just isn't my cup of tea. I shoot in Adobe RGB 1998 (if I remember that right) and typically just sharpen images slightly, boost saturation and maybe crop a scene if needed and that's it. Again a piece of cake. Virtually ANY photo editing program will do those basic tasks! One great thing about Canon is that they supply a copy of Photoshop Elements 2.0 with the Rebel and 10D digital cameras. This software will take care of most any image problem you can throw at it.

 

For me digital, is the way to go and I am selling my film cameras. I've shot film for over 20 years and I learned more in one week of shooting digital then I did in the last 10 years with film. Digital gives one the freedom to try new and creative things -- and to shoot more frames -- without the subconscious fear of draining the bank account with film development costs. Plus, one can change ISO settings shot to shot, as needed, and get immediate feedback of exposure results, via the histogram, with each shot. And the quality of the end result is every bit as good as that of 35mm slide film in my opinion.

 

Just some food for thought......

 

Best,

Rich W.<div></div>

[andrew robertson]

Good eagle pic Rich, but I'd go WAY easier on the sharpening. Once you can see an

obviously striking halo around the subject(s) the image looks less than perfect.

[jespdj]

Hello Simon,

<p>If you read many posts in these or other Internet forums, you may see a lot of people having problems or complaining about things. Almost always, these people are just in the process of learning. It doesn't mean that the equipment isn't good. There is absolutely no problem with for example white balance with DSLRs. If you are using film and you want exact colour reproduction, you'd also have to go through the trouble of choosing the right film, filters etc.

<p>The thing with digital cameras is that *you* are going to be doing much more of the processing yourself, instead of the people in the lab that you bring your film to. If you want to get the best out of your digital camera (and it doesn't matter if it's a P&S or a DSLR), you'll want to learn a lot about processing on the computer and you'll be spending time behind the computer to do the processing.

<p>You can make great, beautiful photos with a DSLR, just as well as with film. There are hundreds of thousands of professional and amateur photographers that make great photos with digital SLRs. If it wouldn't be possible to make high-quality images with them, there wouldn't be so many people spending so much money on them.

[simann]

Thank you all for taking the trouble to answer my query, I think I've got the gist of it now, and I suppose you are right the Lab does make adjustments to some of my rubbish inputs, at a price. I do in fact have a small digital camera (Canon A60)but haven't used it much up until now. I did want to replace my old Film SLR's with a "Grown Up" digital SLR model, Possibly the EOS 300D, then again a friend of mine said to hang on as there would be a 10 meg pix Canon coming up soon, (don't know where he got that info from), you just can't win can you. I will go digital that's for sure, its just a question of when.

Regards Simon.

[jim_doty]

Simon:

<p>

Read

<a href=" http://jimdoty.com/Digital/Digital_Intro/digital_intro.html"> Introduction to Digital Photography</a> and other articles in the digital section of my website.

<p>

Lots of good advice in the posts above. White Balance is not a problem with the Canon G3 and Canon 10D that I own. If you shoot in jpeg mode, just match the White Balance setting on the camera to the light source you are shooting in. Outside, use the daylight setting. Inside under tungsten lights, use the tungsten setting and so on. It is just like using colored filters with daylight film to match different lighting conditions. White Balance is like having electronic color correction filters via a camera dial instead of screw-on color correction filters for the lens. You can even use the "wrong" White Balance setting on purpose for special effects.

<p>

Even without using your computer, you can take photos, look at them on the camera's rear panel LCD, delete the ones you don't want, then head to a lab and have them printed from the memory card. You can get good results this way.

<p>

With a computer and Photoshop Elements 2 software (less than $100 U.S.), you can tweak the photos and make them even better, and then take them to a lab to be printed. With your own printer you can print them at home.

<p>

Don't be afrad to take the plunge. With a relatively inexpensive but quality camera like the Canon A70 (about $300 USD), you can get your feet wet, try digital out, and make prints up to 8x10 inches (or European equivalent size). If you like digital, you can then get something like a Canon 10D SLR with interchangeable lenses. Your Canon A70 becomes you back up or "travel light" camera. I know I am only talking about one brand of camera here, but these are cameras I own or have experience with.

<p>

No matter when you take the digital plunge, a better camera will come out later. But you can be having digital fun now if you pick a good digital camera that is capable of producing nice photos!

<p>

If you have experience with a film SLR, a digital SLR should be no problem. The more film photography experience you have, the easier the transition to digital will be.

<p>

Digital is a lot better and easier now than just a year or two ago, especially with all of the do it yourself printing kiosks around.

<p>

Jim

[peter_phan]

<i>One of the Things I'm talking about is White balance, which seems to be quite a problem at the moment on all except the small PaS cameras.</i>

<p>

White balance really isn't a big deal. If you shoot RAW, you can set WB to whatever you want after the fact. But I shoot mostly JPEG, and in questionable WB situations a quick Custom White Balance using an Expo/Disk (that's what I use) or grey card or white card is all you really need. Frankly, I've been extremely pleased with the Expo/Disk. Before, getting decent skin tones in artificial light was a hassle, but now with the Expo/Disk, my skin tones are excellent and WB is a cinch. So with the right know-how and tools, WB is not an issue. I try to get the image right at the time of shooting with as little post-work as possible.

[rich_waite]

Hey Andrew, post above, (or should I say, halo Andrew)

 

You are right. I was operating in fast forward that day and neglected to see what I did there -- downsized a pre-sharpened file of that image which must have blown it out of wack. Oh well. Now if I could just let go of my halo.....kidding. I don't sharpen my main file until I print or sell.

 

See ya, and thanks for pointing that out.

 

Good shooting,

Rich