"Most pros use film"

[eliot_rosen1]

I wouldn't argue with Brad, Eric, or Jeff. They obviously have the most experience and are the most knowledgeable in all aspects of photography, music, and [any other subject you wish], so once they have made a pronouncement, thete is no point in refuting it. Of course they are also all on the same page, so attempting to refute a point made by an one of them is the same as challenging all three :-)

[socke]

Braden, I still have my first CD, Brothers in Arms by the Dire Straits. Wish my Hendrix LPs where still as good as this CD, although I played them only on a Braun PS450 turntable with a moving coil pickup to record them on a Braun TB 1025 every couple of years.

Dust kills LPs!

[Brad_]

<I> Regarding your dynamic range comment; how do you feel the dynamic range of

affordable digital cameras compares to regular print film? My experience is that is

considerably lower,</I><P>

 

Andy, I think you're right. Something you have to watch out for. OTOH, I've seen many

film-based photos posted here with blown-out highlights, so it's not that using film gives

you a free pass on that. In the end it's about understanding your light.

[dennis_couvillion]

"I wouldn't argue with Brad, Eric, or Jeff..."

 

<ROTFLMAO> So true, Eliot... so true.

[chiswick_john]

"Regarding your dynamic range comment; how do you feel the dynamic range of affordable digital cameras compares to regular print film? My experience is that is considerably lower," - my experience is the opposite: my 22mp Sinar back has a usable dynamic range of 11 stops - neg film may theoreticaly have a range near this but most of it is noise in the shadows or compressed highlights. Even my 20D (when shooting RAW is at least as good as neg) - it easily beats tranny in this area. You have to shoot RAW though- jpeg throws away a lot of data.

[Brad_]

<I>So true, Eliot... so true.</I><P>

 

Nice that the two senior members of the DeLay wing have weighed-in with worthy

contributions.

[Spearhead]

<i>Jeff, what exactly does working in the music industry have to do with what we're talking about here?</i><p>

 

Your comments about the current business reasons for vinyl are dead wrong. I worked for a label that was part of one the major players in the industry, and I saw the whole thing close up.<p>

 

Elliot, nice to see you have so much to add to the conversation.

[mark_punch]

I have to add my 2c here,,,and basically agree with Bradens comments, adding this , if I

may....I'm a professional musician (and leica fan )..been playing in recording studios for 30

years in Sydney. I've seen every technical change in recording music first-hand from 16tr

tape in 1973(ex-Abbey Road Studer) , to 64tr Pro-Tools set-ups yesterday (yes,

miraculously I'm still working ). The issue of tape/digital is not as B&W as it might seem.

The fact is , in studios where people record acoustic/jazz/..shall we say ," rootsier

"kind of stuff , most musicians and engineers I know much prefer to record on tape. It will

ultimately be mastered in digital form , but this does not kill the "balls" of the original

analog capture.

Pop recording is a different world. ..speed and editing control rule ..NOT sound

quality. Digital recording / equipment is all about "control"...not sound....never was.

Anyone who goes on about how great digital recording sounds (in the real world

this means pro-tools) has never stood in front of studio monitors after listening to a piece

of music,whatever kind of music.recorded digitally and then heard that piece played back

off a 2"24 tr taperecorder...it will blow you away...it is SO different as to be almost

laughable...ballsier..three-dimensional..fatter bass ..sweeter highs.

The recording industry is driven, except on very rare occasions , by money and speed.

and there's no doubt that recording to digital is much cheaper......editing is superfast.. and

for someone who records and builds tracks like painting, it offers creativity that tape could

never do.

I record to digital all the time...many studios are totally digital ...most of the good ones

have both 24 tr tape and digital working together...track a band on tape and transfer to

pro-tools for overdubs. Even all-digital people still want to mix the track to tape ..25 yr

-old Ampex ATR 1/2 " machines are usually preferred.

My brother runs a high level studio in Sydney. He has a full Pro-Tools HD system and

two 24 tr tape recorders , one of which is the last Ampex multitrack made (1979)...it

sounds simply amazing. Many people who use the studio never turn it on.....many do,

depending on their tastes and their budget.

To link this back to the original thread, I think tape is going to be around, for those who

care , for a long time yet.....and so with film, which to me just looks more beautiful. Sure

digital's great and fast and all that..but I still get blown out by my Rollei 2.8 and Leica

shots...in a way that I just don't with my Canon digital stuff, as good as it is.

Let us all not confuse industry/ marketing/ hype/momentum/pressure with what

our ears and eyes really tell us. There's a lot of rubbish out there...and it's mostly coming

from people who want to sell you something.

Love to all you enthusiasts , Mark

[douglas k.]

"After 10 or 15 years of listening to cd's people begin to realize their place as an audio medium; they're convenient, but don't sound better and are not archival. People realize that they only have to buy a vinyl record once and it will most likely last them the rest of their lives."

 

What world are you living in? I have never, NEVER heard anyone express that sentiment! Not a soul! That claim is a hoot! And besides, my twenty-year old CDs sound a helluva lot better than my twenty-year old scratchy and dusty LPs -- and I practically play frisbee with the CDs.

[braden_barclay]

Jeff, what were my comments about the business of vinyl? Are you referring to my point about it being a better format? Please specify. My original point (for clarification) was that it's all just a choice. Film is better in some situations, just as digital is better in others. I'm not against technology, not at all. However, just because it smells pretty doesn't mean it's a rose. The analogy to vinyl is a perfectly fine examply of choice. I choose to listen to vinyl at home because it's the best environment for it, but I wouldn't obviously have it in my car. Simply put, both film and vinyl(including analogous recording) will be around for ages to come because in a lot of situations it's the best medium.

 

Volker, if you're comparing Hendrix to Dire Straits I can't really argue with you there as I don't care for either. I can give you some links to information on record care if you'd like to learn how to keep dust off of things, though.

[braden_barclay]

Mark, you made a great point. Most pop music today won't need to be around in 2 years, much less 40, because people won't give a sh*t about it once it's off the charts. Archivally unimportant you might say.

[brambor]

in my world my CD's skip and fade in about a year. I also have about 500 CD collection of music. The oldes CD's last longest as the coating that were used when CD's were in it's infancy, were much better. A buddy of mine who worked at a CD plant during the yesteryears tells me how he remembers how they changed the coating process so that they could reduce costs by 50%.

 

CD's I buy today will not live past 2 years. In fact burned CD's don't last more than a few months if I listen to them a lot in the car. Yes, I beat on them and play them a lot but, similar CD's that were purchased in 1989 and were played a lot more still play better than today's junk.

 

Getting back to the original question:

I use both digital and film. Digital has it's place and I utilize it when the purpose arrives but the look I get when looking at a slide is the best thing I have seen from any media be it negative or digital.

 

We're rehashing the same points over and over. The way I look at it today is that if you're creating images for the web then digital is a fine tool. For more physical encounter, be it transparencies or prints I preffer film 99% of the time.

[mark_punch]

"For more physical encounter, be it transparencies or prints I preffer film 99% of the time."

 

Rene has put it perfectly...this is exactly the difference , for me , between CD/vinyl and

tape/digital....film/digital . Analog is a physical encounter, and carries with it a deeper

emotional "kick to the guts " impact.

 

I use an ipod to learn stuff or have background music, but if I want to have a real

experience ,I put on a Peggy Lee or Sinatra LP on my ( admittedly expensive) turntable

through a 211 singe-ended amp and some Tannoy speakers.......and I kid you not ....they

come alive in 3-dimensions in the room ! Quite a thrill.

[dennis_couvillion]

"Nice that the two senior members of the DeLay wing have weighed-in with worthy contributions."

 

The Tom DeLay reference is not true in my case, Brad. But I hear that you are an avid fan and staunch supporter of Michael Jackson. Wow, Brad...! ;>)

[scott_mcloughlin]

I don't have a lot of friends into photography, but I have a close buddy in NYC who is a fine art photog. He also does some jobs shooting pics of other folks' artwork (paintings, sculpture).

 

Digital is hardly in his vocabulary. He shoots 4x6 large format and more recently 6x7 MF with a Mamiya 7II. The only time I've heard him mention "convenience" is when he got that Mamiya 7 to avoid carrying around ~100 Lbs. of gear in a suitcase on rollers. The M7II and a tripod and slow film with long exposures is his version of "candid photography" :-)

 

He does occasionally mention some of his fine art comrades, and again, digital never comes up in conversation. In fact, 35mm film cameras only come up occasionally (I know he has an old FM2n).

 

His sole concern seems to be color, enlargement and sharpness - not exactly in that order and pretty much at any cost. He's a perfectionist to the point of paranoia. Lately, he's been testing and retesting various slow color negative and positive films evaluating their potential for enlargement. After all, he's working on a small set of images for months and months and months that will then sell for some thousands of dollars a piece at a few galleries.

 

BTW, in his contract work, his artist clients typically want 4x5 transparencies of their creations.

 

So there's at least one "pro" where "digital capture" ain't even on the radar. Or maybe the choice of a "pro" who isn't forced to shoot with a meter running for some economically sensitive clients.

 

Most folks in these debates are talking about small format cameras, whether digital or film. These debates remind me of days of yore when I would chuckle at the office geeks debating the relative merits of Compaq, Dell or IBM machines for running Wordperfect, while we were ordering Sybase and Oracle on relatively big HP and Sun minicomputers.

 

In the final analysis, I hope film survives because I like to shoot my Leicas. But who really cares whether Suzie Q's tacky wedding shots or some nasty picture of the Mayor on page 2 of today's paper were taken on film or digital? It just doesn't matter.

 

Scott

[kelly_flanigan1]

Re <i>who is a fine art photog. He also does some jobs shooting pics of other folks' artwork (paintings, sculpture).<BR><BR>

 

Digital is hardly in his vocabulary. He shoots 4x6 large format and more recently 6x7 MF </i><BR><BR><BR>In a smaller town; I shoot digital capture of artwork with a 4x5 camera and a 35MP scan back. I use 4x5 trany films; if I HAVE TO. This requires mailing off the tranys for processing; and adds to the delay and cost. All films are mailordered too. I use to shoot all 4x5 and MF when we had a local pro lab; but this is ancient medieval history; several years ago.. Smaller towns have switched to digital; and dont have the luxury of B&H next door; and a pro lab next door. If the artist is going to do digital printing; the shoot a trany; send it away; sort the decent ones; mail then out for a drum scan adds to costs and delays; and looses alot of control. A direct digital capture bypasses this absurd costly slow trany process. Folks in the more rural areas dont like to use old slow NYC methods anyway :)

[kelly_flanigan1]

In super Large format process cameras; most were scrapped over many years ago; some over 1 decade. The died because of digital sacanning and printing; being replaced by the engineering digital copiers. We got a engineering B&W digital copier that scans to file; enlarges; reduces; BEFORE MICROSOFT WINDOWS CAME OUT. The copier cost 76 thousand bucks; and uses DOS. This killed of most all our process camera work in a few years. In PROFESSIONAL B&W large format engineering maps and printing; film has been about terminal for over a decade now. The only jobs that are done require a huge expense in mixing a single batch of chemicals; for maybe the last run; like firing up the last steam engine that is in running condition. Surplus Process lens have been on the market before Ebay was started. Digital has been in Large Format maping since the DOS days. Kodak stopped making the films YEARS ago for these cameras. Probably only 1 in a million or a billion engineering drawings are enlarged and reduced on a process camera; compared to digital machines. Most LF today is used by amatuers; who do it for the love; not real paying jobs. In process camera darkroom work; most went digital a DECADE ago; and hauled off the cameras to the scrap heap; and sold the lenses as scrap. Folks a decade ago were placing scan digital backs on their process camera frames.

[ben z]

My son is inside and outside the music industry, as a performer, manager, promoter and in retail sales, and I asked him about the vinyl issue. He said that current predictions are that over the next 3 to 7 years on the outside, music CD's will become phased out. When you can get an entire collection fit into an iPOD, nobbody's going to want a house full of CD towers. He said it's accepted by the recording techies that 10 yrs is the outside for archival stability of CDs, so there is emerging a new market for vinyl for people who want to collect recordings. New "record players" are coming on the market, and the industry predictions are vinyl is going to make a huge comeback. However he also said that virtually 100% of recording is done digitally, as much if not more for the editing possibilities than the sound itself. He said he has not seen magnetic tape in a recording studio. But since film is a capture medium I have to agree with whoever said that digital recording is a better analogy than vinyl records though.

[daniel_taylor]

The fatal flaw of the analogy is that CD is a fixed standard. 16-bit at 44 kHz. It has been the same for over 20 years, and will remain the same until it, as a format, is replaced. Whatever minor flaws exist at this sampling resolution do not exist at higher resolutions. (And to that point, I do consider the flaws to be minor, smaller than the flaws in vinyl, and personally prefer the sound of CD over vinyl. Differences in equipment, speakers, and setup make a far, FAR larger difference in any case, and are far more important in my book. And most of the statements of vinyl fans, while perhaps having a kernal of truth, are hyperbole.)

 

Digital cameras do not adhere to a fixed standard. They range from VGA resolution camera phones to 22 MP MF backs and more. And they continue to improve. Analog vs. digital in photography isn't like comparing vinyl to CD. It's like comparing vinyl to red book CD 5 years ago, but comparing vinyl to SACD or DVD-Audio today, and having to compare it to something even better tomorrow. Film cannot win this match up. Nobody is retooling the chemistry to try and extract better image structure, and even if they did they couldn't keep up with the advancements in silicon.

 

For the same reason, I doubt vinyl is going to make any major come back. CD's are, as Ben pointed out, being replaced by iPod's and other memory-based audio units. This may make vinyl fans cringe as current encoding standards are below CD. But as memory and Internet bandwidth improve, these units are going to have higher quality encoding than CD, higher than vinyl. They'll be free to improve, like digital cameras. iTunes may sell songs at X resolution today, but they'll be increased as soon as it offers Apple a competitive advantage. Same with the other online sources. This is when the men will be separated from the boys so-to-speak, and the true audiophiles will jump on the higher resolution digital files available for download, while the wanna-be's cling to vinyl and continue to abuse signal theory to try and prove the forever-and-infinite superiority of "their" format. We're already seeing this psychology start to play out among some small format film fans. You know, the ones who claim digital will "never" equal 35mm film.

 

As to the original post, it is a verifiable fact that most photography pros have gone digital. There has been no big shift back to film, nor will there be.

[sl attanapola]

Have you forgotten about upsampling CD players such as those made by Musical Fidelity?

I think DVD will become a more important recording medium as even DVD players are getting better in sound quality(although price for price a CD player will destroy it!).

Jean Michel Jarre recently released an album called Aero which has a CD and a DVD with DTS music.It is supposed to be the first album designed from the ground up for surround.

 

It is sad that SACD or DVD-Audio has not become more popular as these are better than CD.No doubt the high cost of the basic discs does not help at all.

 

I believe CDs are going to be available for a few more years as they offer the best bang for buck in reality.

 

People can encode music in what format and quality they want UNLIKE overpriced MP3 and propriety formats.

 

It is the crappy rubbish that is going to be available only as downloads.

 

Until the new downloadable music is BETTER quality than CD,SACD,dvd-Audio or Vinyl these formats will survive.

 

Have you tried playing these through a medium/high budget level system costing around 1500GBP?

 

They sound rubbish.Until these new formats surpass the EXISTING formats they can keep their money.I rather listen to DAB for free.

[sl attanapola]

Has anyone even heard what Eric Clapton sounds through a 30000 GBP system sounds like?

 

Downloadable music is one of the biggest cons out there!

 

At the current encoding rates it is for lazy people.

[sl attanapola]

Why cannot they offer full bitrate files for download too?

 

Alot of people have broadband internet in their homes now.

[gary_woodard]

Real men shoot film, and whimpy terrorist types with weak wrists tend to use

digital, thats been my experience.

[chiswick_john]

Digital is Un-American, Un-christian and a threat to homeland security - only unpatriotic, terrorist supporting, darwinist liberals use digital.

[mark_ng]

uh oh...someone brought upsampling up. Puts a lot of stress on the tweeter since

upsampling produces super-high frequencies.