August Alaska Cruise....Film or Digital?

[charles_lipton]

Hi..

I'm not a stranger to cruising but I have never been to Alaska...The

wife and I are planning a late August Celebrity cruise....I have

both an EOS 3 film and 20D digital...along with Canon's 17-40mm L,

28-70mm L, 50mm f1.4, 85mm f1.8, the 70-200mm f4 and the f2.8 IS

version, a 300mm f4 IS and a 1.4 teleconverter....

 

Now...my question is this...I have seen in my recent photos of

Glacier National Park that when I try to expose the mountains, etc.,

properly I blow out the details in the snow caps..If I try to expose

the snow properly I get too much shadow in the mountains....I know

this is because of the relatively small working latitude of digital

SLRs.

 

I also know that film such as Fuji Reala has a great working

latitude and wonderful colors/saturation.....Is it better to shoot

film or digital on an alaska cruise where the chance of digital

highlight blowout? If you answer digital...how should I expose ??

 

thanks

[fk319]

How about a camcorder? Seriously, wrt latitude, I was under the impression that the were about the same. I would take multipule shots, bracket and then stich. (I have actually never done this, but I hear it is easy.)

 

Why not take both cameras. I am sure there will be times when each of you will goto different events. I carry a digital and film back in my camera case, just in case we can deside who gets to hold the camera.

 

Enjoy!

[robert_potts1]

Since you seem to know when to use either, I vote for both. An extra camera body doesn't take up much space. You never know, a back-up may come in handy. I suspect that the high ISO with the digital will come in handy some of the time on the boat. Both, I'd say.

[j_autey]

Charles,

If you have both, take both. You're on boat, so lugging around the cameras ain't much of a problem. You'll want to use the film for scenics and the digital for wildlife. At least thats how I set it up. If you go on any excursions you'll have to figure it out depending on where you go.<div></div>

[j_autey]

another photo<div></div>

[william_bean]

There are so many questions around this and so many answers for each question. Let me tell you what I experienced on my June cruise and you can apply it to your situation. First, I made the complete switch to digital about 18 months ago. I no longer own a film camera and recently I dragged my wife kicking and screaming into the new century by drowning her film camera on a canoe trip and replacing it with digital. We did not expose even 1 frame of celluloid on our cruise.

 

3 points I will make, each relating to film vs digital. (once again, from my own experience.)

 

Exposure-After my first few weeks with the digital I discovered that for my particular camera, the EOS 10D, I have to expose as if I'm shooting slide film. I can always bring detail out of the shadows but if the highlights are over exposed, I'm dead. So...expose for the highlights. Note that this is the opposite of the theory for negative film.

 

Digital capture format-I've recently been at a seminar where the presenter was banging the drum for RAW vs JPEG capture. It happened that this presenter is a pal of mine so later, over an icy cold adult beverage, he fired up the laptop and showed me why. When compared with JPEG, the RAW files are incredibly versatile. Granted, they take up more space on your memory card and computer hard drive, but a RAW file has at least as much lattitude as a negative if not more.

 

Cost-Okay, I shoot a lot, maybe too much. But here's the bottom line. My wife and I came back from Alaska with 3000 images between us. Figure 36 exposures per roll that's 84 rolls of film which at $5 a roll (pretty conservative) adds up to $420. Figure processing at $7.50 per (still pretty conservative) that's $630 for a film/processing cost of $1050 or roughly half what we paid for the cruise. A 1 gig memory card cost me $60 and since I took the laptop along to download the images every day I could use it over and over and over. Do the math.

 

I know what they say about opinions but this is mine. If you're shooting 35mm and still shooting film, WHY?

 

If you'd like to hear more about the cruise or my opinions of digital vs film, you can drop me a line at: bill@wcbeanphoto.com

 

There is also a photo essay and journal of our cruise at the website. And if you find the stress too much, you can't make up your mind, I'd be delighted to go on the cruise in your place.

[jimstrutz]

August weather in Southeast Alaska is generally overcast & rainy. You stand a very good chance of not seing the Sun for the entire trip. Makes for pretty even lighting conditions when you can shoot. I would think digital would be fine. I don't generally have a problem shooting glaciers with a 20D though.

 

However, you don't really have a wide lens for the 20D, so the film body could be useful too.

[kin_lau]

Take both. This way you'll have a backup, and the 17mm will be a 17mm on film, and the 300 x 1.4 x 1.6crop = 672mm FOV on digital. Best of both worlds.

 

Do most of the high contrast scenics on film. Otherwise, shoot RAW for those scenes and JPG for others.

[Hector Javkin]

I spent a September in Alaska shooting nothing but slide film, which has less latitude than digital, and didn't find it a problem. It might be a bit different in August, but I would pay attention to Jim Strutz on Alaska (on other topics too, but particularly Alaska.)

[Two23]

The obvious answer, whether you're shooting digital or film, is to use a soft edged neutral density filter. I prefer the HiTech brand 2-stop in a Cokin P holder. There are tons of posts on here about them. I'm very surprised you don't have one already. I have three: hard edged 2 & 3 stop, soft edged 2 stop.

 

 

Kent in SD

[tim_huggins]

As most people have responded, take both and get the best of both worlds. Digital is great for the 'quantity vs quality' shots of wildlife, but you need film for capturing great landscapes. Fuji Reala is probably the best print film for landscapes out there, with sharp resolution and strong colors. But you should really be shooting slide film. Kodak's 100VS will give incredible shots with amazing detail and eye-popping, but natural colors. If you haven't used this before, you owe it to yourself to try it on your trip. Shoot one roll and you'll be leaving the print film at home. As for the highlights blowing out, you need a graduated ND filter.

 

As for the question about why is anyone still shooting film, one would hope that is rhetorical. Unfortunately, we all know it's not. But there is a simple answer. Some of us still shoot film because we care about the quality of our images. There is no digital camera (at any price) that can match the color richness or fidelity, the resolution, and overall quality of the current fine grain transparency films. Barring any fundamental changes in the laws of physics, that simple fact won't be changing any time soon. Some people may be happy with the convenience of thousands of 'free', low quality pictures, suitable for viewing on a computer screen. But there are still those of us that would rather have a few hundred truly extraordinary photographs to remember our trips by.

[william_bean]

I don't usually reply to personal comments on a message board and will only make a small exception to this. The debate of film vs digital is best conducted in person over icy cold adult beverages. Tim, my e-mail addy is in my post as well as on my profile. The only comment I'll make in this forum is that I think before you tout your images as more extraordinary than mine or anyone else's you might want to check your facts. I've viewed your images...nice work. But before you start deriding mine, check them out.

[dave wyman]

I switched from 'chromes to digital a few years ago. My wife and I cruised Alaska on our wedding anniversary this past August. I brought a pair of digicams, both with 28-200mm lenses. They were extremely compact and convenient to use, and latitude was closer to print film than slide film. I rarely bother with film anymore (unless I'm paid to). Some of my Alaska pics are at:

 

http://www.pbase.com/davewyman/alaska

 

You might want to look for the Northern Lights the night you are at about the latitude of Glacier Bay (and you can try farther south). Any farther north and the night sky will be too bright. Unfortunately, my digicams recorded a lot of noise along with the Lights. Film cameras or DSLRs would not have had the same problem.

 

In any event, I would certainly take two cameras. You would be very unhappy if your one and only camera failed during your cruise, which you are going to love.