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Wow - read this re: Film versus Digital debate!


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On the other hand, to play devil's advocate to myself - I can imagine interpolation algorithms based on individual RGB elements of the Bayer array that could perform some snazzy de-convolution and extract the line information. I find it hard to imagine how this would work for random data though; given that the actual sampling is happening as an integral over the (overlapping) pixel dimensions and then being approximated as a point sample.

 

Which means, in real terms, some less than unity de-rating factor probably will still apply.

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And back to the first hand and to play devil's advocate to my own devil's advocacy - there is the lowpass filter

to be considered - I mean the one in the light path; that which lowpass filters the signal. Lets say the diagonal

resolution is higher based on some algorithm; if so and the designers based the cutoff of the lowpass filter on

the higher resolution number, you'd have some bad aliasing with horizontal and vertical subjects. If they base it

on the x-y resolution, then it is meaningless if the diagonal could actually resolve more, because the signal is

cutoff at a lower frequency.

 

Also the effect of the lowpass filter would be to reduce the efficacy of an interpolation algorithm, so I'm not

sure how that would play out. This is rather hard to model, I have to agree with Norman Koren here; especially

without knowing how the system is designed and the design parameters. Unlike film, with digital, there are so

many variations possible with pixel arrangements, software algorithms and so on that it is difficult to create a

generic fit-all approach.

 

One thing is clear though - if diagonals did yield better resolution in general, you'd see more S2 type

arrangements and advertising claims through the roof - like Foveon or the S2; since this hasn't happened, either

the manufacturers are terribly honest, or diagonals do yield lower resolution. Wonder which is likelier?

 

I still think that de-rating is how it plays out for diagonals; but I'll think about this more.

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I had to dig out a really old review (from dpreview) of the Canon EOS D30; these days cameras seem to be

outresolving the charts. Anyhoo, if you look <a

href="http://a.img-dpreview.com/reviews/samples/rescharts/canon_eosd30.jpg">here</a> (be sure to see the image

full size, browsers often scale to fit your window) look at the diagonals, and especially look at the concentric

circles.

<p>

You'll see immediately that aliasing kicks in around 6 (600 lpph) for diagonals and around 12 for the verticals.

Also on the circles, it is easy to see aliasing around the theta = n * 45 degree areas.

<p>

Now I'll freely admit that this is way dated, and newer sensor technologies, more processing firepower in camera,

better algorithms etc can all alleviate the issue, but I would imagine that diagonal resolution is natively lower

than orthogonal resolution.

<p>

Also, hate to use LL as a reference, but they are almost shills for digital, and even they say that diagonal

resolution is lower. See <a

href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/res-demyst.shtml">here</a> and scroll to

about half to Misconception #4, or search for "Pythagoras".

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I’ve been designing digital cameras for about 30 years now, including the first 2 Leaf

camera backs, and film scanners for Associated Press and most recently, on the opposite

end of the quality spectrum, camera phone sensors and image processors at Micron. I

started out as an amateur photographer in the late 70’s with film but worked on digital

systems as a career. Today I shoot medium format B/W with my Hasselblad 503 and

develop my own film for fun and use a Canon 5D for 360º HDR. At Micron I served on

the I3a (International Imaging Industry Association) CPIQ image quality standards

group.

 

So most of what I can contribute to this discussion is more on the engineering side,

though obviously I also use film for some very good reasons. The issue of image quality

and the differences between film and digital is something I’m deeply immersed in so,

sorry if I’m too verbose.

 

RESOLUTION

To start, I’ve measured the resolution of many systems with a few different methods and

would say that in the 35mm format, digital is just as good if not better than film.

However there are more dimensions to this issue than just pixel count or grain. The pixel

size and the light level affect resolution a great deal. As pixels get smaller they have less

surface area to collect light and produce more noise. To compensate for this, noise

reduction algorithms are used but often blur the image in the process. DSLR’s usually

stay above 5 um (micron) pixels but still use NR which can blur or add artifacts.

Midrange DSCs can go down to the 2um and < 3MP camera phones are less than 2 um.

 

The demosaic algorithm that converts the RGGB Bayer pattern to an RGB picture

element. Note, a “sensor element” is not a picture element but both are called a pixel and

there is a 300% difference. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pixel ) The demosaic

can have a 15% variation in resolution, with or without color artifacts. I don’t call this

color interpolation as many do because interpolation (bilinear) is the worst form of

demosaic.

 

Most use pattern recognition to help “synthesize” pixels. The best I’ve seen is the

Hirakawa Parks algorithm which yields no color aliasing and very high resolution with

no “optical low pass filter”. I developed a metric for resolution for the I3A international

standards group that is the optical percentage of “ the-number-on-the-box” at MTF50

(half contrast). It should be deployed in the industry next year. On average, a digital

camera only gives you about 33% of the stated number of pixels. A really bad camera can

go as low as 20%.

 

The crazy thing about this is that a camera with more smaller pixels can actually have

less resolution that a camera with fewer larger pixels. And the resolution gets lower and

lower as the light decreases. This is why I prefer a camera with larger pixels even if it has

less resolution. The Canon 5D has 8um pixels and I would prefer it over a 16M with 5um

pixels. If I set the camera to ISO 1000, capture raw, turn off the NR in the raw software

(PhotoShop) and use a transform based noise reduction algorithm like Noise Ninja, I can

do night shooting at 1/125 sec with my f1.2 and have high resolution with now noise and

no blur. This can not be done with film.

 

Also note that sharpness and resolution are 2 very different things. Our brain reacts most

to edge sharpness which is easily 1/10 of the resolution, or the maximum frequency

(detail) the camera can capture. In digital, sharpness can be “turned up” and actually look

better than higher resolution images with less sharpness.

 

When I became interested in the greater resolution of medium format film, I asked a few

professional scanning services how many “mega pixels” I could get from scanning

medium format. No one could give me an answer, no one. They’d tell me how many dpi

they offered but, having designed film scanners, I new that was not the total optical

through put of the system. So, I jumped in, bought a used 503, took a picture of an

ISO12233 resolution chart at 1/5 frame, had it developed at a professional photo store

and looked at it under a microscope. As I looked at smaller an smaller lines there was a

amazing amount of “dirt” and could only see the equivalent of 30M pixels (line size =

dirt/grain). I assumed that film was so uncommon that their chemicals we not fresh. So, I

developed my own film with Kodak D70 and got about 40M pixel. I then moved to

XTOL (about $1 more) and got around 50M pixel. I though, wow an extra 10M pixel for

$1, what a deal! I knew that for about $60K I could get a digital back that would give me

the same resolution but, I didn’t have $60K. I guess I’ve spent about $8K on my

Hasselblad body and lenses and can get about 50M pixel. A Canon DS MKII was also

about $8K then and only 16M pixel.

 

DYNAMIC RANGE

One of the big advantages of film has been the wide dynamic range of light it can capture

but some of the better DSLRs can do just as well if you’re careful. Average DSCs get

around 9 stops. And yes, pixel size makes a big difference.

 

Here’s some comparisons: http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2/ You

can see that film seems to have a larger range but the noise (grain) becomes a factor and

can not be processed in the same way as digital. I shoot Fuji Acros (ISO 100) in my 503

and I think I get about 13 stops but I haven’t measured it yet. As we know from Ansel

Adams, 10 stops is OK for most outdoor scenes.

 

 

COLOR

Many people have said they like the color of film better than digital, but those people also

admit they haven’t spend a lot of time working with color processing software. I would

suggest looking at DxO’s “film looks”:

http://dxo.com/intl/photo/filmpack/available_film_looks In theory both are tri-stimulus

color systems and as long as you have enough dynamic range in the color channels (>12

stops), you should be able to create what ever color look you want in digital.

 

I’ve also developed a high dynamic range, hyper-spectral printing process using an HP

3100, rip engine and 2 layer transparencys with a xenon arc light source( 30cd/m2). The

color was measured with a Spectroradiometer and found to be the exact same as the real

scene in nature. The images were captured with a Canon DS MkII (14 exposures). So,

I’m pretty confident you can get the same color quality with digital but it may be more

work than just pressing a button.

 

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Wow, this thread sure has brought out some Ph.D.s, engineers (myself included) and now Ken Kryda, who appears to

have joined PN just for this thread. Welcome Ken. I am sure there are quite some questions about digital that you

can answer authoritatively!

 

You say - "Most use pattern recognition to help “synthesize” pixels." - but I think someone with a keen eye can

recognize the lack of information, especially someone who is used to larger format film photography like 8x10.

Often I look at what are supposed to be really high resolution images, and I'll focus on random detail rather

than things like letters, lines and so on; things like a leaf; and will look for finer detail, only to find none.

The leaf shape seems really well defined, and you'd expect that you'd be able to see some details on the leaf,

but nope. Has that ever happened to you, Ken?

 

Of course, being an engineer myself, I can't help but notice this kind of stuff, and I'm quite sure that for all

practical purposes, the smooth tonality and grainlessness of digital is a massive advantage. Film grain (noise)

apart, does resolve a lot. I've done some tests with a Leica Apo Macro Elmarit 100mm lens with mirror lock up,

and there's detail right down to the grain level. I'm sure that even if a digital camera didn't resolve that

much, its output would be superior simply because it was so grainless. I still have to test the new Ektar 100,

but I'm rather slow about testing and such.

 

Anyway, welcome to photo.net and perhaps what is perhaps the longest thread in PN history.

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Ken (and other experts),

 

Please no apologies for being "verbose." We love your informative posts! Having a MSEE in multimedia systems (a stone age ago as I do completely unrelated work these days), I enjoy posts as informative as yours, even if I have to read more than once to grok everything.

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Vijay - you raise a very good point about the "organic" look of film VS the pixilated

digital look when you zoom in. I've played around with this a bit using a 16Mp Canon

DS MkII. Though the resolution may be the same or better at 35mm, the hard pixilated

look is obvious. However, I think you can get the more organic look from digital by

increasing the resolution in Photoshop (bi cubic interpolation) and then using filters and

sharpening.

 

Take a look at PhotoKit from PixelGenius http://www.pixelgenius.com/sharpener/ It is an

application totally devoted to sharpening and has some options that can mimic the film

grain look. There are dozens of options so you’ll need to spend some time.

 

As part of my work on camera phone images, I’ve done a few experiments where I’ve

made low resolution images look as sharp as higher resolution images and found a pretty

interesting receipt. Because the brain reacts more to edge sharpness than detain and often

does not “know” what the correct detail is, you can fake many looks by maybe a factor of

2 in “resolution”.

 

If you increase the resolution by a factor of 4 then dither in luminance noise but use the

underlying color information, the eye will “see” detail but not know it’s fake. You then

do your edge sharpening separately. A real Pro will know something’s strange but 95%

of consumers will not be able to tell a 4Mp image from a 10Mp image. The blending of

the noise needs to be subtle and carefully hand tuned but, defiantly can enhance a low

resolution image and/or create the film look.

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Chris, I watched the video on film VS digital and though I prefer digital in the 35mm

format, I have to say their demonstration was totally invalid.

 

First, they used studio key and fill flash to capture the scene. This intentionally reduced

the dynamic range of the light in the scene and makes it much easier for digital. If film

can capture say 14 stops and digital can capture only 10, then using a scene that has only

6 stops ignores film’s advantage. It’s like saying I have as much money as a millionaire

because we can both buy a Big Mac. A more valid example would be and indoor scene

with bright light outside a window like a restaurant. Film should do a bit better.

 

Second, the film was obviously scanned to make the poster. Film scanners adjust color,

sharpness, tonal curves and noise reduction (grain). So, this was 90% a digital to digital

comparison not a film to digital comparison. Most of their comments when viewing the

two posters were about color, contrast and shadow detail. All of which are adjusted in the

film scanner and can easily be matched if you want. Only once did the mention the film

grain which may be valid but film scanners can also reduce grain.

 

So, “conclusive evidence”, no. More like misleading entertainment that reached the right

conclusion for the wrong reason.The real conversation we need have is pixel count VS

pixel size or the relationship between resolution and sensitivity but, that’s a different

thread.

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My feelings about the film vs digital report on the Forward Five TV link above are not polite, but boiled down are:

as a practising photographer using a studio, I would never use 35mm film at anything above 180 iso, as the grain is a nusiance, sorry, spelling, and unless I WANTED grain, would never use 400iso film unless I specifically intended to produce grain. If this chap is a professional, I would never use him, as to do what he has done would have to be to put the film in a bad light, so to speak.

 

The make of film was never mentioned - or shown - if you used say, Jessops film, even at 100 iso, you would get some grain - I used to work there, and the film was made behind the iron curtain, and was known to be a 'cheap' alternative. So, wrong choice of film, and make unknown. Some Kodak films are very fine grain, even at 400, but to get better colour and fine detail every pro knows that you have to choose film very carefully.

 

Then, as Ken Kryda says, the scanner used to scan the neg needs to be of very high quality – I have a flatbed epson perfection scanner, an old one, and even scanning 645 size negs, I would not think of printing above about A4 size – it is just too soft – no mention was made of the scanner used, and personally I would not accept for commercial printing any scan which gave green in the blacks – that can be adjusted in scan/preparation for printing.

 

The digital camera used was a Nikon D700, with 12.1 megapixels, and a 35mm size sensor, which has huge low-noise pixel sites, and anyone who knows the Nikon line is aware that recently, they have improved performance, to the point that their noise reduction over iso 800 is better than almost all their competition. One of the key points of sale of the digital camera is this smoothing of noise – their competition smooths noise AND details more than the Nikons. The Forward Five chose this camera because they know it will appear smoother, and keep more detail. They chose the 400 iso film as they knew it would show grain, and the bigger the shot, the bigger the grain, the more obvious it is. Viewing the film on my 17 inch monitor, I could see the grain on the left image, but I saw no sharper lines on the right - the girl was also wearing a glossy cat-suit, so again, grain would not show on the digital. I would love to see the image taken again, on 100 iso finegrain film, preferably transparency, and again the identical shots on the Nikon D700. I should like to have fine details also in the subject, perhaps a shirt or fine leaves or grass, or sand, so that we would be able to see fine detail blown up, and see where each ran out of definition. The smaller number of pixels vs larger number of grains would be in my book, a fairer test – If anyone wants me to run one, I can do it myself, and make the negs and transparencies available for someone with a GOOD scanner to make the assessments. Personally, I think that the TV company making this test spent all that money as they knew it would influence the general buying public to buy more digital gear, so they have a vested interest in ‘proving’ that digi is best. Personally, I would expect this, as they knew, or should have known before the test, what the results would be.

 

In reality, the test of a good film, negative or transparency, is likely to be how good, fine, and rich a PRINT it will produce, and this is dependent on many things – development conditions, correct times, temperatures, film freshness, chemical condition, (right mix, freshness/exhaution of solutions), complete washing, good drying, and the type of illimination in the enlarger, the paper freshness, and repeat all the other items for development of paper, plus the type and saturation of the paper, and contrast levels, to say nothing of the right exposure, both of film exposing and paper exposing. However, when all these are correct, then I feel absolutely sure that at this time, film has more to offer than the same sized digital sensor.

 

I have used a film Konica 180, 35mm, which gives lovely portrait quality, don’t know if you can get it now, and then had a transparency made from it for one customer, and literally gasped when I saw the quality and richness of the slide from it – and I used Colab at Coventry – (If this is advertising, and not really permitted, my apologies, it’s just I want to share my enthusiasm – edit as you need), and I personally feel that for ease, and up to A4, I would used digital, take in Raw, adjust to taste, and print on my Epson R300, to get lovely quality, and for brilliant prints first time, use my Canon T90, and then for 16x20 or bigger, medium format film – I can perhaps get a digi back for it later, if I can afford one, which gives me the ease to produce a lovely big nice image immediately. However, film still has a big appeal to me, being a lot cheaper, and of very excellent quality.

 

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Let see about approximate cost for shooting film/slides versus digital. Film camera ~$1,000. A 36-exposure roll of

film/slide ~$5. Develop and scan ~$15. Computer to read CD of scans ~$1,000. So for 25,000 shots, that's ~$16,000.

 

Low-end digital camera ~$400. Computer ~$1,000. Cost for 25,000 shots ~$1,400.

 

High-end digital camera ~$5,000. Computer ~$1,000. Cost for 25,000 shots ~$6,000.

 

This is a back of the envelope calculation. Hope my math is close.

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Sorry guys - I tried to get some more microscope images (as promised - sorry Mark), but A) both of my

instruments were undergoing PM service, and B) the internet connection at work was totally bogged down, so I

couldn't even get to the site.

 

Bernie: You absolutely COULD NOT make a machine that could make grains identical.

 

False - tightly controlled processes result in amazingly uniform and identical crystals, even at the nano-scaled

level we're talking about. Without that technology, many drug formulations would not exist. In fact, Kodak was

one of the first to employ the precursor to the current technology with their T-Max 400 technology back in the

1980s.

 

I found the comparison on forward five to be insulting to say the least. It was a blatant plug for the technology

used to reproduce the huge images, and as both Ken and Adrian have already stated, there are way too

many 'convenient' omissions with regard to the entire process to give it any credibility.

 

Anyway - I don't know what my images will be able to add to the the discussion, however now that you've got me

started, I'm curious to see what I find and let you know. I've cross-sectioned a piece of developed film and I hope

to be able to throw some light (no pun intended) on the 3-dimensional aspect of the emulsion and its effect on

density/grey levels.

 

--Rich

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<i>Bernie: You absolutely COULD NOT make a machine that could make grains identical. <p>

 

False - tightly controlled processes result in amazingly uniform and identical crystals</i><p>

 

Even when you consider sensitivity centres? Can these be placed identically? The most up to date literature I could find so far is 2002, and as of then there was no scientific concensus on the process of latent image formation. <p>

 

Anyway, I guess what you are saying is more-or-less confirming what Vijay was saying about uniformity being a desirable trait. Clearly this leaves a couple of holes in my (dated) literature interpretation. If the grains are more-or-less uniform and were more-or-less 'binary', then the explanation that greater development equals more density can't work as stated. Also Vijay's example of less development leading to LESS graininess. I can't think of how this would work in a non-variable grain scenario. So unless someone pops in and explains this soon, it's looking more and more like I might have to start believing in a continous tone process (at the grain level through a sub-granular halftone process. The reason I say this is that much of the literature states definitively that silver deposits are opaque).

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To be honest, those debates remind me of the old time "rangefinder vs. reflex camera" or "autofocus vs. manual focus" endless debates. Nevertheless I really enjoyed reading this post and I want to thank all the people who contribute.

 

My quick answer to the Digital vs. Film question is always the same: "It depends".

What's more, this answer has not changed in the last 10 years. The only change is the increased amount of things that 10 years ago were more convenient to do with film and nowadays are more convenient to do with digital. I believe that each individual photographic situation needs to be addressed specifically, asking for the best tool. Twenty years ago I was bringing around my Nikon FM2 and a bunch of fixed lenses for my landscape photography, but when invited to a party, I was bringing a nice Canon Snappy 50 loaded with BW or color print film. The advent of digital gave me just another tool for recording light.

 

So, what's the point?

Have you ever seen those weekend or vacation shooters, the one that spend one week in a turistic resort somewhere and come home with at least 1000 pictures? I have friends among them. In the old film days they were shooting five or ten rolls of color print film had it developed at the local Wall Mart, standard printed with the minilab machine and the picture folded in the plastic album that the lab was giving for free together with the pictures. If I happened to visit them and asked what the vacation was like, I was immediately tossed those albums and explained them. After all the main friends had seen the pictures or after the next vacation (whichever came first) those albums were sitting somewhere in a closet and had never seen the light since then. Now if I do the same, instead of tossing me some pictures, I am presented with a laptop and shown a thousand pictures, with comments like "this is was the toilet of our hotel room" and then "this is a detail of the WC brush". The medium has changed, the use of the pictures not. After they have been shown or after the next trip, they are transferred on a CD or to another archivial medium and they will sit there, "collecting digital dust". IMHO those are the consumers that benefit from digital and ultimately they are the ones driving the marketing departments of camera producers. All they have to do is to convince them that the new digital camera gives better results than the one they are using. The reference for those people was the compact camera of the '90s or the reflex camera equipped with a cheap zoom lens, both loaded with consumer film. The quality level of current digital cameras is more than enough for those kind of users, which are the ones making the big numbers. Look at consumers, the ones buying point-snd-shoot and consumer reflex digital cameras, and ask yourself how many of them really need 10 million pixels, how many shoot in jpg format and how many look at their pictures one year after they have taken them.

 

On the other side there are people using cameras in a professional way. Sometimes I need to take pictures at customer sites to document situations. I am not that much different than a photojournalist, here. I started using digital in 2000 for this and won't go back to shoot film, wait to have it developed and sca pictures to include them into reports. It makes absolutely no sense. I will include also wedding photographers in this group. As long as the quality of digital pictures was enough for the specific job, the convenience of digital made film an obsolete medium. Up to the point that now we experience wedding photographers that send a teen boy to a wedding with a digital camera and CF cards, ask him to shoot as much as he can, then give him 50 bucks and a thank you, download the pictures on a DVD, maybe do some photoshopping and special effects, like sepia, give it to the couple and ask them to choose the ones they like printed and placed in the album. The more professionals of these send two kids. Digital convenience at his best. The photographer is happy, the kid is happy and the couple is happy. Not everybody wants artistic pictures of his wedding.

 

Then there are the people who can choose. Those are advanced amateurs and pros that do not need immediate results. For those people the debate Film vs. Digital IMHO is more a choice of the medium that gives the best result than a matter of quality, as long as it is enough to do the job and, if done for a living, it is accepted by the customer. For those people there is not a law engraved into stone that states "either - or". They have more choices and they can use all of them, depending on the situation and their specific preferences. And I am 100% sure that if a picture is really, but really good, the medium on which it was taken won't be an issue. Again, convenience comes into place when there is ferce competition to beat, but if your results are unique, people will accept your choice of medium and maybe use it as an explanation of your results.

 

I am shooting with an old Nikon camera and my choice is film. Why? Because I love taking pictures on a slow pace, enjoying the process of composing, choosing exposure, and I don't have to sell them. The joy of photography for me is in the picture taking. I am not an equipment freak (I guess almost all I use it at least 10 years old) and I am not that much interested even in showing my work. When my slides come back from the lab and the only post-processing is to toss away the bad ones and file the good ones in plastic sleeves. It is not a matter of pixels or lines per millimeter, it is a matter of doing things in a certain way. I simply decided that I don't want to mess with computers and post-processing. I like to take all the decisions before and then concentrate on the next picture. So far I found slide film the best tool for me. In the future I might change, like the major part of the people here, we have options and can use them.

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Eric, it would take me nearly 14 years to shoot 25k of 135 film. I know digital shooters who do that in 3

years...they aren't pros, either.

 

Make that 1000$ computer a minimum of 1500$ -- you need extra ram and disk space. Add a good enough monitor,

$500. Add hardware calibrator $200. Add Adobe Photoshop and/or Lightroom. Now, replace or upgrade all that

every 3 years. The digital camera, although it can last longer, is likely to be replaced in 3 years, too.

 

So, in the 14 years it would take me to shoot 25k frames, the digital shooter is likely to have replaced or

upgraded his equipment 4 or 5 times.

 

There are other costs besides money: time and energy. If I shoot a roll of slide film, I am done. Additional

time and energy required is zero, but with digital spending time and energy has only just begun. For common

needs, I've included in the cost of film a cd with images I can use for web display or take to Costco for a $1.49

8x10. So, I also have, besides the transparencies, 6megapixel digital images: time and energy on my part is zero.

 

And if I get a slide that is of unusual quality and interest, I can have it drum scanned and printed to the

highest quality, while with digital -- well it is too bad you didn't buy a medium format digital Hassy.

 

The biggest advantage of film is that I don't need to own, much less spend a significant part of my life using, a

computer.

 

Of the three time, money, energy, time is far more important, far more valuable. Money is the least important of

the three over the long haul. You can rest and build up energy and can earn more money, but time, once past, is

gone forever.

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Hi everyone - Its Thanksgiving holiday time here in the states, and I'd just like to use that as an opportunity to THANK YOU all for taking part in this intelligent, lively, and thought provoking debate. I hope that dialogues like this can continue, and I'd love to buy you all a pint at the nearest pub so this banter can continue.....Cheers! --Rich
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Hi everyone - Its Thanksgiving holiday time here in the states, and I'd just like to use that as an opportunity to

THANK YOU all for taking part in this intelligent, lively, and thought provoking debate. I hope that dialogues like

this can continue, and I'd love to buy you all a pint at the nearest pub so this banter can continue.....Cheers! --

Rich

 

Photo of Turkey to follow...........<div>00RcSq-92487684.jpg.e4f3ed45e6426499533f1b740d8d95c7.jpg</div>

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Thank you Rich, we don't have Thanksgiving here in Italy, but I can contribute with some good italian wine, like Brunello or Prosecco... ;-) Happy Thanksgiving to all of you on the other side of the pond!

 

Coming back to the point, I agree with Don, and these are the reasons why I am still resisting the change. Most of my leisure time shooting is done with an old Nikon FM2. The camera still does its job and I am perfectly happy with it. Digital stuff becomes obsolete in few years, when I came to work for my current company, they just bought a brand new Nikon D1 and I started using it. The camera was trashed (yes, it literally went into the electronic trash bin, together with the CRT monitors and old Pentium computers...) some months ago. Meanwhile I went trough using two bridge cameras, one of which I am still using today for business purposes. And this does not take in account software, memory cards, storage media, batteries, ... all the stuff you need to keep a digital system alive and up to date. Of course this is a price the company I work for has to pay to allow my documentation of faulty parts, visit to customers, and the like, it would be completely crazy to switch back to a Nikon F-something and slide or print film.

But when I am shooting for my personal leisure, and I know I am not the kind of person who upgrades everytime a new camera or new lens comes out, this catch and run game makes no sense to me. And it makes even less sense to spend my free time sitting at my computer to play with pictures. I belong to the old school, the people who take pictures, not make them... meaning that I love to be there and shoot my slides and then give the rolls to a professional lab here in Milan and let them take care of all the rest. From time to time I give also them a couple of sildes and ask for a professional scan, but for me this is a very rare event. On the other side I have a friend who makes a living taking pictures for local newspapers, magazines, sales brochures, sport events, and in his hands a digital camera does't last more than two years, then the shutter gets worn out. His mileage is more than 100'000 shots per year and the people he shoots for ask for digital files. Asking him to go back to film is totally nonsense.

 

Once again, the point is that we are not living in a perfect world, where people would choose the technically best solution, we are living in a real world, in which everybody has his needs, his way of seeing things, his habits, his reasons to hold a camera and shoot a picture and his uses of the picture once taken. And in such a world, the technical superiority (or inferiority) of digital versus film or of one size versus the other is only one of the elements taking part in a personal choice.

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Personally I think that film will never completely die. It's already lost the mainstream consumer race and is fighting a

loosing battle for the prosumer and professional market, but just like vinyl, it offers something that digital may never be

able to deliver, and for this reason (hopefully) it will always be available to some degree.

 

I shoot digital for any paid assignments, and use a field camera for my landscape work. This kinda puts me in the middle

of the debate as I come from both viewpoints. I have to say though, if your shooting stock or studio, digital is quite

simply an easier way of earning the same money. Less processing time, less money involved (apart from initial outlays).

For the fine art and landscape market however (and for some more unusual commercial projects) you really can't beat a

nice large transparency. I've been lucky enough to shoot with a p45 back attached to a view camera on a couple of trips, and have to say,

the quality and detail was pretty good and allowed for some nice enlargements, but couldn't touch my B&W 4X5 negs.

 

In an ever growing digital marketplace, anything you can do to separate yourself from the crowd is helpful. Sure, most

people will want digital files, but it really can't hurt to have those traditional skills and to offer them as part of your

portfolio.

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