Forum: Photography


Subject: Digital or film?

PictureBoy opened this issue on Oct 07, 2004 ยท 8 posts


Kixum posted Sat, 16 October 2004 at 1:09 AM

1.) Yep, Misha has great points and should be taken seriously. 2.) It's normal for me to shoot about 2 to 5000 frames a year. I now have a reasonably extensive set of 35mm film cameras (Anybody in the market for some practically new A2E's?). Now I'm totally digital and here's my story. I was rather resistant to digital until I finally broke down and purchased the cheapest point and shoot Costco had because I was trying to sell my car and I needed a digital photo IMMEDIATELY! It was a 3+ MPixal Olympus. The results I got back for such a cheap investment really surprised me so I did a lot of candid shooting with it (packing it around on trips, going to the grocery store, stupid stuff like that). Results for these types of shots were EASILY superior to film and weren't costing anything so I am wholly convinced digital is a complete and perfect substitution for the average point and shoot consumer over film. Next, I bought the digital rebel SLR. This was a considerable move for me because there was some reasonable $ involved and I wasn't convinced the rebel could replace my 35mm SLR film results. 90% of my stuff is shot on Velvia which can be blown up pretty big with no grain and great saturation. I took about 1400 shots with it out at the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Craters of the moon in Idaho. The results were incredible. I've blown up and printed shots up to 22X18 inches with absolutely no pixelation or grain. I've since sold that camera and now have a 20D. I could see what the snot I was doing as I was shooting and I ended up with more printable shots on that trip than any other I've been on. I shot 2000+ pictures in Utah two years earlier and only got 5 printers. I got over 15 on the Teton trip. My conclusion is that the Digital SLR can now also replace the 35mm film technology 99%. I don't think my night time multi-hour exposures are digitally possible just yet. I'm not familiar with formats above 35mm and I have no doubt that you can still make enlargements off of medium format that are better than the higher end digital SLR's that are out today but I suspect it will change. Large format film will probably always have a place. There are these guys running around with these really wild and wicked large format scanning digital cameras and they can take some really CRAZY huge images that are just mind numbing in their detail. But be mindful, people who are out there on the large format edge are skating around on technology that few people need or use and they typically need pretty spiffy stuff anyway. I wouldn't consider the practices and needs of the large format guys for stuff that the rest of the world does. They have a world of their own with results that are also in a class of their own. Just my thoughts. -Kix

-Kix