I'm just curious as to which everyone prefers. I'm looking into getting into digital photography and hoping to purchase a Nikon Coolpix 990 in a year or so (whenever I get enough extra money). So which do you prefer, digital or regular photography? Also include reasons why. Thanks. ~JKS

Hi JKS! Tee hee - we're back on this one, huh? ok, my pennysworth... I've only "played about" with standard photography a little bit about 15 years back. Last year I got a cheap Fuji digital - dead basic, just point & click, but fell in love with it purely because I'm the type of person who a) hates having to wait to see results and b) is a miserly git who realised how many shots/rolls of film it would take before a digital would have paid for itself. The first point for me was by far the most important. It's great being able to see your shot straight away, coz if it isn't right you re-shoot and you've lost nothing, but more importantly you can correct your mistake rapidly. Having to wait for a photo to be processed / process it yourself before you can see your errors (and we all make 'em!) means that moment is gone. In most cases you can't get that subject again, and if you can something will have changed - even if it's just the light / weather. I can't put into words the rate of my learning that wouldn't have been possible with standard - so much so that less than a year later I've upgraded to the Fuji with similar features to the Nikon you want. I'd say go for it - if it's gonna be a year, it'll be amazing how far the technology will have gone in that time!! Good luck whatever you decide! Mike (",)

About 35 years ago I was heavy into film photography and really learned it both technically and artisticly. Last year I purchased a Nikon 880 and have been learning digital imageing. Here are some observations; Film is a lot more versatile than the basic element of a digital camera the CCD array......The dynamic range of a CCD array is about twice that of film.....There are almost a hundred photo manipulation tools. Most work on digital images from a camera or a scanner of the negative or print....The Nikon 995 has the minimum size CCD for serious professional work. I expect that there will be some 6.0 to 10.0 meg cameras available for $1000 to $1500 next year or so....It takes a 3.3 meg image to get a good 11" x17" print..I expect the snapshot market to be 30% digital in a few years....The digital camera gives you lots of control up front and as Jordy says, instant feedback. It is very quick to process and no messy darkroom. With a large memory in place you can shoot and shoot without incuring more cost. Throw away what is unsuitable.....Digital cameras are not much on fast moving subjects,TOO much think time in the camera.....Using a good digital camera encourages many people to take more pictures of everything they are involved in each day..... You will invest about as much in hardware for camera support and software as you spend on the camera. This does not count the computer or printer. The costs of both are coming down.....Jump in the water is fine!

Especially for the learning the finer points of photography, a digital set-up is great! If one studies the entire gamut of photography and applies it to the digital realm, you will be able to produce truly great photos for a fraction of the cost/time it would take with conventional camera and film. I agree with the previously listed posters. Jump in with digital!

The aspect of being limited to a resolution is very unnapealing to me. A single grain on regular film can hold (theoretically) unlimited amounts of detail, while a pixel is a pixel, one colour, and that's it. My point of view is this. I am heavily into computer design, and I use programs such as photoshop, rhino3d, etc, all the time. When it comes to photography though, I'll be sticking to "regular" photography for a long time. Maybe I'm just a purist, but I've seen work people have done on with large format cameras that kicks the living shyte out of anything I've seen in digital (this is from the people in the Dawson College darkroom here in montreal. their work is f'in incredible). the way I see it, I'll be ready for digital photography when I master analog photography. though it all comes down to personal preference (and I'm one of the few people on this forum that prefer analog to digital), my advice is to wet your feet in both forums. Look up the work of Jerry Uelsmann on the net, and you'll see what a darkroom is capable of (he did all of his work in the darkroom, most of it 20 years before computers could handle graphics in a somewhat feasible way, being around the 80's). ry

I think in general film is better BUT for experimentation and since you will be getting a good digital camera I feel that digital is the better current option. Yes faster turnaround time, yes easier to manipulate, potentially less equipment to lug around. However moving subjects may be a problem. digital is not as fast as film. On the other hand how fast are you taking pictures and what do you plan on doing with the camera. Bsteph

Well, for starters, I really only intend to do scenery and poses, which I believe will be easily covered by digital. My one concern was print-out. I've seen plenty of digital cameras on the market w/ a huge resolution maximum, and although I haven't done the math yet to figure out what resolution is reasonable (it'll only take a few seconds to do, so I keep putting it off), I heard that if you want extremely high print-quality on photo paper, you'll have to set the dpi/ppi (same thing, really, but depending on program used, the acronym changes) to around 300dpi. That means I'd have to have really large pictures so they don't print really small. Not that this would be a problem, as most images are good to be increased in size by 50% of the original when using smart sizing capabilities without losing too much quality (although a little detail). And with film you can print at pretty much any size you want and still have a crisp picture. So my main concern is print-out. Other than that, I'm leaning towards digital for ease of use. Any information on the print-out area would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the info & opinions thus far. ~JKS

I haven't read anything I would disagree with in this thread. I get good 4'x 6' from 350 kb or larger jpeg files. This from an HP 722 which is antique by todays standards. I have seen good 8'x 10' from 1.1 meg files, though I would not try it for commercial or show purposes. Either HP or Epson will sell you top of the line for $300 if you can stay under 8.5' x 11'. Paper and ink are commodity items and are open to shopping. Though the printer manufacturers don't want you to use alternate sources. They set their paper and inks to match a particular standard. The printing does present another facet and that is color rendition that is true to the eye. You must calibrate the screen and the printer to get consistent results. The screen is light on phosphor, the print is reflected light from the room/sun source. It is all about what the eye tells the brain.

with either medium, the larger you raiese the print's size, the quality shall be sacrificed. With analog, the best 35mm film you can buy in terms of photo qualty and the ease of enlarging with out losing detail is 100ASA film, or lower. The less grain there is, the faster the grain will react to light. ASA100 has a LOT of grain per 35mm picture, thus, when you enlarge, theres more detail held in place. Also, nothing, absolutely NOTHuing beats large format cameras in terms of quality.... as for digital, beats the fu#$ out of me... ry

I've impressed the socks off myself with the quality of the Fuji 4900 - I use it's file size of 1600 x 1200, which when printed from Photoshop has to be reduced to 30% to fit on an A4 page. Printing on an Epson 680 at 2800dpi gives me something that I class as visibly close to a photo.... Ok, we can get into how much resolution may be lost etc. but as I've stated in earlier threads, most people who see any pictures you do don't know diddly squat about resolution, and personal experience tells me they THINK they are looking at a photo - jeez, at times I even fool myself! LOL

ry, WOW! Back in 1952 we shot Panatomic X and Tri X Kodak film and thought it was special to have 35 mm that would develop to 25 ASA and 100 ASA standard (400 ASA pushed). Good old Kodachrome (Multilayer) was 64 ASA. Even then the larger format cameras would produce the truest print. So while the cameras get more technical the "laws" of film remain the same. When I purchased my 4'x 5' press type camera for sheet film it was to get clean prints from part of the negative. The cost of color sheet film and processing would be beyond most people's budget. In the darkroom it was you, the negative, the paper and all the talent you could muster. Sometimes that got just a little edgy if you screwed up the shoot and had no way to get better negatives. Now I sit at the monitor and work the digital tools. I can post-process color images with ease. No way I can do that with film. The commercial world of print meduim that produces everything with a screen involved loves the digital world, The Nikon D1 at $3600 (no lenses) is the least camera level they will use for their work. Still there are limitations. Digital pictures don't rotate very well. If the axis of the image is wrong a 10 degree rotation will produce a junk a image. "Double exposure" is common in outdoor plus flash. The combination produces poor quality images. You must determine the image you want to print before you take the picture. With digital it is better to be too close than too far away. Using film and a good film scanner($2500) would seem to produce the best of both worlds. Working from prints and a scanner requires that you have a print as large as you want to produce. If I were doing commercial work today I would shoot both media and be able to chose the elements I wanted from each source. So, to be complete in my knowledge and explore the limits of image processing I am working with a "fu%#ing" digital camera as you refer to my tools (toys).

Here is why digital cameras will not be able to replace regualar film. Try doing a 5 minute exposure with a digital camera!!!

Yeah, but when standard cameras first came out, try taking a photo with LESS than 5 minute exposure! lol What we have to remember is that digital is very much in it's infancy - how long have digital cameras been available to the public? and how long has standard been available? And doesn't the S1 have the ability to hold a 5-minute exposure? I should have thought it would, tho' I may be wrong! (",)

walking r Do you regularly take 5 minute exposures? You have to be very familiar with the characteristics of the film you are using. The film reaction to light is very non-linear at those times. With twice the dynamic range of sensitivity digital cameras generally don't need those kind of long exposures. As for complete replacement of analog film you are right at least for many, many years. In both capability and investment film will be here for a long time.