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Cameras Discussion on Cameras of all types

35mm film and digital - a comparison

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  #1  
Old 06-06-09, 13:23
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Default 35mm film and digital - a comparison

It's an old question, and with perhaps 95% of photographers using digital cameras, I think 35mm needs do concede defeat.

However, allow me to say some things in defence of the old rolls-to clarify, whenever I say 'film' in the rest of the post, I mean 35mm film.

Things I like about film:

1) Initial cost of buying a camera is much lower, with well looked-after SLRs going for as little as under £100, and something new with AF and things at perhaps £300 with a very good lens included.

2) Film cameras older than 20 years almost always look better than their modern counterparts.

3) Batteries only need to be replaced once every two years or so.

4) I still think flicking through prints is a better way of viewing photos than staring at them on a computer screen. Likewise, they can be put easily into albums, swapped around, enlarged etc.

5) Whenever I use my IXUS 70, I feel like a sort of appendage to the camera, the one simply pressing a button, and it does all the work. On the other hand, my Leica and Minox feel like they are an appendage of me, giving a lot more control over the shot and making more satisfied when I get a good one =)

Some things I don't like about film. These are niggles digital doesn't tend to have.

1) Buying rolls of film and paying for them to be developed. Shot per shot, film is a lot more expensive than digital.

2) Older cameras can be unreliable.

3) Film grain. However, digital does to some extent have digital noise, though the better cameras on the market are close to having none, even as high as 1600 ISO

4) The fact I can only have 1 film speed at any one time. With a CCD, this can be varied to my heart's content.

5) AF on digicams makes it easier to shoot shots very quickly, which is invaluable when the subject is an animal or a rapidly moving object- in these situations, I can't fiddle around with the dials on my Leica.

Overall, the logical choice is still to go digital. Yet for some reason, my Minox, Leica and Canon EOS 30 soldier on, in an age where they are merely dinosaurs of the past, where photography was a rather chemical matter. Maybe I can't stomach the thought of stumping 400-500 pounds for a dSLR. Maybe it's something else in these old buggers, the fact that the Leica just has 'soul', it's an heirloom with a feeling of solidity and precision that I haven't come across on any other camera but the extremely high-end ones. Now that I'm still very much learning to shoot, I think a camera where the photographer is compeletely involved in the picture-taking process is best for me.


What do you guys think? When did you switch over to digital? What film cameras did you have before?

Thanks

Alex
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Old 06-06-09, 14:54
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I've got a 25 year-old Minolta X700 SLR. It cost £200 with lens and bag which is comparatively more expensive that today's equivalent DSLR. I didn't use it much as the cost of film and developing was high.
For me, the advantages of digital (which far out-weigh the disadvantages) are
1 - Cheapness of capture and viewing.
2 - Print just what you want: no need to clog up cupboards with unwanted and expensive prints.
3 - Instant gratification: no time spent waiting for film to be developed.
4 - White balance (especially when shooting in RAW) easy to adjust.
5 - ISO speed dead easy to change.
6 - Different autofocus points make controlling DOF easier during composition.
7 - Portability: I can view hundreds of other photographers' work from the comfort of my home (makes learning easier).
8 - Dead easy and cheap to compare different crops of the same photo.
9 - Live histogram to help with exposure.
10 - Instant play-back to check composition.
11 - The ability to remove clutter and distractions that I always fail to notice, even with play-back.

These probably give an insight to my photography, and other photographers will have different reasons, if any.



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Old 06-06-09, 21:24
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For me digital was a real revolution, I had been shooting with Minolta gear for a while but found the cost of film and processing was quite restricting. I was just looking into getting a dark room set up when the prices of DSLRs started to come down so I decided to wait for a while and see. About four years ago I finally cracked and went digital buying a Canon 300D and giving up on Minolta who still hadn't launched a DSLR.

The flexability and cost (per shot) of digital allowed me to finally have a go at photographing birds. Since then I have got more and more interested in photography and spent lots of time and money on it. The instant results and the ability to change settings (inc ISO) on the fly are all big advantages of digital, I'd really struggle to go back to film now. I like the fact that in full manual a DSLR is basically point and shoot, but you also have the option to control everything yourself.
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Old 07-06-09, 03:02
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I used to dabble in photography back in the 80's and had a Canon T90 - loved that camera. Hated the cost of film. Redundancy and car accident made it impossible to carry on so Digital reawakened my intrest. There is no way I could afford the waste of film, going as I do from bright sunlight to indoor, no flash/lighting piccy taking. That was the biggest pain for me.

But with the advent of in camera ISO control I'm now relearning everything I thought I once knew and when I get it wrong, it don't matter, it's cost me nowt
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Old 07-06-09, 10:11
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Used film for 20-odd years, switched to digital about 5-6 years ago. It transformed my photography. The ability to see your mistakes there and then on the spot meant I could learn what worked, and what didn't, very quickly. It also freed up my mind. I could experiment without that nagging thought of wasted frames and the associated costs holding me back.

I still get the Rolleiflex out now and again, it's a different form of photography. Nothing to stop you using film AND digital, they are not mutually exclusive. Each to their own.
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Old 07-06-09, 11:38
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex1994 View Post
............What do you guys think? When did you switch over to digital? What film cameras did you have before?

Thanks

Alex
My history of film cameras is in the ' A trip down Memory Lane ' thread.
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...read.php?t=368

I got into digital with the introduction of the Nikon D100 on the basis that when I retired I thought I would no longer be able to afford my style of photography. Hours spent in the darkroom burning through packs of 12" x 16" Ilford Gallerie or CibaChrome paper. I almost never did straight prints, so 3 or 4 sheets for a single print was not uncommon. Then of course there was the mixing of the chemicals in order to start, and not to forget ..... the washing up afterwards.

For me one big advantage of digital is being able to work on an image on the computer and save it. In the event of a request for an additional print, or more, easy peasy. In my wet darkroom I had a ghetto blaster with a selection of tapes. Mood music on a grand scale. Each print was therefore also influenced by the tracks that were playing. Bruce Springsten would give a different end results from Pink Floyd. Queen or The Pretenders would be different again. I even added that info to my printing maps.

Other than the ability to have the equivalent of various film stocks in a single camera, I think Duncan has hit the nail on the head in respect of experimenting with new styles. For example last year Lello started a High Speed Photography thread.
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...ead.php?t=3386

My efforts posted in that thread, although perfectly do-able on film, would only really have been possible with a spend on an infrared and sound triggers, and of course loads of film. So in this case the cost alone would have stopped me from even considering having a go.

Don
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Old 07-06-09, 14:08
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Not everyone had the space for a permanent or even semi-permanent darkroom. I found that one of the biggest frustrations was the time spent on clearing a space, blacking-out the windows, etc., meant that half the time was not spent on actually doing anything photographic. Doing everything at night (not too difficult in the winter) helped but there was always the problem of dust from moving stuff around no matter how clean you thought the room was!

I can't remember the last time I printed a B/W photo, now, having shot almost exclusively on slide film for quite a few years before I 'went digital.' Although I've got a film scanner to digitise my old films, I've found that the old rule of 'slightly' under-exposing reversal film in order to avoid washed-out slides has worked against me as dense slides don't scan very well at all (at least with my Minolta Scan Dual 111 they don't!).

With digital, as well as 'straight' prints you can try all sorts of effects that were time-consuming or out of reach with film - the danger, of course, is over-doing an effect or doing shot after shot with the same effect ('enough is as good as a feast' as I quoted on the Infra-red thread ).

Whereas a few years ago getting a digital photo to look like a 'real' photo was a goal, nowadays getting an over-saturated 'super'-real photo seems to be the aim of many people. I wonder what the next 'trend' will be?
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Old 07-06-09, 17:59
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I was given my first 35mm slr - an old screw-mount praktica - when I was 18. I used this until falling in a river did for the shutter curtains, than had two canon AE1 bodies in succession - both of these died through (mis)use in harsh conditions too. My insurance company very kindly replaced new for old on the last one of these and gave me an EOS300 and a brand new sigma 28-200 lens (the first new camera gear I had ever owned!) back in 1996 I think. This combo is still going strong in my nephew's hands, although he now has a reasonable digital compact that sees more use.
2001 saw me upgrade seriously with a financial windfall - my photography was becoming a more major hobby, I had better lenses, and wanted a more responsive and tougher body. I went for a canon 1V - what a cracking camera that was. I still regret trading it in, though after switching to digital it had stayed in the cupboard for a year.
For a long time I captured my images on film, but used them digitally. I felt that I could get as good or better quality of printed image, plus all the flexibility digital offered, by using a good scanner rather than by using the digital bodies that were available at the time.
I finally switched to digital capture in late 2006, when the pace of change in sensor technology seemed to be slowing a bit, and the 1DsII offered better quality, with all the advantages of my 1V's focussing, metering etc, and the ablility to change ISO from shot to shot (a major plus for digital capture) which I hadnt had on film.
I do occasionally get nostalgic for film, mainly when I find a particular image in my negative archives which has a very wide tonal range, but generally it has all been positive for me.
The biggest advantage is the freedom to experiment and review results rapidly, so that the learning process is speeded up. I just wouldnt have bothered with flight shots of birds, or experimented with some of the abstract stuff, for instance. And not having my own dark room meant that I was dependent of the development choices of a lab tech who might not have appreciated my intent with some exposures. With digital, it really is all down to me - both good and bad!
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Old 08-06-09, 20:43
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i used EOS-1V for years,for me digital is second best to film,i use digital because its faster at producing an image then spreading that image over the web,what i hate about digital is its so unforgiving,doing weddings,digital blows highlights for fun!! as a standard,film for me is more forgiving,its results are more as your eye saw them,i defend film but in all reallity do i want the hassle of developing film again,no thankyou,i'll live with blown highlights,Mart.
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Old 25-08-09, 13:18
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Interesting topic..at least nobody on here slates digital unlike another famous photo site.....I use both and love the sensation of using a film camera the anticipation of developing them, (I use B/W and develop myself) and seeing the results , however nothing quite like digital and taking the shot and seeing if you have it while still in the field. Problems with digital I have is "what's in vogue", how long before we all have to upgrade yet again because we need more pixels Image stabilisation bigger sensor etc. that the magazines are only to quick to tell us we need....and perhaps the biggest is "lifespan"...I have 2 OM10's both 25 years old and a Yashica that is 20 years old along with numerous lenses that have never failed. Unlike the 17-85mm lens from Canon that jammed after 18 months only to be told "oh its a commom problem with them"..I wonder if I shall still have the 40d in 10 years time.
But I still want a full frame sensor digital
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