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Topic: Stills photography - digital and film

Mike Peckham
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1461
From: West Sussex, UK.
Registered: Jun 2003

posted February 15, 2005 03:54 PM

Have been getting some interesting comments from friends and people at work about my holiday photographs.

I shot about 8 reels of 35mm film in my SLR whilst travelling across Canada with my brother. Everytime we stopped in a town I got the latest reels developed at an hour service having two lots of prints made, one for me and one for my brother.

When I got back I had loads of photos and got them all sorted into an album and now, more than a week later, people are still asking me how I managed to get them downloaded and edited and printed off to such a high standard so quickly!

It seems that people have already forgotten just how convenient and straight forward real film is.

I guess this is what happened when Video arrived... [Frown]

Mike

ps. I do have a digital camera and it's great, think I shall be returning to the film camera for holidays though [Wink]

.

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Auntie Em must have stopped wondering where I am by now...

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Paul Adsett
Film God

Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted February 15, 2005 05:55 PM

My sentiments exactly Mike! The so called advantages of digital photography have been totally over-hyped. People say its cheaper than film, but have you priced out printer cartridges and photo paper recently? To me 35mm is much less bother, particularly as you can get 1 hour prints if you are in a hurry. I have zero interest in a digital still camera, and will probably stay with my 35mm Canon as long as Kodak are making the film.

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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
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Mike Peckham
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1461
From: West Sussex, UK.
Registered: Jun 2003

posted June 28, 2005 07:02 AM

Update;

Had a call from my Brother lst night to say that in a recent computer crash he lost [amongst other things] all the images of Canada he had taken on his digital camera. It seems he was sorting them into a file to burn a disc from so that he could have them printed off at Jessops, unfortunately the crash came before he had managed to burn his disc so now they have all gone.

He wondered if I still had any of the images he had emailed me, unfortunately I had deleted them all along time ago.

I guess that's that then, there must be a moral here somewhere...

Mike

[ June 28, 2005, 09:12 AM: Message edited by: Mike Peckham ]

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Auntie Em must have stopped wondering where I am by now...

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Simon McConway
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1085
From: Doncaster, UK
Registered: Jun 2004

posted June 28, 2005 02:52 PM

Exactly right...film is best on all fronts. I gave a slide show recently along with a guy using digital...laptop and digi-projector. His equipment let him down...mine didn't. The other guy got a bit shirty afterwards with me..."you wanna move on mate..." Maybe not, thought I.

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Tony Milman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1336
From: United Kingdom
Registered: Jun 2003

posted June 28, 2005 03:07 PM

I might of predicted the response to your posting Mike. The loss of your brother's images was nothing really to do with the product of digital but to the lack of foresight. I would add that I am as guilty as the next man.
You can get the best of both worlds by getting the digital images downloaded and printed using phot paper and not just inkjet and you can do that on the move using agfa.
One of the really key benefits is surely the lack of space that digital images can take up when travelling.
Like many others I prefer film but I also continue to use digital when appropriate.

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Tony

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Mike Peckham
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1461
From: West Sussex, UK.
Registered: Jun 2003

posted June 28, 2005 03:28 PM

Tony, I agree there's a place for both mediums and I'm not knocking digital - it would be utterly foolhardy to do so.

I use both digital and film for stills photography but have now returned almost entirely to film for holidays and family, it just seems to be the better medium for that application.

Digital of course wins over on its ability to create an image that can be immediately uploaded to a website or emailed to a dozen people right across the world or indeed manipulated!

For me it's just a matter of not entirely abandoning one technology in favour of another.

Mike [Cool]

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Auntie Em must have stopped wondering where I am by now...

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 525
From: Dallas, TX, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted June 28, 2005 11:30 PM

Up until about a year ago, I would say that digital still cameras couldn't hold up against a real 35mm SLR, but I recently purchased a Nikon D100 and honestly, the quality IS BETTER than anything I have ever seen originate on 35mm film.

Sadly though, what happened to his brother is all too common. For this reason, when I travel and will be taking pictures I carry multiple flash cards, dump immediately to my laptop's hard drive and backup on a portable USB external hard drive. Then if the hotel's internet connection is good enough, I FTP the files up to my server.

I guess you could say I learned that lesson years ago. [Wink]

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Jan Bister
Darth 8mm

Posts: 2629
From: Ohio, USA
Registered: Jan 2005

posted June 29, 2005 08:16 PM

Now, Brad, you've GOT to elaborate on what you mean by "better." [Wink]

I've not been so lucky to be able to closely compare film and digital shots, but I've heard a number of comments including ones about digital noise being mistaken for film grain (by people who were looking at photos and didn't know what source they came from). What's your take on that? Really, how do film and digital compare in terms of color reproduction, contrast, sharpness, etc.?

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Call me Phoenix. *dusts off the ashes*

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Trevor Adams
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 763
From: Auckland,New Zealand
Registered: Jun 2003

posted June 29, 2005 09:30 PM

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Trevor

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Trevor Adams
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 763
From: Auckland,New Zealand
Registered: Jun 2003

posted June 29, 2005 09:33 PM

I seem to use my digcam for things I'm selling on line but if we travel anywhere I always take my old Chinon Genesis III and it is reliable as can be. At the NZ film Buff Convention in Nov.last year I took all the pictures with this camera .When it comes to capturing things like,award presentations, I reckon my Chinon is far quicker than my dig. [Wink]

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Trevor

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 525
From: Dallas, TX, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted July 01, 2005 01:54 PM

The professional digital SLR cameras with good lensing don't have any "noise" like the run of the mill "digital cameras" you find in electronic stores. Expect to pay around $3000-5000 US for a good one though.

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Jan Bister
Darth 8mm

Posts: 2629
From: Ohio, USA
Registered: Jan 2005

posted July 01, 2005 06:33 PM

OK, that explains it - I wasn't aware you were talking of digital cameras in the high-end range. [Eek!]