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Film vs. Digital

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I can BS a little.

I tried to explain how a scanning printer (or enlarger) works that does dodging/burning on the fly (talk about HDR) but was met with blank stares. They made some weird images sometimes... durned digital is making LOG-E obsolete too!
 
Well this conversation is interesting. While I am not a camera bug, an article in the business section of the paper caught my eye: Ritz Camera is closing 300 locations nation wide trying to stay afloat. They claim Digital has undermined film photography.--Fwiw-Keoke
 
Keoke said:
Well this conversation is interesting. While I am not a camera bug, an article in the business section of the paper caught my eye: Ritz Camera is closing 300 locations nation wide trying to stay afloat. They claim Digital has undermined film photography.--Fwiw-Keoke
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For the average Joe and Jane, who only take snapshots of the kids, it has. Digital compacts are so inexpensive now that it doesn't take long for them to pay for themselves in savings over getting film developed and printed.
 
When people tell me that "Photographs do not lie", I like to tell them a quote by Richard Avedon, "There is no such thing as an inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate, none of them is the truth." Then follow it up with an examination of what is commonly thought to be the oldest example of a permanent recording of an image on to a light sensitive medium. The image of the Boulevard du Temple in 1838 by Louis Daguerre. The image is of a busy, crowded street but due to the long exposure the street looks deserted but for a man getting his shoes shined, who stood still long enough to be recorded.
 
Digital cameras & editing software have been wonderful for casual users like me. BUT - I really wish someone made a digital that simply mimics a typical 35mm camera in operation, with maybe autofocus & one autoexposure mode thrown in. I could handle f-stop & shutter speed, and understood depth-of-focus (aka depth-of-field) very well. I didn't need a manual to operate a camera. Today, we have two mid-range digitals and I don't know what 80% of the silly little pictures mean.

I still have an M3 rangefinder and an old III-c screwmount in the closet. Probably not worth much these days but the M3 was great back when.

I wonder if overdone HDR is a passing fad. Many remind me of the "paintings on velvet" (mostly of Elvis) that people used to sell in gas station parking lots.
 
'smits dubb'd those: "Velvis".

M3??? Dig it out an' send it here! :devilgrin:
 
coldplugs said:
Digital cameras & editing software have been wonderful for casual users like me. BUT - I really wish someone made a digital that simply mimics a typical 35mm camera in operation, with maybe autofocus & one autoexposure mode thrown in. I could handle f-stop & shutter speed, and understood depth-of-focus (aka depth-of-field) very well. I didn't need a manual to operate a camera. Today, we have two mid-range digitals and I don't know what 80% of the silly little pictures mean.

I still have an M3 rangefinder and an old III-c screwmount in the closet. Probably not worth much these days but the M3 was great back when.

I wonder if overdone HDR is a passing fad. Many remind me of the "paintings on velvet" (mostly of Elvis) that people used to sell in gas station parking lots.
Click to expand...

Compact digitals tend to be more confusing than digital SLRs. They have a bunch of different picture modes (macro, panorama, sports, and so on) and have a little icon to denote what you've set it at. They also tend to include all sorts of settings for ISO, white balance, and so on, mainly because many compacts use the similar software as the same manufacturer's SLRs-why not include it? I quickly discovered that it didn't make much difference what I set my last compact at, the pictures all looked basically the same. As long as I could review on the screen I ignored everything else.

It's quite embarrassing to be interrupted while photographing in downtown Chicago, and asked to take a picture of a bunch of tourists. Inevitably I'm handed some sort of compact digital camera and I can't figure out how to take a picture, and I can't tell if it's actually taken a shot, and so on. "No no, press the silver button halfway, wait for the beep, then press it all the way. I thought you knew what you were doing?"

-Wm.

(in fairness, most latter day compact 35mm cameras are the same way to me-I can never figure out how to get them in focus, get the flash to work, and so on)
 
William said:
It's quite embarrassing to be interrupted while photographing in downtown Chicago, and asked to take a picture of a bunch of tourists. Inevitably I'm handed some sort of compact digital camera and I can't figure out how to take a picture, and I can't tell if it's actually taken a shot, and so on. "No no, press the silver button halfway, wait for the beep, then press it all the way. I thought you knew what you were doing?"

-Wm.

(in fairness, most latter day compact 35mm cameras are the same way to me-I can never figure out how to get them in focus, get the flash to work, and so on)
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What I usually do, if in doubt, is select "auto" or "P" (most that I have seen have those options along with the pictogram selections). Then just let the camera do the work. Most people just want to see a decent photo and won't pay attention to D-O-F and such as long as they can see peoples faces clearly. If time allows I usually give people a wide shot and then a close up. In my experience most casual amateurs don't know how to fill the frame or compose within the frame with foreground and background elements. Do that and they will think your wonderful.
 
coldplugs said:
I wonder if overdone HDR is a passing fad. Many remind me of the "paintings on velvet" (mostly of Elvis) that people used to sell in gas station parking lots.
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I hope so. I've used it occasionally for an "illustration" look, but I see people post their family snapshots with the HDR thing maxed out. ick.
 
Them main thing that I look at for the competence of a photographer is composition.
 
My one concern, particularly for this doing the "snaps of the kids" is what are you doing to ensure those photos can be recovered 5, 10, 20 years from now. I keep seeing stories of museums and archives that have digital material that can't be read due to medium deterioration or lack of the proper hardware and/or software. Image having no picture history of your life to be shared with the grandkids or passed on to their childern. That's the big thing with film for me, I don't have to worry about it working if my pc has to be replaced down the road. And I can look back through all the 100 of family photos my mother and grandmother thankfully kept without needing a machine.
 
I've "guest lectured" to some camera clubs on that very issue, Mike. Storage/retrieval issues in an ever-changing technology. It's a knotty problem.
 
I agree that this is a major issue with digital media. I keep backups in a safe deposit box at the bank and have had numerous CDs turn out to be unreadable. And as mentioned, we may not have easy access to the devices that read whatever the material is stored on. Even now, I have boxes of 8mm tape & ZIP disks and no corresponding equipment to use them.

Yet my family's slides from 60 years ago are still "readable", if faded. Digital media doesn't "fade" or discolor, it just goes away. I can't picture my grandkids going through the effort to resurrect my old magnetically stored stuff on the off-chance there's something interesting in there. They'll just pitch it.
 
There are problems with every format. I know quite a few people who lost all their film photos in fires and theft. My brother-in-law has only one photo of himself as a child because of a house fire many years ago.

With regular backups made, and data verification enabled, you should never lose digital photos.
 
jsneddon said:
James,

the Canonet QL17 G-III ??? sweet! I LOVE that lens. f1.7, super quiet ... the "Poor-mans Leica" - good choice spending the $7.50.
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I'm happy Jim...

Now I just need to get a hang of the focusing system, and I was just thinking as an additional thought, the film I used for the test roll had been sitting in my friend's fridge for about 15 years! So the pictures may have some funky feel to them just based on that... :square:
 
Steve_S said:
...

With regular backups made, and data verification enabled, you should never lose digital photos.
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Perhaps you should read this. And then go and make prints of the photos that important to you. Just make sure you print them on archival (acid free) paper with permanent pigments.
 
does that mean all my Tax data disappears in 10 years too.
Ahhh!
 
From what I understand, you only have to keep your tax info for three years. Personally, the quicker it disappears, the better I like it. I don't need constant reminders! :sick:
 
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