So much for the Kodak Moment

[Basil]

You've re-enforced my argument, Basil. Why would it make sense for me to dump tens of thousands into new DSLR bodies, dedicated AF lenses, flash gear, etc. when anyone can go rent a DSLR and with a software package, make images to rival anything I could produce, after a lifetime of learning how NOT to underexpose, blur, poorly compose it?!?

I'd starve, in bankruptcy.

I can be slightly underfed and still make the monthlys now. :wink:

Doc, I don't think anyone can produce what someone with a lifetime of experience can, no mater what kind of equipment. I think a good photographer has an eye for it - it's more than just pointing and shooting (but I suspect you know that). Composition, and understanding under what conditions different f-stops, iso speeds, shutter speeds, lens types, etc work are really what matters. You could give me the latest, greatest high-tech equipment in the world and I would probably take better photos than I would other wise, but I would never be able to take great shots as, for example, Sherlock. I just don't have the eye for it. I like photography; I also like playing guitar, but I'll never be Carlos Santana, even if you gave me a top-of-the line Gibson!

 

[swift6]

You've re-enforced my argument, Basil. Why would it make sense for me to dump tens of thousands into new DSLR bodies, dedicated AF lenses, flash gear, etc. when anyone can go rent a DSLR and with a software package, make images to rival anything I could produce, after a lifetime of learning how NOT to underexpose, blur, poorly compose it?!?

I'd starve, in bankruptcy.

I can be slightly underfed and still make the monthlys now. :wink:

Doc, All that experience still would pay off for you with a switch to digital. The time Basil had to spend correcting photos you wouldn't. Knowing how to compose and expose means increased workflow and higher profit on your end, which means the ability to pay for that changeover in equipment faster. Better equipment doesn't make better photographs. Only higher resolution photographs.

 

[Basil]

Not good for an area already in bad shape. Rochester is less than 2 hours from here. <span style="font-weight: bold">Kodak has turned a blind eye to digital photography for too long</span>. I saw this coming 10 years ago.

And the irony there is that they invented the digital digital camera in 1975, according to this article.

 

[CZ_Dave]

Good by Kodak

 

[Brooklands]

Working in the school portrait industry, I saw our company slowly moving to digital, first digitizing the film images, then moving to digital photography. I was not sure the industry would survive, and my retirement was all in company stock in an Employee-owned company. I retired in 2005 so that I would not see the company fold and leave me high and dry. They are hanging on, and recently bought out all of Olan Mills, so maybe they will survive, but I was afraid they would go the way Kodak is going (Kodak custom made our film for years). And I have my collection of Minolta equipment, and my Bronica ETRS with extra lenses sitting in storage now for several years.
As technologies change, some companies will move with it, and others fall by the wayside. It is sometimes easier for a small company to take that plunge than it is for the larger established firm. I will miss Kodak.
But I feel what I learned in using the old cameras, exposure meters, flash meters, and manual settings allows me to do a better job when using my digital equipment for my personal photography.

 

[70herald]

Not good for an area already in bad shape. Rochester is less than 2 hours from here. <span style="font-weight: bold">Kodak has turned a blind eye to digital photography for too long</span>. I saw this coming 10 years ago.

And the irony there is that they invented the digital digital camera in 1975, according to this article.

And they made very good scientific grade digital cameras (or at least the sensors and electronics) I have several in my lab but they dumped that marked also. I just ordered modern version of one of those 10 year old Kodak based cameras which cost ~$250K, and several little companies are out there making a nice profit on these specialized cameras.

 

[mailbox]

Maybe I dont know what I'm talking about (usually don't) but this seems like a great oppertuinity (sic) for a small business to get in to. With as many old cameras out there and people who still want film for them, I think someone could make a good business out of the ashes of Kodak.

 

[angelfj1]

Bill: The wife and I have been going to Temple University's Kornberg School of Dentistry for all of our dental work since I retired three years ago. Great students and fantastic professors reviewing their work. This past summer Temple made the switch to digital x-rays, really neat, instant gratification in High Definition at each chair. My current student doc and his adviser said that these new machines require only a fraction of the radiation emulsion film requires, so I think that must be a good thing!

 

[DNK]

Cheaper to do do-overs

 

[Guest]

I find it hard to believe digital can replicate the depth of film no more than the "new" amps replicate true tube sound.

 

[DNK]

Maybe not for that but the forum would be only half as fun

 

[aerog]

I find it hard to believe digital can replicate the depth of film no more than the "new" amps replicate true tube sound.

Believe it.

 

[Guest]

I find it hard to believe digital can replicate the depth of film no more than the "new" amps replicate true tube sound.

Believe it.

Much like paranormal activity, I'd have to see it myself. :wink:

I hope it's true if real film does indeed die.

IMO, takes the art out of it. There's a guy here who does "metal sculpture" with a CNC plasma cutter.

That being said, I'd rather shoot w/ digital to see if I did indeed capture the shot I wanted. I wasted lots of film not knowing what I had till I got back.

 

[TR6BILL]

Comparing digital dental X-rays to film-type X-rays from a patient's point of view can be difficult to explain. Dental X-rays, unlike all other medical radiographs (X-rays to you laymen) are taken intraorally (inside the mouth) for the most part. The exceptions are panoramic shots (the big one that buzzes around your head) or cephalometric shots (whole head shots), and a few others. The vast majority of pictures we take and need are intraoral shots, periapicals (shots of individual teeth or groups of teeth, periapical meaning around the apex...specifically shots of the root tips or apex) and bitewings (shots of the tooth crowns in groups of teeth..top and bottom at the same time..usually looking for decay or gum disease). The real trick to taking a good dental X-ray is positioning the film behind the tooth, for all intraoral shots, so that the image of the tooth comes out in proportions that are close to reality, not elongated or foreshortened. Dental film can be bent or curved to fit inside anyone's mouth, by a skilled dentist, hygienist, or assistant (my lady is better at it than me), to get the shot we need. Bisecting angles, shadow casting, etc. are techniques we must master to get a true image.

Film can be bent and distorted to compensate for a difficult or virtually impossible shot. Try this with a rigid, somewhat bulky sensor....uh, that happened to be in everyone else's mouth in town (no, they are not sterilized, kids, just disinfected at best, unlike what your dentist told you. The plastic sleeve helps, at best.). Each film is a single-use.

Obviously, digital is the future (and present!) of dental radiology. But film ain't dead yet. And because your dentist may or may not use digital doesn't make him or her a good or bad dentist.

Oh, and the amount of radiation one gets from shooting a full-mouth series of film (14) is the equivalent of sitting in sunlight for 10 minutes. Or so they say.

 

[MikeP]

But you know, and I have nothing against digital technology, will families 100 years from now have the photos documenting their past. Or will it just be a box full of drives and discs that the then current technology cannot use. That's the thing with photos printed to paper, no changes in the rest of the world can obsolete them.

 

[aerog]

That's the thing with photos printed to paper, no changes in the rest of the world can obsolete them.

You can't argue that point because it's true. It's nothing new though - there are thousands of people with little 8mm film reels laying in drawers that have no way of viewing the movies. The future, like 8mm films, will probably force people to buy old equipment or take the images to a "lab" to be converted into something they can use.

Arguing the loss of a "physical image" completely negates all the positive future aspects of digital vs film though...not to mention the fact that a lot of people make 4x6 prints of their digital images now anyway.

When you make a digital image it isn't forever stuck on one type of storage medium in one format for eternity. Today's images can be copied an infinite number of times to be stored in different ways in different places - simultaneously. Upload your pictures to an online storage service and they're (usually) backed-up multiple times in different geographic locations. Your house can flood or burn down but your pictures will still be out there, in perfect condition. The file formats can be converted to other future formats without any loss of quality too.

Like most things, neither film or digital is perfect. I'd be worried and depressed about it if digital was a massive compromise to a vastly superior product - but that's not the case at all.

 

[martx-5]

The way I see digital photography being used in my house, it combines the best of both worlds. My wife take take gobs of pics, my son and daughter can send use gobs of pics of the grandkids etc. and we can then sort through them. We have a choice of either printing out what we like right on my printer, or send a bunch of them to Shutterfly or a similar service and they will send prints back a lot cheaper then it used to cost for film processing. So, you still have the analog print to view. I also have the capability of making corrections such as cropping or contrast/brightness adjustments at no extra cost and very easily. For the average person, digital is a no brainer.

What I'm going to miss is working with my 4x5 and 8x10 view cameras. There is just something special about gazing at the ground glass and composing a picture. Taking your time and enjoying the slow, contemplative process.

Kodak has pretty much eliminated a lot of their 8x10 sheet films, and other sheet films can't be far behind. That'll leave Ilford, and hopefully they will continue to supply sheet films... but they don't have my beloved Tri-X.

 

[Brooklands]

I expect it will be easier to keep moving digital images to new formats than negatives and slides for most people. I had converted 16mm movies to VHS, and now have converted the VHS videos to DVD's. Some I have re-edited in iMovie as well, and hope to be able to keep them up-to-date for a number of years before they become the projects of our off spring. At that time, much of it will not be important to anyone as many are not quality items anyway. And many of the old photographs in our family were not stored properly so they are stuck together, faded, and cracked. So many printed on paper were lost too. I do not think the original format really matters if you want to preserve a picture as much as the care that the image has been given over the years.

 

[aerog]

What I'm going to miss is working with my 4x5 and 8x10 view cameras.

I miss mine too but when I lost my darkroom I quit everything except 35mm :frown:

Someone will pick that market up. If someone can continue to manufacture something like SX70 film, surely there will be a market for sheet film.

Then again, a Super-8k 81 megapixel 4x5 back is only $18000

 

[aerog]

FWIW this was shot with our first digital camera, a medium format 60 megapixel Rollie P65 system (8984x6732 pixels). For pretty pictures it's a terrific camera. Not the same as large format, but it's not supposed to be. Next year we hope to ditch film for good... we'll see.

Click to enlarge...


EDIT: Also, FWIW, digital has added a whole new element of boring busy-work for me. We used to drop a big roll of film off at the lab and go home. Now I drag a hard-drive full of raw images home then let the computer rip through them. For an entire flight it can take 30-minutes to a few hours to convert them to .tif files (not including editing if it's needed).

The larger format digital stuff is even more involved, but it gives us the expanded ability to control each of the individual sensors in the camera - so we can do full spectrum B&W, color, and IR all at the same time. If you want aerial IR photography you really <span style="font-style: italic">must</span> use digital these days, Kodak stopped producing the film years ago.