Just wondering, what with the holidays coming and all…
Are you going to be taking holiday pictures on a film camera, or a digital camera.
Stills or films?
For these “family gathering photos,” I shoot on digital; with these shots, the medium is less important than the content, and digital is incredibly convenient and cheap. When I’m doing “serious” photography (last weekend I sold my first photos!), I use film, though.
When my digital photos far surpassed film in quality, there was no going back. Add to this the immense convenience and huge cost savings, and it was a no-brainer.
Since my nephew, who is a professional with tens of thousands of dollars worth of film gear, is using digital more and more I guess that is the way of the future. He says some of his clients no longer accept non-digital submissions.
Film
Portra 160VC
Digital. Took the plunge with a Nikon DSLR and never looked back.
I never owned a 35mm film camera, let alone anything designed to produce higher-quality images. I went from a Kodak 126-cartridge X-35 Instamatic to a Canon 7-mpxl Powershot S-70, a nice digital camera with f-stops and exposure durations and manual focus if & when you want them, but automatic point-n-shoot for when you don’t. Not an SLR but a major step up nevertheless.
To be able to take, loo at what I took, adjust a setting, and reshoot until I get what I want; to be able to shoot up the equivalent of two and a half rolls of film without having to pay for film, get film to developer, pay for development; to hook camera to computer and have immediate access to Photoshopping the images if I wish without having to develop, print, and scan them first… no comparison.
It might be a closer contest if I’d had a professional-calibre film camera, and even more so if I had my own darkroom and bought film in bulk quantities and so on, but even then the abovementioned advantages would be difficult to overcome.
:o
Actually, very few of my shots are so bad as to prompt this particular critical response.
Digital. I’ve got an Olympus C4040, which is getting a little long in the tooth, but still takes great photos.
The thing I like about high-res digital is that you can take pictures and then crop them to get a perfect composition. You can’t easily do that with film. Even if the resolution wasn’t up to film standards, I’d rather have interested, well composited pictures of slightly lower resolution than higher quality photos with the top of Grandpa’s head cut off or with everyone offset and a piece of cardboard box from a toy in the foreground.
Plus, with digital you can take a zillion pictures, and keep the good ones. You can therefore catch a lot of things you wouldn’t get if you’re always posing people for your film shots.
Used all sorts of film cameras for years and did my own b&w and color processing and printing in a darkroom for many years. About a year ago got a digital camera, and recently sold all my film cameras.
For really fine prints, possibly film is still better if you really know how to produce top results in a darkroom, but I suspect with something like PhotoShop, you might still do nearly as well.
In any case, the advantages of ease of use, no film costs, being able to take loads of shots without guilt as to film cost :)), eliminating unwanted or poor shots, and never running out of film or having to change film in the middle of an intense shoot, are just some of the advantages.
Also, not having boxes and boxes of old negatives and prints stored away where nobody sees them is important. So easy to show shots on the computer, and you can store tons of shots on today’s big hard drives or on external drives. Oh yeah, no old fading color prints, scratched negatives, etc, etc.
Needless to say, am sold on digital!
I take with an ancient Minolta 35mm. I buy film and develop at Sam’s Club, so I pay about 22c per frame for 2 prints. I have a hand-me-down scanner I use to get digital when I want them.
I still get all excited when I get the envelopes of pictures back from the developer.
I would agree with this in regards to large-format cameras. Nothing is quite as detailed and riveting as a photo taken with an 8x10 or larger format camera. Even 4x5s are pretty spectacular.
I use both film and digital.
I have digital camera which I think is pretty nice, and I take the great majority of photos using this camera because of the freedom to take tons of pictures without wasting anything. In the holidays example, I’d use this camera to take random pictures of people opening Christmas presents and so forth.
I also have a 35mm SLR from before my digital days, which these days I only use for the “good” pictures (generally on slides), that is, if I expect–rather than hope–that the shot will be decent. This would include people posing, like the family gathered at Christmas. The camera also occasionally gets use when I want to take a picture that is beyond the technical capabilities of my digital camera. Some day in the future I’ll probably buy a digital SLR so that I can go totally digital but still use the same lenses and things I already have, but for now I’m not ready to put aside all I’ve invested in this camera, nor am I yet prepared to spend enough money for a DSLR. (Actually, I keep saying things like that to myself–“I’ll buy a nice 35mm point-and-shoot/35mm SLR/digital camera/nicer digital camera in two years”–and then I end up buying the damn thing after six months. I really must be more patient!)
Digital is what has held my interest in photography.
I bought a cheap 35mm SLR (Pentax) about 18 months ago and found that I really didn’t use it that much. I couldn’t experiment without wasting money on developing and film and I couldn’t play “What If?” on my laptop (well, I could, but the results from scanning were less than satisfactory.)
Now that I have a digital camera I’ve found it much more rewarding to play photographer. I can take a heap of shots and gradually work out what looks nice and what doesn’t.
I still intend to use the 35mm, but only, as another poster mentioned, on occassions where I know that my chances of taking a nice photo are high.
I guess I look at my digital as a training ground for the film camera. Once I get a digital SLR though, I suspect the 35mm will not see the light of day again.
Not a direct answer to the OP, but more the film vs. digital debate…
Both. A while ago when good digital SLRs were just on the horizon I invested quite a bit (for a hobbyist) in 35mm SLR gear, and a year ago bought a digital SLR body that was compatible with the same lenses my film bodies take. I enjoy both, but for different reasons. Digital is freeing in that you can just snap away, knowing that HD space is cheap and you can trash any that have no redeeming qualities. Overall, though, I enjoy the film process more.
Part of the appeal of photography to me as a hobby is the process as a whole, which starts well before the picture is exposed and isn’t done even when it’s framed and on the wall. I find it’s more fulfilling when I’ve selected the right film, composed the picture in my mind before opening the shutter, developed the film myself, and then printed the image in the darkroom. I have more emotional attachment to the photo itself because I put more work into it.
I do have fun with digital, though. I tend to use digital most when I’m at an event where there’s constant activity that may make for a good photo. I know that most of them won’t turn out, but it’s great to take shots on a whim without worrying about the cost of the film I’m burning. This also makes going for those experimental shots much easier.
Film processing and darkroom work isn’t for everyone, and can be quite boring. If I didn’t enjoy that aspect I would have abandoned film when I got my digital body.
When I want to use photography as a recording medium it’s digital every time. When I wish to be artistic I find that how you create and image informs your creativity and has a far greater impact on the final result than any differences in technical capabilities of each medium. I prefer film but still admire the artistry of some who choose digital. However, if I did not have access to a darkroom I would convert to digital as I would feel dissatisfied with loosing control over important aspects of the final product.
We use both. I use the digital, my wife prefers the olympus 35mm point & shoot. We always have the film prints around, which is nice. I never get around to printing the digital stuff, but I like bringing them up on the computer and sending them off to far flung friends.