Hello,
I think I know what the answer to your question is (see quote below): why you long to shoot film and what's wrong. As the new - and extremely pleased! - owner of a Leaf Afi-ii 7, I will share my thoughts:
when you were shooting film with any decent camera (I use the Rollei 6008 and a Linhof 4x5), you were using a technology that was stable and dependable. When you bought a good camera with a great lens in medium or large format you were going to use it, without problems or having to think about it much, for the next ten years easily. My first Rollei SL66 that I bought in 1971 was in use until 2004 with whatever lenses I picked up along the way. It worked, films were good, the optics were good and I along with many others made photographs that will stand the test of time. Now the basic technology is ever changing, requiring you to constantly evaluate technique, equipment and approach - and you can still only make great images with it, which is all you could make before when you were doing your very best.
It is true that much is now easier, but the price is *a lot of money* and the pace of change requires a * lot of energy* that might formerly have gone entirely into the creative side of imaging. No wonder you long for that stability!
That said, I will now praise the Leaf: I am making images that easily equal or surpass 4x5. When printed, everyone who knows my work assumes they must be 4x5. The quality entices me to work and to make images that depend on fine tonality and subtlety to be successful. The images are sharper and more brilliant, with greater depth in shadow areas, than anything I've ever produced before. Those rgb images transformed to B&W have the luminance of 4x5 Panatomic-X which hasn't been available for some 30 years. The prints I make with my Epson 9800 in B&W on Museo Rag rival prints made on silver rich paper like the old Portriga Rapid. I didn't set out to emulate those old standards- I'm doing other kinds of images now - but I'm staggered by the ability to do so and it is changing the way I approach image making. The ability of the Leaf to capture fine detail and a wide dynamic range is simply staggering. Using it is as close as I can get to the way I felt when I picked up my original Rollei SL66 and made images, the feel of holding a perfectly crafted tool that challenges my vision and ability. So that at the moment feels like adequate compensation for the loss of that stability - but if you concentrate on making images and don't get caught up in the equipment race, you might enjoy photography more - and i think that's always been true.
Neil Folberg
By the way, you were all discussing a Hasselblad and I'm sure that's similar. I didn't test all of these cameras - can't make comparisons.
[quote name='ndevlin' date='Apr 18 2009, 03:18 PM' post='277289']
"What I love about the original post is that it embodies that surge of joy, discovery and creation that we all experience the first time we picked up a good digital camera. Somehow that's gone missing. I LOVED shooting with my 10D. I tolerate my 5DII. WTF? I have a loaner HD2-39 sitting here, and all I do is grouse about the shortcomings in lens ergonomics and the impenetrability of the software....
The thing can produce insane images of higher size and quality than I'll ever need....so why am I not impregnated with joy?? Why do I sit and contemplate buying a 500C/M and a 150 sonnar on ebay to shoot some TXP?
What the heck is wrong with us?"
