What influenced you away from Film to Digital

[PdF]

White balance, large tolerance in dark and lighted areas.

PdF

[PeterA]

Moving out of a toxic and polluting dark room environment and away from the expense of colour chemistry was my number one issue closely followed by the WOW factor of relatively instant confirmation of exposure/focus/ etc.. In output terms, power and flexibility of digital darkroom combined with the far superior printing capability of modern ink technology in colour for large format prints which actually hang on walls and galleries - digital is a no brainer.

Nostalgia sees the occassional roll of TRX or TMAX run through for full format 6X6 shooting or street with Leicas - weird how even scanned neg look cant be replicated in B&W conversions ( really) - however hassle of self developing sees me with about 100 rolls of emulsion still waiting to be souped up - pretty much all summarised as digital winning by way of convenience.

Not a believer in the art of photography being lost because of digital arguments - however dissapointed with current technology as far as ease of use in technical camera - for still life and architecture - the ( relative) tiny size of capture medium makes the use of tilt and shift extremely finicky and cluncky compared to film - however offsetting this is the demise of readily available 'clean' pro labs for large format emulsions.

Number one criticism of film for me is the loss of high quality high silver content paper ( bye bye true rich velevety fat blacks and subtle highlights) - inks are better now.
Number one bug re digital capture is cost of staying on top of digital asset management requirements for storage and clunky first party RAW development software.

[Murray Fredericks]

how can you shoot in the middle of nowhere for one month and plenty of rain or dust with digital ?

Prefer Digital here over large format film any day...

[Juanito]

I started shooting professionally in 1990. I switched to small format digital in 2002. I don't think I shot a single roll since the day I picked up that camera. The freedom to shoot as much as I wanted while seeing what I was getting in real time changed my career. That and the ability to pick an image and immediately manipulate it in the darkroom (computer). No developing time. No looking at trannies, contacts or negs. No waiting to scan (minutes) or for my B&W printer to work his magic (days).

Just yesterday, I worked on a personal project documenting life in a nearby beach town. I sat on the boardwalk shooting image after image of people cruising by. After each series of images, I checked what I was getting for content, composition, focus and exposure. I tweaked my approach to get different stuff. I shot the equivalent of 15 rolls of 35mm. Later, as I sat watching a movie, I picked out my favorites and worked them in Photoshop.

Here's an image from my project. I just couldn't see getting stuff like this with film. The feedback I get as I'm shooting and the ability to shoot excessively is integral to getting what I want.



There's just a freedom to working with digital that doesn't exist with film.

John

[marcel b]

hi,
I didn't read every post in this topic, but just wanted to ad one more point:

in terms of money i spent more every month for film, labs and scanning only for personal work, than i pay to the lease company for my back now (not to mention assignements, where i charge for the back). and everything else, what followed for computers, harddrives, monitors, calibration would have been necessary for shooting film anyway.

emotionally i still have some moments like this isn't a "real picture", but my RZ has never ever seen a roll of film, since i switched to the back.

cheers,
marcel

[revaaron]

Try shooting tethered with film

this made me lol

[revaaron]

I'm really really glad this thread is reading out as well as it is.  Thank you to everyone.

from me, since my dad made fun of me for wasting film shooting rolls of blurry chickens when I was like 7, I waited a decade and a half to shoot more when I got a digital camera.

for my professional work, I shoot 35mm nikon digital.
for my private work, I shoot MF film.

I spend WAY more time in front of the computer with 340MB scans of film, but when the aliens send a EMP pulse down on the earth destroying all magnetic media and we are tossed into a race for our lives in a struggle to keep humanity alive as we are systematically enslaved and/or exterminated by our alien overlords, I will still be able to show off my MF slides and film to survivors before going off to kill the head alien (play by john travolta).

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Some factors:

1) Health, I had problems with the chemicals
2) Inkjet printing, I could achieve better results than using Cibachrome
3) Good enough, digiatl was good enough for what I was doing
4) No grain and little noise

First I moved to scanning slide film and after that to digital imaging.

But, I'm a geek and engineer, not an artist, even if I have pride in my pictures.

Best regards
Erik

I'm really really glad this thread is reading out as well as it is.  Thank you to everyone.

from me, since my dad made fun of me for wasting film shooting rolls of blurry chickens when I was like 7, I waited a decade and a half to shoot more when I got a digital camera.

for my professional work, I shoot 35mm nikon digital.
for my private work, I shoot MF film.

I spend WAY more time in front of the computer with 340MB scans of film, but when the aliens send a EMP pulse down on the earth destroying all magnetic media and we are tossed into a race for our lives in a struggle to keep humanity alive as we are systematically enslaved and/or exterminated by our alien overlords, I will still be able to show off my MF slides and film to survivors before going off to kill the head alien (play by john travolta).

[Bruce MacNeil]

The number one factor was the theft of all my film gear.

[TMARK]

I shoot both.  I like film better.  Commercial is 90% digital, most of that being Canon or Red.  Anything personal or for editorial portraits I shoot film, mainly in a Mam 7, RZ or Leica.  

Its easy to stay with film in NYC.  Good labs abound, film is cheap.  

I did switch almost exclusively to scanning and inkjet printing.  I have a Nikon 9000 and an old Epson 2400 for proofs and small prints, but anything important goes to Lamount where Allison gets the best out of the big HP's.  

What I object to about digital is that it takes too much work to get it looking like negative film.  

[Pedro Kok]

I only shoot digital when:
- I require a portable camera setup.
- The client doesn't need, care or is willing to pay for film and scanning. Even then I try to smuggle a little roll of 120 or 4x5 sheet into the mix.
- Due dates are ... well ... instant.

For everything else, I stick with film, mostly because:
- I like it
- It's the cheapest route to extensive perspective correction, with 6x9 and 4x5.
- It's the cheapest route to using my Hasselblad glass.
- I like it
- It takes days to get it back from the lab; there's no instant gratification.
- Film has character and grain
- Film stands out in a sea of digital pictures, and a film camera always brings up a good conversation
- Negative film has a highlight range that takes a beating, and I'm severely imprudent with exposure
- It heals the soul
- I like it

[Tyler Mallory]

Started my career hand processing and hand printing B&W film as a newspaper photographer.
Continued my career with an RZ shooting E-6 and biting my nails to stubs waiting for the E-6 run to come back, hoping that those fuzzy polaroids had been somewhere in the neighborhood of vaguely accurate.
Dipped a toe in the water of digital when the Canon D-60 came out.
Quickly abandoned film.
Now my nail biting is purely recreational.

@ Juanito: Sweet shot from the beach there. Share some more.

[revaaron]

The number one factor was the theft of all my film gear.

I just had my first lens stolen... at a show that I was shooting... in a church.
$350 was a very cheap leason.

[Gigi]

A good thread - agree with all E Edwards said. There is something in the change of life that comes with the transition from analog to digital, and he has started to call that out more clearly.

There is no doubt that even for the private work, digital control is good fun - allowing more experimentation, instantaneous results, correction on the fly, and risk taking in light conditions or in composition we'd never take with film. And probably tech'l levels have been raised as well.

Last week I went back to find some shots I took in 1999 and earlier in film. It took me 5 minutes to find the contact sheet, one minute to find the film. The scan on the Epson 700 was mostly good enough, up to a reasonable size; with an Imacon available to me for larger scans. The ability to find the "source file" quickly, without hassle, has a remarkable appeal.

I don't care for the lab scene, and the quality of work has gone down as well. While reasonably convenient in the big city, its still a hassle. But as time goes on (we get older) I'm more interested in less overhead, not more. The ability to have a wonderful source file independent of the machinations of the digital industry, available for instant retireval, and for gentle thoughtful perusal (looking through 120 proof sheets is a great joy) has more appeal than ever.

The costs of improving MF quality digitally are hard to justify for the non-pro. Always tempting, always convenient. Can we do both? Now, that's confusion.

[ashley]

Last week I went back to find some shots I took in 1999 and earlier in film. It took me 5 minutes to find the contact sheet, one minute to find the film. The scan on the Epson 700 was mostly good enough, up to a reasonable size; with an Imacon available to me for larger scans. The ability to find the "source file" quickly, without hassle, has a remarkable appeal.

Since I adopted a proper approach to digital asset management I can now find any image in a matter of seconds, however, it did take me about 3 weeks of initial work to catalogue ten years of earlier production this way and each job requires a little time to ensure that the system is maintained. I agree though that labs are not as good as they should be in most cases and this was a strong incentive for me to make the switch to digital.

Edit: I do get fed up with having to buy multiple hard drives to back up everything.

[Fixingshadows]

greater colour accuracy and less steps from capture to print

[Rob C]

greater colour accuracy and less steps from capture to print

Absolutely, and not only did transparency film give you something at which to aim, it gave you something that subsequent steps/people down the line could always refer to in times of uncertainty. Of course all films gave different interpretations, but at least they were only film-subjective, not open to operator memory, whim or convenience. And what a marvelous stick with which to beat the printers!

As an earlier poster commented: how nice to be able to find stuff quickly without having to spend yet more hours on the DVT seat. And how damn nice trannies look on the lightbox! A treat in themselves.

But as ever, nothing exists in a vacuum and where the labs stop working...

Rob C

[KevinA]

This thread is probably redundant, but I really would like to know.  $10K-$48K on a MFDB is a heck of a lot of film.

I think if I sent my clients a batch of mounted Velvia or Ektacrome most would not know what it is or what to do with it. Life in general was easier with film, drinking coffee with other photographers at the Lab waiting for the film to appear. Now I spend days sitting at the computer making tiffs appear and everyone wants a low res to look at asap.
I changed because the local labs would not change with the times, the services they offered were all based on film and print as the end product. If they had provided a cost effective scanning service I would of stuck with film much longer. But they didn't so I bought a digital and shut the door on the way out.
Kevin.

[KevinA]

A good thread - agree with all E Edwards said. There is something in the change of life that comes with the transition from analog to digital, and he has started to call that out more clearly.

There is no doubt that even for the private work, digital control is good fun - allowing more experimentation, instantaneous results, correction on the fly, and risk taking in light conditions or in composition we'd never take with film. And probably tech'l levels have been raised as well.

Last week I went back to find some shots I took in 1999 and earlier in film. It took me 5 minutes to find the contact sheet, one minute to find the film. The scan on the Epson 700 was mostly good enough, up to a reasonable size; with an Imacon available to me for larger scans. The ability to find the "source file" quickly, without hassle, has a remarkable appeal.

I don't care for the lab scene, and the quality of work has gone down as well. While reasonably convenient in the big city, its still a hassle. But as time goes on (we get older) I'm more interested in less overhead, not more. The ability to have a wonderful source file independent of the machinations of the digital industry, available for instant retireval, and for gentle thoughtful perusal (looking through 120 proof sheets is a great joy) has more appeal than ever.

The costs of improving MF quality digitally are hard to justify for the non-pro. Always tempting, always convenient. Can we do both? Now, that's confusion.

I have to find old stuff everyday and it's much easier with digital than film. That's what keywords are for.

Kevin.

[Rob C]

I have to find old stuff everyday and it's much easier with digital than film. That's what keywords are for.

Kevin.

And I bet you are young enough to be able to remember your PIN number too!

Rob C