What influenced you away from Film to Digital

[Gigi]

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

Kevin.

Depending on how you file. Of course, almost all the work I do now is digital too. Having dropped off three rolls of film for dev/proof for $75, it does give one pause. While surely there are cheaper film houses, most involve mailing negs, something that's a bit nervewracking.

Thus, digital, and upfront costs instead. Oh well.

Geoff

[BernardLanguillier]

Of greater importance, at the moment, is the threat of a blocked kitchen drain that I am trying to cure by pouring chemical answers down its throat, without much sign of success, I have to say. Some drains are just too dumb to understand what you are trying to do for them.

I am glad somebody was in the end brave enough to state that clearly.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Rob C]

I am glad somebody was in the end brave enough to state that clearly.

Cheers,
Bernard

Bernard, it gets even worse: the plumbers came yesterday morning (two of them), took the sink apart and poured something very strong down the neck of the drain. It was 98% sulphuric acid and gurgled in a very exciting manner as it slipped down the throat of the tube. I don't know what the additional 2% consisted of - maybe magic ingredient - it wasn't written on the empty bottle they left me, along with the advice that the product was unavailable to the general public.... just in case I took matters into my own hands, I expect.

However, they put the various pipe connections back together again, filled both tubs with water, did some basic pumping with the plunger and created not a lot of difference to the emptying rate at all. They took it all apart once more, the plumber's mobile rang, he had a conversation in Mallorquin and then they reassembled everything and left, saying that I should try it for a couple of days and after that, should it not work, to get in touch again and they would try something else.

Which means that tomorrow, when I ring them again, it will be too late for this week and I shall be expected to wait until Monday at the earliest. That's the trick in Spain: start any number of jobs and then dump the client once you have started, because by then he has little option but to wait until you have time to return or, alternatively, hire another plumber/electrician/builder and face TWO sets of delays, invoices or the courts. Or worse.

The government in Britain is trying to create further education for everyone; 50% university rate, at least. But, try and get a trained tradesman  there - just as difficult as it is here, except that in Spain the problem arises because legislation has made it next to impossible to fire unwanted or unrequired labour. The result is that employers do not employ above a bare minimum of staff - never quite enough so the chain of too much work for too few people continues ad infinitum. Socialism - its own worst enemy.

Funny how a working sink is more valuable than any quantity of politicians.

EDIT: à propos of the hiring or otherwise of staff: unemployment on the island is over 60%; yes, you read that correctly. Yet one can't get jobs finished because not enough people are employed to do them because of the risk in taking them, the people, on.

Rob C

[BernardLanguillier]

The government in Britain is trying to create further education for everyone; 50% university rate, at least. But, try and get a trained tradesman  there - just as difficult as it is here, except that in Spain the problem arises because legislation has made it next to impossible to fire unwanted or unrequired labour. The result is that employers do not employ above a bare minimum of staff - never quite enough so the chain of too much work for too few people continues ad infinitum. Socialism - its own worst enemy.

The notion of quality of service still hasn't sunk in it would seem...

Come to Japan Rob... people work hard and things just... work... sinks don't get stuck in the first place. I have never had to deal with a... what was the word again... plumber once in 12 years... don't think they exist here!

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

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.

As somebody doing landsacpe away from the roads:

- autonomy,
- image quality per gram of equipment,
- the value of a digital workflow and the ineficiency of scanning (both time and qualitywise),
- the end of innovation in non digital bodies,
- the desire not to be mocked by my future children as somebody "still shooting film".

Cheers,
Bernard

[Fixingshadows]

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

And now we can use a colour managed print as that reference and still get greater quality than we were ever able to get with film. Remember the days of the big blue lightbox( AKA window) that our clients used to assess transparencies and complain when nothing matched

[Rob C]

Remember the days of the big blue lightbox( AKA window) that our clients used to assess transparencies and complain when nothing matched

Frankly, no!

The big lightbox they used in Glasgow was a pretty well calibrated perfect mid-grey all year round, tending to some darker drift in autumn/winter, but you could allow for that. Perfect match to all my black and whites.

Rob C

[Dick Roadnight]

Of greater importance, at the moment, is the threat of a blocked kitchen drain...
Rob C

This is, of course, very much on topic, as, if you had had a wet dark room in your kitchen, and you were regularly pouring nasty chemicals down that sink, you would never have had the problem in the first place!

[Rob C]

This is, of course, very much on topic, as, if you had had a wet dark room in your kitchen, and you were regularly pouring nasty chemicals down that sink, you would never have had the problem in the first place!

This is very sound advice, but it comes too late. However, there is alway the next time after the demise of the digital revolution, when film will be king again and the silver mines will flourish and the horses' hooves will be melted for gel---------

Ooops! Quite forgetting myself for a moment in this sweet reverie of new life for the F3!

Rob C

[stevesanacore]

If I ever had to use film again, I would fine a new career.

Try traveling through customs every few weeks with cases of roll film, polaroid, sheet film, etc etc etc..... so glad that's over forever!

[Juanito]

Yesterday, I shot at three separate locations as part of a three day ad shoot. Two of the shots were of a guy on a Harley. I brought in eight strobes to light the subject, the bike, and the location. I did the shots in about two hours which was whippet fast for the complexity of the lighting. Getting that instant feedback on the positioning of my lights really allowed me to tweak everything to perfection.

To have done that shot on film would have taken all day. I would have shot about 50 Polaroids - just the time spent waiting for all of them to develop would have been about two hours. Then there's the hassle and expense. In the film days, I would have just kept the lighting simple. Probably a big light for the subject and one or two fill lights.

That's not to mention the "plates" that I shot at different exposures with no subject and no lighting so that I could composite them in after the fact.

Basically, my work now is so much more rich and complex than before. A similar image on film would just look uninteresting by comparison. It's not that film couldn't technically stand up; it's that the process of digital allows for greater complexity in far less time than what's achievable with film.

John

[christian_raae]

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

That is why I shoot film when I'm not working. I love the film characteristics, and being able to get a fantastic look without even starting PS.
And it is something wonderful and special with waiting for them vacation rolls to come back.

I could never use film for work purposes though, I think you guys have covered the reasons quite well.

[Hywel]

For me it was 1) cost and 2) immediacy.  

As a one man band whose business is selling sets of photos to multiple customers, I had to cover all the costs myself and had to get them all scanned. This was ruinously expensive. One shooting trip to L.A. and my film and scanning costs came to more than twice the cost of the D30 digital SLR I bought right after the trip. I wished I'd bought it earlier. At 3.1 megapixels it was not up to the quality of 35mm, obviously, but was OK for the image sizes then expected by customers who viewed the images on the web.

There were few things as horrible as seeing a roll come back from the labs all messed up because of some technical issue. I recall a failing camera whose shutter mechanism was on the way out ruin a whole day's photos with a sticking
or randomly firing second shutter curtain cutting shots in half. Even untethered on a dim screen, with digital you can check the shots for gross errors like that.

I've only shot film once or twice since then, both times for purely fun non-commercial projects, and then cursed because I realised that everything I might have wanted to do with the images involves them being digital, so I'd have had to pay get them scanned and I never did. so there's also the immediacy of having them in digital form ready to be used.

 Cheers, Hywel.

[Snook]

The Market, My Clients,The competition, and lower cost!!!

Snook

[gdwhalen]

Personally, I got tired of dealing with dust and scratches on the negatives/transparencies.  Digital (if the sensor is clean) is a much clearer image to work with.

[Anders_HK]

Hi,

As advanced amateur with passion for landscape photography and personal portraits, I still shoot film - at same time also digital. Why? They are two different medias. Digital does not replace film. They render different and thus serve different applications (or preferences?).

Film (to me slides) - Pleasingly enhances reality at capture, in particular for landscapes. Fuji Velvia 50 equals magic.

Digital - Enables adjustment in many and select ways to colors, contrast, light and dark and to parts of image etc, but... not by a simple programmed rendering to result entire image being pleasing as does film.



My experience - With an eye for a high quality in rendering of image: As an advanced amateur digital is far more expensive and requires far more time to get to pleasing - Not to mention the gigantic learning curve. One must retroactively ask why? I am now also the lab, while film was simply snap and it was more or less done!
 

Above said;-

For portrait - I prefer digital (my Leaf Aptus 65), because can in much detail adjust capture to what looks best and convincing to eye and to what becomes a pleasing image. Occasionally I use Provia 100 slides.

For landscapes - Landscapes are much more complex world to adjust than portraits. Our eyes wander across an image in search of light, colors and details, while for portraits they simply wander for the eyes of subject and the light and dark of portrait being simple contrast ends to bring 3d and rendering to the image. For landscapes, nothing seems to beat Velvia 50 slides, and the larger format the better. It is simply a difficult act to adjust digital images to the same pleasing and naturally convincing enhancement in rendering as film does. With simplicity film looks right film for landscapes. Sure, it is simple to make some adjustments to a digital raw file, but... BUT, kid you not at getting it truly pleasing to a sensitive eye... because for most of time such adjustments look rather pale or not as convincing compared to how films such as Velvia 50 render the same. For those of you who disagree on that, please show me one single landscape photographer that produce digital images of same level of artistic and quality in rendering as the very best of best landscape images using 4x5s, e.g. by Jack Dykinga and similar level of images. Is there a single book produced with such level of quality digital images? Very serious, I would be pleased to find one and to learn from it. However, do think careful prior to reply on this, it is not about the gear; it is about the rendering. Lets note that in particular at the golden hours and when rendering of beautiful light as part of the image is indeed very challenging to digital. Even with the large DR of MFDB the capture remains linear and it is difficult to adjust it to the brilliance of Velvia 50... which... was captured simply with a single click.

For snaps - Digital is great (Leica M8).


In regards to digital adjustments, here is an article for thoughts.... http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/20...tography-1.html. What do we see nowadays? Many images are over adjusted (PS) for simple attention of observers... is that quality? Perhaps for sales of products, or... Perhaps Ansel was right in f/64 and in opposing too much adjustments???


What honest got me into digital in first place was that the nearest slide film processing lab where I lived the other year was an hour away and put fine scratches across all frames of three of my rolls of slides. I thought digital excelled. Well... at least the forums raved of that... of the crappy D200 etc. Digital still does not excel. Film and digital is simply different. Nope, in no way did anything influence me "away" from film. Now I am stuck with both. Sure, I also use digital for landscapes (Aptus), but I am not yet fully convinced of it there yet. However, had I been smarter - for simplicity and low cost - I would have stuck with film. Film is also lighter gear... or... if not need pixels or brilliance of landscapes and in large prints, perhaps just get an M9 and never look back or read these forums... It does appear these forums are about the gear. Did we forget the image? Did we forget to really make photos, such as with film?

Regards  
Anders

[ricm]

Film (digital output) is highly preferred. But I'm not a heavy user - 250-350 rolls/yr.

Long exposures (5/10/15 minutes) - yea, an upper end MFDB back (many, many $s) MAY exhibit less noise but it can't beat the cost of a noiseless piece of silver on acetate.

Dynamic range - yea HDR, but it looks like HDR and if I'm going to lug around a tripod then lug around film for the day.

Color fringing (cringing)

The additional hours of post-editing files that I probably should have never made, but did, as they were "cheap, available, and why not?"

The attendant on-site redundant backups, recharging, weight/bulk, etc

Extreme obsolescence/depreciation

Storage/filing - TBs of redundant HD/DVD/off site storage

Reliability in climate extremes

The tonal palette of film

I know and like film - however the costs, availability and quality processing is a serious concern.