You know, as I wrote several weeks ago, just use your D700 in jpg mode with good default settings matching your taste, use Auto Iso and you have a shooting machine that will deliver better results that anything film ever could do with very few downsides.
Regards,
Bernard
That, Bernard, unless I misunderstand you, is somewhat below the belt. And it isn´t a D700 (wish it was) but a much more humble D200. And neither do I think using JPEGs, which I never shoot, is quite the same as using film stock.
The very point about film, which those who are determined to see this as the olde flame warres alive again, is that consistency and the STANDARDISATION of procedures was what it was all about. In other words, the trick, if it was such, was to cut out the variables and keep the constants alive. You then had huge scope to work within that. The beauty of it was that that was ALL it was about. Printing was simple too, unless you felt inclined to make it complicated with masking and other exotica which I never, ever, had to resort to in my entire career. If I might refer to Jonathan´s point about messing about with and the troubles of learning different film stocks: there again, one tried to standardise. I used Kodachrome in 135 and Ektachrome in 120: TXP 120 for, obviously, the ´blads and either Ilford HP3/4 or FP3/4 in 135. In practice, this meant two b/w film types at most and usually only one in colour. Colour printing hardly existed in my work: repro was always transparency.
I can only repeat my basic feeling, which is that digital appeals to an entirely different mindset. There is so much scope for fiddling about with new tricks and techniques that I see those ´attractions´as the very reasons for it being a turn-off to another mindset, such as my own, for example.
This is not to knock digital at all, but I do object to the unspoken insinuation from some enthusiasts that it is the new god, that before digital there was nothing. How interesting, then, that the entire rich history of photography is founded on analogue. Am I to take it that no wonderful fashion or advertising or art or landscape photography, not to mention movies ever existed pre-digital era? Speaking of movies, I was most impressed with the first Matrix; after that, however wonderful the digital effects, it just leaves the feeling of ´so what, only another trick´ which, I think, is the way one might be starting to view digital photography too.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with using digital techniques if you want to and like them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with pointing and shooting digital either - might even be less harmful to the environment too, as those millions of pix will never be printed. What there is plenty wrong with, though, and again only in MY humble view, is the arrogance that can sometimes flow from the pen of the convert. If there are a few concrete things I have learned about photography, they are that you never know it all and that one man´s paradise is another´s hell.
Shoot and work or play as you wish, but remember that it´s just the way you like to do it.
Rob C