More Keepers With Film Or Digital?

I get many, many more keepers with film. I mainly shoot B+W and I find the the quality of the negatives I get from my Mamiya 6 are superb.

... and I don't have a digital camera :p

Cheers
Simon
 
Film. Mostly because after the shoot it's easier to pick out the unique image. "The One" just jumps out from the light table.
With looking at a bunch of digital thumbnails on the monitor all the images kind of blend together and become sort of homogenous to me. One of the reasons I've mostly quit digital.
 
Al Kaplan said:
More keepers just clutter up the selection process. That includes both while you're back at home staring at your computer screen and the biggest enemy of getting great pictures: staring at the back of your camera, checking every frame, constantly monitoring exposure and data. Wasting time. Missing pictures. Keepers are NOT the goal. Real eye grabbers might be goal, or images that appeal to your emotions, but going for raw number of keepers is striving for mediocrity.

http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com
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Excellent point! To me a keeper is a 1 or a 2 on a scale of 5 while an "Eye Grabber" BTW Love the term, is a 4 or a 5 on a scale of 5. With digital I start out with more 1 or 2 then with film, simple because of the fact that I shoot more frames but in the end I usually end-up with the same amount of 4 or 5, usually 6-10 out of a typical 2 hour shoot, any more then that, I'm simply not being picky enough!
 
I do not shoot film at all anymore but will say that the recent "all digital" Gulf Coast Wildlife Photography Contest, I took 10,562 images with my Canon EOS system during the 135-day contest. I submitted 120 images. More than 5,000 images were submitted from 80 selected photographers. Of the 120 I submitted, 9 placed in the contest including two first places. I also got second place overall in the invertebrates division. I won $1,600 that will go toward a future M9 purchase if the M9 turns out to be as problem-free as it appears. ( I am not a full time shooter anymore, and have a day job, so no lectures on how little money that is from such a long contest. :^)


My "turn in ratio" of 120 to 10,562 total images shot (and I heavily crop in camera during lulls in the action) is 0.011 or 1.1%. My "photographs that placed" ratio (judged in the top 5 in 25 different categories) against total photo captures turns out to be .000852, or 0.085%.


Had I been shooting my old standby of K64, that would have amounted to 293 rolls of film at an estimated cost of $15 per roll (purchase and processing) totalling a bit more than $4,400. I would only have lost about $3,200 shooting film ;^)


God bless digital with all its faults and advantages....
 
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I'll chime in here because I had this very same conversation yesterday. I actually don't know if I get more keepers one way or the other, but I prefer the way I work with film. I have been shooting almost exclusively digital for the past year because of my work. I noticed that I have become very sloppy. Instead of metering properly, I'd shoot few extra frames, If something looks interesting I'd take a snapshot. There were shots that looked good enough on the LCD and I didn't bother to go the extra mile and make sure they are as good as they could be. With film (and I started shooting with a TLR recently) I am much more careful, much more involved and much more respectful of my subjects - that's important for photojournalism/documentary work. I still shoot digital, but now that I am back to using film, I find that my work, both digital and film, is getting better because I am again more disciplined.

Just my $.02

Bojan
 
victoriapio said:
I do not shoot film at all anymore but will say that the recent "all digital" Gulf Coast Wildlife Photography Contest, I took 10,562 images with my Canon EOS system during the 135-day contest. I submitted 120 images. More than 5,000 images were submitted from 80 selected photographers. Of the 120 I submitted, 9 placed in the contest including two first places. I also got second place overall in the invertebrates division. I won $1,600 that will go toward a future M9 purchase if the M9 turns out to be as problem-free as it appears. ( I am not a full time shooter anymore, and have a day job, so no lectures on how little money that is from such a long contest. :^)


My "turn in ratio" of 120 to 10,562 total images shot (and I heavily crop in camera during lulls in the action) is 0.011 or 1.1%. My "photographs that placed" ratio (judged in the top 5 in 25 different categories) against total photo captures turns out to be .000852, or 0.085%.


Had I been shooting my old standby of K64, that would have amounted to 293 rolls of film at an estimated cost of $15 per roll (purchase and processing) totalling a bit more than $4,400. I would only have lost about $3,200 shooting film ;^)


God bless digital with all its faults and advantages....
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That assumes you need to shoot that many rolls in order to get that many keepers.
 
Which format?

In 120 format, Film. I get 3-4 keepers out of 12, the rest is pretty much bracketing, either technical (focus/exposure) or creative (framing/composition).

When I eventually get a medium-format digital back, this may change. :rolleyes:

If we're talking about 35mm and digital, they are about the same percentage-wise, but more digital number-wise. Just as Bill said above.
 
Keepers...about the same per subject.

With digital, I get many more good shots on the same subject, but they are repetative, providing 4 similar views where only 1 is needed/wanted.
So, subtracting the redundancies, it's all about the same.
 
If you were concerned about $4,400 you would have done a better job of parsing your index finger's thrusts against the shutter release button. There seems to be a general agreement here that shooting more exposures translates into rapidly diminishing returns. To put a price tag on "money saved" is meaningless in that situation.

If I ever had to cull through 10,562 images I'd probably exchange my 35mm for my 9mm and shoot one final "self portrait".
 
dazedgonebye said:
Keepers...about the same per subject.

With digital, I get many more good shots on the same subject, but they are repetative, providing 4 similar views where only 1 is needed/wanted.
So, subtracting the redundancies, it's all about the same.
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That's a really succinct way to put it. I feel much the same.
 
Here's something funny...

Some of the photos which I currently feel are among the best I've ever taken were both taken with a digital SLR, but with manual focus lenses.

I generally use my dSLR like I did my film SLR - I have AE and AF and use it if the cause be just, but I also use full manual control when I wish to exert my own level of control on the photos I take. I've never thought of myself as being controlled by my camera or that my camera dictated me using it a particular way. It has manual control, and I use it when it seems appropriate to me. I do tend to take more shots, yes. I see that as an advantage.

I also find that I'm more willing to experiment with digital, since I can generally quickly find out if I'm on the wrong track and correct myself, thanks to the magic of the LCD review (chimping) and histogram, etc. It's cheap to experiment with digital - and you get instant results - what's not to like?

These are some of my favorites, all digital with manual focus lenses.










 
Al Kaplan said:
If you were concerned about $4,400 you would have done a better job of parsing your index finger's thrusts against the shutter release button. There seems to be a general agreement here that shooting more exposures translates into rapidly diminishing returns. To put a price tag on "money saved" is meaningless in that situation.

If I ever had to cull through 10,562 images I'd probably exchange my 35mm for my 9mm and shoot one final "self portrait".
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I'm for it.
 
bmattock said:
Here's something funny...

Some of the photos which I currently feel are among the best I've ever taken were both taken with a digital SLR, but with manual focus lenses.

I generally use my dSLR like I did my film SLR - I have AE and AF and use it if the cause be just, but I also use full manual control when I wish to exert my own level of control on the photos I take. I've never thought of myself as being controlled by my camera or that my camera dictated me using it a particular way. It has manual control, and I use it when it seems appropriate to me. I do tend to take more shots, yes. I see that as an advantage.

I also find that I'm more willing to experiment with digital, since I can generally quickly find out if I'm on the wrong track and correct myself, thanks to the magic of the LCD review (chimping) and histogram, etc. It's cheap to experiment with digital - and you get instant results - what's not to like?

These are some of my favorites, all digital with manual focus lenses.
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The train photo is AWESOME Bill!
I also really like the dancers. The motion of the lady contrast well with the stillness of her partner.
 
photogdave said:
The train photo is AWESOME Bill!
I also really like the dancers. The motion of the lady contrast well with the stillness of her partner.
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Thank you! My point is just that I seem to be at home with both digital and film-based techniques, and try to use what works best for me, without regard to whether they are 'new' or 'old' but rather just what works best for me at the time. Old lenses, new camera bodies, hey, works great so why not?
 
Al Kaplan said:
If you were concerned about $4,400 you would have done a better job of parsing your index finger's thrusts against the shutter release button. There seems to be a general agreement here that shooting more exposures translates into rapidly diminishing returns. To put a price tag on "money saved" is meaningless in that situation.

If I ever had to cull through 10,562 images I'd probably exchange my 35mm for my 9mm and shoot one final "self portrait".
Click to expand...

While I'm pretty sure I wouldn't shoot $4400 worth of film for a contest, the cost of film is a real factor for folks like me. Since I send film out, my cost approaches $20 per roll. If I shot a roll each week, that's an annual cost of $1000, which will get you in the ballpark of some nice digitals.

We all have to balance the costs of our toys against the rest of our lives. I suspect that thanks to cheap point and shoots and cellphones, a greater percentage of the population is taking pictures than ever before. That's a good thing, regardless of the quality of their images. If they had to pay someone $15-$20 every time the counter hit 36, that wouldn't be happening.
 
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