Does digital actually save you money?

[gavinlg]

No, digital is just as expensive. I like digital, and I embrace it because it's whats needed in a professional working photographer these days. Secretly though I wish digital photography was never invented. There are a lot of young guys like myself that are more computer/graphic/design whizzes than photographers that do a hell of a lot better than me. Photography is becoming more and more like that. Capturing the image is only part of it. Photographers are expected to be more than a photographer - they're expected to make complex designs based on a photograph which turn into something of a digital design or art piece. In saying that, think of all the memory, updates to the gear etc etc you have to buy.

Every 2-3 years a new camera, every year new memory, every 2-3 years a new computer, new printer, new screen, new scanner, new updates to photoshop/aperture/lightroom/c1 etc etc, new software, rushed assignments because everybody registers a "digital" picture as being an "instant" picture etc. The photographer becomes the art designer, the photographer, the lab guy (photoshop guy), graphic designer, album editor, day planner.

In the end it's the same or more than film in expense.

 

[Toby]

If I shot film for my business and got it processed and contacted at a prolab I estimate I'd spend around £12,000 to £15,000 per annum. Even if I upgraded computer software and camera every year it wouldn't come near to this figure.

 

[peripatetic]

For a professional studio or newspaper digital saves a ton of money.

Even MF digital backs often pay for themselves in less than 6 months.

For amateurs? Well when I picked up a DSLR about 5 years ago for the first time I ended up shooting a lot of pictures. Most of them were rubbish. But I learned. The feedback is immediate and the EXIF helps you understand what you did wrong or right. The equivalent cost of film processing would have been 5 times the cost of the camera over the 3 years I owned it.

Over time I've been shooting less and less, with better results, and now am going back to film because I can't afford an M8. 🙂

I am a much better photographer today than I would have been if I hadn't gone digital for a while. And I would now recommend that people should learn on digital and then move to film later as their skills progress. In fact that cost barrier of being able to get through those first 10,000 images and lack of darkroom access was something that held back my photography for many years. If I had to choose film OR digital I would choose digital. Fortunately I can have both.

 

[RF-Addict]

For a professional studio or newspaper digital saves a ton of money.

Even MF digital backs often pay for themselves in less than 6 months.

For amateurs? Well when I picked up a DSLR about 5 years ago for the first time I ended up shooting a lot of pictures. Most of them were rubbish. But I learned. The feedback is immediate and the EXIF helps you understand what you did wrong or right. The equivalent cost of film processing would have been 5 times the cost of the camera over the 3 years I owned it.

Over time I've been shooting less and less, with better results, and now am going back to film because I can't afford an M8. 🙂

I am a much better photographer today than I would have been if I hadn't gone digital for a while. And I would now recommend that people should learn on digital and then move to film later as their skills progress. In fact that cost barrier of being able to get through those first 10,000 images and lack of darkroom access was something that held back my photography for many years. If I had to choose film OR digital I would choose digital. Fortunately I can have both.

That's actually a very good point - we always talk about people shooting off 1000s of frames in no time and hoping that there's one good one amongst them, but the fact is that you can learn a lot by using digital cameras - just by getting immediate feedback. Of course many people just want to press the trigger and are happy with whatever they get, but for someone who is serious about photography and wants to speed up the learning process, digital is the way to go.

 

[craygc]

Digital saves me a fortune ...never before have I been able to purchase such high end film equipment and a such bargain prices 😀

 

[furcafe]

Photography is mostly just a hobby for me, but digital has certainly saved me time & money (really redundant because isn't everyone's time worth money?) over the past 2 years. Not enough to pay for the digital bodies in that time, mainly because I'm an amateur & the digital RFs on the market are either overpriced (R-D1) or wildly overpriced (M8), but there has been a significant savings in film processing costs & time spent scanning, etc. I track all of my expenses on Quicken & can see that my processing expenses have leveled off since I began shooting digital, even though I shoot more (but not exponentially more) frames.

And, yes, it's nice to be able to experiment w/hip-shooting, scale focusing, & other techniques without incurring film costs.

 

[pfoto]

I work in IT and have used products like Photoshop for years so there is no learning curve for me when it comes to post-processing. But because I am in front of a computer 9-10 hours a day at work, and because photography is a recreational hobby for me, I use film and it costs me money. I'm hoping to build a wet darkroom this year or next, but that shouldn't cost too much at today's prices. I also prefer the look of an analog print to one produced digitally. Difficult to articulate but maybe an analogy is leather and vinyl, the irregularity and imperfections are worth the extra expense of both time and money if what you're after is a quality image.

 

[uhligfd]

Actually, if we look beyond the simple - or simplistic - $$$ figures, there is a cost in the "shooting for free" digital world.

As many already have said, if you shoot 300 pics in the Hagia Sophia in an afternoon the chance that you have one good one may be statistically there. But it will be one random good shot. If you are more frugal and shoot no more than a couple dozen pics (film, no doubt since it costs to process...) after long deliberations and trials for the good frame and best light with each - all in the same afternoon - you will probably take home at least 6 of your pics in the excellent category.

So for one afternoon spent in one building in Istanbul on a trip of your lifetime experience you have either 299 random junk shots and one keeper, or 20 soso pics and 6 stunners. IF you are any good. So digital ,is at least 6 times as expensive as film, in the success category.
(And if you add the time for digital manipulation that it takes to make a soso dig pic into a presentable one [since you are so upset that you did not get the proper feel in your pics and therefoe you remedy back in MD or .. for hours, NOT shooting] , that price factor shoots up another digit or so.)

Digital shooting compels us to just shoot and not emote, not sit still to feel the space we are looking at, but to rush through the motions of documenting every quaint spot in it etc. Digital, its carnivorous desire to be shot often since it is "free", is one of its faults. We as humans cannot contain/ manage our appetite with it; same with food. It is a scrouge of this age. C-B came home with no more than 1 film exposed at night in Paris. What does a typical digital shooter do? Wear out the 100,000 shutter accentuation count in 6 months, spend countless hours in PS to remedy what was falsely obtained, and then he/she needs a new $ 2,000 camera, having VERY little to show for it, EXCEPT his/her PS and computer skills.

Just as our fat youth ... literally waste their lives on eating masses of food, so we take masses of undigested digital garbage pics IF we do not use the "more $$ costly" film as a medium that holds us to our senses.

Food for thought!

 

[Uncle Bill]

Why does the word "Digital" make so many mad? Can someone answer this?

Digital makes people nutty because you a large tribe of people who blew a fortune in new camera equipment, only to realize they have upgrade to a stronger computer and software, plus the time expended to learn the new technology not to mention create a new workflow and in some cases for people who like shooting 5000 images take more time to sift through to find the gems. On top of that there is a super short product cycle for camera body, computer and software plus resulting in rapid depreciation of equipment. Which if you are doing this for a living, it will sting on the bottom line when it comes time to upgrade.

Keeping all that in mind of course the previously mentioned are going to dump on film photography to justify in their own heads the massive investment made for what amounts to so so results compared to traditional black and white film and E-6 Slide or Kodachrome. I am not even touching the long term archival issues which have been mentioned in previous threads. One of my flickr contacts is the Library of Congress and they scanned in 4x5 Kodachrome slides from the late 1930s to late 1940s that look like they were shot yesterday. You won't get that now.

As a happy analogue photographer, I could care less if other people want to drop a small fortune on a digital imaging set up. Just don't whine about the rapid depreciation on your camera body or you can't open an image file five years from now.

 

[Spider67]

Thanks for that thread As "digital is cheaper than film" is an argument that oft comes automatically and very often with other arguments that are let's say..simplistic. I would also think that it has become cheaper for all the people who need a pic of theri son's/daughter's footbaal team and want immediate results.
If you try to do more than the financial threshold is considerably higher......I miss something like a digital Praktika/Zorki pendant of digital high class equipment like Nikon/Canon digital SLR's and RD-1/M8.
But colour photography has got much more amusing with digital.....no more fumbling around in a perfectly dark wetlab

 

[awilder]

Great comment by Craygc. I recently picked up a like new 24/2.8 AIS Nikkor for $110. A year or two ago I'm sure it would easily fetch $200+. I also save lots of money on film and processing when posting items for sale by shooting in digital instead of film.

 

[Rayt]

I had some 6x6 negs printed by a reputable pro lab and the prints looked like crap. I thought it must have been me, the film or the lens. Years later I bought an Epson R2400 and for the heck of it I printed some of those negs which I had scanned on my LS8000. I was a newbie and printed everything on full auto mode, auto color and everything. The prints knocked my socks off. Digital to me means I have my own color darkroom now and no longer have to depend on idiot outsiders. The R2400 can do great b/w almost as nice as my Ilford Multigrade fiber prints of yesteryear. I am sure I am saving money by printing the stuff myself.

 

[pesphoto]

My wife is a pro wedding shooter and it saves her a boat load of money.

 

[Paul Fierberg]

Well I couldn't get along without my great digital Lumix but shooting B&W film in my heavy old Electro 35 is the most fun.

 

[uhligfd]

Dear "Sitemistic",

I love your personal icon here, it says to me exactly what i said to everyone; Too much consumption, too little creativity, emotion, feeling, thinking ... just in with the denatured food, eh pic into the digital body ...

 

[usagisakana]

Learning on digital is by far the best thing I did. Saved me a ****load in not having to pay for the film and processing for the many terrible shots I initially took. Now I use both, and shoot a lot more carefully, they both have their advantages.

 

[cmedin]

Yeah it saves me lots of money. Mac, screen, software, extra HD, extra RAM, Buying a new camera every year, memory cards etc.🙂

For me, since I already own a computer... other than the camera:
$15 for a 2 gig memory card
$59 for an external 250 gig HD. Keep backups online for < $5/month.

 

[gb hill]

As far as digital vs buying film & processing? Of course digital is cheaper. As far as how long will digital equipment last vs the longevity of a film camera there is no comparison. Film camera wins. The quality is not there. Even with your high end dslr's. Do you think they want you shooting with your Canon 5d in 20 years from now? Will you be able to get your digital camera cla'd? Old film cameras are still going strong. For me it's not about money it's the look. B&W film has a look digital can't copy. Even certain color films have a characteristic that digital can't match unless you want to spend several hours in photoshop. Someone asked me the other week, Do you do alot of post processing? I said no. Really I don't know how, I told him, but thinking about it. I want to concentrate on gaining a proper exposure on film so I don't have to spend wasted time PP my images. If it's true that time is money, then digital looses hands down.

 

[cmedin]

who like shooting 5000 images take more time to sift through to find the gems

Maybe it's just me, but does anybody else find it somewhat amusing that shooting thousands of images with a DSLR is often considered 'bad' but a NG photographer shooting 8000 Kodahcrome frames for an assignment is being a hero of some sort?

 

[pesphoto]

too much digital talk sends shivers down my spine....why is that?