Film vs Digital Story

[jon_flanders]

The great northeast rains gave us a lot of water in the rivers around Troy, NY. The Cohoes Falls are the biggest ones around here, they come just before the Mohawk River empties into the Hudson.

The day after the deluge, I trekked up there, on the Waterford side, where you can get close.

This involved slipping and sliding down a muddy trail on a beautiful evening, with the setting sun illumnating the spray from the falls. Another hiker joined me, and we stood at the edge of the cliff.

He pulled out his digital camera. The batteries were dead. He got out his backup batteries. They were dead too. Meanwhile I was clicking away with my Minolata Maxxum 700si and my Iskra 2, which of course needs no batteries.

Fellow hiker vowed to come back the next day. The next evening was dark and rainy.

Score one for film.

 

[ywenz]

Yesh, predictable scenario. Digital cams simply won't work w/o battery. I have a story too:

Walking down the street on a nice sunny day and snapping away with my Leica + Velvia 50. Then walk into an old bar that was exquisitely decorated. Wanting to take a photography of the dimly lit interior, I pull out my Leica and realized that I have an f/2 lens with 50 iso film. Doh! It was a good thing that my friend had his Canon 20D.

score: 1-1

 

[Solinar]

I like the zoom shot from the Maxxum. The Iskra shot provides the context, which is not a good day for kayakers.

Ywentz, pack a roll of Tri-X for the indoor shots. You can reload the Velvia later and continue almost where you left off.

 

[Socke]

Something like this happend to me last year. Shot with the Contax G2 at a fashion show and ran out of film, all stores were closed - this is germany after all - and everybody offered me CF cards.

At least my batteries were full.

 

[ywenz]

Ywentz, pack a roll of Tri-X for the indoor shots. You can reload the Velvia later and continue almost where you left off.

But for that to work, don't you have to pull the film to the exact length as the first time you loaded ? Otherwise, you'll have partially overlapping exposure, or wasted film?

 

[Kim Coxon]

If you go one frame beyond where you were before, you lose a max of 1 frame of film. It sometimes upsets the automatic labs but it's the best compromise to make sure you don't lose the picture. 😉

Kim

But for that to work, don't you have to pull the film to the exact length as the first time you loaded ? Otherwise, you'll have partially overlapping exposure, or wasted film?

 

[James Brannan]

*snip*

He pulled out his digital camera. The batteries were dead. He got out his backup batteries. They were dead too. Meanwhile I was clicking away with my Minolata Maxxum 700si and my Iskra 2, which of course needs no batteries.

Fellow hiker vowed to come back the next day. The next evening was dark and rainy.

Score one for film.

This could have easily been a victory for either. Anyone absent minded enough not to recharge a backup battery could just as easily be absent minded enough to not load their camera with film. I doubt he'd be better off with anything other than a sketchpad and a pencil. 😛

 

[jon_flanders]

Here's a shot of the Cohoes Falls on a normal summer day, a year or two ago. I think I shot this one with an Ansco Isolette folder.

The water you see going over is normal for the summer time.
Last week was a real tsunami, that left the NY Thruway closed as a result of the Mohawk's flooding.

 

[jeff laitila]

This has nothing to do with film versus digital. It is about how, regardless of what one shots, you must do the proper planning prior to going out to capture some light.

 

[sf]

Sometimes, I wish I had a digital camera that was really really nice.

I was on a family outing, had the whole family there, we were at the Skagit Tulip festival in Skagit, WA. I wanted to shoot some pics. All I brought was IR film. I shot some, minding all the necessary compensations.

I mis calculated something horribly and my roll turned out "blank". Actually totally blown out to white.

Sometimes, an LCD is a good thing.