Forsaking all film for digital

Boy, I remember the days when I lived in s. fl and was in the keyes every single week end. What a great place to just lay back and forget about everything.
 
Forsaking Film for Digital

Forsaking Film for Digital

FrankS said:
David, I agree with your earlier post! Let the great unwashed and uncultured masses migrate to digital. Digital will become the point and shoot medium of choice, while real film, especially B&W, will become the serious, arty medium, and wet darkroom alchemy will once again become a virtually unkown and mysterious knowledge passed from one practitioner to another, preserving a secret brotherhood.

I also agree; B/W will become more of a specialized service for the public, especially for weddings and portraiture. I offer my wedding clients a portfolio of hand-printed, fiber-based B/W prints, and they love the idea of a UNIQUE portfolio of hand-made artistry, not some commonplace digital album that all their other married friends have and often complain about.

Still, I've only seen one pro lab machine that matches film-print quality and I think it's called the FUJIPIX. I've compared my color digital images (shot on 20D) printed on the FUJIPIX to color film images printed on the same machine, and the prints look identical except film had better saturation. Anyway, long live film and B/W!

Chris
Canonetc
 
The guy's a good merchant, I think. He's intent on keeping close to his customers' desires and wants, end to end, so I doubt he'll be buying much stock that won't translate into sales. If his stock isn't moving, he'll have a good feel as to what will help it move. He's got a plan, a darn good one. I like his thinking and hope he does well.

Don't know about the writing on the wall. People still buy, train, and ride horses well after the advent of the motor-driven carriage. Film will live on, as long as we all buy it in sufficient volume to support its manufacture. Let's be sure to do business regularly with those who support our preferences, especially those brave few who still repair our cameras professionally. Shoot more, shoot often, I say, and provide a reason for film makers to go on and on ...
 
I like to see more digital cameras being sold. This encourages people to let go of some very nice photographic equipment. I use digital but I have bought more film cameras in the last 6 months than before. Prices are very good.

When you shoot film you have a negative or positive. Stored properly, they last and have more data on that film than any reasonably priced digital camera is able to provide. I take the film, have it put onto a CD and file the film and dump the CD into my computer. If I need a large print. Voila I have it on film. I can do it. You can't get large prints of similar quality from a digital camera yet. Considering image quality I am still in the film camp and not looking to leave.

Jan
 
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The store is a great idea. But it mean little to all of us using film. Film isn't dead, and will be around a long, long time.
That said, there is a place for digital and of course it's growing with tech advancements.
It doesn't come down to "either or" film or digital - I use BOTH, for their best features. Film for quality, digital for speed of turn-around ~ ; - )
 
I think it's interesting that interest in black and white seems to be increasing -- especially with the younger generations. I've had several twenty somethings tell me they like my B&W shots because they seem "more real." I've always felt black and white was powerful because color often distract the eye from main point of the photo.
 
bmattock said:
Y I think it is handwriting on the wall, but what do I know?
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/112104dnbusdigitalphoto.43a55.html

Bill, the only handwriting on the wall I can see is (SPEAKING ONLY FOR THE AMATEUR MARKETS !!) that this technological "revolution" has damnaged an already sick photo market seriously indeed, but now it begins to eat it's own new market before it can achieve a completely takeover of analog .

The market of digital P&S is almost dead , it will be taken over by sophisticated phonecams with 4-6 MP soon. Maybe one from 1000 pics of all he billons shot with the phonecams will be printed , the younger folks shoot, send and post it. The file rests in peace then untill the HD crashes.
That means camera AND the print business in the digital P&S market is gone soon for all dealers. And wasn't this the main market in photo biz ?
DSLR ? Among the so called serious amateurs there are still a lot of people who still got not blind from all this digi hype . Maybe they will have an additional DSLR too and will use it for certain purposes but they will not give up film as long as the digital results of the amateur DSLRs look like they look , not as long as the prices are five times higher than for an analog camera and not as long as the mini chips cause so massive restrictions to the lenses . The APS chips are an interim technology pushed with a lot of marketing into a photo market which had been saturated, narrow margined and static.

Much of those sad stories we read today about filmmakers and cameramakers in troubles are much more a consequence of the crowded photo market than of the impact of the digital cameras, in other words they would have happened anyway.

What will remain after the storm is gone ? Worst case an almost completely vanished digital P&S market, a not too small part of the old analog P&S print market kept alive by billions of analog P&S , a SLR market which will be divided in a digital and a analog section and some niches where some boring old farts (known as BOFs) and their sons skeep on shooting weird cameras like RF, TLR or LF field cameras. It is not to assume that all this analog potential will get so small that only one film amnufacturer can survive . And as long as this won't happen I don't even worry about film prices.

Also because it is to be seen that even the pros will use film in future for certain purposes. In general it is a very brightening experienc to talk to real pros, not to those who once have decided to call themselves so. They tell you all that digital is just more economic for them, but takes less good pics. And once introduced as a tool no pro can avoid it if he wants to survive. Nevertheless film is still used for some purposes, for example landscape prints for some magazines based on 4X5 negs.

Lately I read : "I've wrestled a long time with my decision but then I decided to go digital because the pros all do so and therefore it shall be the future".
Well some are simply not able to to watch what happens around and to make their own conclusions. These eyes-wide-shut-prohets prefer crystal balls , reading in the coffe grounds or they simply guess and call it forecast. Quite normal nowadays, many of this kind are even member of the board. ;-)

Emulsionly,

Bertram
BOF










l
 
I stopped at my local wolf camera the other day (something I nver do, but I lost a lenscap while I was out and needed to replace it) I actually heard a salesman say something that to me sums up who will end up using digital and who will end up using film. A customer was about to replace his n8008 and asked if he should by a d70 or an N80. The salesman asked "Do you keep your negatives, and do you ever order reprints?" the man said yes and the salesman said "then buy the N80" The picture qualty will be the same, but you will always be ablle to get reprints from negatives. How often have you notbeen able to read a cd?" I thought this summed it up well. Those of us pro's and amateurs who keep meticulously filed negatives, and often print from or scan them, will end up sticking with film, or coming back to it when the first of our cds become unreadable. Those, like my mom and dad, who throw away negs once they have their prints, will migrate to digital.
 
Funny ideas people have about the "camera phone" market. Those phones are actually banned in some countries, or have severe restrictions on their use. _Most_ of the population, will _not_ get one or use one. Do you realize that camera phones actually charge you _per_ _shot_ to store and/or download.. that's right, you're charged just to keep the shot, not even to print it. That's why there'll continue to be a digicam p&s market. Cellphone manufacturers will _never_ allow you to use storage cards. That defeats the purpose of camera phones, which is to generate airtime revenue. Too many people are buying into this "hype" of the cameraphone.

The "affordable" DSLR market is already here. A new Canon 300D is now only $750CDN-, that's only 2x to 2.5x more than the film equiv. I've already had my 300D for almost a year (10k shots, mostly birds) and will be getting the 350D soon... need one for me, one for the wife 🙂.

What does that mean for me and RFF? It's the best of both worlds for me, film for these great RF's and for the wide angles, and digital for everything else. Digital is just another medium, use each to it's best advantage.
 
Last week my hard drive had a few bad sectors on it. Try as I might I could not recover data from the sectors.

I had a few digital photo stored on some of those "sectors". I was not able to retrieve them. Luckily I am overly paranoid and burned them to 2 DVD's prior to the drive taking a dump.

No warnings, no signs, nothing....it just quit working. Welcome to the digital age....
 
Anyone here ever see the old Saturday Night Live skit with Steve Martin plunging his entire life savings into a "Scotch Tape Boutique?" That's right - a store that only sells scotch tape. He was way ahead of everyone . . except that no one came through the door.

I don't see that the guy in the article has any sort of competitive advantage. Anyone can copy his business, or just create a special section in a store with specialists.

Yes, the world is going digital. And millions of people dine under the Golden Arches. It's still mostly cr*p, though.

Robert
 
I was flipping though View Camera magazine on the newsstand this weekend and I saw an interesting quote from a Kodak representative who noted that their large format sales have actually gone up slightly over previous years. I can't remember exactly what he felt this increase was due to, but I think he said something about serious amateurs wanting to reconnect with the process of photography as well as seeking ways to increase the resolution of their photos without breaking the bank. If somebody can provide a more exact version of this reference or remembers it more accurately, please post.
 
I don't know the reference you mentioned, but I'll bet dollars to donuts it's simply because prices for larger format equipment have fallen through the basement. I personally know of more than a few acquaintances who have used the availability of cheaper larger formats to supplement their digital SLR setups. When medium and large format kits being sold for $2000 a mere 5 or 10 years ago are now being liquidated at $200-500 on ebay, those are hard bargains to pass up if it suits your style of photography. And the prices of darkroom equipment -- enlargers and stuff -- have fallen even more dramatically with the improvements in scanners and printers.

And people said that digital depreciates in value too quickly...

Also, my experience has been that "using larger format format film to increase the resolution of their photos without breaking the bank" is a spot-on description. Digital medium format backs are priced completely out of the range of amateurs, but good medium and larger format film equipment can be had for less than a DSLR body alone. Makes perfect economic sense to use larger format film if resolution is what you're after.

Now, this rangefinder thing makes no economic sense... 😀
 
The mannager of a local photo store (Montreal) told me that they sold more films during the 2004-05 hollidays than last year (2003-04). On the other hand, they sold pretty much only digicams and DSLRs.

About large format, I guess there are people migrating to it now. I'm considering it now. I'm after image quality. My 35mm rig is fine for its purpose but I want something serious for serious projects. Medium format isn't enough for my taste. A 4x5 seems to make sense while an 8x10 is very tempting but seems a bit excessive, like a Ferrari... I'm also looking for a photo club or equivalent where I could get access to a darkroom. I don't think I'd like to set one up in my appartment (although my bathroom is pretty much built for this).
 
This is really interesting. I shoot rangefinder cameras for myself, but for a lot of my work, I shoot digital. I shoot a Nikon D2H. I live in the Dallas area and I will be in the area where this store is on Friday, and I will stop by and check it out. I will post my impressions of the visit later.
 
Macbeth 2003 said:
I the salesman said "then buy the N80" The picture qualty will be the samel.
Tho this salesman was reamrkable honest and tried to find the very best way to satisfy his customer, at this point he used a straight lie. The D70 maybe produces sharp (ened) images but this has nothing to do with image quality.
 
Kin Lau said:
Funny ideas people have about the "camera phone" market. Those phones are actually banned in some countries, or have severe restrictions on their use. _Most_ of the population, will _not_ get one or use one. Do you realize that camera phones actually charge you _per_ _shot_ to store and/or download.. that's right, you're charged just to keep the shot, not even to print it. That's why there'll continue to be a digicam p&s market. Cellphone manufacturers will _never_ allow you to use storage cards. That defeats the purpose of camera phones, which is to generate airtime revenue. Too many people are buying into this "hype" of the cameraphone..

Sorry but funny I found your remarks. Nothing of all these points concern us here in Europe, no restrictions, no charge per shot to store and download, I can store and download by bluetooth or cable as much as the build in storage allows and I can use the phone whereever I want. What are you talking about ?Sounds as if you live in US ?.
The funny ideas are not mine btw but those of camera dealers suffering already from a changing market. I never sell my personal opinion as a fact, opposite to many other self taught experts. If the digital P&S junk won't vanish because of the phonecams then this will happen because this market is almost saturated . People have bought the second one already after the first one was too bad but they will not follow those idiotically short innovation periods of all digital stuff and buy a third one after two years, which hasn't got cheaper than the first one bus is of course much "better" , which means less bad related to analog standards.

DSLR: Yes you can get a cheap one as Canon D300 or Nikon D70 for $850 here.
A Dynaxx 60 or a Canon 300V for 200. Still factor 4 or more. Until I get the first ROI it would take 130 films or 2,5 years for me. I don't shoot more SLR. But 2,5 years from now this camera will have lost 70% of it's worth and so the ROI is eaten before it comes to me the first time. Monkey business.

Even if money would not play a role at all ( and it does not obviously for most of the users of cheap DSLRs) there remains still the problem of the output quality.

If sharp pics are all you need and your castrated wide lenses don't bother you then you can live with a Canon 300d. But for me sharp images are not enuff, there are still a lot other things which are important for the the quality of a pic.
Opposite to many photographers who are obviously giving up all their quality standard in panic, afraid of missing the last train into the digital future, I don't give up mine., especially not for B&W, which seems a quite hopeless issue for so called prosumer DSLRS.

Don't get me wrong I'd never critizise somebody for using a digital P&S or a DSLR, but I it is offending my ( anyway poor) intelligence if somebody tries to tell me this stuff is an qualitative and for amateurs economic alternative . I have not fallen in the digital coma yet and I never will.

Best,
Bertram
 
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