OK. So I'm converted...

[SausalitoDog]

I loved staying up all night in the darkroom, but I'm a technology freak and really really got excited by digital early on. I reworked my darkroom at considerable expense, only to realize that it no longer needed to be dark - resulting in the eventual remodeling of my house 🙂

Now I spend a large part of each day looking over the top of my monitor at the view!!!

Never regretted it once the digital folks sorted out all the issues to make killer BW prints.

Tom

 

[trog]

I’ve given up digital (D700) and have gone back to film (4x5 & 120). No regrets.

 

[skalson]

I recently joined this forum. No, I don't have a rangefinder, but I did recently purchase my first digital camera: a Fuji X100. Although not a rangefinder, it often is referred to as such: a (very) poor man's leica m9?? Anyway, I agree with many of the posts here. I'm completely amazed by the color accuracy of this camera. Far better than what I could get with film and scanning on my Nikon 9000. I still have my Hasselblad, and hate to sell it. One thing I find appealing with digital is custom white balance. I can take a picture of my QP card in some really funky light, set the white balance, and I get fantastic, realistic colors. My PhaseOne RAW converter replaces the film lab and scanner. I still like the ergonomics of a manual film camera better, but the Fuji X100 comes close!

 

[SausalitoDog]

I recently joined this forum. No, I don't have a rangefinder, but I did recently purchase my first digital camera: a Fuji X100. Although not a rangefinder, it often is referred to as such: a (very) poor man's leica m9?? Anyway, I agree with many of the posts here. I'm completely amazed by the color accuracy of this camera. Far better than what I could get with film and scanning on my Nikon 9000. I still have my Hasselblad, and hate to sell it. One thing I find appealing with digital is custom white balance. I can take a picture of my QP card in some really funky light, set the white balance, and I get fantastic, realistic colors. My PhaseOne RAW converter replaces the film lab and scanner. I still like the ergonomics of a manual film camera better, but the Fuji X100 comes close!

Don't underestimate the x100. I liked mine so much I also bought an XP-1 and I'm still not sure which I like best.

It's true that these two beasts don't have an actual rangefinder mechanism, or that they are really great at manual focus but they have the best of both worlds in the viewfinder and the auto focus is fantastic (if slow).

I say about the x100 that it is the best camera in the world (so far) that will fit in your jeans pocket !!

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Athiril]

Speed.. that is the thing I like about making massive prints in the dark room. The speed at which they come out.

That and you can actually wash your prints to get dirt and finger prints off, whether b&w or colour (lab lasered RA-4 prints can be washed too though).

One of the reasons I still use colour film is the convenience of having images coming back from the lab with no further work needed doing to them, no tedious RAW adjustments, at least when I use a pro lab, but I suppose that doesn't help if you do colour darkroom.

All you have to worry about is colour balance, once it's dialled in you generally don't need to change it.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Riverman, I'm with you part of the way. Just like you when I first bought a DSLR i was amazed how clean and sharp everything looked. Skies were smooth cyan, colour was fairly accurate (on screen) without much messing.

All this was so apparent I sold all but one of my film cameras, just an old Barnack kept for sentimental reasons.

So why only part of the way? I guess after the initial "boy that's sharp and smooth, no grain at all" thrill of the digital file I started to feel disconcerted by that smooth look.
When I look at a clear blue sky it isn't a smooth noiseless entity, my eyes are actually quite noisy, and that's why I think tonal smoothness is disconcerting.

Upon further investigation I've noticed that the digital file is interpolated smoothed and made noise free by algorithms your resulting file is built up by maths.
Here is a Nikon D2x image

an image straight from a Nikon D2x without processing

Red paint running down a yellow tin. Notice how the file will be interpolated and smoothed with edges often sharpened to give an image.

As the mp count increases detail and image structure improve, compared to fine grain film you will get a smoother image with more apparent sharpness.
Note this is not more accurate, tends to fail a little with brightly coloured textural detail.

The upshot is I actually prefer the natural random grain of film even if it is noisier, the noise appears natural matching the eyes perception (just look at a clear blue sky with the naked eye).
Grain also seems to fool the eye into thinking images are sharper when viewed at the correct viewing distance.
So if you want smooth sharp images especially at higher ISO then digital is for you, for me I prefer naturally generated noise.
That said I have a D700, D2x and several digicams, use them for certain types of image–for the serious stuff I mainly use medium format film.

 

[shadowfox]

So why only part of the way? I guess after the initial "boy that's sharp and smooth, no grain at all" thrill of the digital file I started to feel disconcerted by that smooth look.

That's exactly the same reason once I looked at film shots, I now can't look at digital photos the same way again.

Agree with your description about grain also.
Grain makes the image more realistic, clean digital shots in a way is hyper-realistic, which suits *some* subjects and scenes extremely well.