The flip side of the coin - digital

We found that only 1/3 of the amateurs on this site produce more than 1-5 prints a year, so it's pretty obvious that most are taking pictures for web display. Flatly, film doesn't work nearly as well for that purpose.

Digital is also great at sorting out flash setups.

The D90 is the best consumer imaging appliance I've ever owned. I love digital like I love plastic utensils and solo cups - can't live without them.

- Charlie
 
Pros:

Cost. Digital is by far less expensive. this is the dominant factor in the market.

ISO flexibility. Allows for far more creative exposure and low-light.

Immediacy of the image. You can doublecheck your work right away. Great to see who blinked and re-take.

New cameras. Almost all film use is with cameras that are salvage now.

Post-processing control. Computers eat darkrooms for lunch.

Colour & B&W. You get both with digital in the same photo.

Sharing. Much easier with digital. Scanning film is a poor, time-sucking substitute.

Cons:

Clinical. Too clean. No history. No romance. Me-too cameras. Oversupply of images. More time in front of screens. Culling. Editing. No hands-on craftsmanship.



Shoot both. I do.
 
I left photojournalism a few years before digital photography came about. The greatest advances in photo technology at the time I was doing news photography was the Kodak Royal Print Processor, the Wing-Lynch color film processor and Fujimoto color computer enlarger.

Coming from mechanical cameras and simple processes, I've never been a technical photographer so I resisted digital photography for years. Virtually every photo forum in the early days of digital had frequent postings making the whole process out as requiring post doctorate studies in engineering. If that wasn't daunting enough, the photos being posted as examples of "good" digital photography reminded me of the cheesy covers of science fiction paperbacks from the early 1960s. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

Once I finally decided I needed to knuckle down and learn this scary process, I discovered it was not as complicated as it had been portrayed by the self-proclaimed experts. In fact, the digital process made it easier to achieve the types of pictures I had been doing all along when I was using film.

Digital is results-oriented. Film and printing is a crafting process. I've become more interested in results.
 
I like digital because it's fun - fun to see the pictures right away, fun to 'mess' with them, fun to output to various non-print media. Plus, being a technophile, I think the cameras are so cool.

When I shoot film, it is usually for a project that requires the capabilities that it has that digital lacks, such as darkroom printability, chemical toning and tactile feel, as well as the classic look that film has.
 
I've only recently starting shooting digital. And I like it.

Cost is a big factor for colour work (time, materials, services).

Without cost restrictions I'm finding I can shoot more and experiment more...see if something works many different ways. I must admit it is quite liberating. And that's what I really like about it.
 
I'm not a digital fan, but I have to say if I do strobe photography digital really makes it easier. You don't even have to have a flash meter to get good results, but you do have to chimp. Also, if you use RAW with strobe your RAW converter really helps to fine tune exposure, and global color balance.

In fact, because of the limited dynamic range of digital, the recent developments with lighting has been astounding. To me, more astounding than the advances in digital photography.
 
I think the very biggest advantage to digital over film is the amount of options you have in post. i love black and white photography. Love it, love it, love it. Tonality, contrast, detail. I work mostly in black and white. But sometimes there's a photo that needs the color and if I were working in film with a roll of black and white in my camera, capturing that wouldn't be possible. Digital is more like working with a variable ISO slide film than anything else. Finicky with the exposure but the colors can be quite rich when its done right. Using RAW capture is even better since I can play with a channel mixer to apply filtration after the fact. It's simply so flexible now that film doesn't quite cut it when it comes to the sheer utility of a well exposed RAW file.

But I still really love black and white film, don't get me wrong.

Phil Forrest
 
I love my old film cameras but ...
with digital i get to see the image in B&W in the viewfinder [cheap little P&S] don't have to worry about the cost of each frame and as a result i take more images and better ones.
I guess it's just more fun. I'm thinking of getting a better digital X100 SLR or something like a NEX7 I don't want to give up my film cameras but I think that's the way forward.
Film and developing costs are getting insane here in New Zealand :-(
 
Unless you use an analog enlarger, you end up operating a digital camera in the end. Once you digitize the negative or positive film, you are involved in a digital work flow.

You may as well start with a digital sensor in step 1 and get it over with.
 
back alley said:
i like film cameras better than digital cameras
but
i prefer shooting digital.
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I would agree in most cases. However, I've found the a850 I bought a month ago to be really nice in terms of ergonomics and user interface. Sony did a great job with that camera.
 
Paddy C said:
I would agree in most cases. However, I've found the a850 I bought a month ago to be really nice in terms of ergonomics and user interface. Sony did a great job with that camera.
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same here, the nikon d90 i have is very comfortable and fairly light...easy to hold and shoot with.
but, i grew up with metal, heavy rangefinder cameras and they will always represent, to me, what a camera should look and feel like.
 
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