The ultimate Poll: Digital and/or Film?

[rbsinto]

Film. Only film. 35mm 100 ISO colour slide.

 

[traveler_101]

Thanks for starting this poll Raid. I voted for the "healthy mix": I aim for a 50/50 division, but who knows.

I have an Olympus E-P1 Pen camera so welcome to m43 Raid! I had the Pen first and just sort of "gravitated" toward a RF, a Bessa-T, partly because I bought a couple of Voigtlander wides (15 and 25) to use on the E-P1. The idea with film is for me to learn to develop my own black and white, while leaving color shooting to digital. Also the RF is great for ultra wide to wide; I leave long lenses to the E-P1.

 

[raid]

The votes seem to get stabilized to:

50% use film for at least 80% of their photography
15% use digital for over 80% of their photography
35% use a mix of film and digital

I am not interested in opinions why one is "better" than the other, but in your preferences as it pertains to using film and/or digital. As long as enough people use film, there will be film around.

 

[Sparrow]

99% film, 1% mobile-phone ..... mainly for geographic tagging

 

[raid]

Stewart,
I am going back to bulk loading of film, which means that I will be shooting lots of film, but I am also going to try out the 4/3 micro system, which means that I will try using my old lenses with a digital camera and that I will make many digital images. I may in the end have a better understanding of the limitations of each system.

My goal is using the old Zeiss lenses with a modern digital camera to remove some of the surgical sharpness and overall flatness that you usually see with digital imaging. I will start with the Zeiss 85mm/1.4 wide open (the aperture is broken, so it must be used wide open). The old Zeiss lenses have wonderful out of focus rendering and overall sharpness of the center when used with film cameras.

Maybe this thread was about obtaining information from the RFF community on where I stand relative to where most others stand.

 

[Kent]

Now, with the NEX, I am at about 99% digital. 😉

 

[raid]

Hi Kent,
Send me a pm on your NEX experience.

 

[DougFord]

all film all the time, until i digitally grope it, that is.
but i see a time, sooner than later, where i will be the exact opposite and be at least 80% digital.
but as it stands today, all film.

 

[LKeithR]

I checked the 80% digital option but I'm more like 99% digital. For me, film is dead. At the moment I have 5 or 6 cameras with film in them and some have been sitting untouched for months. Somehow, having tasted the immediacy of digital I can no longer tolerate the time it takes to get film developed, never mind the cost of the film and developing. And, before someone mentions it, I have "zero" interest in setting up a darkroom and processing my own film.

I shot my share of film, starting in the 60s and ending in the early 90s--lots of kodachromes and lots of B&W; not much colour print stuff. At that time and for a number of reasons I just stopped any and all photography activities--except for a couple of cheapie P&S cameras used for family stuff. In 2007 I wanted to get more serious about my train watching activities and, after some significant research, I purchased a Pentax K10D and a couple of lenses. I was instantly in love with photography again; instantly freed from the drudgery and time consuming nature of film. I now have a Pentax K10D, K20D, Leica D-Lux 3, Leica Digilux 2 and a Panasonic LC-1 which I use in unplanned rotation. While I have acquired a good selection of modern primes and zooms for the Pentaxes my favourite glass is often some of my old--or recently acquired--M42 stuff. I may have left film behind but I still love to shoot in manual mode and use manual focus. This is kind of funny in a way because the primary reason I bought the K10D was to get the benefit of a good AF camera for my train shooting endeavors.

The only thing missing from my arsenal is a really decent "digital" rangefinder--or "rangefinder-like"--camera. I'm quite interested in how the Ricoh GXR M mount module is going to work out...

 

[al1966]

I use both and love both, I do prefer the colour I get from film though. I am shooting my next project on film in a medium format rf. The reason I use digital is for things I want to see as a photograph, I don't have to worry about film processing. Day to day I carry either a small film camera or a small digi. mainly an Oly Mju1 or a Prinz 35e for the last few months, I always carry a bag so I do not have to worry about size too much. I sold my DSLR and blew a large portion on film, Micro 4/3 is good enough for the work I do. If I had a large pot of cash I would be mostly film, but I value time over money so I make that compromise. At the end of the day though the most important thing is the final image.

 

[andredossantos]

Mix of both. I feel like I've planned out my kit well for my uses and don't really feel the need for anything else besides buying a lens or two.

-I have a DSLR with one fast 50mm for low light stuff and "small" format color work. I rarely shoot 35mm color anymore.

-A Leica with one 35mm lens. I use this pretty much for only B&W. I gave up all 135 film cameras for a bit but quickly realized I missed being able to get that "look" in B&W. No knocking B&W digital but my PP skills are not good enough to replicate it.

-Medium format with a 6x6 Rolleiflex and a 6x9 Fujica Rangefinder with a 100mm Fujinon-S lens. Probably use these the slight majority of the tim
e using both color and b&w films. I absolutely love MF. Also my favorite cameras to use just from a "having fun" point of view.

I am definitely missing at least one super wide and am mulling on which system I want to add it. I'd also like to add a tele to the DSLR kit, too. Besides that, Im very content right now!

 

[gavinlg]

Mainly digital. It's technically better quality, significantly more convenient/quick, and significantly cheaper than film. I can't even get film processed within 150km of me anymore.

I still do shoot some film, but the amount has gone down a lot in comparison to two years ago, and to be honest I'm just finding less and less reason to as time goes on and I get better with digital processing. The greatest hurdle to understanding digital fully is learning how to PP, and how the digital cameras react to different lighting circumstances.

 

[nikon_sam]

In all honesty I'm at 99.99% film...I don't own a digital camera but my wife has a little Nikon digital something...I've used it only to post pictures of gear here on RFF...
Film is the future...

 

[Sparrow]

Stewart,
I am going back to bulk loading of film, which means that I will be shooting lots of film, but I am also going to try out the 4/3 micro system, which means that I will try using my old lenses with a digital camera and that I will make many digital images. I may in the end have a better understanding of the limitations of each system.

My goal is using the old Zeiss lenses with a modern digital camera to remove some of the surgical sharpness and overall flatness that you usually see with digital imaging. I will start with the Zeiss 85mm/1.4 wide open (the aperture is broken, so it must be used wide open). The old Zeiss lenses have wonderful out of focus rendering and overall sharpness of the center when used with film cameras.

Maybe this thread was about obtaining information from the RFF community on where I stand relative to where most others stand.

My daughter has a GF1 that I've played around with a bit and apart from the software being rubbish it's not bad with some of the old lower contrast lenses. I liked the the f2.8/35 summaron a lot, and she seems to have a J-8 on it a lot of the time ... one thing I do notice is the saturation seems overdone on almost all the modern stuff, first thing I do is knock 10 or 15% of the colour out before I can see what's going on, seems to help

 

[gb hill]

I shoot film 100% of the time. I have so much money tied up in my film cameras I can't afford to shoot digital & let them sit on a shelf. Besides I enjoy film.

I took some rolls into a Walgreens & asked the tech when Walgreens was going to stop processing film & she said they just has a meeting & film developing was up & there are no plans of ending. MOF she said they are talking of expanding into other stores. Will have to wait & see.

 

[emraphoto]

Mainly digital. It's technically better quality, significantly more convenient/quick, and significantly cheaper than film. I can't even get film processed within 150km of me anymore.

I still do shoot some film, but the amount has gone down a lot in comparison to two years ago, and to be honest I'm just finding less and less reason to as time goes on and I get better with digital processing. The greatest hurdle to understanding digital fully is learning how to PP, and how the digital cameras react to different lighting circumstances.

i concur. i recently have started revisiting the digital game for the serious business and it really shines when you pay very close attention to the lighting circumstances.

i

 

[zhengpeng]

Film is about fun while digital is about getting jobs done

 

[raid]

I shoot film 100% of the time. I have so much money tied up in my film cameras I can't afford to shoot digital & let them sit on a shelf. Besides I enjoy film.

I took some rolls into a Walgreens & asked the tech when Walgreens was going to stop processing film & she said they just has a meeting & film developing was up & there are no plans of ending. MOF she said they are talking of expanding into other stores. Will have to wait & see.

I am in the same boat, Greg, but I feel that I need to try out a digital camera that accepts my vintage lenses. At the very least, I want to be able to quickly obtain results to email my family. I doubt it that I will be able to capture digitally what I sometimes get with film.

 

[shashinka-ichiban]

use to be all film, now all digital, minus the weekly roll out of the Yashica. all $$$ driven decision. if money were no object, id be shooting all film.

 

[raid]

After receiving 300 votes, we have the following percentages:
film ....... at least 80% of images 49.00%
digital ... at least 80% of images 16.67%
healthy mix of film and digital .... 34.33%

Such numbers usually become stable after a while, but with digital cameras this could be different. In one year, we may see a different poll outcome.

What do you think? Is this "it"?