what really stops me from going digital

[AndySig]

I've had and Olympus Pen E-P1 for the better part of a year now, my M6 for a bit less than that and my M4 which I got about two months ago. The E-P1 works and ... er ... that's it. No magic, nothing to admire about it, no "feel" that makes you want to pick it up and use it. It somehow removes the joy from photography, the mystery is no longer there. In any event, being electronic, it will one day go kaputt and be beyond repair.

The M4 is, however, the antithesis of the E-P1: a mechanical masterpiece which is a privelege to use. Sometimes I find myself handling it simply because it is so fascinating. I wonder if one of the reasons for the success of the M9 is that they have made such a tremendous effort to make it fit in with the M series of cameras? I've played with one in a camera shop and it was more acceptable than the E-P1 but it still didn't have a patch on the M4 or M6.

The problem with the digital world in general is that it all boils down to 1 or 0, on or off. There's a great and absolute precision in that but precious little which has anything to do with humanity or the world as we perceive it, indeed the world for which we have evolved as a species. So I'm relaxed and comfortable with "proper" cameras, probably because they feel as though they evolved alongside humanity.

I know that is all very subjective but it works for me.

 

[Martti K.]

Why do you keep harping on this when it's total BS?

It's not total bull****, but as well not the whole truth either I think. One can preserve his digital documents if he converts them to newer formats from time to time. At the same time digital documents does bring some major problems to archives and museums. And for future historians. Digital documents does not last as long as paper (or papyrus, stone, wood etc) documents if not taken proper care of. It's much more propable that a 100 year old photograph is still in somewhat good condition than a 100 years old flash memory. It might well be that our grandchildren doesn't even have the faintest idea what a usb stick is. Even if it worked they have no idea that it may contain priceless pictures about their grandparents. I think it's rather sad if this happened to them. I'm glad I have found some old pictures of my ancestors. Past and roots are not important to everyone, but for some they are of very great importance.

PhD Istvan Kecskemeti, development director of Finnish national archives, has discussed much about this kind of problems (for example in his doctoral thesis From papyrus to megabytes: Conservation management of archival and photographic collections). I haven't read his thesis, but I know some of his thoughts from lectures of museology. One of them is a light, obviously not dead serious remark that digital document last for five years or eternity depending on which comes first.

 

[btgc]

One if issues I'm coping with is that cheap film gear has spoiled me and if I'd want to get digital kit of same usability and quality, it would cost me more than I've spent on all my film stuff alltogether. But I simply do not take such amount of pictures to have feeling I'd get return of investment....which in fact isn't investment because in few years it would cost next to nothing....well, except I'd get top level kit. So I'm going to shoot film even if gets more expensive and of less varieties, as it happens now.

 

[Corto]

FWIW, I have lost Digital images, Due to technical issues.

For some reason tho, My wife still has every Analog picture in a box in her office that she wanted to keep, and We can drag them out and look at them whenever we want.

I now keep multiple back ups of all my Digital media, And blame most of my "losses" on how I have managed them. Since I was not born in the digital age I guess it comes down to how I learn things about Digital storage.

Still, I can stick my analog images in a nice folder and barring my house burns down they will be there long after I'm gone.

Vintage Photographs are constantly found in yard sales/estate sales and even when no effort has been made to store them properly they still seem to mostly look ok, Sometimes remarkably so considering their age. (The classic shoebox in the closet)

 

[btgc]

FWIW, I have lost Digital images, Due to technical issues.

Let me correct you - in digital world data is lost due to insufficient planning and implementation of backups. People assuming their only copy is safe enough haven't experienced failure yet. Media fails, metadata catalogs fail, logical structures fail, tools working with data fail. Digital is instant, in all meanings - to come and also to go if no measures are taken.

 

[former member]

I use Digital files from 30 years ago. FORTRAN source code.

My oldest DSLR will be 20 years old soon. It still works, and the files are still readable.

You just transfer them to the new system.

I know a lot of people that throw out old pictures. By the boxload. That is the analog equivalent of not transferring your files.

People have lost analog images. Fire, flood, humid basements.

 

[Trius]

People have lost analog images. Fire, flood, humid basements.

And some people lose track of rolls of exposed film and develop them 15 years later. Not that that has happened to anyone I know ... 😀😀😀

 

[Martti K.]

I use Digital files from 30 years ago. FORTRAN source code.

My oldest DSLR will be 20 years old soon. It still works, and the files are still readable.

You just transfer them to the new system.

I know a lot of people that throw out old pictures. By the boxload. That is the analog equivalent of not transferring your files.

People have lost analog images. Fire, flood, humid basements.

That is true, but there is one major difference I think. Digital documents must actively have been taken care of, while negatives and prints have relatively good chances of surviving without active care. Things we now take granted and think that it doesn't need or deserve to be preserved could be very valuable for future generations.

 

[former member]

Hard to say. I've seen a lot of nice slides show up in the thift stores with the trays and projectors that were donated by someones kids or grand-kids. I was just given several trays full of slides from the 1940s through 1960s. I'll keep some, but the basement is only so big.

Now- I know my Elvis pictures are somewhere in MY basement. I need to scan them, will be easier for me to find them. I do still use the Vivitar 283 flash bought for the concert.

Elvis Presley saw that flash.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I use Digital files from 30 years ago. FORTRAN source code.

My oldest DSLR will be 20 years old soon. It still works, and the files are still readable.

You just transfer them to the new system.

I know a lot of people that throw out old pictures. By the boxload. That is the analog equivalent of not transferring your files.

People have lost analog images. Fire, flood, humid basements.

Dear Brian,

Not exactly. Failing to transfer a digital file is not the same as deleting it.

And unless you throw out your old pics/negs, they'll last, at least if you leave 'em in a half-tolerable environment (e.g. attic), for a very long time indeed.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Jonathan Paul]

Like many others have stated here, the best results almost always come from film. The day that digital catches up (at a price I can afford) will be the day that I switch.

 

[sc_rufctr]

For me it's the look of traditional B&W film. Even scanned it looks better than a digital image IMHO.
Put simply, Digital B&W does not look as good regardless of post processing.

And who wants to post process their images in a computer anyway???
I earn my living using a computer and the last thing I want to do is use one to process my images.

So everyday snapshots are done on my iPhone and the stuff I take more seriously is done on film. (My NEX5 is rarely used since getting an iPhone. 😡)
People often comment on how beautiful my film photos are so I must be doing something right.

What I'm most concerned about is film, chemicals and paper becoming so expensive that it becomes ridiculously expensive.

 

[janosh]

My inkjet prints are equally museum/gallery-adequate (my images don't quite qualify) from both scanned film and DSLR. Post processing of both is done identically and consists mostly of contrast adjustment, dodging/burning, and toning...same idea either way. Intuitive perhaps.

I like grain (old 2475, Neopan/Rodinal), don't like solvent developers, but don't care to fake grain digitally. Can't imagine shooting film and not liking grain anyway. I think B&W 90% of the time. Lightroom, Epson 3800/ABW driver. Ultra-blacks, long tonal scale.

My Leica and Durst enlargers are gathering dust. No enlarger can rival a common Nikon scan and inkjet print for detail resolution, corner to corner and any tonal scale issues reflect my skills, not the technology.

I doubt anybody can tell the difference between a DSLR file on Ilford Gold Fiber Silk or Crane Museo and a fine grain film file on any similar-textured silver paper.

It's only your film if you develop it (B&W anyway), and only your print if you print it (color or B&W). 🙂

As to "archival," Epson inkjet prints on good paper will last as long as anybody's silver prints (less chemistry, better paper).

 

[HHPhoto]

My Leica and Durst enlargers are gathering dust. No enlarger can rival a common Nikon scan and inkjet print for detail resolution, corner to corner and any tonal scale issues reflect my skills, not the technology.

Sorry, but this has been proven totally wrong several times by scientific studies (e.g. Zeiss, Antora; Seemann; Seeger; Kodak, Fleischer; Franic; Parkin et al).
Even 8000 ppi drum scans cannot resolve all the detail which is in modern films.
You get much better resolution and finer grain (no grain aliasing by the scanner) with optical enlargement with APO enlarging lenses and with slide projection.

And the Nikon 4000 ppi scanners can not compete at all with the optical imaging chain.
I've had a Nikon Coolscan 5000 by myself. The resulution limit was about 70 lp/mm.
With modern ISO 100 - 400 slide films I've got about 100 - 140 lp/mm on the screen when projected.
With Delta 100 and T-Max I've got 120 - 140 lp/mm on paper with optical enlarging.
With high resolution BW film (Agfa Copex Rapid) I've got more than 160 lp/mm on paper.
My scans with 8000 ppi drum scanners made by professional scan services showed 30-40% less resolution and coarser grain.

Cheers, Jan

 

[mdarnton]

The thing that brought me BACK to film was digital. I had stopped using film because of the inconvenience of having a darkroom (and also from hating the darkroom thanks to an intermittent series of darkroom jobs throughout my life) and the scanning problem (being able to find a cheap scanner that would match the quality that my PhotoSmart film scanner from the 90s would do). Then about a year ago I got the idea to try "scanning" my film with my Nikon D300 in a copy setup. It went so well that I'm back to film, but scanning with my camera.

There are a couple of advantages, including being able to easily capture the density range of film, and speed. All of the recent B&W additions to my Flickr page have been done this way.

My D300 is adequate for the daily photography I do at work, but the thing that would cause me to buy a new D800e is the upgrade it would give my film scans. Go figure. . .

Unlike HH above, I'm not concerned with the maximum amount of quality I can squeeze out of any system because I never make prints large enough to justify that. . . and I doubt that few people do. So that kind of thing is just theoretical for me, and of no interest at all. I just want what I actually do to be good enough to keep my happy with the final prints. Drum scans are completely irrelevant to most people's actual usage needs, I suspect. I'd rather spend my money on other things in my life.

I'd like to see his supposed 160 lp/mm on paper, because as far as I can remember, photo paper, itself, maxes out at around 14 lp/mm--anything above that is money down the drain.

Anyway, it hardly matters, since I only shoot Tri-X 🙂

 

[maddoc]

While I principally agree with the statement above, I'd like to add that achieving top-notch results using an enlarger requires much more time, effort and careful work than scanning & inkjet printing. The average amateur with a DIY darkroom will hardly achieve technically perfect enlargements with well above 70 lp/mm on a regular basis due the amount of error-prone steps required.

 

[thomasw_]

It's refreshing to hear someone say that unashamed, without feeling the need to concoct all sorts of excuses like the "look" of film is better.....

this is incorrect. a statement of motive such as this example is that of a preference or an explanation. an excuse is a "reason put forward for concealing the real reason for an act or to justify a fault." neither part of this disjunction applies with regard to a statement of preference for using film over digital capture, unless you wish to make the ludicrous claim that there is a moral flaw in one having an aesthetic preference for the rendering of film.

 

[Trius]

While I principally agree with the statement above, I'd like to add that achieving top-notch results using an enlarger requires much more time, effort and careful work than scanning & inkjet printing. The average amateur with a DIY darkroom will hardly achieve technically perfect enlargements with well above 70 lp/mm on a regular basis due the amount of error-prone steps required.

I dunno ... I think you need equal experience. I struggle with scanning to approach the results I can get with wet printing. I had years of continuous experience with traditional darkroom printing, and maybe 1/10 that amount with scanning. I suspect many, especially younger, photographers have a fair amount of experience with scanning and post processing compared to their darkroom experience.

 

[codester80]

What I take away from the conversation on this thread is a bunch of people trying to justify their decision on using film or digital. There are arguments for using either but it seems so many people are uncomfortable with their choice of workflow. Everyone should stop peeping over the fence at the greener grass and focus on tending their own lawn. We'd all be a lot happier as well as productive.

 

[HHPhoto]

I'd like to see his supposed 160 lp/mm on paper, because as far as I can remember, photo paper, itself, maxes out at around 14 lp/mm--anything above that is money down the drain.

Well, probably my explanation was not exact enough (probably due to my very bad English).
I have 160 lp/mm on the film (a resolution pattern with clearly separated lines, similar to the USAF test charts, but with lower object contrast).
Then I've printed this pattern with an optical enlarger on BW photo paper (12x enlargement resulting in a 30x40cm print).
On the print I can also clearly see this pattern which represents 160 lp/mm on film.
This 12x linear enlargement of the negative means of course that the distance between the separated lines on the print is bigger than on the negative, resulting in 13,33 lp/mm directly seen on the print. But it is the 160 lp/mm on the film pattern.
You can see it clearly on the print. It has been transferred to the print, no resolution loss.

Due to Ilford the resolving power of BW photo paper is in the 60-80 lp/mm range.

Anyway, it hardly matters, since I only shoot Tri-X 🙂

😀 indeed, Tri-X is one of the worst films concerning resolution.

Cheers, Jan