What will happen when the digital imaging wave dies

The current price for a D700 is approx. $4000AUD, that`s a lot of HP5, 35mm&120

I paid $349 USD for my most recent dSLR, a Pentax K200D body. I already had a selection of lenses for it, but even if I did not, good primes cost less than $75 USD and used zooms go for about the same price.

So...
 
It's kinda funny, but the OP was not about film vs digital, but very few people really understood the question. A lot of folks went down the film/digital rat hole, which was amusing.

I'm glad John said what he did about the "real" pros being equipped with a little toy or beat up Leica. Guess I'll fit in next weekend with my OM and 35SP, nary a long lens on me. :D
 
I'm uncomfortable with the paradigm of selecting a frame from a video stream. Opens the door wide(r) for photography with no involvement.
 
Fred -- it is because it makes it so much easier for one to be less present in the moment, less involved and observant, less engaged. I can see situations where it is an advantage, but for the decisive moment genre as we know it, it's not the same, IMO.

I'm not saying it's wrong or bad in absolute terms, just that it feels uncomfortable to me. I don't mean to hijack the thread, but since video seems to be the next area of growth in digital imaging, the thoughts came bubbling up.
 
Is selecting a photo from a video stream really that different than selecting an image from life? Can't we treat the video stream as a delayed broadcast? And how is it all that different from zipping through a dozen frames with a motorized Nikon F back in 1963, and the editor circling a frame on the contact sheet with red grease pencil?
 
Is selecting a photo from a video stream really that different than selecting an image from life? Can't we treat the video stream as a delayed broadcast? And how is it all that different from zipping through a dozen frames with a motorized Nikon F back in 1963, and the editor circling a frame on the contact sheet with red grease pencil?
Point taken, but that editor was checking out a page of 20 or 36 frames back then; with video capture, one is likely to be scanning dozens of not hundreds of frames for "the one", assuming it's in there (and there's no guarantee that it is, even at 60fps or more). There is such a thing as scanning the scene but missing the moment. Technology can do but so much to mitigate that.


- Barrett
 
I don't use motor drives and I don't do sports photos. :p. Well, ocassionally an ad hoc sports shot, but my frame of reference here is more "street" and documentary pj. But like I said, it's just my own preference not a judgement on the technology or those who use it.
 
Or Walter Iooss' 14fps Canon F-1's from back in the day. Look at the sports photos that camera yielded. Video is the obvious next step.
Yes, though what was novel then has now become a tad banal.

The photo agency I worked for got first dibs on Canon's then-new EOS-1 RS. There was even a Canon two-page ad of an Olympic diver shot by one of us with the RS. That kind of firepower, regardless of medium, can be useful in certain instances, but it also requires perhaps even more concentration, not less, to get the most of it. And it's amazing how much stuff you end up blowing at such velocity. Oddly enough, I started to regard this as more of a fuss than it was worth. I take my cuts a frame at a time, now, even with my (slower) motors.


- Barrett
 
Digital is here to stay. It will take many form forms in vehicles that haven’t been invented yet. I have wondered if the difference between the digital era and the film era is how images are lost. Those of us old enough can remember the shoe boxes or scrapbooks of cherished or forgotten images. The photographs existed until someone destroyed them. Often those forgotten or discarded photographs find their way to a resale shop to be appreciated by a collector. But, when I talk to the casual photographer today, photos are shown to friends and family via the camera screen and………deleted. Photos are posted on websites, emailed and shared electronically. I hear people say they have photographs on their computer and never seem to get around printing or organizing them. What images survive 20 or fifty years from now?
 
In 2012 Canadian terrorists will bring America to its knees via an Electro-Magnetic Pulse bomb detonated during the Presidential Debate between Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. The bomb will shut down everything electrical, and wipe clean every hard drive. Billions upon billions of digital photos will be lost.

Children's birthday parties. Gone.
That funny picture you took of yourself in the bathroom mirror. Gone.
Dozens of drunken snaps your teenaged daughter took when she acquired a fake ID and snuck into a night club. Gone.
The photos of you taken mid-yawn that your mother tagged you in on Facebook. Gone.

This disaster will spark a renaissance in film photography. However there will be many restrictions in taking photographs thanks to America's new Canadian overlords.

I know you are trying to be funny here, but if an EMP bomb disaster strikes, taking pictures will be the last thing on my mind.

Digital is here to stay, film isn't coming back. By 2012, Kodak may even have stopped making film.
 
What is it with some of you guys? Coming back from where?

Film is here and will still be here for awhile. Enjoy!


"Canon QL17 GIII
Leica CL 40mm Summicron-C 50mm Hexanon
Yashica Electro 35 GSN"

Them's all film cameras, no?

Sure, film is still around, and I'm still using my film rangefinders.

The trend going forward is headed in a downward direction. Hence, the "film isn't coming back" meme. It's trending towards non-existence faster than the career of a politician caught in a juicy scandal...
 
Juicy scandals haunt politicians who are unwilling to make a disclosure quickly enough and on their own. The preemptive disclosure is impossible to counter.
 
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