Would You Go From Digital + Film to Just One

[ktmrider]

I just finished about three hours of shooting the Semana Santa activities here in Xela, Guatemala. I used the M2/50/Ektar100 and my X100 set on program AE. Here are a few observations.

For the first time ever, I had the feeling the 50 was a telephoto as others on this site have mentioned. The M2 was silky smooth and provided a feeling of satisfaction lacking in the X100. I think I shot about 25 images on film.

The technology in the X100 was amazing as always. However, it is quirky sometimes switching to the electronic viewfinder without input from me or going from a full battery indicated to empty battery in a couple shots. I shot about fifty images with the X100 often taking a quick second to insure success. I never felt the need to do this with the M2.

If I had to choose only one camera for travel, knowing what I know now, it would be a Leica rangefinder. Now, I would have a hard time deciding between the M9 and the M2. However, it would be with a 35mm lens on the camera and a 90mm in the bag. I would leave the 50 at home. If film, I would switch to an ISO of 400 vice 100 although outside in the tropical sun, Ektar 100 brings home the bacon so to speak.

If allowed a second body, it would probably be a small digital (X100) but it would not be my main camera. So, not a lot has changed from my 90 days in Europe last fall. Then I traveled with the M9/21/35/90. Today, the 21 would stay home.

I am coming to believe that one body and two lenses makes a great kit. A second body, especially if it is film when the main camera is digital, or vice versa just makes things too complicated. And I find I can easily live with just one body and a 35mm FOV.

 

[Jerevan]

The less one has to think about various options at hand when making photographs, the better.

If it wasn't for the internet stuff (product shots) and family snapshots, I could just leave digital.

I find the film process soothing and I enjoy the hands-on approach.

 

[rfaspen]

All this discussion hasn't helped me much. I remain hopelessly torn between the two.

I carry both. And, as long as the lenses can move between, I think I'll keep bringing two bodies. That's one nice thing about Leica M... they're small form factor cameras and I can have a film one, and a digital one. Yes, yes, I know about lens adapters...

 

[isoterica]

All this discussion hasn't helped me much. I remain hopelessly torn between the two.

I carry both. And, as long as the lenses can move between, I think I'll keep bringing two bodies. That's one nice thing about Leica M... they're small form factor cameras and I can have a film one, and a digital one. Yes, yes, I know about lens adapters...

Agree there...

 

[sc_rufctr]

Whoah, this is incredible. I am flabbergasted.
Bogus, simplistic numbers. Heavily biased anti-film. Totally bogus and almost insulting to the knowledgeable shooter.
These numbers are nothing else then digital camera salesman trying to outsmart an unknowledgeable customer.

Give me 50 rolls of film and you'll see me busy for 6 months: carefully shooting, carefully developing, carefully printing in many formats, carefully reprinting, carefully studying each shot, carefully storing the negs...

Give an amateur 5 rolls of film and you'll have him so busy for hours. Give an amateur a 2 gig card and you'll have him busy for 5 minutes.

Give me a 16gb card and you'll see me go through it in one afternoon. 1500 careless shots, batch processed, then a few resized (heavily downsized, might I say Destructed) for internet use, where they will die within the next 24 hours, never to be looked at again.

Then, the next day, I can do all this again. Junkographing like crazy, thanks to digital.

To me (and to any experienced shooter), a roll of film easily equals 1000 digital shots. That's about how much energy one single roll of film takes from me.

This times 1,000,000.

 

[Archiver]

To each their own. While I don't fall into the 10,000 images per month camp, when I'm on a holiday I can take 500-600 images per day, particularly if I am actively walking around and shooting.

I shoot as an activity in itself, a way to hone my skills through minute adjustments over the course of multiple images. I also shoot to record what I saw and did, and I like to capture a number of views of where I've been. Digital is the perfect medium for this, as we know. To even try to do this with film would be a huge outlay of cash and carrying space.

For me, film is an artistic and archival medium for special occasions. I might only shoot a few rolls per year, if that, but the images are always of things like family gatherings, particularly eye-catching nature scenes, and the like.

At the moment, I carry a digital compact, a m43 camera, and often a film compact. At the moment, the combination is the Ricoh GR or Panasonic LX7, the Panasonic GM1 with Olympus 25/1.8, and the Contax T3 loaded with colour negative. If I travel to 'important' places, it's with the Leica M9, a m43 camera, and the Ricoh GR.

If you're shooting for no one else, the obvious answer is to do what works for you. Digital works for me. What works for you?

 

[BrooklyNYC]

Whoah, this is incredible. I am flabbergasted.
Bogus, simplistic numbers. Heavily biased anti-film. Totally bogus and almost insulting to the knowledgeable shooter.
These numbers are nothing else then digital camera salesman trying to outsmart an unknowledgeable customer.

Give me 50 rolls of film and you'll see me busy for 6 months: carefully shooting, carefully developing, carefully printing in many formats, carefully reprinting, carefully studying each shot, carefully storing the negs...

........

To me (and to any experienced shooter), a roll of film easily equals 1000 digital shots. That's about how much energy one single roll of film takes from me.

I couldn't agree more. Shooting with film slows down the entire shooting process and there is more of sense of value with each photograph made. That sense of value translates into better photographs. Digital is much more care free and there are much more photos on a memory card that never should have been taken. This is the reason I shoot with film more than digital now. It doesn't mean that I don't respect digital. I would love the new Leica Q, but I don't feel like I need a new digital camera anytime soon. My Leica M7 still isn't obsolete, but my first DSLR (Nikon D80) is.

 

[Hunter S Thompson]

Whoah, this is incredible. I am flabbergasted.
Bogus, simplistic numbers. Heavily biased anti-film. Totally bogus and almost insulting to the knowledgeable shooter.
These numbers are nothing else then digital camera salesman trying to outsmart an unknowledgeable customer.

Give me 50 rolls of film and you'll see me busy for 6 months: carefully shooting, carefully developing, carefully printing in many formats, carefully reprinting, carefully studying each shot, carefully storing the negs...

Give an amateur 5 rolls of film and you'll have him so busy for hours. Give an amateur a 2 gig card and you'll have him busy for 5 minutes.

Give me a 16gb card and you'll see me go through it in one afternoon. 1500 careless shots, batch processed, then a few resized (heavily downsized, might I say Destructed) for internet use, where they will die within the next 24 hours, never to be looked at again.

Then, the next day, I can do all this again. Junkographing like crazy, thanks to digital.

To me (and to any experienced shooter), a roll of film easily equals 1000 digital shots. That's about how much energy one single roll of film takes from me.

Well said Ned. Spot on.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

I like digital but I love film. I'm also a lot happier as a sniper than as a machine-gunner. Spraying hundreds, or thousands, of shots with a digital camera might seem like a way to play the percentages but I don't have the time to spend browsing through dozens of microscopically different versions of the same thing in the hope that I'll find "the right" one. Maybe if I'm shooting sports or aircraft but that's a rarity.

I have to agree with Ned that a slower and more considered approach, with a tangible end result, is something that is really worth the effort.

 

[David Hughes]

Whoah, this is incredible. I am flabbergasted.
Bogus, simplistic numbers. Heavily biased anti-film. Totally bogus and almost insulting to the knowledgeable shooter.
These numbers are nothing else then digital camera salesman trying to outsmart an unknowledgeable customer.

Give me 50 rolls of film and you'll see me busy for 6 months: carefully shooting, carefully developing, carefully printing in many formats, carefully reprinting, carefully studying each shot, carefully storing the negs...

Give an amateur 5 rolls of film and you'll have him so busy for hours. Give an amateur a 2 gig card and you'll have him busy for 5 minutes.

Give me a 16gb card and you'll see me go through it in one afternoon. 1500 careless shots, batch processed, then a few resized (heavily downsized, might I say Destructed) for internet use, where they will die within the next 24 hours, never to be looked at again.

Then, the next day, I can do all this again. Junkographing like crazy, thanks to digital.

To me (and to any experienced shooter), a roll of film easily equals 1000 digital shots. That's about how much energy one single roll of film takes from me.

Hi,

Can't agree more but I wouldn't have said "amateur" but "novice" as many amateurs are as serious as professionals and many are superior.

But, as I said, I couldn't agree more.

Regards, David

 

[cooltouch]

I think that if a person can articulate why they want to use one technology over another, then that's a good enough reason to use it. Me, I don't see why I should have to choose. My most recent digital purchase was a NEX 7, which allows me to shoot with just about any film format lens I can think of. So this gives me the freedom to pack my film gear and one digital camera and I'm able to enjoy the best of both worlds.

 

[Fraser]

I use a pair of canon 1dxs for work so when I'm on holiday/travelling I normally just have my m9 and 35mm summicron.