Film vs. Digital

[koray]

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... An EMP is what is generated by a nuclear blast. It fries electronics within range. So if the blast don't get you, you are dumped back in the Victorian era by all your electronic equipment that is not "hardened" being rendered useless.

 

Paper, funnily enough, is immune to EMP...

...

 

Wow, I am keeping copies of my photos on three hard drives (one at work, two at home). Maybe I should send one to a friend overseas since Iran is only 1000 miles from where I am.

 

Anyway, I always get good ones printed, so when the time comes we'll have merry moments in our little bunker.

 

K.

[jaapv]

Certainly. An EMP is what is generated by a nuclear blast. It fries electronics within range. So if the blast don't get you, you are dumped back in the Victorian era by all your electronic equipment that is not "hardened" being rendered useless.

 

Paper, funnily enough, is immune to EMP...

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

Two words

House

Fire

[Michael Hiles]

Of course the prints will still be viewable - archivable inkjets prints already have a guaranteed life of over 100 years. My father's 60 year old Agfa slides are not usable any more, however..

 

I have 60-70 year old kodachromes that are perfect. Ektachromes from the 1960s - not so much.

[wildlightphoto]

Very nice Doug, however when you scan a slide to compare to your electronic images you are actually compering it to a duplicated electronic image.

 

Try PROJECTING YOUR DMR (Electronic image) shots to the screen along side the Provia slide.

 

Projecting the photos doesn't meet my needs. I sell prints (made on RA4 photographic paper). I get much better prints from my slides (and negatives) by scanning them and printing digitally than I ever did either in my own darkroom or with custom darkroom prints. The control of color, contrast and tonality is several orders of magnitude greater with Photoshop than in the darkroom, and I can permanently remove dust & scratches too.

 

Printing digitally, I can make good prints of this photo despite 39 years' accumulation of dust & scratches:

 

and this photo, despite the intense blue lighting from the sky in the high Sierra:

 

The prints made from the DMR's files are as much better than prints from the scanned slides as the prints from scanned slides are from darkroom prints. I suggest that if the technical quality of your digital images fails to impress you, it's not because it's digital. There are much better digital cameras than the Canon G9 or 40D.

 

For archiving I send exact duplicate copies of my digital files (DMR and scanned film) to family members in various parts of the planet. I've never gotten an exact duplicate slide. If an EMP were to wipe out all copies of my digital files we'd have much bigger problems to worry about than my photos.

 

but when was the last time anyone dug up a Roman SD card...?

 

Photos were recovered from the SD cards of cameras that were inundated by the Indonesian tsunami several years ago.

[stephen.w]

Salgado still shoots on film. Film requires a discipline to capturing images which digital simply does not. I suspect that a disproportionate number of the iconic images of the 21st century will end up having been taken on film. Digital capture has it's place, but it must bear much of the blame for the amount of dross one finds on Flickr etc these days.

[aesop]

But I bet that you're discriminating about what you print, unlike way back when, where everything was printed. It's this "everything" that may actually be the most interesting stuff.

 

If all our grandchildren have to look forward to is a dead Facebook wall, we really have lost the plot. That could easily happen.

 

 

...I print the same way I have always done, Andy, from contact sheets to 5" X 7" right up to select fibre-based 20" X 30" prints - nothing in my regime has changed.

 

Agreed, there are no "convenience" shortcuts here, and it is not the cheapest option, but the discipline is the discipline. You get the pukka prints only if you put in the work. It is all about choice - and I own every flaw in my images.

 

I do not possess a digital camera, and whilst I will be the first to acknowledge its merits (primarily, convenience), I am also very clear on what it takes away. This technology, for what I do, is not for me - chaqun à son goût.

[aesop]

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Two words

House

Fire

 

...Jaap, your hardware is heat and flame resistant?

[erl]

...I print the same way I have always done, Andy, from contact sheets to 5" X 7" right up to select fibre-based 20" X 30" prints - nothing in my regime has changed.

 

Agreed, there are no "convenience" shortcuts here, and it is not the cheapest option, but the discipline is the discipline. You get the pukka prints only if you put in the work. It is all about choice - and I own every flaw in my images.

 

I do not possess a digital camera, and whilst I will be the first to acknowledge its merits (primarily, convenience), I am also very clear on what it takes away. This technology, for what I do, is not for me - chaqun à son goût.

 

Aesop, I accept and respect what you say and choose, but I am with Doug Herr on this one, again as a personal choice.

 

I have a fully functional darkoom set up for all colour and B&W processes that works brilliantly, But ,as Doug says, I can digitally output from either digi files from a camera, or a good scan of film to produce hardcopy prints that technically 'shame' my analog darkroom prints. I should add that I have vastly more experience in the darkroom than on the computer, but that does not give me the edge.

 

As usual it is "each to his own" - I am sure you will agree.

[jaapv]

...Jaap, your hardware is heat and flame resistant?

No - but the backup is in a professional backup facility, not at home

[chrism]

I have posted an interesting shot taken around 1882 of a batch of Great Western 7 foot gauge Locomotives,

Wonder if our Electronic images will still be viewable after 100 years.

 

LONG LIVE FILM.

 

Ken.

 

Swindon?

 

Chris

[pico]

Salgado still shoots on film.

 

Maybe a little, but he's going digital for work that involves air flight - which is most of his work.

[mooky]

I prefer film at the moment for long-term storage, and I shoot transparencies mostly, and quite frankly, I love a perfectly exposed, and composed trans'. When I worked in a college photo production department (pre-digital), where we had great equipment, the quality of the outflow was spectacular.

 

That's the most important thing to me, something as simple as a so-so enlarging lens will make so-so, or less than the highest quality prints. Scanning my trans' is the same thing, quality scans make or break an image file. Dark-room work is a higher degree of 'hands-on' and quality control of the 'neg' has to be immediate and so does the effort. It's less forgiving.

 

No digital M's for me yet - not that I wouldn't mind one, but the investment just isn't long-term enough for me. I'd consider an R solution from Leica - but otherwise it's the 'plastic and sometimes mildly fantastic digital for the film wasting casual images, and film for serious work.

[wildlightphoto]

Digital capture has it's place, but it must bear much of the blame for the amount of dross one finds on Flickr etc these days.

 

Flicker etc. have made the dross more visible. There's always been dross.

[theendlesshouse]

Salgado still shoots on film. Film requires a discipline to capturing images which digital simply does not. I suspect that a disproportionate number of the iconic images of the 21st century will end up having been taken on film. Digital capture has it's place, but it must bear much of the blame for the amount of dross one finds on Flickr etc these days.

 

I don't mean to be a pedant but Salgado shoots digital exclusively, he then edits as he would with film. Contact sheet, test prints, then the digital file is used to create a film negative; the final prints are made from these in a darkroom.

[pop]

Precisely.

 

Coins, yes, pottery, yes, but when was the last time anyone dug up a Roman SD card...?

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

That's not a problem. I find them monthly. At least, nobody has as yet proven that they're not SD cards. It's the decoding which is worrysome. What is MDCCLXIII in octal?

[wildlightphoto]

Salgado still shoots on film

 

Whether Salgado or any other famous person uses film or digital is immaterial. What matters to me is what works best for me.

[gib_robinson]

I agree, I know where my sympathies lie and am not anticipating any change in that. They are different mediums with their own nuances, followers and champions. Any debate is really pointless and serves only to confirm one's own opinion.

 

Regards

Charles

 

And we can expect to rehash this argument (or recook the spinach and brussels sprouts) for years to come as film continues to improve some and digital moves ahead by leaps and bounds (I imagine). Aren't we lucky.

[zlatkob]

Salgado still shoots on film..

 

Not according to this article last year: An Evening with Sebastião Salgado

 

"One of his friends suggested that he try digital, which at first he resisted. However, he did try a medium format 645 back and was quite impressed by the quality. Since the medium format back setup was a bit large, he eventually settled on the Canon full frame (1Ds-something?). However, he still uses it like in the film days: his assistant makes contact sheets for him, and his camera is modified to give the same 645 ratio he is used to. He also has the images processed to look like Tri-X. For prints, a lab converts the data into a 645 negative and prints using traditional darkroom process!"

 

See, digital is ok for Salgado, even with a Canon. But who knows — maybe he's using a Leica S2 now?

[SteveYork]

I've noticed that wildlife photographers mostly prefer the digital capture. And if I were shooting birds and bees, I would too. You want nature's beauty to come forth cleanly, and nothing else. You don't need anything else, because nature is so beautiful.

 

But my subjects are more murky -- they're people and the things people make. And for that, digital is too clinical (the stuff I've seen). Film has a smooth dreaminess that I prefer.

 

Of course, the qualification is that good pictures can be taken with either, no matter what the subject.

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Hallo,

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[SteveYork]

What I don't understand is why it is always framed as a "either/or" type of discussion.