This Film vs. Digital - a resolution?

[NZDavid]

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... and on it goes! With slide film at least, one advantage is simplicity: It's a first generation product. But unfortunately film, as much as I love it, is becoming prohibitively expensive. And just like digital, every film has its own nuances. It's a bit like asking how can you make a cucumber more like a fruit. Obviously a very important question!

 

Advice just to create the look you want in PP -- that's what it's there for -- assumes you have the time and the inclination to spend hours staring into a screen and fiddling with complex software. We all have to be computer programmers these days, it seems! Sometimes, though, it really does make all the difference. I just don't want to spend ages doing it.

 

I have just been comparing a RAW and a JPG version of a portrait shot with the X1. Actually, the JPG is very good, but I then adjusted the RAW version in Lightroom and the result is a lot brighter looking. More film like? Can't say, my wife preferred it though.

 

Bottom line for me, it's about creating the most pleasing pictures, with minimum hassle.

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[wildlightphoto]

I have just been comparing a RAW and a JPG version of a portrait shot with the X1. Actually, the JPG is very good, but I then adjusted the RAW version in Lightroom and the result is a lot brighter looking. More film like? Can't say, my wife preferred it though.

 

Film-like isn't the goal. Preferred is.

[menos I M6]

What keeps me from digital is just money. I need at least two bodies and would never buy a used digi.

So two M9 cameras are a lot of money. Plus a better computer, screen, hard drives, upgrading all that

every here and then when industry has decided it´s time for a new standart so customers or slaves

have to buy new as well. Plus that never ending doubts whether I can still see my shots in

30 years time like I can definitely do with my slides. I don´t want to become a slave of computer industry.

I will use film for as long as it is there, no matter how expensive it will be. Those thinking digi is cheaper

are wrong, in the end it´s more expensive as you can´t change sensor as you could and can do with film

using cameras. I´m just coming back from a 6 week trip which was a camera test trip at the same time

using a completely self restored set of an M2 and M3 camera plus 6 lenses accompanied by an at

least 40 years old lightmeter. An equipment using no batteries at all. Simply perfect, easy to use,

no worries about how long batteries will last and all that. Had my films developed, looking at the slides,

some stay some will go, easy, end of story.

I can buy a lot of film for the price of two M9 bodies, and if there will ever be an M10 many M9 users

will have headaches, oh my god, now I´ve got to buy that new one, like all those NICAN users alredy

do and will then realise how little money the get for their 3,or five year old camera.

My world is partly ruled by electronics as well, no way I could avoid that. But wherever I can I will do so!

 

have fun

 

Jo

 

Wrong.

 

My M8.2 has now about 30.000 shots done.

I bought it second hand (don't know, what is wrong in buying a second hand digital Leica).

 

If I calculate the cost for one roll of Tri-X + 2EUR developing (dev in Shanghai is very affordable, don't start calculating with German lab prices), I easily depreciated my M8.2 just in film and development costs.

 

Not all of the ~ 20.000 shots, I did in a year with this camera are keepers, as not all of them would be, if I shot them on film.

I also shoot film parallel to the M8.2 - always carry two bodies, one of them mostly loaded with TX400 @3200.

 

The fear of digital files turning to undecipherable garble in 30 years is a nice way of keep telling yourself a good excuse, to fear digital.

 

If I take into account my expensive 3 year old MacBook Pro, I have depreciated the camera AND the notebook about next year.

Costs for hard drives, cards, etc are easily out weighted by the expenses, one has for archiving film, not to talk about the needed shelf space.

 

I like/love digital and film equal and any discussion about one or the other being better is ridiculous in my opinion.

 

Above calculation comes not form a spray and prey shooter. I do not machine gun the camera and very seldom take two shots of the same subject.

[spydrxx]

I had to smile when reading the OP's original statement. It made me think of the colloquial expression that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. I use both digital and film, having spent a lot of formative time in a darkroom as a youngster, and can't say that I have a preference....each medium is different. As much as I really want to spend most of my time with film, the digital is insiduously creeping in as a replacement. Can I imitate the "film look" in digital...mostly yes. Can I get the "digital look" with film...sometimes. Do I really care....not often...my main concern is the finished product...not the medium used to get there.