It Seems That Every Photographer I talk To .....

is using Digital.

I met a fashon photographer at Samy's Camera on Sat.

He has a full set up of Canon top of the line equipment, including the 5d which he likes very much. Don't know this mans name but he talked about his over seas trips and his equipment and why he uses what he uses. he stated he has medium format, but rarely uses it, digi is so good.

The latest Photographer I spoke with was today at an outing I was at. He shoots lots of brochures, company reports, magazine stuff, etc, etc. He uses digital and film, the only thing where digi is lacking he says right now is DR (which I agree). We both said that within a VERY, VERY short time that will be solved, and for all practical purposes, it's over for film.

Although both people I talked to said it's really over now and you have mostly older school photographers using film, but even they are coming to the realization that digi is it........Period.

wll

I work for a publisher of illustrated books: I can tell you that probably 90% of the recent stuff submitted to us by photographers (serious pros) is digital; only a small minority work with medium format film and virtually none with 35mm film. When we commission new work the general assumption is that it will be digital. We have done art/museum catalogues, for example, perfectly well with digital files. When we use transparencies, it's usually archival material, or because a particular photographer has that preference, but it is more and more rare.

But this is quite recent: about three years ago we were working on a new edition of a guidebook we had produced for a major UK publisher: the suggestion that some pics might be digital was greeted with raised eyebrows, and we were asked to specify to the photographer that his camera should work on 'CMYK' - ho hum. Amazing, really. But we've just done a guidebook for another publisher based in the UK, and all the pics are digital, and there was never a suggestion that film would enter the equation.

I go to quite a lot of formal functions - I haven't seen a pro using film for ages.

So, for practical purposes in the world of publishing and journalism, film is (nearly) dead. But there will be film purists who claim otherwise ...

Tim

Tim,

Your statement about transparencies and them being used for archival material is exactly what I've been told.

You go to any big camera store today and you'll see high quality Nikon, Canon, etc film cameras for sale and they just sit there. Oh, they are great pieces of equipment and produce beautiful images ........ except the camera stores almost can't give them away. Nobody wants film cameras anymore (there are exceptions) ........ everyone is using digital.

As for medium format, I know of only one guy that is using film, but I'm sure he will change. The new digi cameras are just to good and are getting MUCH better quickly.

The other issue is time .... going to a lab, film processing, is the image the way you or your client wants it ?, if not do it again. It's all very easely done/changed in Photoshop.

wll

Digital will have to match the dynamic range if film before film goes away and it is far from being there right now.

Tom
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ennacac said:

Digital will have to match the dynamic range if film before film
goes away and it is far from being there right now.

Click to expand...

As in, what would be the use? As it is, any current DSLR's dynamic range is more than that of any kind of printing process (color or black and white), and more than any video display or projector.

What applications do you see for higher dynamic range than that?

As a separate point - technologically, it's not all that hard to implement sensors with nearly unlimited dynamic range. Why would they be needed?

The DR of digi in DSLR is as good or better than slide film, and will in short order be equal or better than neg film.

The digi manufactures know what they need to do and they are working on it, it won't take them to much longer (maybe the next generation), to get the DR to neg film specs, and then it's films end.

Yes there will still be some that use film, but in general, it's over.

The aps-c sensor is very capable of film quality images and will be one of the standards, the FF the other for 35mm sized digi cameras. The medium format digi will be for production, art, fashion, etc, but not limited to that. As a motter of fact all formats have there nitch and it's pointless to say one is better than another, it depends what your use is ........

Medium format film guys are still around, but they are changing also, FF digi for studio is just as good. Mamiya or Hassy with digi backs produce INCREDIBLE images, The FF Canon's are being used by guys that once used medium format.

This time next year, I feel film cameras will be bought for collector value, I may start now !!!!

wll

well, you can see many technological revolutions bring down stuff we are so used to. film has been around long enough to be phased out eventually while improvements have been made in digital format, though it is sad for generation grow up with film but it is also probably irreversible.

I agree, just like the 5 1/4 was replaced with the 3 1/2 floppy which was replaced with the zip which, etc, etc.

Who knows what lenses will look like 10 years from now, will cameras have built in hard drives for x amount of thousands of photos, will dynamic range and ISO be terms of the past as the new cameras will "see" better than the human eye, the possibilities are endless.

Film has given way to the newer tech, for better or worse, and things will keep on changing

wll

"The DR of digi in DSLR is as good or better than slide film, and will in short order be equal or better than neg film." NOT TRUE!

That may be true in the future, but it is not true today, which is why blown highlights are such a problem with digital cameras. The dynamic range of digital is much narrower than the DR in film and no one has figured out how to fix that problem without adding noise the the digital image.

An example:

when I shoot a wedding with both digital and film, the black of the groom and the white of the bride are too far apart DR wise for digital to capture fully, but my film camera always gets it right because of its wider DR.

Tom
--

ennacac said:

An example:

when I shoot a wedding with both digital and film, the black of the
groom and the white of the bride are too far apart DR wise for
digital to capture fully, but my film camera always gets it right
because of its wider DR.

Click to expand...

Perhaps the wedding scene will become the standard by which we judge when digital finally meets or surpasses film in capability.

Or, maybe when film is no longer available but wedding couples want nice shots, the standard of black tux and white gown will morph to dark grey suit and light grey wedding dress.!!! ;-)

JF.

At least with my Kodak 760. By the time you scan a chrome or negative you've lost the advantage of film! I find that there is much more tolerance to underexposing in digital. With Shadow/Highlight in Photoshop CS2 in can just about bring back anything. Went from 8 x 10 to 4 x 5 to 6 x 6cm and now to 35mm. Practically none of my clients require files bigger then 8.5 x 11 inches at 300 !

With digi now the dynamic range is still not as good as neg film.

With medium format on the high end backs it is much better I have heard (~ 12 Stops). This was from a huge pro shop in LA.

In a couple of years (if it takes that long) digital (APS-C and FF) will be equal to or better than neg film as far as DR is concerned.

wll

about a sensor with 16 stops of dynamic range. This technology is applicable to any size sensor, even camera-phone.

Here's the link:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0512/05121201new_chips.asp

The only reason current sensors' dynamic range is limited is the way they built - they stop gathering light after the electron well is saturated. If they have an ability to reset the well and continue light gathering, or use in-pixel A/D conversion like "sigma-delta" (see the article), that limit is removed. There is no physical limit on sensors' dynamic range, aside from the number of stored bits and the lens' properties.

Boris

Thank you for the info, I did not know that !!

wll