I've given up film.

I have been a serious amateur for 20 years. I had a lot of high-end Canon and Nikon SLRs. I also owned several very nice P&S such as the Olympus XA, XA2, Nikon Zoomtouch 800 and Konica A4. Many times I left my SLRs home and took my Zoomtouch 800. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Zoomtouch 800, it was a $450 super heavy duty P&S with a 35-105 zoom. It took unbelieveable pictures. Unfortunately, it broke. It's pictures were so good that I sold off my Nikon N90.

With the 990 I have gone filmless. The advantages of digital are many including: ease of storage and retrieval, immediate gratification, ability to send pictures via email, and the ability to maintain multiple backup copies of your "negative." Viewing them in a slide show mode on the computer is great. Plugging the cable into your TV and showing people the pictures immediately is also great.

I would really love to purchase a F100, or maybe another N90, but I'm not really sure that I want to deal with the bulk again. Plus, in most cases I just can't tell the difference between 100 asa 35 mm and the 990 images. All of the pictures are eventually going to go into my computer anyway, so why not eliminate the middlemen -- film and scanners?

How about the rest of you? Are there any compelling reasons to use film? If so, when do you choose?

Thanks.

Ken -

Totally agree, it has got to the point that 35mm or conventional cameras are struggling to keep up the interest, at least in the amateur field. To be honest, digis are still a way behind conventional film in the top category. I've used all my life either Rolleiflex twin-lens, Pentax medium-format 6x4.5 and still have a great Hasselblad 2000 with magnificent 110mm f2 lens - try and beat THAT in digi! - but the latest digis are very fast getting there as for so much of the time in ordinary hands with ordinary people the quality AND the instant results (plus no wait and process costs) is overpowering.

I still have my Coolpix 950 which has been so satisfactory in every respect. The macro on this (same I suppose on the 990) is fabulous and I've taken more shots with more pleasure in the last 6 months than with my (still owned) Nikon F90X for two years before.

My latest acquisition two days ago is a Sony F505 - still think this worthwhile buy at the discounted price I got it compared to the 505V (not released here in UK yet until about July I'm told). The Zeiss lens on the Sony attracted me with the previous years background with Zeiss including Leicas - it hasn't disappointed so far on the Sony although not yet had time to put it through it's paces much. For macro on the Sony you MUST remember to put the lens in wide-angle (or near) but doing so it really does give results I think as good as the accepted quality of the 950/990 in macro. Of course the Coolpix scores in getting to 0.8 inches !
However, again I do agree, digi is here to stay now, no doubt.

Ken said:

I have been a serious amateur for 20 years. I had a lot of high-end
Canon and Nikon SLRs. I also owned several very nice P&S such as the
Olympus XA, XA2, Nikon Zoomtouch 800 and Konica A4. Many times I left my
SLRs home and took my Zoomtouch 800. For those of you who are unfamiliar
with the Zoomtouch 800, it was a $450 super heavy duty P&S with a 35-105
zoom. It took unbelieveable pictures. Unfortunately, it broke. It's
pictures were so good that I sold off my Nikon N90.

With the 990 I have gone filmless. The advantages of digital are many
including: ease of storage and retrieval, immediate gratification,
ability to send pictures via email, and the ability to maintain multiple
backup copies of your "negative." Viewing them in a slide show mode on
the computer is great. Plugging the cable into your TV and showing
people the pictures immediately is also great.

I would really love to purchase a F100, or maybe another N90, but I'm not
really sure that I want to deal with the bulk again. Plus, in most cases
I just can't tell the difference between 100 asa 35 mm and the 990
images. All of the pictures are eventually going to go into my computer
anyway, so why not eliminate the middlemen -- film and scanners?

How about the rest of you? Are there any compelling reasons to use film?
If so, when do you choose?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

The big winners in the digital/film debate are the photographers.
Digital takes nothing away from those who prefer film and it gives
all of us many more interesting ways of achieving creative results.
No matter what the brand of the device, the freedom from imaging
systems that are color temperature sensitive, dust prone, scratch
acquiring, fade-able, imperfectly duplicateable, foldable, bendable
and dropable is significant.

Look through any magazine and see how many images are reproduced
1/3 or 2/3 of the dimensions of a page. Every last one of those shots
would look just about as good from a digital camera as it would from film.

A friend saw my collection of 2000 shots made during a recent vacation
(well, a few of them anyhow) and lamented that the last time he did
the big photo vacation the film cost more than the rest of the trip.

My cost: $0.00.

-iNova

Peter iNova hit on something that strikes very close to home with myself. The cost of film and the developing of it. Going a step further with this though, is the ease of getting my photo's after photographing a subject. I live in a rural area. We have no 1 hour developers and the nearest ones are 25 miles away. There are the mail order systems, but you are talking a week or more here. Taking a photograph and producing it on a printer within just a few minutes is great. If we were giving up photo quality we would need to each weight the tradeoff. With the 990 camera and Epson 1270 printer, I have yet to find any tradeoffs. I have been into photographer for years, but with digital giving instant results I have learn more about good photography in the few weeks of the 990 use than I thought possible. This forum, although there have been some rude and misguided answers, has be a big help for those of us just starting in the digital realm. Even though I own several 35mm and 2 1/4 cameras, I also see an end to film coming. I don't think it is there yet, but very soon.

Bob P.

Bob P. said:

...If we were giving up photo quality we would need to each weight the tradeoff. With the 990 camera and Epson 1270 printer, I have yet to find any tradeoffs.

Click to expand...

Bob,

The thing is, not all the trade-offs are strictly numerical and objective, yet all too many people present their emotional attachments to their own decison as if it were the solemn verdict of the Vulcan Council of Logic Chopping.

I love the almost instant feedback of the 990 I hate the time delays of the 990, especially out in the street.

I love being able to pop the card into the reader and seeing what I've got in detail, in seconds. I hate the idea that there aren't going to be boxes of old prints and negatives to discovered in attics in future generations.

I love being able to tailor resolution to the project at hand. I hate not being able to read the book titles in the background later on.

I love being able to toss a sheet of slides on a light box to compare and select. I hate the dust spots.

Shall I go on? Nah, none of us should waste time and energy on this when we should be dealing with images.

Will

Will,
Your post was most thoughtfull, hope you will appreciate a few comments.

Member said:

The thing is, not all the trade-offs are strictly numerical and
objective, yet all too many people present their emotional attachments to
their own decison as if it were the solemn verdict of the Vulcan Council
of Logic Chopping.

I love the almost instant feedback of the 990 I hate the time delays of
the 990, especially out in the street.

Click to expand...

Amen to this, as fast as the 990 is I have missed several shots that I would have gotten with a conventional film camera that I could just grab and shoot. " Seconds seem like hours when you're waiting for boot up"

Member said:

I love being able to pop the card into the reader and seeing what I've
got in detail, in seconds. I hate the idea that there aren't going to be
boxes of old prints and negatives to discovered in attics in future
generations.

Click to expand...

This too has perplexed me. My only solution to this point is that I burn backup copies on CD of images. Then I send them to freinds and relatives. Helps spread around the loss factor.

Also have made extensive use of Ofoto prints so there is a spread of some hard copies.

Member said:

I love being able to tailor resolution to the project at hand. I hate
not being able to read the book titles in the background later on.

Click to expand...

I always use the highest resolution, you just never seem to know when you might want to crop in on a picture.

Member said:

I love being able to toss a sheet of slides on a light box to compare
and select. I hate the dust spots.

Shall I go on? Nah, none of us should waste time and energy on this when
we should be dealing with images.

Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with taking a moment to think about what and why we are doing. I have lived with film strips of negatives and slides my whole life. In one short year I have taken countless thousands of images and all of them digital. Lots of fun and seems so good.

Are we doing the right thing?

Bill

Ken, the last trip I went on, I returned with 20 rolls of film, droppped the film at the lab, picked up the prints and bill, then asked myself "why am I doing this?" So, I sold off all my Nikon optical gear, and plan to get a 990 soon. Digital is a much more flexible setup--I can easily post my photos online, work on them in Photoshop, and print them myself...giving myself more control while saving time and money in the process.

I still have a film dive camera, but for the rest it's going to be digital.

Curt

And started on an endless journey!

Enjoy!

Sold my whole Canon setup.. 2 lenses, flash, body.. Bought a 990. I've taken over 800 images in 2 1/2 weeks.

That's 34 rolls of 24 exposure film - At about $5 / roll for moderate print film, and $10/roll to have it printed at a moderately decent facility, that would be $500 in 2.5 weeks..

I don't claim to be the best photographer in the world. But I can get more practice for less money, and hopefully improve my skill much faster than if I were paying per print.

Mike K

I work for the Idaho State Police and since our purchase of a Canon Powershot Pro-70 about a year ago, I have not put a single roll of film in my old 35mm Pentax ME Super. I figure I've shot over 4,000 images with the Canon now. We have a complete library of images of all of our employees, I routinely shoot awards presentations and other ceremonies, have covered press conferences, cadet graduation ceremonies, and produced many shots of general police work for our annual report. (Our first digicam was a Sony DKC-ID1 - under 1 MP, but I sure miss that 14x zoom!)

When I am able to produce prints an hour (or less) after a function, I am a "hero" in the eyes of the non-digitally enlightened. I also can archive all my shots on CD and share them or at least quickly find them. No more digging through a drawer of negatives and then going to the local photo lab because someone wants a reprint.

I've also made some great photo montages of events and printed them up to 11x17 on our HP 1120c inkjet printer. Almost instant posters! The advantages of digital are too numerous to even count.

Now... all that being said... I suppose if I had to produce a full-page glossy magazine cover I might still shoot a roll of film, but that happens very rarely. Nope... I've gone digital and haven't looked back since.

Rick Ohnsman
Public Information Officer
Idaho State Police

Ken said:

I have been a serious amateur for 20 years. I had a lot of high-end
Canon and Nikon SLRs. I also owned several very nice P&S such as the
Olympus XA, XA2, Nikon Zoomtouch 800 and Konica A4. Many times I left my
SLRs home and took my Zoomtouch 800. For those of you who are unfamiliar
with the Zoomtouch 800, it was a $450 super heavy duty P&S with a 35-105
zoom. It took unbelieveable pictures. Unfortunately, it broke. It's
pictures were so good that I sold off my Nikon N90.

With the 990 I have gone filmless. The advantages of digital are many
including: ease of storage and retrieval, immediate gratification,
ability to send pictures via email, and the ability to maintain multiple
backup copies of your "negative." Viewing them in a slide show mode on
the computer is great. Plugging the cable into your TV and showing
people the pictures immediately is also great.

I would really love to purchase a F100, or maybe another N90, but I'm not
really sure that I want to deal with the bulk again. Plus, in most cases
I just can't tell the difference between 100 asa 35 mm and the 990
images. All of the pictures are eventually going to go into my computer
anyway, so why not eliminate the middlemen -- film and scanners?

How about the rest of you? Are there any compelling reasons to use film?
If so, when do you choose?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Ken said:

I have been a serious amateur for 20 years. I had a lot of high-end
Canon and Nikon SLRs. I also owned several very nice P&S such as the
Olympus XA, XA2, Nikon Zoomtouch 800 and Konica A4. Many times I left my
SLRs home and took my Zoomtouch 800. For those of you who are unfamiliar
with the Zoomtouch 800, it was a $450 super heavy duty P&S with a 35-105
zoom. It took unbelieveable pictures. Unfortunately, it broke. It's
pictures were so good that I sold off my Nikon N90.

With the 990 I have gone filmless. The advantages of digital are many
including: ease of storage and retrieval, immediate gratification,
ability to send pictures via email, and the ability to maintain multiple
backup copies of your "negative." Viewing them in a slide show mode on
the computer is great. Plugging the cable into your TV and showing
people the pictures immediately is also great.

I would really love to purchase a F100, or maybe another N90, but I'm not
really sure that I want to deal with the bulk again. Plus, in most cases
I just can't tell the difference between 100 asa 35 mm and the 990
images. All of the pictures are eventually going to go into my computer
anyway, so why not eliminate the middlemen -- film and scanners?

How about the rest of you? Are there any compelling reasons to use film?
If so, when do you choose?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

For me, having shot film for 22 years, still have 4 SLR bodies & 8 lens. The film quality, especially the slide, is far superior than present prosumer digital camera if the films are properly exposed, developed & printed. I'm currently using Nikon 950 & quite amazed by its output from my Epson 750 inject printer. That does not mean its good enough to equal film or surpass it, actually the resolution is still so & so at 8x10, you can see some jaggy edge, you can see poor gradation in darker area. For some average scene where there is not much very dark or very bright area, the print quality could be very good. I'm amazed by the convenience, acceptable resolution & colour rendering, very low cost until you print them, easy to manipulate & distribute through network, embedding in electronic media etc. I'm using digicam more & more but I still keep my F90X & LS2000 film scanner just for the better colour & resolution they yield. What upsad me is the poor quality control of current photo lab, they often return poor prints, so I shoot slide often & scan them using my LS2000, but this is quite inconvenient & expensive. My opinion is I'll use film as well as digital camera for different requirement. If I shoot wedding, I'm sure I'll use film as the main media & digital to record some interesting moment during the event. For daily life & some business recording, I use digtal camera very often. I'm sure when I shoot sport, my 950 never beat the work of my F90X. When I want some product or object shot to be included in presentation document or PowerPoint show, the 950 is definitely the better choice, its macro ability without any add-on lens is a bonus, no more waiting for film processing & scanning.

My conclusion is, digital film is quite good, though not as good as film at present, has its great value in cost, convenience, flexibility etc. To me, when the 6MP digital SLR becomes affordable, its the time to abandon my film camera.

Francis C.F.P.

Me too, Ken.

With my Epson 1270 printer I can definitely tell the difference between an image from my 990 printed at 11 x 17" and one off a photo CD taken with my 35mm Canon AOS -- without a doubt the 990 image is better in every regard.

The 1270 images are much better than any film enlargement I've ever seen. Perhaps at even larger sizes (Super B, perhaps) a disadvantage will show. But as you yourself have noted, since I'm going to digital anyway there is nothing better than to start with the image in digital.

The only downside I can see is the range -- without a doubt film has far greater range -- but this is an absolute zero factor since I'm doing a digital darkroom (at some point in the process I'll have to give up film's range anyway -- I just choose to give it up up front, where I can control more of what I give up).

As I said elsewhere, I'll never expose another frame of film in my life. The 1270/990 combination did for me in stills what a videocamera did for me with movies (does anyone around here expose any Super8/8mm film anymore?)

Bill said:

...[amonst other good things]

Click to expand...

Member said:

Nothing wrong with taking a moment to think about what and why we are
doing. I have lived with film strips of negatives and slides my whole
life. In one short year I have taken countless thousands of images and
all of them digital. Lots of fun and seems so good.

Are we doing the right thing?

Click to expand...

Bill,

(Since this thread is still alive, I can't resist...)

For practically all commercial photograpy where time is money and so are materials, it's the inevitable thing.

For art or just the fun of it? People are still using oil paints and charcoal so I expect film to be around for some time. It's gonna be a little difficult to roll your own Ektachrome or Velvia in the basement tho', after Kodak and Fuji merge and morph their business into an internet-based dating service.

Not having old boxes of prints and slides to discover in Great-uncle Fester's attic will be a loss of a delight, but not the defining moment in the collapse of civilization such as the release of a sequel to Battlefield Earth would be.

I'm far from being a Luddite; as soon as Canon comes out with a digital EOS body that mounts the glass I already have, operates quickly, and has at least the image quality of the 990, all for a reasonable (to me) price, I'll be very happy to get the instant feedback only a digital can provide.

For street shooting? I dunno. If the other delays besides the AF could be cut down some and the battery life extended, I'd go for a Leica M mount rangefinder digital.

TBH, what's really annoying to me is my not being able to live long enough to see how lots of these just dealt hands play out. Remember paper-tape readers?

Will

Regarding "range", I assume you mean contrast range. I use a Nikon D1 and it has much greater contrast range than film--several stops more. This was painfully obvious when I got some 6 X 7 Ektachromes back, after not having shot film for six months. Pictures the D1 would have easily held in range were too contrasty for film.

One of these days I'll do a side-by-side, but the difference looks obvious to me. I've asked two pro photographers they're opinion, and they say color film can record detail for only slightly more than 4 stops, whereas the D1 in theory can do 12 stops (12 bits--a bit is a stop). In practise I'm sure it's less, but it's not a measly 4.

Mike Kelley said:

Me too, Ken.

With my Epson 1270 printer I can definitely tell the difference between
an image from my 990 printed at 11 x 17" and one off a photo CD taken
with my 35mm Canon AOS -- without a doubt the 990 image is better in
every regard.

The 1270 images are much better than any film enlargement I've ever seen.
Perhaps at even larger sizes (Super B, perhaps) a disadvantage will show.
But as you yourself have noted, since I'm going to digital anyway there
is nothing better than to start with the image in digital.

The only downside I can see is the range -- without a doubt film has far
greater range -- but this is an absolute zero factor since I'm doing a
digital darkroom (at some point in the process I'll have to give up
film's range anyway -- I just choose to give it up up front, where I can
control more of what I give up).

As I said elsewhere, I'll never expose another frame of film in my life.
The 1270/990 combination did for me in stills what a videocamera did for
me with movies (does anyone around here expose any Super8/8mm film
anymore?)

Click to expand...

The speed thing is an issue. I've owned several Kodak, Olympus, Canon, and Casio models over the past few years, and I have missed many a shot waiting for the darned thing to turn on and/or focus. I just broke down and purchased a D1, and this is no longer a concern. The camera is FAST!

The best thing about the digital cameras is the ability to try goofy creative stuff without worrying about "Barbie" at the local photo lab trying to figure out what the hell I was thinking and then compensating for it during processing. I can shoot goofy stuff and experiment to my heart's content and then manipulate it Photoshop. If the data's there at all, Photoshop will help me get it looking acceptable.

The only thing I miss about film, is that cool smell when you open a new roll. Maybe the digicam manufacturers could impregnate CF cards with film smell. I'd be in
heaven!

-----------
-MattTheHat

Ken said:

I have been a serious amateur for 20 years. I had a lot of high-end
Canon and Nikon SLRs. I also owned several very nice P&S such as the
Olympus XA, XA2, Nikon Zoomtouch 800 and Konica A4. Many times I left my
SLRs home and took my Zoomtouch 800. For those of you who are unfamiliar
with the Zoomtouch 800, it was a $450 super heavy duty P&S with a 35-105
zoom. It took unbelieveable pictures. Unfortunately, it broke. It's
pictures were so good that I sold off my Nikon N90.

With the 990 I have gone filmless. The advantages of digital are many
including: ease of storage and retrieval, immediate gratification,
ability to send pictures via email, and the ability to maintain multiple
backup copies of your "negative." Viewing them in a slide show mode on
the computer is great. Plugging the cable into your TV and showing
people the pictures immediately is also great.

I would really love to purchase a F100, or maybe another N90, but I'm not
really sure that I want to deal with the bulk again. Plus, in most cases
I just can't tell the difference between 100 asa 35 mm and the 990
images. All of the pictures are eventually going to go into my computer
anyway, so why not eliminate the middlemen -- film and scanners?

How about the rest of you? Are there any compelling reasons to use film?
If so, when do you choose?

Thanks.

Click to expand...