Terrence Miele
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That really has nothing to do with the question
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A laugh out loud Ken Rockwell moment, and a serious question
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JohnnyLuddite
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Well, not particularly a KR fan, but allow me to find your "laugh out loud" risible in its own way.
It's common enough to want to dismiss alternative views that don't match your application or mindset, but sadly you may miss the perfectly reasonable and valid alternatives which you may not understand.
Naturally, I'm a old git, but I have channelled my inner accountant for some while, and in fact, film was what allowed me to continue my 35mm full-frame habit without breaking the bank - I was the ultimate film hold-out till 2018. The thing is, film has the merit of being essentially pay-as-you-go, whereas digital has very substantial fixed costs, mainly in terms of depreciation, but also, arguably, in the need for costly post-processing tools and time. But, digital costs are mainly invisible.
I can tell you that about 10% depreciation on digital - which until recently has started northwards of £2k GBP "because" Fx was pro, was way more than what I spent on film. Of course, you have to be selective in shooting, but that's not always a bad thing, and snapshots can be taken on a point-and-shoot digital or phone.
Of course, for someone who has top pro bodies, doubtless the shutter count would make film costs prohibitive - but that's your application. Personally, I'm made up to be able to use both - for instance, flash with film would be an exercise in frustration and wasted money.
A couple of other observations on your points:
Digital has more configuration options, allowing you, if you let it, to extract maximum detail/focus/DR at the downside of things getting far more technical and wading through manuals. Sometimes, you don't want to get too technical - I've resorted to doing a little checklist when shooting digital which I never used to. And, some of the tech is about things like highlight protection which requires a lot more attention in digital, whereas you can be a little lazy with film because of its latitude.
Finally, I like to please my (limited) audience; and for whatever reason, they often prefer the film idiom to the same image captured digitally. Not sure why, but they do. The customer is king, and I'm very happy using both.
It's common enough to want to dismiss alternative views that don't match your application or mindset, but sadly you may miss the perfectly reasonable and valid alternatives which you may not understand.
Naturally, I'm a old git, but I have channelled my inner accountant for some while, and in fact, film was what allowed me to continue my 35mm full-frame habit without breaking the bank - I was the ultimate film hold-out till 2018. The thing is, film has the merit of being essentially pay-as-you-go, whereas digital has very substantial fixed costs, mainly in terms of depreciation, but also, arguably, in the need for costly post-processing tools and time. But, digital costs are mainly invisible.
I can tell you that about 10% depreciation on digital - which until recently has started northwards of £2k GBP "because" Fx was pro, was way more than what I spent on film. Of course, you have to be selective in shooting, but that's not always a bad thing, and snapshots can be taken on a point-and-shoot digital or phone.
Of course, for someone who has top pro bodies, doubtless the shutter count would make film costs prohibitive - but that's your application. Personally, I'm made up to be able to use both - for instance, flash with film would be an exercise in frustration and wasted money.
A couple of other observations on your points:
Digital has more configuration options, allowing you, if you let it, to extract maximum detail/focus/DR at the downside of things getting far more technical and wading through manuals. Sometimes, you don't want to get too technical - I've resorted to doing a little checklist when shooting digital which I never used to. And, some of the tech is about things like highlight protection which requires a lot more attention in digital, whereas you can be a little lazy with film because of its latitude.
Finally, I like to please my (limited) audience; and for whatever reason, they often prefer the film idiom to the same image captured digitally. Not sure why, but they do. The customer is king, and I'm very happy using both.
I am Bowie
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Dennis - 2012! This might be a forum record.
T O Shooter
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JohnnyLuddite
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Dang! It got me good though...
Paddler213
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Agreed. It's relatively cheap to get into large format photography now. My D850 + Zeiss 25/1.4 Milvus was over $5K. My 4x5 costs about $7 per exposure, the gear is worth maybe $1500. One can shoot a lot of Velvia 100 for the difference, maybe over 500 sheets, and that would last the rest of my life.
bjn70
Veteran Member
If you were paying for film you wouldn't have made 60k exposures.
I don't know what the rest of the basis for this statement is. In 1981 I bought a Nikon FE and used it until I bought a D70s in about 2004. I don't remember what I paid for the FE body, or what that would be in today's dollars, but I would guess that today's bodies are much more sophisticated and the increased content has to imply a greater price today. Plus since I bought that D70s I've bought 4 other bodies. So one Nikon FE in 23 years vs. 5 Nikon DSLRs in 16 years, that's a big difference in expenditure.
Thom Hogan.
I used my EOS1 and EOS100 film bodies for 10 years from 1995 to 2005 along with a couple of canonnets. That was my sensible time. Plus an N90S bought and sold while working on cruiseships.
After that I went through a load of different digital cameras to arrive at the D700/D800/Sony A7 and Panasonic GM1 that I use today.
D700 for speed, D800 for everything else, A7 for manual focus lenses and GM1 for travel.
The GM1 was the last camera I bought in 2015 but I had to buy it again in 2017 as I lost the first one.
The D700/D800 I bought in 2013. The D800 was not supposed to happen and the D700 was supposed to be the last DSLR as it is good enough,
but I bought a Fuji XE1 that was a mistake really the only camera I never got on with. The XE1 was supposed to be for traveling and I bought it on reputation that Fuji JPEGs were so good and did not need PP. The JPEGs were great, the AF and Viewfinder I could not live with. I made a good deal to trade for the D800.
The D800 was great surprise I liked it more than the D700 for most things. I should have sold the D700 while it was still worth decent money but I kept it for when I needed a faster camera.
toomanycanons
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As someone else said, this might be a record
T O Shooter
Forum Pro
Guess again. 2008
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2379599
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2379599?page=2#forum-post-64303636
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A Canon G5 and a bit of Nikon gear.
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All cameras are so good nowadays, that the good stuff is kinda "given" or "expected". It is the limitations that get to you when you use them in real world situations. Windsurfer LA
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Robert Cohen
Senior Member
I have been photographing events such as bicycle rides, Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs, dog performance events, etc., which would have been impossible or at the least impractical with film. A couple of weekends ago I shot over 300 exposures at a dog rally obedience trial. (bobcohenphoto.com). Impossible if I’d been shooting film. Also impossible since I was shooting ISO 6400 so I could take pictures in an indoor venue at 1/250 or 1/500 to stop subject motion. I was never able to shoot film like that.
I’ve got several digital bodies, each of which has multiple tens of thousands of clicks. I found the switch to digital quite liberating.
Michael Firstlight
Veteran Member
I find both digital and film both extremely satisfying - you really cannot equate the two from an experience and craft perspective - so this debate, one that's been going on since DPR started. Yes, I am that old and have been on here since early 1999, is just another one of thousands of similar threads on the subject that were going on even back then.
There is no doubt for me that the experience of shooting, developing, and even analog printing film is a far more satisfying experience. It is a timeless craft that - to do extremely well - takes years to master. From a quality, simplicity, and cost at volume, film cannot touch digital. So, both camps are right.
I grew up on film and darkroom since the late 1960's. Today I shoot a Nikon D850 for digital, along with a Pentax 67II (6x7 medium format) and a Toyo 45AII (4x5) field camera for film. I also am in the very final stages of building what is likely my last - and best state-of-the-art wet darkroom.
As some have said already, you just do not shoot high numbers of frames when using film. It is a slow, deliberate, extremely mindful approach to photography. Not that digital-only shooters cannot do the very same - some do - but they are in the minority. People laugh when I tell them I shoot hundred frames when shooting a wedding, but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts I have more keepers than those that shoot thousands of frames. That comes as a result of having to carry around and shoot a pair of RB67's for years, which, by necessity, forces one to quickly learn what I'd call deeply intentional photography. When you have only 120 frames of roll film to shoot an entire wedding (alone) - you learned to 'see' very quickly. If I ended up with more than 10 unusable frames out of 10 rolls of 120 roll film, I considered it failure back then.
...and you don't take a 4x5 into the field and burn but a handful of frames, so everything from subject selection, lighting, composition, exposure etc. becomes extremely intentional - much like Ansel Adams had to do and did better than anyone in that era. Few have the kind of patience for that today. The downside of digital is that loss of patience and mindfulness for not all, but most as digital makes it too easy to be sloppy.
On the other side, I could never do with film what I can do with digital. When I began taking on jobs to create commercial indoor murals that were 10's of feet by 10's of feet that are viewed from only a few feet away, I needed to create multi-gigapixel stitched arrays. Try creating an image that is printed 12x30 feet at least 180ppi where you can see the detail of Bambi's eyelashes in the woods viewed from 5 feet - using film.
So those, like me that never left the film (and darkroom) world but added digital enjoy both worlds with great satisfaction using both. They are simply different experiences that cannot and should not ever be compared from an experience and satisfaction perspective.
MFL
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The one thing everyone can agree on is that film photography has its negatives. It even has its positives and internegatives.
There is no doubt for me that the experience of shooting, developing, and even analog printing film is a far more satisfying experience. It is a timeless craft that - to do extremely well - takes years to master. From a quality, simplicity, and cost at volume, film cannot touch digital. So, both camps are right.
I grew up on film and darkroom since the late 1960's. Today I shoot a Nikon D850 for digital, along with a Pentax 67II (6x7 medium format) and a Toyo 45AII (4x5) field camera for film. I also am in the very final stages of building what is likely my last - and best state-of-the-art wet darkroom.
As some have said already, you just do not shoot high numbers of frames when using film. It is a slow, deliberate, extremely mindful approach to photography. Not that digital-only shooters cannot do the very same - some do - but they are in the minority. People laugh when I tell them I shoot hundred frames when shooting a wedding, but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts I have more keepers than those that shoot thousands of frames. That comes as a result of having to carry around and shoot a pair of RB67's for years, which, by necessity, forces one to quickly learn what I'd call deeply intentional photography. When you have only 120 frames of roll film to shoot an entire wedding (alone) - you learned to 'see' very quickly. If I ended up with more than 10 unusable frames out of 10 rolls of 120 roll film, I considered it failure back then.
...and you don't take a 4x5 into the field and burn but a handful of frames, so everything from subject selection, lighting, composition, exposure etc. becomes extremely intentional - much like Ansel Adams had to do and did better than anyone in that era. Few have the kind of patience for that today. The downside of digital is that loss of patience and mindfulness for not all, but most as digital makes it too easy to be sloppy.
On the other side, I could never do with film what I can do with digital. When I began taking on jobs to create commercial indoor murals that were 10's of feet by 10's of feet that are viewed from only a few feet away, I needed to create multi-gigapixel stitched arrays. Try creating an image that is printed 12x30 feet at least 180ppi where you can see the detail of Bambi's eyelashes in the woods viewed from 5 feet - using film.
So those, like me that never left the film (and darkroom) world but added digital enjoy both worlds with great satisfaction using both. They are simply different experiences that cannot and should not ever be compared from an experience and satisfaction perspective.
MFL
--
The one thing everyone can agree on is that film photography has its negatives. It even has its positives and internegatives.
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Terrence Miele
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A lot of people are still using film a lot of people want to slow down and that's always an argument with me we have a problem now and the pro community people think all your pictures are free when like you said in reality you're paying for a certain amount of exposures on a sensor. Some of the new groups of art directors and photography directors seem to have lost sight of this. I remember when digital photography first came out you could actually charge a depreciation fee for your camera now it's considered Ludacris if you do that. A magazine doesn't have to spend $1,000 on film and processing anymore they can't ship in a hundred bucks for a depreciation fee.?
stevef1961
Senior Member
If you had a film camera you wouldn't be taking five hundred shots a day in a spray and pray fashion like you can with digital.
Of your 60k actuations, how many are contest level images? I'd guess probably the same number as they guy who shoots 2k photos from a film camera who really works at getting everything right beforehand.
In my case when I come home with 100 or 200 photos of a subject, I'd call it a great day if 7 were what I consider good enough to show. As in nice non-distracting background, nothing in the way of the subject, the eyes are right, exposure and focus are perfect, pose is just right.... if I'm shooting with film there'd be no spray and pray and maybe of 48 film shots I take there are still just a half-dozen that are keepers.
Maybe Ken isn't as far off as it sounds.
Of your 60k actuations, how many are contest level images? I'd guess probably the same number as they guy who shoots 2k photos from a film camera who really works at getting everything right beforehand.
In my case when I come home with 100 or 200 photos of a subject, I'd call it a great day if 7 were what I consider good enough to show. As in nice non-distracting background, nothing in the way of the subject, the eyes are right, exposure and focus are perfect, pose is just right.... if I'm shooting with film there'd be no spray and pray and maybe of 48 film shots I take there are still just a half-dozen that are keepers.
Maybe Ken isn't as far off as it sounds.
T
TheGrilledCheese
Guest
I shoot digital the same way I used to shoot film. I carefully consider every shot. I only take shots that matter. I pass on lesser opportunities. I don't want to shoot tens of thousands of images per year just because I can. Who has time for that? Nobody has time, ever, to look at so many photos. The vast majority, probably over 90%, of such shots end up taking storage space for no good reason.
I'd rather have hundreds of great photos per year than tens of thousands of mediocre ones.
I'd rather have hundreds of great photos per year than tens of thousands of mediocre ones.
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dave gaines
Veteran Member
Ken is right of course. Film is cheaper than digital.
When you add in the cost of a good computer and multiple back up devices, replacing hard drives or the entire computer when they fail, the software to edit your raw files, the upgrades to cameras - which cost a lot more than a good film camera ever did, upgrading lenses or changing lens systems when you change brands, which was true of film lenses too, but film lenses cost a lot less than today's current best lenses ($8000 for a Z 50 mm f/0.95 S !), a wired shutter release instead of a simple cable release, camera batteries, … the list goes on.
I recognized the costs of digital right away when I bought my first digital, an Olympus Camedia C8080 with a great fixed zoom lens.
If you shoot slides you can lower the cost of film development and still be able to view your photos. Just print the ones you like and save on printing. Of course, when they stopped making or developing Kodachrome, I started looking at digital.
Digital is a lot easier to work with, once you invest in all the peripheral$.
When you add in the cost of a good computer and multiple back up devices, replacing hard drives or the entire computer when they fail, the software to edit your raw files, the upgrades to cameras - which cost a lot more than a good film camera ever did, upgrading lenses or changing lens systems when you change brands, which was true of film lenses too, but film lenses cost a lot less than today's current best lenses ($8000 for a Z 50 mm f/0.95 S !), a wired shutter release instead of a simple cable release, camera batteries, … the list goes on.
I recognized the costs of digital right away when I bought my first digital, an Olympus Camedia C8080 with a great fixed zoom lens.
If you shoot slides you can lower the cost of film development and still be able to view your photos. Just print the ones you like and save on printing. Of course, when they stopped making or developing Kodachrome, I started looking at digital.
Digital is a lot easier to work with, once you invest in all the peripheral$.
Antal I Kozma
Senior Member
I do not know what is cheaper these days. The selection of transparencies, slides and films is not the same as it was back in my younger years. I would have to look it up how much material and equipment costs these days for film.
What I know is that photography was never inexpensive. Cameras, lenses and darkroom equipment was just as expensive in its prime days as good digital equipment and all the necessary things for the "digital darkroom".
I was in the business for a long time, commercial work, corporate work, even weddings. I had a complete darkroom, colour print processor up to 16" x 20", another processor for Cibachrome, B&W, etc. I used Nikons, Hasselblads and two Sinar 4x5 cameras, the P for studio and the F2 for field work. Then of course the studio, lighting equipment, stands, backgrounds etc. Yes, I earned my living with all these. However, the investment in equipment and the studio was very substantial.
Back then the old saying was that the professional photographer had a much bigger waste basket than the amateur had. We shot a lot more film, especially transparencies and slide film than amateurs did. Not for gunning like many folks do today but for insurance. The client needed the perfect shot, there was no "chimping" after each frame.
Yes, there was Polaroid to establish base settings but taking extra shots with bracketing was a common practice. Slide film was very demanding to get the exposure right so beside the know-how a professional possessed bracketing was a common practice. Then, you shot a backup series too. To meet deadlines slide and transparency film was usually couriered to a lab with which the photographer had a well established connection. The backup series wasn't processed before the first set was back for review.
So those were the "old days". Today we use the digital darkroom. Cameras of professional calibre and top quality lenses are just as expensive these days as they were in the film era. At least that is how I find it. We need a good desktop computer with top specs to work efficiently. A good suite of software is mandatory to have. Then we need a good laptop too for location work. A sophisticated RAID setup is also very much needed if one is serious about safekeeping and cataloguing the images. The digital darkroom is not complete without a professional quality wide carriage printer and a colour corrected workflow.
Of course everything revolves around one's standards. Are you a working photographer? Are you a skilled enthusiast who loves nature photography? Are you shooting for family keepsakes only? So the extent of how deep pocket is needed for photography varies wildly. My thinking is more along the lines of professional and advanced amateur work.
So I would say that film based and digital based photography can be equally costly. It is a matter of how deep someone is involved in the subject. There is no free lunch as the old saying goes. If one sets up a good wet darkroom and shoots film it can be costly. The same applies for digital if one sets up a "digital darkroom" as sophisticated as a top notch wet darkroom.
The mentality of film and digital is different though. With film one cannot get away without learning about photography in depth. On the other hand digital can be a booby trap for many who expect their equipment to do the know-how.
My apologies for being long winded.
Best to all, AIK
What I know is that photography was never inexpensive. Cameras, lenses and darkroom equipment was just as expensive in its prime days as good digital equipment and all the necessary things for the "digital darkroom".
I was in the business for a long time, commercial work, corporate work, even weddings. I had a complete darkroom, colour print processor up to 16" x 20", another processor for Cibachrome, B&W, etc. I used Nikons, Hasselblads and two Sinar 4x5 cameras, the P for studio and the F2 for field work. Then of course the studio, lighting equipment, stands, backgrounds etc. Yes, I earned my living with all these. However, the investment in equipment and the studio was very substantial.
Back then the old saying was that the professional photographer had a much bigger waste basket than the amateur had. We shot a lot more film, especially transparencies and slide film than amateurs did. Not for gunning like many folks do today but for insurance. The client needed the perfect shot, there was no "chimping" after each frame.
Yes, there was Polaroid to establish base settings but taking extra shots with bracketing was a common practice. Slide film was very demanding to get the exposure right so beside the know-how a professional possessed bracketing was a common practice. Then, you shot a backup series too. To meet deadlines slide and transparency film was usually couriered to a lab with which the photographer had a well established connection. The backup series wasn't processed before the first set was back for review.
So those were the "old days". Today we use the digital darkroom. Cameras of professional calibre and top quality lenses are just as expensive these days as they were in the film era. At least that is how I find it. We need a good desktop computer with top specs to work efficiently. A good suite of software is mandatory to have. Then we need a good laptop too for location work. A sophisticated RAID setup is also very much needed if one is serious about safekeeping and cataloguing the images. The digital darkroom is not complete without a professional quality wide carriage printer and a colour corrected workflow.
Of course everything revolves around one's standards. Are you a working photographer? Are you a skilled enthusiast who loves nature photography? Are you shooting for family keepsakes only? So the extent of how deep pocket is needed for photography varies wildly. My thinking is more along the lines of professional and advanced amateur work.
So I would say that film based and digital based photography can be equally costly. It is a matter of how deep someone is involved in the subject. There is no free lunch as the old saying goes. If one sets up a good wet darkroom and shoots film it can be costly. The same applies for digital if one sets up a "digital darkroom" as sophisticated as a top notch wet darkroom.
The mentality of film and digital is different though. With film one cannot get away without learning about photography in depth. On the other hand digital can be a booby trap for many who expect their equipment to do the know-how.
My apologies for being long winded.
Best to all, AIK
Digital images are not photographs. Prints are photographs. To get the correct comparative cost you would need to work out the print costs.
T
TheGrilledCheese
Guest
noun: photograph
- a picture made using a camera, in which an image is focused onto film or other light-sensitive material and then made visible and permanent by chemical treatment, or stored digitally.
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