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Photo Forum / Photo Technique / Nature Photography / December 2005"Nature's Best" contest and film vs digital
Eight years ago or so a friend and I were disagreeing about how many top nature photographers used Nikon vs Canon and how many used Fuji film (especially Velvia) compared to Kodak. I thought Canon was close to Nikon but Fuji was preferred over Kodak by a wide margin, say 70-80%. So we dug out copies of the BBC/Mobil Gas Wildlife Photographer of the Year book and "Nature's Best" magazine's annual fall contest issue and categorized the winning entries. (I was wrong about Canon, Nikon was ahead by about 60-40 ... he was wrong about Kodak since typically 75-90% of the winners were shot on Fuji film back then, almost all on Velvia). Five years ago in 2000 "Nature's Best" winners preferred Nikon over Canon by 56% to 39% (32 - 22, Oly, Pentax and Minolta each had one winning entry) and Fuji beat Kodak by 77% - 21% (31 or 50% used Velvia, next most popular film was Sensia with 10 users). Now that digital is making deep inroads into film's popularity I found it interesting to check the numbers again, using "Nature's Best" (the 2005 Fall issue with the winning entries is on newsstands now). I wanted to see how quickly digital is "catching on" among the better amateur and pro nature photographers who win these contests. 2004 was the first time I saw a lot of digital winners in NB. There were 28 digital winners, 17 using Canon (10D with 10 was most popular, including one by regular NG contributor Roger Clark), 10 from Nikon (six with the D100), one with a Kodak. In 2004 film still ruled, with 94 winning entries. Nikon was most popular (45 winners), then Canon (33), with the rest of the film winners using 4x5" view cameras, medium format or the slower selling 35 mm brands (one each for Minolta and Pentax for example). So digital had 23% of the winning entries in 2004. Fuji was still whipping Kodak's butt in 2004, 73-20 (the numbers for film type and cameras don't always add up because some people don't report the film type) or 78% - 22%. Velvia was still the most widely used film with 33 winners but the good 100 speed films were chipping away, with Provia 100F (18), Sensia (14) and even Kodak's E-100 VS (10) doing well. In the 2005 "Nature's Best" contest digital almost caught 35 mm film for the first time. No surprise there I guess, but how it was done was surprising, to me at least. Film was used by 59 winners, 49 using 35 mm, four using medium format (2 Pentax 6x7, two using Pentax 645), six using Toyo 4x5" view cameras. Digital was used by 46 winners, so comparing just 35 mm to digital it was pretty close, 49 - 46 in favor of film. Fuji was still the most popular film brand by 77% - 23% (41 - 12 with several not reporting). Velvia was used by 57% of the winners (30 users), Kodak E-100 VS was next with 7, Provia 100F next with 6. Why Sensia dropped so fast is a good question (only 3 users this year). For 35 mm film Nikon increased its lead over Canon, used by 36 of the 49 winners using 35 mm (Canon had 12, Pentax 1). So Nikon is now winning the 35 mm film battle by 3-1 over Canon. Who knew? But with digital it's flipped ... Canon was used by 32 winners (70% of all digital winning entries), Nikon by just 6 (why the drop from 2004?), then Fuji S2 with 3 (uses Nikon lenses though), and one each for the Oly 4/3 (E-20), Minolta, Sony, Kodak and a Hasselblad with an Imacon back. The most popular digital bodies were the Canon 1D Mark II and Canon 10D (8 entries each), then the $8,000 (initially) Canon 1Ds and $995 Canon Rebel (five each), then the D60 (3) and 20D (2). So the most popular class of digital bodies is the Canon 6 Mpixel (17) ... entries had to be submitted by March 2005 so newer bodies like the 20D and 1Ds M II and D2x take a while to show up in numbers. The most popular Nikons were the D100 and D2h with 2 entries each (unless you count the Fuji S2 as Nikon since it uses a Nikon mount ... 3 people used it). The D2x is a camera I'm seeing in the field a LOT right now but it came out a bit late to make the 2005 entry date and only one entry used it. Basically Nikon is doing great with 35 mm film (or Canon users are abandoning it faster than Nikon users :) but Canon is doing a lot better than I expected with digital entries. I'm surprised at this a bit since the Nikon D70 is competitive with the Canon 6 Mpixel bodies (no D70 entries won, for some reason). Velvia still rules the film realm by a wide margin, but Fuji has discontinued it this year so it will be interesting to see if the replacement Velvia 100 becomes as popular. Some predictions ... digital will pass film in number of winning entries next year and by 2010 digital will "win" by say 80-20 or a bit more ... Nikon will do better in digital next year because of the D2x ... I predict the most popular models next year will be the Canon 1D Mark II (I see dozens of these at the places I shoot), Canon 20D and Nikon D2x. But I could be wrong :) Bill > Eight years ago or so a friend and I were disagreeing about how many > top nature photographers used Nikon vs Canon and how many used Fuji [quoted text clipped - 86 lines] > > Bill Bill, Nice study, thanks for all the hard work. A couple of notes: Velvia 100: I've compared it to velvia 50 this fall and i really like the new 100 (for readers new to velvia--there is also a 100F which I do not like and is not at all like old velvia). I like the colors better on the new velvia 100 (e.g. better blue skies, better yellows in aspens). I am only doing film in 4x5. My 2004 NB entry was on a D60, not a 10D. (And none of my 1D Mark II entries won in 2005--bummer). Roger On the subject of camera types in use, this morning at Bosque Del Apache, National Wildlife Refuge, sunrise, the camera count was: 47 digital cameras, 4 film (the 4 film was with 3 people, one person had two). I didn't count the total people, but many people had two high-end digital cameras. Everyone was photographing sandhill cranes at the pond I was at. Roger Interesting info Bill I'm sure I will make the switch, not sure when but with the price of film and processing its pretty easy to figure. the biggest plus I think will be seeing what you just shot while your still there. I bought Nikon because all the lenses work on all the bodies, I can upgrade bodies and keep my lenses, just too much tied up in Nikon to change now. does Cannon still change mounts ? laters Gary > On the subject of camera types in use, this morning at Bosque Del Apache, > National Wildlife Refuge, sunrise, the camera count was: 47 digital [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Roger > Gary wrote ... > > I bought Nikon because all the lenses work on all the bodies, I can > upgrade bodies and keep my lenses, just too much tied up in Nikon > to change now. does Cannon still change mounts ? Hi Gary, Canon changed from FD to the EF (EOS body) mounts in, I think, 1987 and hasn't changed anything since. The only semi-exception is a couple of EF-S lenses that mount on certain digital cameras but not the rest of their line. Otherwise all the lenses and accessories work fine on both digital and film bodies. Nikon has definitely done a better job with backward compatibility, but I still see a number of high end pros switching from Nikon to Canon, especially guys into digital or long telephotos, and I don't know any big name nature photographers who switched from Canon to Nikon the past 10 years or so. Canon has a broader digital line with five dSLR flavors, including three professional-class, and having IS in the 400 f/2.8, 500 f/4 and 600 f/4 lenses gives them a big advantage over Nikon, which hasn't migrated the VR technology up to those focal lengths yet. A few big names who've switched from Nikon to Canon in recent years are Art Wolfe, Jim Brandenburg, Leonard Lee Rue, Joe and Mary Ann McDonald, Tom Vezo (bird photographer), Erwin and Peggy Bauer, Ralph Hopkins, Linde Waidhofer etc ... >I'm sure I will make the switch, not sure when If I were shooting Nikon I'd get the D2x, which is expensive right now but for wildlife it's a very nice camera with the high pixel count and the built-in 1.5x crop due to the small sensor. As soon as they migrate this sensor down to the $1,500 bodies they'll have a real winner for the masses but right now the D2x is pretty pricey. >the biggest plus I think will be seeing what you just shot while your >still there This is a big plus, also the ability to increase the ISO as needed and the lower noise of high ISO digital compared to the grain in films 2 stops slower. I just had to print 32 images for a hospital display, some film and some digital, and I firmly believe we get better prints from 8 and 11 Mpixel digital than we do from scanned 35 mm film. The biggest negative of digital is the higher inital cost but if you shoot a lot you break even sooner or later since there are no film costs. Bill Well 1987 or there abouts is when I got into this, Me and a hunting buddy shingled houses on the side and I bought a Nikon FA he bought Minolta, glad I don't have to shingle for my toys these days ! great shots from Bosque , still gotta get there. thanks Gary >> Gary wrote ... >> [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] > > Bill > Roger Clark writes ... > >this morning at Bosque Del Apache, National Wildlife Refuge, >sunrise, the camera count was: 47 digital cameras, 4 film You did an actual survey? Must have been a bit slow or did you get Dick to do it :) Seriously, this 9-1 ratio is about what I see at Denali or Katmai or Bosque as well. >Everyone was photographing sandhill cranes at the pond I was at. This is what it was like at Bosque 10 days ago when I was standing at (most likely) the same pond trying to shoot them in the cold ... http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/bosque2005/crane_T5606.jpg http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/bosque2005/crane_T5633.jpg Bill >>Roger Clark writes ... >> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Dick to do it :) Seriously, this 9-1 ratio is about what I see at > Denali or Katmai or Bosque as well. Hi Bill, I did it before sunrise; before good light. Yes, it was at the crane pond. > This is what it was like at Bosque 10 days ago when I was standing at > (most likely) the same pond trying to shoot them in the cold ... > http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/bosque2005/crane_T5606.jpg > http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/bosque2005/crane_T5633.jpg Very nice. Looks similar to what I got the last couple of days. I got a nice fight between 2 sandhills yesterday morning. The only problem was I had too much focal length (500+1.4; 500 alone would have been perfect but no time to change). By the way, I did a battery count: 1 got 1230 images, raw+jpeg, on one battery charge, plus a bunch of wav audio clips, all on the 1D Mark II and 500mm. I was shooting with 80x 4GB lexar cards. Roger > >>Roger Clark writes ... > >> [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > problem was I had too much focal length (500+1.4; 500 alone would > have been perfect but no time to change). too _much_ focal length... interesting. i can't decide between nikon's 500mm and the 200-400mm zoom. which would you prefer for general wildlife photography? > too _much_ focal length... interesting. > > i can't decide between nikon's 500mm and the 200-400mm zoom. which > would you prefer for general wildlife photography? No question for me: the 500 mm f/4 lens is my preferred lens whenever I can lug it around. I have the canon 100-400, but prefer a 300 f/4 if I have to travel lighter (than the 500). With the 300, I can use 1.4 and 2x TCs. Roger Interesting study. Are the changes statistically significant? I suggest Chi Square. Or Multiple Regression over years to see the trend. I had noticed in the 6/05 Outdoor Photographer that 18 of 20 photos in Top Landscape Tips from "veteran scenic masters" were film. I wonder how the digital/film selection differs depending on level of experience. And how does it differ for landscape vs wildlife shooters? For example, in deciding if I want to go digital for Canon, I might be happy with the 16.7 MPix 1Ds MII for scenics, but it only shoots 4 fps, so would not work well for wildlife. In going to a higher frame rate camera, one loses MPix. (My 1V is 10 fps, and even with just a desk scanner (4k dpi) I get 24 MPix.) -- - Alan Justice > Eight years ago or so a friend and I were disagreeing about how many > top nature photographers used Nikon vs Canon and how many used Fuji [quoted text clipped - 86 lines] > > Bill > Alan Justice writes ... > >Are the changes statistically significant? Yes :) If you don't think so ask Kodak and Fuji how their film sales are doing. And the tipping point for film vs digital new camera sales came in 2003 when digital first surged ahead for the first time. By 2005, according to the PMA, digital cameras would out-sell film cameras by a 4-1 margin (20.5 million digital vs 4.6 million film bodies, down from 19.7 film cameras sold in 2000). > I wonder how the digital/film selection differs depending on > level of experience. And how does it differ for landscape > vs wildlife shooters? If there were some way to determine the top 20 nature/wildlife photographers who made their reputations with 35 mm film (I feel confident in naming maybe 10 of them ... Shaw, Lanting, Mangelsen, Brandenburg, Wolfe etc) then I'd bet 80-90% of them have switched to digital and dropped 35mm. Take the top 20 landscape photographers (which will probably be one medium format guy - RG Ketchum - and the rest 4x5 or 8x10" view camera guys) and I'd bet a high percentage (maybe all) are still shooting film (Velvia for the most part) since the highest quality 39 Mpixel digital backs are still extremely expensive (say $30,000 or so, something a commercial studio will pay but not a landscape photographer) and while these are better than medium format they don't seem to quite match large format. It's not a matter of level of experience, it's a question of whether or not digital offers more advantages than what they are now using at a reasonable cost. >For example, in deciding if I want to go digital for Canon, I might be happy >with the 16.7 MPix 1Ds MII for scenics, but it only shoots 4 fps, so would >not work well for wildlife Right, so get the 1Ds M II for scenics if you need to print that large and get the 1D Mark II for wildlife, which is what many of us like myself and Roger are using for birds and bears etc. 8 Mpixels is enough for wildlife, I feel. >My 1V is 10 fps, and even with just a desk scanner (4k dpi) I >get 24 MPix (with film) This was explained to you previously by Roger, about why you can't just say one is better than another because it has a higher pixel count. To use your 24 Mpixel value (it's actually more like 21 Mpix if you scan to the edge of unmounted film, less if scanning mounted slides), if you shot a crappy high speed film, say 400 iso pushed one stop to 800, it would be grainy and not as saturated as slower films. You scan it and you have 24 Mpix, you scan Velvia or Provia 100F and you also have 24 Mpix ... are they the same even though they have the same pixel count? No. You could make this more absurd by scanning the grainy, low saturated film with a drum scanner at up to 12,000 dpi and have around 182 Mpixels ... is this 7 or 8 times better than the Velvia scanned at 24 Mpixels or is it inferior for practical purposes? All you've done is scan grain and you still have poor colors. For the same reasons, pixels from the better digital cameras are better than scanned film pixels. Bill <snip> > >For example, in deciding if I want to go digital for Canon, I might be happy > >with the 16.7 MPix 1Ds MII for scenics, but it only shoots 4 fps, so would [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > myself and Roger are using for birds and bears etc. 8 Mpixels is > enough for wildlife, I feel. This was pretty much my conclusion. But I like my large wildlife shots to be as sharp as the landscapes, if not sharper. For certain human portraits, soft focus is desirable, but I like to see the snot in the bison's nose, or the feather detail on an eagle. Surely these would be better at 16 than 8 MPix. In your experience, how large would one have to print in order to see this difference? I'm currently only going to 13x19, but would like to plan for when I need larger. > >My 1V is 10 fps, and even with just a desk scanner (4k dpi) I > >get 24 MPix (with film) [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > For the same reasons, pixels from the better digital cameras are better > than scanned film pixels. I'm still trying to wrap my cerebral cortex around that one. I guess I just need to experience it. When scanning grainy film, the film is the weakest link (garbage in, garbage out). But with Velvia under ideal conditions, I assume a 4000 dpi scan is the weakest link. An R print (or other direct print or drum scan) would lose less in the translation, so it should be best, right? (At least for resolution.) Shooting the same scene under the same conditions (e.g., ISO 50 film and digital set to 50, same lens etc.), you're saying that an 8 MPix (or 16?) digital is better than film (resolution AND color?), using the best availible method of printing each? > Bill - Alan Justice > Alan Justice writes ... > >Shooting the same scene under the same conditions (e.g., ISO 50 film and >digital set to 50, same lens etc.), you're saying that an 8 MPix (or 16?) >digital is better than film (resolution AND color?), using the best >availible method of printing each? Not quite what I said, but close ... to be precise, I don't have a 16 Mpix body and haven't downloaded one of the test files but we do have 6, 8 and 11 Mpixel bodies (Canon 10D, 1D Mark II and 1Ds) ... when debating whether to switch to digital I took my wife's 10D and two EOS-3 film bodies to Alaska two winters ago and was able to photograph eagles at close range under similar circumstances, using Provia 100F in one film body and Velvia 100F in the other (I was testing films too) with a 1.4x converter on the 500 compared to the 10D without a converter (there's a built-in 1.6x f-o-v difference because of the smaller sensor, so this left me at 700 mm vs 800 mm fov). I also shot the 10D with a 1.4x vs film with a 2x. This was as close as I could get to real-life comparisons ... here are links to two of the 10D shots that I could duplicate almost exactly with the film cameras with the 1.4x or 2x since he sat on this post for 15 minutes eating a fish ... http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/eagles_digital/head.jpg (500 mm w/ 1.4x) http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/eagles_digital/cry.jpg (500 alone) So I printed those (and others) 12x18" and printed the film scans and felt the film scans looked a bit better at this size print, with more detail in the feathers and eye. In other words 35 mm film beat a 6 Mpixel Canon 10D at this print size, but I sure liked skipping the 1.4x converter with the digital and I would have liked looking at the images each night (I didn't take a computer on this trip, no room), and I liked increasing the ISO to freeze the wings as I needed a higher shutter speed, and I liked not having to pay $12 per roll for film and processing ... in other words, I was ready to switch to digital but not at 6 Mpix. I also found the 10D's autofocus slow and lacking compared to the EOS-3. A month or so later I made the plunge and got the 1Ds which has 11 Mpixels and there was no comparison, I could make 12x18" prints with these files that were much smoother and more detailed than I could with Provia 100F slides scanned at 4,000 dpi on a Nikon 8000. I pretty much quit using 35 mm film at that point, but still used two medium format systems (645 and 6x7 cm) with Velvia. Twice I took the 1Ds and the medium format systems on trips and shot the same things and felt the prints from medium format film were noticeably better than prints from the 1Ds (some people disagree with this but that's what I saw on my equipment). By this time I had an Epson 4000 printer which can print up to 16x24" and at 16x20" I feel MF has the advantage. In June 2004 we also got two 1D Mark II's for wildlife (the 11 Mpix body is a bit slow for birds-in-flight etc) and these are excellent cameras, with 1.3x f-o-v so you get almost a 'free' 1.4x converter. I didn't shoot them side-by-side against 35 mm film since I was no longer shooting 35 but when everything goes just right with the shot (ie perfect focus, no subject motion) we get better 16x20" prints from these than we ever got from scanned 35 mm. This is comparing digital shots taken generally at ISO 250-320 to film shots at ISO 100 (occasionally pushed to 200). So that's what I'm seeing ... I think a lot of others are seeing pretty much the same trend. I think you have an Epson 2200 or similar 13x19" printer and you can download test images from bodies like the 1D Mark II or 1Ds M II (16 Mpix) or, for grins since you don't do Nikon, 12 Mpix files from the D2x and print them to see how smooth they are. I think you'll be surprised. Bill > Alan Justice writes ... > >I had noticed in the 6/05 Outdoor Photographer that 18 of 20 photos in >Top Landscape Tips from "veteran scenic masters" were film I found the article you mention (pg 66+ ?) and while there are 20 Tips from the "veteran scenic masters" there were only 13 photos, not 20 ... as I guessed, most of these were large format (four used 4x5" cameras) or medium format (two 6x7, two 6x4.5). This leaves five and of those three were film images shot with Nikons and two were digital images shot with Canons, so the percentages and brands match up pretty well with what I described for "Nature's Best" if you compare 35 mm to digital. Bill I'm pretty good at math, but, apparently, not at counting. Your bottom line compares 35 mm film to digital 35-mm-like (what is it called, anyway, especially if the sensor is less than 35 mm across? I guess just "digital SLR".). But it is still the case that film has it over digital for landscapes. It just has more options with larger formats. (Compare best film to best digital, although I don't know about those large 39 MPix backs.) -- - Alan Justice > > Alan Justice writes ... > > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Bill |
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