>4. I had a digital camera for 2 years now and i found it totally
>uninspiring. It sat in the drawer msot of the time. I don't know what
>it is but there's something about film that feels more real.
Perhaps you should try a 2004 model. Most digital cameras from 2-3
years ago are incapable of even approaching the performance of those
on sale today - and not just in terms of pixel count.
> 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
> rather than having to go through an "interface" thingie.
I'm going to base my responses around Canon EOS kit because that is what I
use, using an EOS 300d is *very* similar to the film EOS cameras in
operation pretty much to the point of if you turned of the lcd and never
used it and only looked at the photos when you pulled them off the memory
card there wouldn't be much (if any) difference in operation so having an
lcd is an advantage.
> have 36 images on a film inside it but same argument applies to digital
> camera and its memory capacity. With a camera i'll take another film
> with me and just walk out, heck, i'll take 10 if i need to, it only
> costs a little over a £1 per film, not same with digital, how many
> memory chips do you need to shoot at film's equivalent in resolution and
> how much does each cost?
I have had my EOS 300d for about 2 weeks now, I have taken about 2000
photos with it so far (ok about 500 of those were the venus transit)
because I can afford to be experimental (at prices like that for
photography hardware you have to be, I think my gf would kill me if I
didn't take photos of *everything*) ;) Thats the equivalent of 55 rolls of
film and the cost of developing them would be about 385 quid (and then the
extra to get big prints of the really nice photos to stick on the wall) so
the camera is halfway to paying for itself already! I think thats more
photos then I took with my film EOS in the past 2 years. Another lovely
feature of digital is being able to change iso speed on the fly to suit
conditions.
> 6. I love the discipline that film requires. Shoot less and think more
> about each shot. Not same with digital.
Disagree entirely, with digital you can afford to be much more
experimental and find out the results, with film you want to make every
shot count and quite often I would have forgotten how i took a particular
shot by the time I got my prints back at least with digital all that
information is there saved in each shot so I can reflect on a days
photography months later. Also sometimes you don't have the time to make a
shot count, when I was taking photos of Jaguars flying overhead here it
would sometimes mean you would have to chance it as when your subject
isn't co-operating with you and has a closing speed of well over 300mph+
film gets very expensive. This is also the same for the Venus transit, if
I missed this one I get another chance in 8 years time if I can be
bothered to visit Australia, but with my lovely digital camera I was
pulling the pictures off as the event happened (and uploading them to show
friends while the event is happening is a great feeling) I also took a few
shots with the film body at the same time but I now have 4 shots left to
take and then have to bother to take the film to the alright lab and then
go and collect the photos (I usually pay the extra 2 quid to get the
prints in a 15 minute service as the car park costs over a quid per hour,
and the costs of driving to this town 10 miles away and back again twice
isn't the worth the saving of going to pick them up the next day)
> 7. film is a great archival medium. It lasts a long long time. Not so
> with digital. I would argue that a film bought at £1 (superia xtra 100)
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> film). Film has lasted for decades, "CD rot" or CDs becoming unreadable
> is very common.
Take good backups, I have all my photos on disk (and copy them to another
disk nightly) a new backup gets burned at least every 2 weeks. I burn onto
3 different brands of media in a cycle to try and eliminate any media
problems, if the harddisk failed I would pull the pics off of the backups
and burn them to disk again. Also when you factor in the power of image
retrieval using digital you can do things you can't do with film (look at
this bit of software as an example of what can be done
http://imgseek.sourceforge.net/sshot/ )
> 9. I like the fact that sometimes i can forget what images i took a
> fortnight or more ago and when i get them in the post i'm pleasantly
> reminded. Using a 1-hour lab is costly, unnecessary and unsatisfying; it
> just feels like a premature ejaculation.
I wouldn't want to subject *any* of my photos to a postal service, I still
recall the disappointment when I was about 10 of sending off a film to a
postal film developer and never getting anything back (they cashed the
cheque though, but also claimed they never got the film) I was gutted as I
had taken my crappy camera on holiday with me to France and taken lots of
photos that I wanted to show my friends and I never got to see them.
Also there was the time a few years ago that I went to collect my photos
from a local chemists (never again!) and there was an elderly gentleman in
the queue in front of me who was trying to explain to the nice girl behind
the counter that she couldn't send off his slide film to be developed as a
negative film, he didn't want prints he wanted *slides* after he left the
shop as he had given up the girl made comments along the lines of "stupid
old man, who does he think he is telling us how films should be developed"
when I got my pictures home I was gutted as they had f.cked up the entire
film, now I take my photos to a local shop run by an enthusiast ever since
I have taken film to him I have found that the quality of my photos has
improved... I think the moral of the story is that with film you are
trusting other people to not fuckup your prints for you at least with
digital I am in control of the whole process.
> I can have more reasons... but these are enough for now
*shrug* there are reasons for and against, I am keeping my film EOS body
though as a backup and for perhaps for special events (but you can be
sure that I will be taking pictures with both cameras) but the 300d has
already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
yet.
Dennis Bradley - 21 Jun 2004 12:30 GMT
> > 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> > buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
[quoted text clipped - 100 lines]
> already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
> yet.
I agree wholeheartedly !
Each to his own of course, and I can appreciate that the original poster saw
his arguments as reasons for not going digital. Strangely enough, I saw
many of them as reasons for getting rid of my film equipment. Who cares
though. As long as you enjoy your photography then it is not worth arguing
about.
Dennis
Alan - 21 Jun 2004 17:11 GMT
I also have a 300D. I agree with you that if you ignore the screen it works
just like any film EOS. I do not find the cost of memory the OP mentioned to
be an issue, as I have a 1GB card in the camera (good for 350 ish shots) and
a portable hard drive / card reader device with a 20GB drive in it, so I'd
have to take over 6000 shots before running out. Factor that in film costs
(and the fact it's re-useable) and it doesn't take long to pay for itself.
I've learnt more about photography in 6 months of owning a DSLR than years
of film, and no ongoing expenses in the learning process.
I cannot see any advantage for running a film SLR now, and certainly have no
intentions of going back.
The OP mentioned long-term storage. Clearly this is a problem for any
computer data, not just photos. A sensible approach is just to make sure
there are several copies of the data, with at least one "off-line" (NOT on a
hard drive), and keep a copy stored elsewhere, and you'll be fine. This
method means that even if my house burned down tomorrow I can still get back
thousands of photos and other important stuff from my tapes stored in work.
Prints don't survive fire very well, but data is so easy to duplicate that
it can - at minimal cost.
> > 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> > buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
[quoted text clipped - 100 lines]
> already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
> yet.
Alan - 21 Jun 2004 17:11 GMT
I also have a 300D. I agree with you that if you ignore the screen it works
just like any film EOS. I do not find the cost of memory the OP mentioned to
be an issue, as I have a 1GB card in the camera (good for 350 ish shots) and
a portable hard drive / card reader device with a 20GB drive in it, so I'd
have to take over 6000 shots before running out. Factor that in film costs
(and the fact it's re-useable) and it doesn't take long to pay for itself.
I've learnt more about photography in 6 months of owning a DSLR than years
of film, and no ongoing expenses in the learning process.
I cannot see any advantage for running a film SLR now, and certainly have no
intentions of going back.
The OP mentioned long-term storage. Clearly this is a problem for any
computer data, not just photos. A sensible approach is just to make sure
there are several copies of the data, with at least one "off-line" (NOT on a
hard drive), and keep a copy stored elsewhere, and you'll be fine. This
method means that even if my house burned down tomorrow I can still get back
thousands of photos and other important stuff from my tapes stored in work.
Prints don't survive fire very well, but data is so easy to duplicate that
it can - at minimal cost.
> > 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> > buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
[quoted text clipped - 100 lines]
> already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
> yet.
Alan - 21 Jun 2004 17:11 GMT
I also have a 300D. I agree with you that if you ignore the screen it works
just like any film EOS. I do not find the cost of memory the OP mentioned to
be an issue, as I have a 1GB card in the camera (good for 350 ish shots) and
a portable hard drive / card reader device with a 20GB drive in it, so I'd
have to take over 6000 shots before running out. Factor that in film costs
(and the fact it's re-useable) and it doesn't take long to pay for itself.
I've learnt more about photography in 6 months of owning a DSLR than years
of film, and no ongoing expenses in the learning process.
I cannot see any advantage for running a film SLR now, and certainly have no
intentions of going back.
The OP mentioned long-term storage. Clearly this is a problem for any
computer data, not just photos. A sensible approach is just to make sure
there are several copies of the data, with at least one "off-line" (NOT on a
hard drive), and keep a copy stored elsewhere, and you'll be fine. This
method means that even if my house burned down tomorrow I can still get back
thousands of photos and other important stuff from my tapes stored in work.
Prints don't survive fire very well, but data is so easy to duplicate that
it can - at minimal cost.
> > 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> > buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
[quoted text clipped - 100 lines]
> already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
> yet.
Alan - 21 Jun 2004 17:11 GMT
I also have a 300D. I agree with you that if you ignore the screen it works
just like any film EOS. I do not find the cost of memory the OP mentioned to
be an issue, as I have a 1GB card in the camera (good for 350 ish shots) and
a portable hard drive / card reader device with a 20GB drive in it, so I'd
have to take over 6000 shots before running out. Factor that in film costs
(and the fact it's re-useable) and it doesn't take long to pay for itself.
I've learnt more about photography in 6 months of owning a DSLR than years
of film, and no ongoing expenses in the learning process.
I cannot see any advantage for running a film SLR now, and certainly have no
intentions of going back.
The OP mentioned long-term storage. Clearly this is a problem for any
computer data, not just photos. A sensible approach is just to make sure
there are several copies of the data, with at least one "off-line" (NOT on a
hard drive), and keep a copy stored elsewhere, and you'll be fine. This
method means that even if my house burned down tomorrow I can still get back
thousands of photos and other important stuff from my tapes stored in work.
Prints don't survive fire very well, but data is so easy to duplicate that
it can - at minimal cost.
> > 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> > buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
[quoted text clipped - 100 lines]
> already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
> yet.
<snip>
Guess you like film then :-)
I use a Canon EOS10D and I also have two EOS5's and an EOS1000FN - hardly
ever use film these days - but ... each to their own.

Signature
Regards
Craig Cooke
www.storm-imaging.co.uk