Sort of. I use digital for most of my work, but when I shoot my 4x5 large format camera, I still use B&W film in it. There are digital scanning backs available for 4x5, and they're really slick for what they do (reprographic work mostly, but some landscape shooters like them). However, because of their nature, they can't be used on moving subjects (like trains!)
Once in awhile, when I'm feeling nostalgic, I'll throw a roll of film in one of my 35mm bodies. Occasionally you'll even catch me using my No. 2 Brownie Box camera!
-ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams
It depends on what (and how) I'm shooting. If I'm out railfanning, I'll use my 6mp digital Nikon. If I'm out stormchasing, I'll use the digital. If I'm shooting something casual, like the family get togethers, I use digital.
However, if I'm shooting sunrises or sunsets, or anything else that demands extremely vibrant colors, I use my F100 with VS100 Kodachrome or Provia 100.
Perhaps, in a few years, when the Full-frame 20+MP digitals become affordable, then I will be done with film. Perhaps.
IMHO, digital images lack the color saturation that I really love. Yes, I know they are not "technically" accurate, but this is art we are speaking of, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I'm still happliy using film. I've got a Canon AE-1 plus lenses that I purchased with a tax refund way back in 1982 and it still works just fine. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!!
Ulrich wrote:I do..but I'm starting to believe that I'm one of the last few. No one can argue that these new fangled techno whiz bang electronic cameras aren't better, but I've got a 35mm SLR that seems to work fine. Also, it is nice to have one or two things in life that does not involve a computer download.
I'm not very active anymore, being in my 70's, but when I do any work it's 35mm B&W for me. As with you, my equipment works fine and I understand it.
Also, from time to time I write an article for a small local quarterly magazine, with illustrations and they can only use B&W photos. Some things never go out of date.
No I don't.
At least compared to 35mm slide film as of 10-15 years ago, my Canon S3 IS takes far better and sharper images than my old Minolta film cameras and Kodachrome ever did.
One of the things I like about digital is that it seems (at least to me) that it has more latitude than slides. I remember the old adage of slide film: "Expose for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they will". Not so with digital and it took me a while to get used to it - and then say goodbye forever to slide film.
Maybe today's slide films are better than they were back then - probably, but I'll never go back to film again.
Then there's the obvious advantages of digital that everyone knows about: Easy backups of images, "insant replay", never have to waste a shot and shoot all you want. When I go out train-watching, I have enough camera card memory capacity to take about 900 photos...
Perhaps a downside to some is that you'll need a PC, perhaps some photo-editing software, a memory card reader, big enough hard drive(s) to hold all of that data and a CD/DVD drive for backups.
And those backups - ever try that with slides?
P.S. I'd post a link to my web site, but I use Firefox and these forums won't let me copy/paste (maybe I'm missing something obvious)...
Poppa_Zit wrote:No. I have an AE-1, F4s and F5 I should sell one of these days. Any idea as to their current value?
Go to ebay and get a box of tissues. My F65 body that I paid almost $500 for 8 years ago... I might get $50 for it. If the lenses are usable on the DSLRs you can get some good cash for them.
I have an old Pentax film 35mm in the storage box that is not wearing very well since being put away some years ago.
I can still shoot film if I can find the stuff to buy around here. But to get the film, shoot the roll, turn it in, pay and pay every step of the way along with lost time waiting for the pictures...
Digital wins this time around.
Maybe one day I'll shoot a roll again, maybe not.
Ahh, but you can still be a practitioner of such antiquarian methods like Daguerreotypes if you really wish it. Compared to daguerreotypes, film is easy (and safer! No mercury involved in developing your shots!).
Seriously, though, while I like and appreciate digital, I think it's good for any serious photographer to have an understanding of how the hobby developed. (Gads, that was an awful pun.) Film was the medium of choice for a LONG time. Can you imagine how great it must have been to go to film from glass negatives? I bet that was an even better feeling than going from film to digital.
Jim, it might be good for you to shoot a roll of B&W film, develop it and print some shots. Number one, it's a lot of fun. There's nothing like seeing your first print come to life in the developing tray. Number two, you'll gain a little appreciation for the convenience of the digital world we live in today.
Just after Christmas, I was down in Spencer, NC, for the North Carolina Transportation Museum. My digital is a modest Samsung 310, and my film camera is the better of two Polaroid point-and-shoots that I bought when it was essentially being remaindered out at Target for around thirty bucks ca. Spring 2003. Its zoom is particularly versatile and quick.
When I shot static shots on the digital, the Norfolk & Western Tuscan Red coaches at the museum came out rust red in one exposure and the very next one, immediately thereafter, was more accurate -- but skewed too much to purple. I must have changed settings but darned if I know how. Those shots were important to me, and I fiddled quite a bit, especially boosting the vermillion via MS Picture It! Premium Ten until I could file shots without gagging. Then the pix wouldn't transmit electronically without a big struggle until I used VSO downsizer to cut a 450kb down to about 25 to 30kb (I know, it's our fault still having dial-up). I'm getting good at spotting where VSO cuts the picture, and how -- it's trivial but noticeable. I was using Fuji 400 print film, and needless to say the color developed true if a bit punchier than nature's version.
Then at Folkston, the acid test, I had known already that I didn't want to do much shooting, else I would probably have dumped the digital and moved into a cave. When a good mixed CSX NB came along, plenty of light, I tried the digital cam first and OF COURSE it 'ed up as usual, lagging too long despite my having changed batteries and put it on the "eye" setting (take it no matter what). I got two-thirds of the lead CSX and as Folkston folk know, sharp angles down the track beforehand are much precluded by the RR's extra-generous ROW thru Folkston. The film shots are still in the 35 mm camera. If I can't trust my digital on one-of-a-kind action shots, what's the point? Yes, I need more experience, but in some basic simple way I just want the dingus to work. Cost is not much of a consideration when a one-of-a-kind action shot comes along.
On a more sophisticated level, not me as a snapshot-shooter but looking at form and color as much as I can (when I photographed commercially as a free-lancer, I used Ektachrome or Previa slide film), IMHO it seems to me that in general, and after photoshopping, the shots I've seen by others that were taken digitally are more focused-looking but the ones that started with film, especially diapositive slides, are more color-accurate. Case in point, last year's (2007) NS' corporate-produced calendar, which says which are digital, which film. Result? A six-to-six tie. IMHO and experience Ektachrome, and with all apologies to Paul Simon, excels at the "nice bright color [and] greens of summer" -- especially green/blue. Slides' narrower exposure latitude is a pain, I agree, but using a more sensitive stocks like Ektachrome 400 + fill-flash helped a lot. The best Fujichrome stuff available at retail today was just coming into style, so I haven't any definite opinions but I enjoyed using it too.
I will definitely hang onto the film camera as long as photo-processing is cheap and readily available. Even digitized film-prints-on-disc are fairly cheap as long as I don't order double prints -- which would be unnecessary in that case anyway. Myself, I can't answer the question of whether digital or film is better; it's become almost a metaphysical topic to me. I can say that I don't want to be like the technophiles who threw away their clunky manual can-openers when the electric models became available, only to be left hungry when the Great 1965 Blackout hit. - a. s.
al-in-chgo wrote: The film shots are still in the 35 mm camera. If I can't trust my digital on one-of-a-kind action shots, what's the point? Yes, I need more experience, but in some basic simple way I just want the dingus to work. Cost is not much of a consideration when a one-of-a-kind action shot comes along.
The film shots are still in the 35 mm camera. If I can't trust my digital on one-of-a-kind action shots, what's the point? Yes, I need more experience, but in some basic simple way I just want the dingus to work. Cost is not much of a consideration when a one-of-a-kind action shot comes along.
And that is it in a nutshell. More experience is what is needed. Truth be told I had a problem with my film camera on one of those types of shots. It is a Nikon F60 (I said 65 earlier but I looked and it was a 60) with AF and and I had a shot composed with the train moving into frame and then it started hunting for focus as the train was moving. Only way for it to refocus was to zoom out, focus and then back in again and then the shot is gone.
The colour thing on the digital is probably due to conflicting light sources as they have an auto white balance feature and it picked up something in the lighting that caused it to adjust. And recovery time on the digitals is also a big thing. My Fuji Finepix S5200 I can shoot high res 5MP jpegs till the cows come home (or my 1mB card is full) but switch to the RAW format and it starts bogging down after two or three pics and the recovery time even between the initial two shots is loooonger than the digital. I have to plan my shots better
I have used slide film for all of my railroad photography until last year, and I shot my last roll of slide film during the 2007 Altoona, PA Railfest. Interestingly the last shot on the roll of slide film was a going away shot of the ex Pennsylvania railroad business car eastbound leaving Gallitzin, PA. Both of my Pentax ZX 50's and my Pentax K 1000's are stored serviceable just in case, but I doubt if I will ever use them again.
Not only is slide film becoming less available, processing is becoming less available and more expensive. Pretty soon neither slide film nor processing will be available.
RicHamilton wrote: al-in-chgo wrote: The film shots are still in the 35 mm camera. If I can't trust my digital on one-of-a-kind action shots, what's the point? Yes, I need more experience, but in some basic simple way I just want the dingus to work. Cost is not much of a consideration when a one-of-a-kind action shot comes along. And that is it in a nutshell. More experience is what is needed. Truth be told I had a problem with my film camera on one of those types of shots. It is a Nikon F60 (I said 65 earlier but I looked and it was a 60) with AF and and I had a shot composed with the train moving into frame and then it started hunting for focus as the train was moving. Only way for it to refocus was to zoom out, focus and then back in again and then the shot is gone. The colour thing on the digital is probably due to conflicting light sources as they have an auto white balance feature and it picked up something in the lighting that caused it to adjust. And recovery time on the digitals is also a big thing. My Fuji Finepix S5200 I can shoot high res 5MP jpegs till the cows come home (or my 1mB card is full) but switch to the RAW format and it starts bogging down after two or three pics and the recovery time even between the initial two shots is loooonger than the digital. I have to plan my shots better.
The colour thing on the digital is probably due to conflicting light sources as they have an auto white balance feature and it picked up something in the lighting that caused it to adjust. And recovery time on the digitals is also a big thing. My Fuji Finepix S5200 I can shoot high res 5MP jpegs till the cows come home (or my 1mB card is full) but switch to the RAW format and it starts bogging down after two or three pics and the recovery time even between the initial two shots is loooonger than the digital. I have to plan my shots better.
Ric Hamilton Berwick,
You make a very good point and taught me a thing or two -- as well as reminded me of something. Every head-end CSX cab we saw on the December shoot made use of two horizontal lower white lights in addition to the main headlight: they weren't set way down low like ditch lights, but underneath the main headlights, left near to (but not at) the edge of the body and right likewise. They look very constant as the train comes up from the south (that's the end with best sight lines -- over a mile I've been told). When the train is fairly near, though, those lights resolve into alternating flashing lights. It's strangely comforting to speculate that those two flashing lights might have confused the camera as they (almost) did me. Well, there are probably jillions of variables. Maybe (thinking digitally) I can download some informative stuff from the Samsung people about use of their camera; I had a hardcopy manual but it disappeared somewhere during December. - a. s.
PS: "RAW"? Was that a clever acronym or what?
al-in-chgo wrote:PS: "RAW"? Was that a clever acronym or what?
RAW refers to a type of file that mid to high end digital cameras offer. RAW files record the data as it is recorded from the imaging sensor. When shooting in JPG mode, the camera's imaging processor is making decisions about the shot - white balance, saturation, sharpness, etc.
The advantage of shooting in RAW is that the photographer has more control on the shot when post-processing it. While there are some very good processing engines on some cameras, RAW files almost always show more details, feature better color, etc.
The disadvantages are an added processing step, and larger files (RAW files usually employ some form of lossless compression, but they're still bigger than JPG shots).
I am actually proud to say I shot my last slide last Wednesday, and my last print the day after that.
XT arrives in 7-10 days...
Go here for my rail shots! http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=9296
Building the CPR Kootenay division in N scale, blog here: http://kootenaymodelrailway.wordpress.com/
Memory cards are bulked up so beefy, those RAW files is no longer a disadvantage.
Interesting that I just stumbled onto this thread today. First let me answer your question -- yes, I still shoot film once in a great while, both slide and color negative. Hell, I worked for Kodak for 20 years, I should!
Now to my "interesting" part. Having recently moved into an apartment and now on my own, I have boxes and boxes of stuff that I have collected over the past 63 years. Rumaging around recently, I found my original Nikon F body that I bought in 1967. It and the 3 lens that I still have are in excellent condition with nary a scratch on them. As old man nostalgia swept over me I took a roll of Kodachrome out of the refrigerator, let it come to room temp, walked down to the nearest RR tracks (old NYC through Rochester, NY) and burned up a roll in no time. Boy, was that fun! Can't remember when I last did that, with film, that is.
I've been using digital cameras, a Kodak Z712 and a Nikon D40, for some time now and love them both. I'm still more comfortable with the film cameras, but digital has infected me and I'll do my best to master its capabilities in time. And certainly before I go to that big train station in the sky (sorry!), film will be a thing of the past or pretty darn near it, anyway. Since I am comfortable with a computer and my children and grandchildren use digital cameras, I have one more "thing" that I can use to communicate with them. The convenience and challenge can't be beat, IMHO.
Falls Valley RR wrote: Memory cards are bulked up so beefy, those RAW files is no longer a disadvantage.
Well my 1Gb card on my Finepix can hold around 880 jpegs in 5MP fine mode. Same card holds about 90 RAW images. I ended up buying a second 1Gb card as a just incase scenario
Memory is cheap these days I believe.
When I bought the Camcorder, I bought about 1 gig of card memory for it which was good for about 1.5 hours of shooting video. Unfortunately the quality leaves much to be desired. I still perfer digital tape.
I suppose there will be a day coming when cards can store live video but fear the sizes will be humongous.
One thing, I know of a family member who has many slides. They will rot over time unless archived into the computer. Anyone know of a good system to save them?
RicHamilton wrote: Falls Valley RR wrote: Memory cards are bulked up so beefy, those RAW files is no longer a disadvantage.Well my 1Gb card on my Finepix can hold around 880 jpegs in 5MP fine mode. Same card holds about 90 RAW images. I ended up buying a second 1Gb card as a just incase scenario
1 gig? Wow. I have a 4 gig, and they go up to 16! Memory is very cheap
Yep, there are still a few of us. I just had a big box of Kodachrome arrive yesterday and I have my cameras in the truck to go chase trains this afternoon in the snow.
I still shoot about 200 rolls a year and own 8 cameras. I had 4 rebuilt last year so I have years of reliable camera time left.
I'm just much more comfortable with film. I have a storage and documentation system set up for them. Also, I am around computers much of the day and just don't want to even have to deal with them as part of my hobby. Also, I know how often we have computer failures at work and just would rather trust my fire proof file cabinets than some stray electron storage facility.
Having had to rebuild files that are just a few years old because of disc deterioration, I think in a few years we will start hearing quite a few stories about lost pictures and such. In fact, I already know a few folks experiencing that problem from the first days of digital.
Either way, it is a hobby so to each his own said the lady as she kissed the cow.
Bart Jennings
Yes I still use film, but I actually just bought my first digital camera a week this week. (Rebel XT). I have to admit it is nice not to have the cost of film, but digital can be annoying because well its a computer! Since i now have a digital camera I will be using that most of the time, but whenever I am home from college I will definitly be reverting back to my parents old Nikon SLR from the 70's. I haven't found anything yet that can beat that camera, digital or not. So for me I will proably start to take a mix of digital and film depending on the situation. I know that digital and film pictures are supposivly the same, but I still find that in a lot of situations the good quality film camera will beat out a high quality digital. (At least in my opinion). The other reason I switched partially to digital is that I no longer have access to a dark room to develope my B&W film and there is no good B&W processing available where I am for someone like me who is starting to see college debt rear its ugly head.
emmar
trainboyH16-44 wrote:1 gig? Wow. I have a 4 gig, and they go up to 16! Memory is very cheap
xD picture cards are only available up to 2Gb and those are relativly new additions within the last 18 months or so. =8^{
RicHamilton wrote: trainboyH16-44 wrote:1 gig? Wow. I have a 4 gig, and they go up to 16! Memory is very cheap xD picture cards are only available up to 2Gb and those are relativly new additions within the last 18 months or so. =8^{
Oh right, them little thingies...
I have a pair of them kicking around that I can't get rid, 3GB worth. You want them?
Oh yeah, here's what I think of them.
Poppa,
May I suggest you check out B&H Photo; they buy used equipment. Go to the link provided, and send them a list of your equipment; they will email you with a quote. If you like the price, then you send the equipment to them for a final evaluation.
They are hassle-free, honest, and reliable. I've never had an issue when dealing with them. I've bought all my camera equipment from them, as well as my audiovisual equipment. Great prices with great service.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/category/2870/Used_Equipment.html
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