What do you prefer? digital or film?

Question

i'm an oldie person, i love film cos developing pictures in the dark room is so much fun..its exciting to see how the pictures come out..but the downside is...if most of it is bad, you waste the entire film...this is why i'm gonna try out digital.

film as manual camera..i mean

Answer 1

First off...I don't know who this person who posted first is...but I've not heard that ,much bad information in one place in a long time.

Simply opening, copying, transferring a file does not degrade it. If you save a file with a lossy codec multiple times, the compression artifacts get worse and worse each time. If you are shooting in RAW, that is the digital equivalent of a film negative.

Film photographers have been manipulating their images long before a modern computer was even invented. W. Eugene Smith and Ansel Adams have been quoted as saying that a picture is not complete until they have manipulated it in the darkroom to the way they want it to be viewed. The only thing that Photoshop gives you is that it allows darkroom techniques to be applied to a digital image.

Now....after getting off my soapbox....

I have a film SLR(Nikon N90s). I use it as a backup in the unlikely event that my Nikon D50(digital) has a problem(battery dies, run out of memory, camera fails).
99% of the pictures i take are with my digital and I know of no one who can look at my prints and tell which camera I took the image from.

The N90s has a few features that the digital does not have: Faster shutter 1/8000 vs 1/4000, faster autofocus, depth of field preview, digital camera backs, vert. grp.

In my opinion, film is a more expensive option right now. After you buy the film camera body and lens, you have to buy film. If you develop yourself, you have to have a darkroom and chemicals. If you don't develop yourself, you need to spend that money on getting someone else to develop the film. You also take the chance that you may or may not get the shots you wanted because you can;t see what you've shot until after the film is developed. With digital, you can see immediately what you've shot and if it meets your expectations.

Do I need these things all the time. No, so I don't miss them on the digital body.

It's just good to know that the N90s can use all the same lenses, speedlights as the D50.

Answer 2

I am using both. I have been shooting some digital since about 1996, when the top resolution for a consumer digicam was about 640 x 480 and the prints looked like heck. Then, digital was just a toy. I have had five digital cameras since then, they always get better in terms of usability and image quality.

Since my digital SLR, I find my film use continuing to shrink. I don't plan to give up film altogether. An optical print made in silver halide chemistry is a thing of beauty. But for everyday shooting and weddings, I find myself reaching for digital. more often. I think you will enjoy it once you get used to the workflow.

Good luck!

Answer 3

I prefer film 100%. In my opinion, film is for photography, and digital is for memories. I would never try to take a picture that I would enter in a contest with a digital camera because there are too many ways to tweak digital and it feels like cheating to me.

And don't forget that studies are proving that digital images degrade every time you open them or transfer them, use them in a slideshow, or have your screensaver pop them up. Negatives and slides that are well cared for can last for many, many years.

Plus, there is something about sending off your film and waiting for prints, or watching them develop when you do them yourself that is almost like Christmas.

***********************

And to the next person? Well, EXCUSE me! I said it was MY OPINION jerk.

And here is one place where I get some of my info:

"Most cameras take pictures using a JPEG format (also shown as JPG). This is a compressed format. Each time you change and save a JPEG the photo is recompressed and you lose some of the details (clarity) of the photo. Although the degradation is not noticeable until the photo is resaved many times, it is always best to save a copy of the original photo before you start editing and changing the photo."

From http://www.aarp.org/learntech/computers/howto/digital_camera_gotchas.html

Guess I'll go back to lurking in the other categories that I usually frequent since there are some not-so-nice people here...