Who here still shoots primarily film?
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swimcraze said:
I have limited experience using DSLR, but this is what I gather from readings and ancedotes, of course with a little bit of using DSLRs...
DSLR does have a narrower exposure latitude than negative film, meaning that highlights can get blown out or shadow details lost more easily compare to negative film. Some liken it to the exposure latitude of slide film, but I have no comments on that.
Part of the cause for such narrow latitude is due to the JPEG format used widely in DSLRs (how true is it?). Most people prefer to shoot in the camera's RAW format to capture the DSLR's maximum exposure latitude, and adjust from there for any over/underexposure/contrast.
swimcraze
Senior Member
hmm........let me try this analogy:
digital = microwave oven
film = traditional oven
but will get their food done, but at different rate.
one is faster but food is ordinary tasting (basically heating it up quickly)..
whereas the other is slower (like baking and grilling) but it brings out the food's real aroma!!!!!
:think:
digital = microwave oven
film = traditional oven
but will get their food done, but at different rate.
one is faster but food is ordinary tasting (basically heating it up quickly)..
whereas the other is slower (like baking and grilling) but it brings out the food's real aroma!!!!!
:think:
swimcraze said:
Microwave oven can also cook food very nicely with great aromas leh....... aiyah...... to each is own lor.....
Next week is an exciting week though.... it represents a chance as to whether I'll go digital or not.......... aka whether or not Minolta comes out with a DSLR at PMA 2004.............. haiz.........
dampeoples
New Member
I like film, the cost of a really nice digital is the main concern for me.
Ansel
Senior Member
Many people say digital is cheap if you shoot a lot 'cos every shot is free once you bought the camera.
Well, yes and no.
Tony (not his real name) bought a D100 for S$3888 when it was a brand new product early last year. Today you can buy the D100 brand new for S$2888 or less. In one year the price of the product has dropped about S$1000. If he sells it now, he probably can sell it for S$2200, if it's in good condition. So in one year his camera has depreciated about $1500. :bigeyes:
If I had bought an F80 a year ago, it would have cost me $750. Now I can sell it 2nd hand for $450. Depreciation was $300.
So, $1500-$300=$1200. How much film and processing do I get for $1200 ?? Digital is cheaper?
hahaha.... :bsmilie: :bsmilie:
Sorry ah...my friends who own digital: AJ23, sykestang, gadrian, Watcher. Please don't get angry, I am just stating facts. Will join you guys soon !
On a serious note, I believe digital is useful for experimentation and you can see results immediately and make instant correction. :angel:
Well, yes and no.
Tony (not his real name) bought a D100 for S$3888 when it was a brand new product early last year. Today you can buy the D100 brand new for S$2888 or less. In one year the price of the product has dropped about S$1000. If he sells it now, he probably can sell it for S$2200, if it's in good condition. So in one year his camera has depreciated about $1500. :bigeyes:
If I had bought an F80 a year ago, it would have cost me $750. Now I can sell it 2nd hand for $450. Depreciation was $300.
So, $1500-$300=$1200. How much film and processing do I get for $1200 ?? Digital is cheaper?
hahaha.... :bsmilie: :bsmilie:
Sorry ah...my friends who own digital: AJ23, sykestang, gadrian, Watcher. Please don't get angry, I am just stating facts. Will join you guys soon !
On a serious note, I believe digital is useful for experimentation and you can see results immediately and make instant correction. :angel:
Yes, film is my primary format at the moment, but i print digitally.
Would like to share if someone has the same thought as mine. There is some wired people in Singapore where lately, he bought his digital camara from Cathy and he took some shot outside Cathy. Finally, they went to Cathy again to show his shot to the Cathy staff. Don't you think it wired. ha..ha..ha.. :bsmilie:
And after and after days goesby, he went to Cathy again for shopping for new gadget also carry his camera with him. :bsmilie:
Cheers.
Would like to share if someone has the same thought as mine. There is some wired people in Singapore where lately, he bought his digital camara from Cathy and he took some shot outside Cathy. Finally, they went to Cathy again to show his shot to the Cathy staff. Don't you think it wired. ha..ha..ha.. :bsmilie:
And after and after days goesby, he went to Cathy again for shopping for new gadget also carry his camera with him. :bsmilie:
Cheers.
Well, he's lucky. My friend, who is not a pro, but a very enthusiastic hobbyist, bought a D30 when it hit our shores. He paid around $4800 or so for it. If he sells now, he loses around $4000 since it is well used. After seeing the A3 prints from the 10D compared to his D30, he now wants to upgrade to the 10D for the features and image size, but his wife will surely kill / divorce him if he does. Yeah, digital is cheap.Ansel said:
Talking about depreciation...is it really much of a concern? When you buy a camera you are thinking that you are doing to sell it after a few years?
Depreciation of any digital product is crazy. Computers, PDAs, handphones, etc. Sometimes it's better just to think of it as sunken cost--buy, use and scrape when the time comes.
Depreciation of any digital product is crazy. Computers, PDAs, handphones, etc. Sometimes it's better just to think of it as sunken cost--buy, use and scrape when the time comes.
hmm.. one roll of film + processing cost ard $10. scanning to cdr cost maybe another $10. total about $20 per roll of film lor.
4k worth of depreciation is abt 200 roll of films lor. that's abt 7-8k shots. if he managed to shoot 7-8k shots then the cost is well justified.
current dslr like the d70 cost abt $2280 now. after 1-2 year it may depreciated to ard $1k. so dep expenses of 1.2k. if u shoot ard 60 rolls within the period, can cover the cost of the depreciation liao lor. just need shoot abt 250 shots per month nia lor.
most likely without film u will overshoot la. finger on the shutter release anyhow click, shoot liao then select the ones u want. not like film, need think b4 pressing.
i think d2h owners will have a greater advantage, can anyhow blast away with their 8fps at sports event. easily 200-300 shots per match.
~MooEy~
4k worth of depreciation is abt 200 roll of films lor. that's abt 7-8k shots. if he managed to shoot 7-8k shots then the cost is well justified.
current dslr like the d70 cost abt $2280 now. after 1-2 year it may depreciated to ard $1k. so dep expenses of 1.2k. if u shoot ard 60 rolls within the period, can cover the cost of the depreciation liao lor. just need shoot abt 250 shots per month nia lor.
most likely without film u will overshoot la. finger on the shutter release anyhow click, shoot liao then select the ones u want. not like film, need think b4 pressing.
i think d2h owners will have a greater advantage, can anyhow blast away with their 8fps at sports event. easily 200-300 shots per match.
~MooEy~
kingpin
Senior Member
MooEy said:
Much depends on what u use the camera for.
If it is a hobby then maybe your calculations above may be plausible. It largely depends on what sort of hobbyist u are. If u shoot once a week (average hobbyist) then (52 weeks x 2 rolls) about 100 rolls a year. If serious hobbyist (who shoots twice weekly) then 52 x 5 = about 250 rolls per yr. But then again if u are rich hobbyist, all these are no a consideration. Just buy what u can afford and it doesn't matter if u use it for less than 10 rolls a yr or 1000!
But then again if u are a real photographic equipment fanatic, rich or not, u will just get the latest to satisfy that craving. Using it is not an issue!!
For those more serious ones who makes part or all of their living with the camera, digital is necessary. They use it for commercial work which demands digital format so film is going to be slow and costly (due to scanning etc).
To sum up - we will rationalise what we want to get!!!
I don't agree with the calculations.
1st, not everyone scans their roll to CD-R. Why would we bother shooting film if we wanted a digital output? Would be easier to shoot digital in the first place. I do mounted slides, and I don't usually scan unless I need to email it to somebody. For me, the beauty of shooting film is to put the mounted slides into a Leica projector and see the picture in all its glorious colours. This makes my cost of film about $12-15 per roll, depending on which film I used.
2nd, 1 roll of film is not equivalent to 36 DLSR shots? Why? Because as you noted, DLSR triggers a "hantam" mentality, it's free what!! So if you had shot 360 pix in one day, don't think that you would have saved 10 x $15 in film+processing costs-- because if you were really using film, you would be much more careful and would have probably shot only 1/3 that.
With this as baseline, $4,000 of depreciation in dollar terms is equivalent to 250-350 rolls of film, but in actual terms is equivalent to 3 x the number of rolls in practice at least (because you would be much more careful with film), meaning equivalent to 750-1,000 rolls!!! You'd have to shoot over 27,000-36,000 frames to justify the cost of DSLR, if we want to talk depreciation.
Without talking about depreciation, DLSR and digicams in general pass a lot of the workflow back to you-- adjusting levels, unsharp masking, colour tweaking, etc. With slides, there are no such adjustments (unless you scan into CDR), with negs, you can always order a reprint to correct colour casts, or pay someone to do touchups if really picky. You'll have to figure out if it's worth your time to do all the digital workflow.
Not to start another stupid digital/film debate, I have both a Canon G2 and a Leica M and use both, but I thought some of the figures needed more context so that CSers can make a more meaningful comparison.
Wai Leong
===
1st, not everyone scans their roll to CD-R. Why would we bother shooting film if we wanted a digital output? Would be easier to shoot digital in the first place. I do mounted slides, and I don't usually scan unless I need to email it to somebody. For me, the beauty of shooting film is to put the mounted slides into a Leica projector and see the picture in all its glorious colours. This makes my cost of film about $12-15 per roll, depending on which film I used.
2nd, 1 roll of film is not equivalent to 36 DLSR shots? Why? Because as you noted, DLSR triggers a "hantam" mentality, it's free what!! So if you had shot 360 pix in one day, don't think that you would have saved 10 x $15 in film+processing costs-- because if you were really using film, you would be much more careful and would have probably shot only 1/3 that.
With this as baseline, $4,000 of depreciation in dollar terms is equivalent to 250-350 rolls of film, but in actual terms is equivalent to 3 x the number of rolls in practice at least (because you would be much more careful with film), meaning equivalent to 750-1,000 rolls!!! You'd have to shoot over 27,000-36,000 frames to justify the cost of DSLR, if we want to talk depreciation.
Without talking about depreciation, DLSR and digicams in general pass a lot of the workflow back to you-- adjusting levels, unsharp masking, colour tweaking, etc. With slides, there are no such adjustments (unless you scan into CDR), with negs, you can always order a reprint to correct colour casts, or pay someone to do touchups if really picky. You'll have to figure out if it's worth your time to do all the digital workflow.
Not to start another stupid digital/film debate, I have both a Canon G2 and a Leica M and use both, but I thought some of the figures needed more context so that CSers can make a more meaningful comparison.
Wai Leong
===
MooEy said:
MooEy said:
You can send to Grace Lab, processing + scanning to cdr is $5.50. Add film $2.5, 1 roll shooting fee is $8.
d70 cost $2280, good technology and 1-2 yr depreciated to $1k but I can assure you that digital technology move so far and you might not want to use it anymore bcos by them another similar model might be selling at only $1k and features is lightspeed ahead. Format might even change too. Just like celeron notebook sure, good enuf even for today but new user can buy cheaper price and better spec. Sometime you just might as well get new one. Another example, PDA, handphone.
waileong said:
I scan to cdr becos it lower my cost of shooting $5.50 for processing plus scan cdr. No logistic, no need to keep print. Quality on cdr, acceptable will do becos i do that for catalog purposes. You are right, want to see I look using loupe and lightbox. Why cdr? cos once I shoot enuf, I pick some and make into print for my portfolio.
Another chap on another thread was saying he and friends went golf and he shoot film and the rest digital. After the day, he send to process and pass ard the album the second day, the rest while can preview in tiny LCD will need to go back do PS before something can be seen.
Btw, I support both digital and film.
My cost per roll is $5.50 (pro&cdr) + $2.50 = $8
For $2k is about 250 rolls. No further technology upg for me on SLR i guess.
Shooting on my Pentax KX, Ricoh or EOS system produce what I want too. Just a matter of mood or speed.
Well, use what you want end of the day and enjoy. Both are good, use both. One suit you, use one
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