Digital is Dumb

I just bought my wife a new film SLR, so this may seem a bit
self serving, but...
We are photographic dinosaurs. Of the three cameras I use
most frequently the panorama has no meter, my 35 is a rangefinder
with match LED and my medium format has only aperture priority.
My wife was using a Canon AE1 with a zoom. I've never used a
camera with a zoom. While I do all sorts of fancy scanning and
Photoshopping she sends her color negs to a mail order photofinisher
and gets back 3x5's which she puts in albums. No fuss, no muss and
10 cents a print.
So the new camera came as a big jump in technology. Not only does
it have a much bigger range zoom (28-200), it has motor wind,
auto exposure of many flavors, and auto focus as well. All this for
under $500.
As Father's day is coming up the media is filled with ads for new
cameras - all digital. The SLR features seem to be about the same as the
film camera in terms of functionality, but the cost is more like double
the film camera. The performance may or may not be
better than film depending on the megapixels and the print size. But for
people like my wife, who I think represents the bulk of the picture
takers, I just don't see the advantage. If she doesn't want to fuss with
memory cards, computers and home printers, then she needs to take her
images to a local photofinisher. The costs of prints will be the same or
higher and she has to wait to get them back just the same. So the only
cost savings in the actual film itself. At about $3 per roll that extra
$500 will take many years to amortize.
So what's the incentive? The ability to look at the picture on the
built in screen? With modern automated cameras almost all pictures come
out well. It seems to me that for this type of user the digital
revolution has been oversold. This may help explain why so few images
are printed out, it is just too much effort.
--
Robert D Feinman
Landscapes, Cityscapes and Panoramic Photographs
http://robertdfeinman.com
mail: robert.feinman@gmail.com

Robert Feinman

Re: Digital is Dumb

I can't imaging not taking photos. For the last 25 years, since I got
my first SLR, I have
taken at least a few rolls of film each years.
The good thing is that it is very easy to make prints from digital
photos, which we do.
I think we we make about as many prints a years as we did when we were
shooting film.
IMO people tend to way over rate the value of slides and negatives
media that will survive into the ages. It seems some people believe
that historians will be pouring over their photographs once they die,
for most of us this simply is not going to happen. Who will look over
our photos is family members, and from past experience the slides and
negatives will mostly be just thrown out.
People will look at the prints and everyone will take a handful. I
have seen this now a number of times. The average photo collection by
the time someone dies is about two large boxes, most of these photos
will not be preserved.
So making a number of prints is not a bad idea, but remember the prints
relatives are going to want to keep are not going to be the photos of
mountain scenes but ones that somehow relate to the family.
There seems to be a strong feeling the digital images will not get
passed from one generation to the next. So do something about this,
give you kids copies of your photos now and get copies of your
parent's photos now. This is the neat thing about digital photos you
don't have to wait for someone to die before their photos are passed
to the next generation. I don't mind keeping copies of all of my
parents digital images, they don't take up much room.
Scott


Scott W

Re: Digital is Dumb

It is not the price that matters. The typical family is not going to be
bothered paying every month for digital storage of their family album
photos. The novelty will wear off in a few months, and the practice will
come to a halt.
How many of us, myself included, put down our cameras, sometimes for years,
when the children were very young or when job-related or family-related
stress periods occurred in out lives?
Even though I support the argument that digital photography better serves
the needs of consumers--because it is more convenient and because its
current level of image quality beats anything that consumers formerly could
expect from their Instamatics/Brownies/Disposable Cameras/etc.--the jury is
still out on how best to archive the images. I believe that the typical
family does not pay much attention to that.
In terms of saving important family photos, film, slides and especially
prints still hold a superior position to digital, because families tend to
take better care of things they can see. Also, film does not require
periodic migration to new media and/or file formats. Migration might not be
such a big deal for photography aficionados, but it may be too much to
expect of "Joe Sixpacks," who often can't locate their own birth
certificates when applying for passports.


Jeremy

Re: Digital is Dumb

Here's just a few 'top of mind' response to your 'challenge':
Advantages of Film over Digital:
---------------------------------------
More confidence that the images will survive for posterity. I have
several old cigar boxes of family B&W negatives from between 1890
and 1950. The 19th century images are mostly on tin types, so they
are not technically negatives but are original plates (mirror
images). From 1960 to about 2001 I have boxes and boxes of slides
and 35 mm negatives, both colour and B&W. The slides and B&W
negatives are holding up great but some of the colour negatives are
fading. In any event, it's easy to store this stuff for future
generation. With digital, there's a big concern that the media may
fail and/or the files be unreadable in the future. There is also
the concern that the hardware and software needed to read the media
may not be readily available. From 2001 to now most of my photos
are on CDs, DVDs or external hard drives. I feel much less
confident that these will survive as long as the old cigar boxes.
Film has a wider dynamic range than today's digital (HDR multiple
exposures excepted.)
B&W Film produces a look that is hard to match with digital, even
if the digital image is post-processed with special red channel
techniques. I much prefer the look of film for B&W.
Infrared film is wonderful. True infrared digital is impossible
with most digital cameras that have an IR filter. Even the few
cameras that don't have such a filter can't come close to matching
IR film.
Changing SLR lenses in dusty environments is not nearly as big of a
concern as with a dSLR. No sensor = no sensor dust problem.
Advantage of Digital over Film
-------------------------------------
Ability to check the histogram after each shot almost ensures
exposure accuracy.
The marginal cost of additional shots is zero, so it's possible to
take many, many shots of difficult scenes/events in the 'hope' of
getting a usable image.
The ability to control the entire post-processing cycle instead of
turning these decisions over to a lab is a huge advantage. I used
to do my own darkroom work with film but the mess and smell of the
chemicals is not something that I enjoyed and even though doing my
own darkroom work did give some measure of additional control over
the image, it did not come close to matching the speed and
flexibility of Photoshop.
I can share photos much more easily with digital. I shot a rugby
tournament on Saturday and I've already distributed printable files
of the images to many of the players. I can even share then with
this group
(http://www.JustPhotos.ca/oldphotos/sports/sevens060610.htm), which
would be so much harder if I had shot on film and had to scan each
negative.
I can shoot over 10 times as many images before having to change my
4 GB compact card as opposed to when I'd have to change a 36
exposure role of film.


Mardon

Re: Digital is Dumb

"Scott W" <biphoto@hotmail.com> writes:
So?
All a camera is is a light-tight box with a hole on one side and a
flat plane on the other side.
For most practical purposes, the basic SLR design has remained
unchanged for *decades*. Even if all major manufacturers stopped
making film bodies, the current crop will last even a demanding
photographer for his lifetime.
It's the lenses that count, and since the mount has not changed
appreciably on all major manufacturer's bodies, one could still use
the new lenses. In a pinch, one could stick with the old lenses,
after all, with ordinary care, glass does not go bad (bad care or
radioactive isotopes in coatings are exceptional).
That is the clincher. OTOH, producing film is a relatively low-cost
process, so as long as some film photographers remain, niche producers
can take up the slack.
And I have not heard any noise from Fuji that they are discontinuing
film anyway, so I classify the film availability as FUD.
Building your own darkroom isn't too hard. With some DYI skills,
converting a bathroom (in the English sense of the word) is easy,
automated processors are available, and will last as long as the
mechanical parts do, which is up to a lifetime.
Film may be relegated to a niche existence. Fine with me. But dying? I
don't see it happen.
After all, we've seen this cycle before:
- Photography: painting is declared dead.
- MF: the LF format is declared dead.
- 35mm: MF is declared dead.
- Color: B&W is declared dead.
- Digital: film is declared dead.
Film at 11.
Mart
--
"We will need a longer wall when the revolution comes."
--- AJS, quoting an uncertain source.


Mart van de Wege

Re: Digital is Dumb

Exactly.
As I'm sure you know a RAID protects against individual disk crashes, with as
side benefit increased access speed. However, that doesn't mean one should
use cheap disks in them.
Protection against accidental loss can be done on several levels, one is
write all changes in a filesystem to a backup partition, on the same or on
another RAID. To prevent accidental deletion of images we make all images
which are unchanged for a week read-only, and assign them to another user.
Yep.
Tape backup can be extremely reliable, but you've got to apply some common
sense, like testing your backup on another tapedrive, rotating them, storing
them in the bank, etc.
...and migrating them I presume.
To get a bit back to the OT, if you are a 'film type', you have benefit of
the long term properties of film and the option to scan it or just the best
pictures, and store these on digital media. Cumbersome maybe, but if you like
film not really an issue.
-- Hans


HvdV

Re: Digital is Dumb

In fact a RAID is of very little use. Almost all of the data that I
have seen lost is from human error or software error, neither one of
which will save your data.
There is nothing wrong with using a RAID, unless you believe it is
giving you some kind of protection and don't do due diligence in
backing up your files.
The other have seen is people trusting tape backups but never testing a
tape to see if
the data is really there, until the files are lost on the hard drive.
As much problems CDs and DVDs have in terms of bit rot at least they
are not prone to being over written. My choice is a combination of
backups on external drives and DVDs.
Scott


Scott W

Re: Digital is Dumb

That sounds like a decent deal. When all is said and
done, most of us don't really have that many high-res
photos worth saving, so 1 Gig (or 10, at the outside)
is plenty.
Seriously... think about the typical family photo album...
the size and number of photos in it... how many gigs
do you figure?
A 3"x5" color photo at 300 dpi is 4 Mbytes as an
uncompressed TIF, or 2 MB as a best-quality JPG.
$1 a month would secure 500 of these. Not bad.
rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com


Raphael Bustin

Re: Digital is Dumb

Having a RAID drive doesn't obviate the need for
archival backups.
rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com


Raphael Bustin

Re: Digital is Dumb

What is dumb is the fervor with which some folks promulgate their way to
do things, or their choices, and those who retort vehemently, etc.
I see your point, Robert, but I think you'd have to agree that the
Subject line was ill chosen, unless you have a wee bit 'o troll in ye.
--
john mcwilliams


John McWilliams

Re: Digital is Dumb

That's just it, it depends on the lab. Most labs I've tried I do not care
for, except one, Chrome in San Diego.
Chrome can produce far better skin tones with my NPS - NPH film than I can
get out of my 20D or E1 with my Photoshop skills. I understand, of course,
that one could easily argue that all I need to do is improve my Photoshop
skills.
Patrick


Patrick L

Content - Digital is Dumb
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