[PRCo] Re: going digital

[Fred Schneider]

Lybarger is the one you should talk to because he has shot both  
extensively over the last few years.   So has Rich Allman.

John Bromley (if you need his e-mail address, I'll provide it) has  
extensive experience with Nikon digitals.

I have not touched digital yet.   I keep saying I'll do it.   Maybe I  
should cash in all my American Express points and buy a Nikon digital.

If all you want are prints (and not slides), then a good digital  
camera and a good ink jet printer will serve well.

The lenses that you use in 35mm are not the same as you will use in  
digital because the area you are covering is not the same.   You are  
covering an area approximately 1 x 1 1/2 inches in film.   In  
digital, you are covering a receptor that is much smaller.    
Therefore the standard lens has to be equivalent to the diagonal of  
that area ... probably closer to 35mm, and the superwide lens is  
probably closer to 18mm, and the same result you got with a 70-200  
will be achieved with something around 40 to 130 mm.   So if you put  
a 50 mm lens on a digital camera, it will behave like a short  
telephoto lens.

Advantages?  Disadvantages?

It is almost impossible to buy film today.   If you like Kodachrome,  
there is only one lab in the U. S. that still processes it (Dwaynes  
Photo in Parsons, Kansas).   I think Dwaynes may be the last place  
still standing in the world that does Kodachrome.   Fuji closed its  
U. S. processing plant and ships all its accumulated Fujichrome to  
Parsons, Kansas too.   If you do use Ektachrome (Elitechrome or  
whatever) or Fujichrome or any E6 compatible film, you can get it  
processed locally in 24 hours ... sometimes.   There is a local  
processor in Lancaster.   But he cannot even number the slides any  
longer because the machine that did the numbering broke and no one  
builds repair parts for it today!   Using film is like feeding a  
dinosaur.

All the old printing processes used film.   Graphic arts used film.    
No one uses film.   I used to retouch prints the old way with paint  
brushes and an air brush (spray gun).   Now we may a digital scan of  
the photo and clone one area into another in Photo Shop.   You don't  
like the white automobile at the edge of the picture, a good man in  
Photo Shop can remove it in a few minutes.   A good man with an air  
brush and paint brushes could do it in a few hours.

A good man with film could take one picture and make it count.   I  
remember taking a couple of pictures that were in my high school year  
book.   One showed the batter taking a swing at a baseball. You could  
see the ball coming off the end of the batt just a fraction of a  
second after he hit it.   The other showed the tape spit in two just  
after the champion runner broke the tape.  In those days your timing  
had to be perfect.   You had one sheet of film in the Speed Graphic  
camera.   Your mind was in the hands of the batter or the shoes of  
the runner when you pressed down on that shutter.  You had one chance  
to make it perfect.   We later graduated to motor drive cameras and  
made ten images in a few seconds.   Maybe we got it and maybe we  
didn't.  But the average bear could probably get something 3 times  
out of 5. Now we just take ten digital images a millisecond or so  
apart and you have it and you delete the ones that didn't work.    
You're not a miracle worker.   You think you might be but it was old  
timers that were.

I've heard that professional photographers today spend nothing on  
film.   They go to a wedding a shoot thousands of images.  Then they  
go home and spend hours pouring over them and deleting the ones they  
don't want to show the bride and groom.  They have become slaves to  
their equipment instead of artists that created pictures.  (And they  
piss me off with incessant clatter of the shutter when I'm trying to  
hear the words of the minister.)

I cannot help but revere people like O. Winston Like who spent days  
string wires and and testing them and planting flash bulbs all over  
the place in order to take one picture.   And once he took that one  
picture, he knew he could tear everything down.   He knew he had  
it.   He had the confidence to know he was good.   He understood  
lighting.   He understood the inverse square rule.   He understood  
film.   He understood photo chemistry.   The man was an artist and a  
genius.    Today we simply set the camera for 3000 ASA and push the  
digital image for all we get out of the camera. We get something.   
But the magic is lost.

My father was a judge of several Photographic Society of America  
porfolios.   I'm actually the third generation photographer in the  
family.   Before dad died we were out running around one Saturday.    
He was beyond taking pictures  ... just going along for the ride.    
But he was watching me.   I was moving back and forth with my  
camera.   Dad was not failing to observe what I was up to.   He knew  
that I was moving left to right, forward and backward, trying to get  
the curves in creek just where I wanted them to lead the viewers eye  
into the farm in distance after I clicked the shutter.   Dad  
commented later that what I was doing was what most photographers  
never learn ... how to compose a picture.   I think, when you are  
working with film, you learn how to compose because it costs more.    
When you are using digital, you learn how to delete the bad ones  
afterward but you never really learn how to take good ones.

If I had to teach photography, I would insist that the students start  
in 4x5 or 6x6 cm and learn how to compose first.   Once they learn  
how, then they can move to digital.

It is sort of like learning to drive on a manual transmission, then  
going to an automatic.   Right Ken?

On May 29, 2008, at 10:15 AM, Dennis F. Cramer wrote:

> Greetings,
> As a retirement gift to myself, I am considering moving into the  
> world of a digital camera and am looking for recommendations.  I  
> have used a Canon T-50 with 3 different lenses (50 mm, 28 mm and a  
> 70-200 mm zoom) for the past 28 years.
>
> I do not want a point and shoot camera and would like to be able to  
> eventually buy additional lenses.  I would like to start with a  
> zoom lens.
>
> What are the advantages and disadvantages of digital over film?
>
> Do any of you have any specific recommendations?
>
> I take a shoot a wide variety of subjects both indoors and out.
>
> Dennis F. Cramer
>       Trombone
>
>
>