[quote name='GA_Dave' timestamp='1351215608' post='501575']
I appreciate the thought, but I'm still not happy about having to change. Saving money was never the issue. Until recently, I never bought my film. My wife has four sisters who resupplied me with film every Christmas. It's not that I'm resistant to change, it's just that I believe in not fixing something that isn't broken. There isn't one damn thing wrong with my Canon T70 or my Canon Rebel XSN. Film isn't hard to find because there is anything wrong with it, it just isn't popular any more.
Seeing the images instantly isn't a big deal for me either. I'm not that impatient. There have been times when rigs from one trip sat in the camera for months until another trip, and it never bothered me a bit. I've been editing my photos on the computer for years, so there's no improvement there. I've looked at prints of my shots from both film and digital of the same rig and cannot see any advantage. I've done the same with the rigs I have posted, comparing those scanned from film prints to those resized from digital, and they look the same.
[/quote]
The change to digital, while convenient is also extremely frustrating because of the obsolescence of equipment. On the shelf in my office I have a Nikon/Kodak NC2000, a D1, a D1x, and a D2 that are essentially expensive paperweights with no real value. My old Nikon FM2s, F3s and F4s worked beautifully, and still work beautifully, but in order to stay current and competitive the digital cameras have needed to be upgraded every few years, leaving the old cameras as obsolete. Don't even get me started on medium format! That bag of equipment is wonderful but largely unused except for pleasure. It is making the camera manufacturers gobs of money as the digital world moves on.
The other issue that I have with digital equipment is that it has largely taken the craft of photography down a notch. People can "chimp" and look at the screen to determine correct exposure and composition instead of getting the photo right to begin with. Shoot it in raw mode, tweak it in photoshop and make a crap photograph "exceptional." The ability to get the shot right from the camera is not a big concern for the vast majority of people at this point, which is sad. In a way it is a lot like driving a fire truck. If you had to learn to drive a truck on an old manual ALF or Mack, you paid attention, developed the skill and learned to "drive" the truck. Now anyone can hop into a 500hp monster, release the brake, stick it in drive and pretend to drive their Honda. It may be convenient, but if the technology is used incorrectly it can be downright dangerous.
The person that I view as the finest fire photographer in the world once told me a story about using a 4x5 camera to shoot a fire, and challenged me to try it. I did, it was a tremendous pain in the butt, it was painful, it made you THINK. While I don't ever want to do it again, I am a much better person because of it. It makes you slow down and think, something you do not have to do with the ability to shoot hundreds of photos in one shot on a memory card. Digital has taken much of the skill from photography.
I think I need to hurry up and build that darkroom in my basement, stock up on 120 and 35mm film, and shoot and print some real photos that don't have the Adobe seal of approval.
I appreciate the thought, but I'm still not happy about having to change. Saving money was never the issue. Until recently, I never bought my film. My wife has four sisters who resupplied me with film every Christmas. It's not that I'm resistant to change, it's just that I believe in not fixing something that isn't broken. There isn't one damn thing wrong with my Canon T70 or my Canon Rebel XSN. Film isn't hard to find because there is anything wrong with it, it just isn't popular any more.
Seeing the images instantly isn't a big deal for me either. I'm not that impatient. There have been times when rigs from one trip sat in the camera for months until another trip, and it never bothered me a bit. I've been editing my photos on the computer for years, so there's no improvement there. I've looked at prints of my shots from both film and digital of the same rig and cannot see any advantage. I've done the same with the rigs I have posted, comparing those scanned from film prints to those resized from digital, and they look the same.
[/quote]
The change to digital, while convenient is also extremely frustrating because of the obsolescence of equipment. On the shelf in my office I have a Nikon/Kodak NC2000, a D1, a D1x, and a D2 that are essentially expensive paperweights with no real value. My old Nikon FM2s, F3s and F4s worked beautifully, and still work beautifully, but in order to stay current and competitive the digital cameras have needed to be upgraded every few years, leaving the old cameras as obsolete. Don't even get me started on medium format! That bag of equipment is wonderful but largely unused except for pleasure. It is making the camera manufacturers gobs of money as the digital world moves on.
The other issue that I have with digital equipment is that it has largely taken the craft of photography down a notch. People can "chimp" and look at the screen to determine correct exposure and composition instead of getting the photo right to begin with. Shoot it in raw mode, tweak it in photoshop and make a crap photograph "exceptional." The ability to get the shot right from the camera is not a big concern for the vast majority of people at this point, which is sad. In a way it is a lot like driving a fire truck. If you had to learn to drive a truck on an old manual ALF or Mack, you paid attention, developed the skill and learned to "drive" the truck. Now anyone can hop into a 500hp monster, release the brake, stick it in drive and pretend to drive their Honda. It may be convenient, but if the technology is used incorrectly it can be downright dangerous.
The person that I view as the finest fire photographer in the world once told me a story about using a 4x5 camera to shoot a fire, and challenged me to try it. I did, it was a tremendous pain in the butt, it was painful, it made you THINK. While I don't ever want to do it again, I am a much better person because of it. It makes you slow down and think, something you do not have to do with the ability to shoot hundreds of photos in one shot on a memory card. Digital has taken much of the skill from photography.
I think I need to hurry up and build that darkroom in my basement, stock up on 120 and 35mm film, and shoot and print some real photos that don't have the Adobe seal of approval.
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