When to go digital?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Leica Photography : One Thread

For me it's a question of economics and quality. The main concern I have is when will film become uneconomical (that is the cost of the film and the processing).

It's okay saying that film will be around for a while but at what cost. At the moment it seems that all the news and mag guys have gone digital thats a big chunk of the pro film market gone. A lot of P&S crowd are going digital, as well. Sure there's millions of film P&S out there but how much film is used by these guys, and how long will the P&S last. All this has to drive the cost of film use up. So how long before it's uneconomical to shoot to film.

Another point is the depreciation of digital cameras. Does anyone care, for the pro it's not a problem, for the amateur if the camera meets his requirements then why would you want to upgrade, or care that a new camera has come out. If I bought a digital camera that could do 12x10s well and thats as large as I wanted to blow up to why would I care if the new latest and greatest went up to 20x30?

As for the painters versus photography analogy, that never really held in my book as I thought that the joy of painting was the painting whereas the joy of photography is the joy from the prints.

Please dont think I'm a digital guy, I've only got film cameras at the moment and would love to keep using them, mainly as I don't want to be searching for charging points and downloading images of flash cards, and I'd much rather just throw in some new batteries and put that roll of Sensia or NPH into my film bag.

I haven't decided to go digital yet but may do so when the D100 hits our shores.

What I'm kinda asking is will the market and marketing (no matter how much we as individuals hate marketing and rebel against it), make us decide that nows the time to go digital.

What do you think?

-- ras singh (bubblegrass@yahoo.com), April 28, 2002

Answers

If you need a digital camera and the instant preview it brings, and feel like it will improve your ability to capture the world around you better than what you have now, by all means jump in. The main things holding me back from the current crop of "affordable" Digital SLR's :

1)1.6X focal length thing. I like to shoot wide angle a lot, and even a 20mm lens becomes roughly a 35mm angle of view.

2)The dust on the chip issue is also downplayed and can be a real pain in the field. Change a lens, add dirt.

3) Apparantly the time delay from pushing the button until the image is captured is improving, but still not up to film camera standards.

4) Even though a person says, "if I'm happy with the results this camera makes, I won't be bothered by the trmendous improvements coming up in a year or so", this usually isn't the case. When Nikon comes out with a 10 meg camera, full frame pickup, with instant response times, better storage and transfer, etc, etc, for under $2000 in a year or so, the $2000 D100 will seem like a cheap P&S camera.

So I'm still waiting , mainly because I don't need a digital camera yet for the type of shooting I do. I'm happy with the results of my film cameras.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), April 28, 2002.


I went digital in the sense of scanning Provia. I thought I would onlmy shoot Provia and turn it to B&W when needed at I would be done.

Right.

I'm back to my wet darkroom big time.

I'm at the moment playing with different films to evaluate real speeds, grain, contrasts, things like that. All things in fact I could not get by scanning Provia. And don't even start me on scanning and printing B&W negs ! Suffice it to say it ruins your Zone System efforts with a remarkable inconsistency.

On the topic of digital cameras, the gap is so wide it is a joke. People are talking of quality by looking at resolution. Of course a 6Mpix CCD delivers at least the resolution of a fast film.

But.

- REAL speeds of CCDs are in fact quite low (most are less than 100ISO). You only get faster by raising contrast and applying smart software manipulations, and it shows.

- How do you choose different characters like you can do with film ?

- How do you control your output at the shooting level like you do with Zone System ?

I have no doubt a digital camera is the way to go for news.

There is no way digital is even close to make it for the kind of photography I do, which is discrete street shooting and landscape. Mostly in B&W.

I love the Fuji Acros as much as the Tri-X nad other different films. The palette you get to play with simply has no equivalent in digital. A digital camera is a fixed film camera. That sounds as stupid to me as going back to a fixed lens camera.

-- Stephane Bosman (stephane_bosman@yahoo.co.uk), April 28, 2002.


I have a digital snapshooter to experiment with composition but a pro-outfit isn't in the cards now. Digital is like a speeding train... and at this point in time, I wouldn't commit too much to latching onto that train for fear that it might derail.

Regards,

-- John (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), April 28, 2002.


Forgot one more thing that they need to improve before I jump in-- ergonomics and camera controls that don't require you to bring the 140 page owners manual with you in the field.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), April 28, 2002.

I'd like to go digital because it's just getting too hard to travel with film, and that's what I do.

I want a camera the size and weight of an FM3a. I want a 20mm to be a 20mm. I want the shutter to fire when I press the release.

I don't want a bunch of program modes, or even a viewing screen, or 8 frames per second.

All I need is a simple, aperture preferred model that records an image digitally instead of on film.

-- Jim Tardio (jimtardio@earthlink.net), April 28, 2002.



I'm in a hybird mode now, I use film for the capture, and scan the provia @ 4000 dpi and print it out on Epson 1290. I did try use provia image in photoshop and turn it to BW by channel mixing. the print out are not so good yet may be because I didn't treak it enough. or didn't ahve multi-tone BW printer system, Is anyone out there doing the same workflow and share how it work out ? I enjoy the color from the printer, it's very clean way to make COLOR print.

-- joseph (jose_phla@hotmail.com), April 28, 2002.

I agree about the previous post concerning colour. Scanning film is currently, IMHO the best way to do it.

-- Stephane Bosman (stephane_bosman@yahoo.co.uk), April 28, 2002.

Ditto, Tom Tardio: Digital camera manufacturers are dancing around, making low-end digital-interested consumers pay for the companies' R&D a pixel at a time. I'll bet the tempo to get a 24x36mm chip @ 20 megapizels would speed up considerably if no one were buying into this one-megapixel-at-a-time marketing ploy, where what you buy today was obsolete yesterday or even the day before. I'll probably buy in when the digital camera in my hands registers 20 megapixels with a shutter lag time that's faster than a yawn, and runs on batteries that have more lasting power than they currently have. Until then, I'll just give my stuff to somebody else to digitize and PhotoShop and spend my time shooting film with its higher definition, higher resolution, and unmatchable permanence.

-- Cosmo Genovese (cosmo@rome.com), April 28, 2002.

In my view, the question of when to go digital (to one degree or another) has style, convenience, cost, and quality variables that differ between individuals. Thus, the timing of the decision must vary, as well.

The issue of saving film and processing costs works out only if your time has no value. The reality is that a pro-level digital work flow will likely cost as much in time as film and processing. For example, I recently spent 3 hours shooting, and about 15 hours processing the digital images from the shoot. Time and money spent in calibrating the entire color-control system (camera settings, monitor settings, and printer) is also a factor that is often overlooked. For professional purposes, digital does speed the final product to the customer, however. And for some purposes, digital is the only medium that can satisfy the production schedule.

For Leica users, I think two of the biggest issues will be style and quality. Digital (handheld) tends to promote a quicker, sloppier working style - a fact that may be a problem for folks who like the deliberate and thoughtful working style of the Leica. Quality has both image size and subjective aesthetic elements. If you need large prints, top-end digital (Sinar, Kodak or other MF backs, and to a lesser extent, Nikon or Canon SLRs) are required, along with the high cost. Even then, however, there is no picking the film based on its color rendition or other subjective qualities, and no choice but the crisp precision of Japanese lenses. (If the Contax digital ever ships, the crisp precision of Zeiss lenses can be added to that.)

Thus, the individual choice of when to embrace digital depends on where the individual falls within the spectrum of choices. After most of the professional industry has shifted to digital, I expect we'll see a resurgence of film as a means of recreating the aesthetic differentiators that film and camera choices provide.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), April 28, 2002.


"I thought that the joy of painting was the painting whereas the joy of photography is the joy from the prints."

For you, maybe. For many of us the joy is as much in the process as in the final prints.

Nobody is forcing you to go digital. Why should you feel pressure to make the change? Film will be around longer than any of us. There will always be those who prefer the "look" of film and the many options it provides, and there will be companies who will find it profitable to service that market. It may get a little more expensive, but certainly not as expensive as buying digital equipment. Just figure up how much film you could buy with the money it would cost to switch over to digital.

I believe that as film-based photography becomes less common, it will come to be more highly valued. In fact, I'm basing my business model on that belief.

-- Dave Jenkins (djphoto@vol.com), April 28, 2002.



"all" the magazine photographers have gone digital? The last two years in Perpignan at Visa, I recall seeing a total of one pro digital camera around anyone's neck. Mostly m6's. No NG photographers that know of are shooting digital for them or anyone else, and otherwise I'd say it's only starting to make inroads when it's a necessity.

I'm not in the big-league but I am a full-time pro for mags and a select few newspapers, and it would make absolutely no sense for me to go digital right now--I have yet to lose a gig because I don't have digital cameras, though I have had several editors request them because "to save us money on film" (and after telling them that even if I had such cameras the equipment surcharges would exceed the cost of film for them, no problems). I have no disire or bankroll to compete against the wire services, nor to freelance for them (again, my supplying expensive as hell gear so they can force a rights-grab contract down my throat--no thanks!).

I am sticking the quality route for now. I think the necessity for speed is often exaggerated... if the picture is good enough, it will usually be used. Better than rotating out $15K in gear every two or three years to get a few pats on the head.

guess I'm a dinosaur.

-- dave@daveyoder.com (lists@daveyoder.com), April 28, 2002.


I have an M6, and while the arrival of the M7 has really intrigued me -- that is all it has done; I am not in despair that my M6 is now just junk. I am not sure that is true, deep down, with lots of Canon D30 owners, now eyeing up the D60.

I think the curve between one digital level of performance and the next is very steep, and very rapid. Buy digital, and new digital advances WILL unnerve even the most thick skinned.

There are dozens of comments from new D60 owners trumpeting just how much better the resolution and colour fidelity are, compared to their D30s -- well, I can tell you, that wasnt what they were saying five minutes ago, when the D30 was walking all over the very very best you could expect from Provia F lab digitised. Next week, the same thing will happen with the D80/90/100, whatever.

However great people think their new M7's, nobody would believe a similar claim. Result? General peace of mind all round for trad shooters. There just arent that many things they can add to film camera bodies that come close to this.

My conclusion then, is digital is tempting, but I would find it hard to live with the sure-as-day-follows-night dissatisfaction that will come my way with next month's digital quantum leap forward.

-- Martin Davidson (martin@foxcombe1.demon.co.uk), April 28, 2002.


Dear Friends,

This is a rather surprising question as it has no single answer IMHO.

As far as I’m concerned, I consider the answer is different if you consider shooting and printing.

Shooting digital in small format means you work for a low definition media and will never be able to use your images for any other purpose. I think a lot of pros shooting exclusively for newspapers and magazines may require to use a digital cameras. Some already practised this method and sometimes with a fairly highly priced equipment. Others are shooting digital in large format or medium format, mainly in studio work and only on still subjects, but in high definition output (as there is no way to obtain a similar definition to silver based emulsion with an instant photography yet). The cost of the equipment is such you must be absolutely certain to amortize it which means you must be a professional to adopt it. I’m convinced in a not so remote future high definition instant photography will be finally the standard everyone has to use (like it or not). But for the present time I see no reason to switch to a low res. digital camera. I’m happy with my Hexar RF and my Mamiya 645 1000 S. The only move toward a future “digitalisation” I’m ready to accept is to change my 645 1000 S for a 645 Pro.TTL model with interchangeable magazines.

I see really no reason as I don’t need to respect short delays to pay an awfully high price for a camera which will not equal by far the definition I can obtain from silver film and will be obsolete within a year. Like many people who expressed their point of view here, I consider the digital camera manufacturers are playing with us issuing each year a new model with a definition which is already superior to what is needed for the print house (300 dpi) or for the net (72 dpi) and which won’t print in a professional format on an inkjet with the same definition a silver based print has. The general public might be satisfied with something which can print a 9x14 (cm) print as they the ones they are used to get from the quick labs here and there, but any serious photog. Won’t be satisfied before he can print with photographic resolution something at least 18 x 24 or 18 x 27 (cm) which is the first print dimension which reached the acceptable minimum to see a picture with a correct restitution of the perspective (there’s a rule about that, the minimum of the diagonal of the print format should be at least equal to the eye “punctum proximum” of vision so 30 cm or so). And I’m even harsher on requirements, I want to be able to print A3 format from an equivalent of 35 mm film.

By the way, today digital elements are in fact half frame. Yes my friends, if you don’t know that be aware of it, a Nikon D1 for example will require a 24 mm focal lens to provide you the angle of view of a “standard” 50 mm lens! … It might be an asset for the sport photographer which can use a much cheaper lens to get the same field he once got with a 300 mm focal lens but you’ll have to blow the image twice more to get the same print dimension.

So my advice is unless you NEED to go digital for professional use, avoid these cameras… Better to spend your money buying new lenses for your classical camera(s).

Printing is an all different matter. In fact, if you have already a fast computer and a good printer, you can seriously envisage to go to digital printing, but be aware of the fact you’ll need a true film scanner to obtain good results particularly with small format films. They are by no mean cheap yet when compared to serious flatbed ones. But a 4000 dpi scanner for 35 mm format will not be much more expensive than a high end professional enlarger and you won’t need a real darkroom. Besides, you’ll be able to print in color yourself with consistent results without all the troubles you are sure to encounter without an expensive color processing machine and without being obliged to stock harmful chemicals.

I am already experimenting this technique since a year or so with a lower resolution flatbed scanner with a back for transparent and with a 1600 dpi resolution I can already produce very good 13 x 18 prints both in color and in B&W. For the last kind of pics I ever use bichrom function in Photoshop to get the feel of the old good Agfa Record Rapid paper (so a slightly warm tone). The results are really interesting. I’m really lingering for the money to buy a 4000 dpi scanner now. You can “dodge and burn” digitally and see the result, undo it if it is not satisfying (without wasting paper), you can everything you’ve ever dreamed of to do in your darkroom. You can use to the full effect the Ansel Adams’ Zone System as you can choose the level of contrast for each picture even if you have processed your negatives a standard way (something you’ll ever be forbidden to do with a camera using films in roll, Adams having devised his system for large format cameras using individual negative for each view). And all color users will see an immediate improvement of their prints as they’ll be able to balance the colors themselves and “expose” their slides or color negatives for the interesting part of the subject they’ve determined themselves when taking their shots (and not the average the automatic machines will give you)… Now the price? Well it might be not as economical as some salespersons will tell you, but be sure they are much lower than a color print made by a professional laboratory. At least we, the photographers, will be again able to create our images the way we feel appropriate, even in color, from the moment we press the shutter release button to the final image… For me this is priceless… As a 4000 dpi scanner already “see” the grain of the film, apart for paying more now than if we waited for some years the scanner itself, we are free to enjoy this new technology without the fear a better one will be issued next year… So it is already a valuable investment. Don’t be afraid by the issue of calibrating your chain, when the scanner, the screen and the printer are calibrated, you’ll never have to change anything thereafter it might be a tedious job to be done, but anyone having dealt with silver based color process will certainly find it much less hazardous than filtering operations under a classical color enlarger… Don’t let you fool by the question of the expected duration of your prints themselves, silver based color prints are already things which deteriorate fairly quickly in time (no organic colorants are stable) and even if B&W prints may be stable for a much longer time, the value of an original silver print is only determined by the fact the author of the picture has done it itself (or it has been made under is supervision or approval) and he may be unable to redo exactly the same print another time (dodge and burn might be different despite all care is exerted to obtain the same result, the paper the print was originally made on may be no more available or the author will be dead when a new reproduction must be done). The important part is the digital support itself (and you can make an archival copy exactly similar to the working copy) and each time you’ll print it it will be exactly the same. So the print itself is no more “that” important…

My conclusion is obvious, don’t go digital to take your picture unless you absolutely need it, but don’t refrain to go digital for printing your images right now.

Friendly

François P. WEILL

-- François P. WEILL (frpawe@wanadoo.fr), April 28, 2002.


I'm in hybrid mode right now film based capture and digital scanning and printing... and i must say, it is cheap (about $1.50 for a 8x10 print from a slide), good quality, but it sure takes a lot of time! i wish i could afford to take my slides to a pro lab and tell them to make a print for me, but at a minimum of $25 per 8x10 for a slide printed at the places i have looked i can't afford that. The more i work with computers (it is my job to run computer networks), the more i want to get back in the darkroom. Computers are great tools, but since this is a hobby i think i want to stay away from them... i just can't afford to do that just yet due to the cost of printing slides at a lab.

-- Matthew Geddert (geddert@yahoo.com), April 28, 2002.

I have a 5 megapixel Canon consumer digital camera and it is already overkill for my uses. Shooting it at the highest resolution at RAW format I can convert it to large TIFF files. The quality is quite impressive for essentially a P&S. I have assigned all happy snaps to digital and the fact that the pictures come up instantly is a added pleasure. My kids who don't like posing for pictures will happily perform for digital. Now why is the digital debate always so heated? If you don't need it then don't buy it. I think is a wonderful technology.

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), April 28, 2002.


Lots of long responses on this one so here's another. Don't worry about the constant state of tech upgrades. If that was an overriding criteria no one here would own a Leica. We all do because it meets our needs as defined by us. Determine what you want out of a digital camera and get it, or wait until it does meet your needs. I waited until the D1x came out and bought 2 for wedding photos and specific commercial work. It meets those needs, no matter what comes next. For MF location work I' m still with film. But with Kodaks' new unthered 48meg file back for $11,500. on a Contax 645, I will soon be all digital for most commercial work. BEWARE however, the work your processer used to do will now be on your back. With weddings (or vacation photos) that's no small task. I no longer even have a Nikon film camera. But, there is no substitute for a rangefinder and soon they will be the only camers that I use film with ( Leica, Mamiya 7ii and Xpan). And, according to an article in the latest LHSA pub., rangefinders can't go digital because the existing lens designs won't work with the way CCD chips work. So, it's film for them until a breakthrough is made.

-- Marc Williams (mwilliams111313MI@comcast.net), April 29, 2002.

Why is the digital debate so heated?

Well, one reason is this: the constant heralding of the "death of film." Most digital shooters see digital as an 'inevitable' evolution of film -- and once it has evolved (now, 5 years from now, whenever) film must die.

What intrigues me about this -- apart from the wacky rhetoric -- is the theoretical implications of digital supplanting film. It would seem to me that the rise of digital photography -- or digital imaging -- really points the fundamental difficulty that photography has had -- since 1839, one could argue -- of representing reality or imaging (imagining?) "truth".

Me, I don't see "digital" as the natural evolution of photography. I see it more as a fork in the road -- a detour -- but not one that's either inevitable or necessarily logical. I'm particularly interested in the idea that people have always wanted photography to be more "painterly" than it is -- or, put another way, people have traditional disdained the "limits" of straight photography and have always found ways to overcome them in order to make or manipulate the image so that photography is always (or tends to be) something that it is not.

Digital imaging seems to be a particular evolution of a particular photographic aesthetic -- the idea that reality as it is captured inside a light box needs to look a certain way, to be manipulated just so, in order to create something that better represents the "real" scene that was originally captured. (Or it might represent something that was never there in the first place and exists solely in the artist's imagination. One look at some of the digital images on PhotoSig or Photo.net will prove this. People are having a field day with making their digitally captured doves grainy and colorful, their flags blurred with motion, the babies sharp with saturated color). It's almost like the freakshow of the unreal -- but it doesn't have anything to do with the notion of "photography.")

It has to do with painting -- or making painterly images -- and is (IMHO) an outgrowth of exactly the sort of thinking that predominated when photography was first invented (or popularly introduced, depending on your view). It's the idea that you have to "pretty" your image -- soft focus, painterly composition, etc.

Now, there's no doubt that all photography -- even chemical based -- has been manipulated to some extent, but the real issue (for me, at least) is how digital imagery is really a return to what everybody wanted in the first place -- painterly, very specific images existing within very strict compositional frames. It's almost as though "reality" isn't satisfying enough through a lens. Reality has *never* been satisfying, in fact, and that's been the problem with photography since the beginning.

All this presupposes that there's a very distinct definition of "photography", of course. And I'm not even sure I could define it. As I say, there's always been manipulation -- so I'm not sure (yet) how digital manipulation is any different than darkroom manipulation. But (I think) it has to do with the idea that with the digital *anything* is possible -- even "film" effects -- specific grain, specific film "look", anything. Yet if anything is possible with digital, why make a "film look?" (I mean, one of the most often asked questions in the digital video world is how to achieve a "film look" - - implying that the crystal clarity that's possible with digital really isn't what is ultimately desired. It's the ability for infinite manipulation -- but infinite only within the bounds of a retro-aesthetic (film, in this case).)

Just some thoughts ...

-- Chris Schweda (cschweda@hotmail.com), April 29, 2002.


And I'd add this: that digital imagery is clearly a return to "painting" in the sense that, indeed, in painting anything is possible. It's the desire to construct a very specific image.

In straight photography, much is possible -- but not everything. The possibilities aren't infinite. You are -- as a 'straight' photographer -- still hobbled -- to some degree -- by possibility. It's for this reason -- the idea of a "limit" -- that photography has been haunted by a sort of -- for lack of a better term, as I'm writing this off the top my head -- a sort of 'uncertain reality'.

If there are no limits in digital manipulation -- and nothing that can't be done -- then everything is certain and possible. You only need skills enough to do it.

Sorta like Borges' story 'The Library of Babel' -- a library where every variation of every possible text has been written and is stored. In the Library of Babel, there are a million trillion histories -- "true histories", "false histories", and infinite variations on both -- so that everything true has been written and everything false has been written. It's the ultimate library, in other words. The key, though, is find the index (since the library is infinite) but this is impossible, since there are infinitely many possible indices and no way to locate the single "true" one. And what would be the point of the true one anyway?

It would seem that in technology we gravitate toward the Library of Babel concept -- that we (as rational humans) ease ourselves toward the infinite and comfort ourselves by saying that the more possibilities a thing has, the better. If it's infinite possibilities -- in the case of digital manipulation -- so much the better.

But straight photography -- or at least photography that produces a negative or a positive (a specific document -- a "trace" -- in other words) -- the Library of Babel concept falls flat. It's almost un- human to say, well, you have a lot of possibilities, but because you have a trace -- your negative or positive -- you don't have infinite possibilities. So it becomes a very uncomfortable thing. (Maybe because the fact of a trace -- the presence of a limit -- in fact mirrors us -- human beings -- in that we're not infinite (as biological objects), and we leave traces of ourselves (and our 'selves') -- and the last thing we want is to be reminded of our humanity by seeing yet another trace. It's a reminder of our non- infinity-ness.)

-- Chris Schweda (cschweda@hotmail.com), April 29, 2002.


I loved Chris' response above. It took this tired and repetitive old discussion in a new direction!

I agree that the debate is heated because of some people's self-assured pontification about how film will soon die, and how digital image capture will follow the same trajectory that the music CD did. If this were true, it would have been all over long ago.

But regarding digital's infinite possibilities, it's possible to compare this with music or verse, where it can be argued that LIMITING the possibilities by adhering to a specific metre or song form, can result in a higher artistic achievement than, say, blank verse or free-form jazz.

Joe

-- Joe Buechler (jbuechler@toad.net), April 29, 2002.


Very well presented discussion - great to see that this is still alive and well on the web.

I agree with many many points that have already been made. On the philosophic argument regarding the art/photography debate, I would encourage those interested to read Man Ray's published essays on the subject. They are insightful, witty, irreverant, thought provoking, and generally way ahead of their time. Man Ray's thoughts on to what extent photography "captures" an instant of time and "reality" is perfectly appropriate and relevant to digital photography.

Man Ray was totally unconcerned with camera equipment. One of his more famous celebrity portraits (and there are many) was taken using his own eyeglasses taped to the the lens board of his camera after he setup and realized he did not have any lenses.

-- R.J. (rfox@aarp.org), April 29, 2002.


I'll make one small change to my post above -- a little bit of a nod to K. Marx -- and call it the 'spectre of impossibility' (instead of 'uncertain reality') that haunts non-digital photography.

C.

-- Chris Schweda (cschweda@hotmail.com), April 29, 2002.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ