The Cost of Digital vs. Leica

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Hello all:

A forum member with a tight budget recently posted a question - to buy another Leica camera or a digital camera. I responded that an investment in a digital camera requires a further investment in a printer and software (possibly comuter upgrades too) to take advantage of a high quality digital camera. I suggested that the member get a higher quality Leica lens for his existing system.

My question: Is digital a system - that requires an expenditure that rivals (or exceeds) the expenditure for a Leica system (one camera and one lens) for film?

My answer to this question is - yes - to get decent prints with a digital camera - you must spend more on gear than to purchase a Leica M or R and a Leica lens.

Regards, Doug

-- Doug Landrum (dflandrum@earthlink.net), May 30, 2002

Answers

Doug; the costs sometimes are hard to pin down; or hard to find...One must also figure what ones time is worth.......Also whatis the master plan in saving all ones digital files.......Will the goblins make the CD hard to read in 15 years??...Computer time can be a huge sinkhole....I use Photoshop each day for at least 2 hours......

Alot of people with digital only print out a very small fraction of "photos" shot..I got my 1.3 Megapixel Olympus D360L for Ebay photos...I almost always use the lower ( 1/4) pixel count VGA mode in the best quality...i "shoot alot of views of the item; delete the super duds; and use the best to crop etc in Photoshop..My output is the web; and our ebay customers are in rural areas...My ebay photos must load quickly with a standard POTS line of 26.4k... (slower than a 33 modem)..

My friend has the Olympus 3030 which is about 3.3Megapixel..; an epson printer ; 1 gig of ram; and a windows 2000 system.....His enlargements look good; but my 9 megapixel scanner outputs on his printer look better...& show more detail...

With 35mm film here one can get 24 exposures developed and printed to 4x6 prints for 6.99 at Walgreens in less than one hour.......their new machine is very good...Sams will process the same film in 2 to 3 days for only 2.69.. there is no negative sleeves and the prints have less saturation....I send junk rolls there at times....

I have rarely seen people print out an entire 24 exposures 4x6 from a digital camera as proofs...Here it seems the output is either for the web; or print out only the best of the best in larger sizes say 8x10....

When I shoot some school sports stuff I get either 2 or 3 4x6 prints per negative...I dont have the time to print out a bunch of little photos...It is dog work...One school set is given away; one is my set...the duds go in the trash.......it is a very efficent system for me.....

recently I got a color copier with a fiery to print digital stuff up to 11x17...

-- Kelly Flanigan (zorki3c@netscape.net), May 30, 2002.

If you are shooting photos on film with any camera, you have much the same needs as you do if you shoot with a digital camera when it comes to printing: either you will send you film out for processing and printing or you will invest in the equipment and time to do it yourself at home ... whether that means computer, scanner and photo editing software and quality printer or darkroom, chemistry, enlarger, etc, the total investiture isn't really that much different for quality equipment. Cost of darkroom consumables vs inkjet/paper/computer consumables is darn close.

So let's look at cameras, lenses, etc. Unless you're going for the highest end 6MPixel SLR cameras and lens systems, you're going to produce very nice prints up to 13x19" with a 5MPixel camera. That's about $1000 for the camera at current market prices, a camera in that class with a good lens, a 5:1 or better zoom lens, etc. Add to that a couple hundred bux for memory media, spare batteries, case, filters and other accessories, the total for camera and kit will likely be around $1500-2000. With that you are now ready to make thousands of exposures, no further cost required. Now compare to buying Leica M ($2000 for the body, $500-1500 for a lens, add in similar increments for more lenses) plus the incremental cost per roll of film (not even counting processing and printing) of $2-9 apiece per 36 exposures. By the time you reach 1500 exposures, at $3.50 per roll, you've already hit $4000 or double the cost of the digital camera kit.

By and large, most people on this list have the computer already, most have a half decent printer, all they really need is the camera kit and photo editing software and they're in business.

The quality, usability and flexibility I'm getting out of my Sony F707 is such that it's pretty much killed off my interest in shooting 35mm film ... I'm shooting mostly medium format when I'm shooting film nowadays. That's where I get prints that are actually substantially better quality than I can get with the digicam nowadays.

And I still love the look and feel of film images...

The conclusion is that you can look at film vs digital or you can look at film and digital. Each media has its advantages and disadvantages. My feeling is that cameras now available are effective, worth investing in, and obviate the need for a lot of what used to be the exclusive province of 35mm film. By no means do they completely replace film or a Leica M or whatever ... Leica's lenses and the qualities that remain a film advantage (responsiveness, low light quality, etc) remain compelling enough to be worth the cost. But the cost of all digital photography continues to drop and the cost of film photography continues to rise ...

-- Godfrey (ramarren@bayarea.net), May 30, 2002.


I don't think the digtial can replace 35mm film yet and may never will be... it has its technology barrier and big company only wants to invest in places where they can make money... in the mass market. However, I think your are losing a lot if you do not explore the digital world. There are something Leica can't do. To me, using a Leica yet try to save money has a limit... if the digital can improve your quality (not just sharpness) and productivity of your work, by goly jump in and not fall trap in this Leica fallacy.

Best luck, Chi

-- Chi (chihuang@yahoo.com), May 30, 2002.


Hi Doug

I am with Godfrey on this on. I bought a Canon G2 and since then my Leica M6 sits quietly in its bag doing nothing (oh sorry thats what moronic collectors think Leicas are for, but I did put film through it so its probably worthless!)

The reasons is not because the Leica is suddenly bad or inferior but a question of usage. I too use medium format for "quality" and I don't like having hundred of 6x4 proofs around - its either worth a 10x8 or bigger or it goes in the bin.

Now the Canon G2 gives me an effective 35-105mm F2 lens for £600! I can't get acceptable quality film processing for a reasonable price and I will not pay pro prices for a whole roll when I will only be interested in maybe one or two keepers. I have a computer and an Epson C80 printer and regardless of the potential for images from the Leica, the prints I put out from the G2 onto archival matte paper are better than the stuff the comes from the local photo lab. I don't face the costs of buying film, processing and the time cost of waiting, no scratched negatives etc.

No my scenario works for me because of my photo style and the fact that I switch to medium format for anything serious. If you are primarily a street of candid shooter, then you should have the Leica, digital will not give you the small, discrete size AND the speed of operation, the Canon G2 is SLOW to use it just doesn't matter for the photos I take with it.

More specifically to your question - will digital be cheaper, depends on you, you don't have to upgrade to the next camera, computer etc if your does what you need, whether you will is a different matter.

Only the top end stuff like Canon D1 and the D60 actually cost more than a Leica (D60 only just) but you will quickly save on processing unless you insist on a proof of every picture you take.

Regards

Tapas

-- Tapas Maiti (tapas.maiti@ntlworld.com), May 30, 2002.


My thinking is this: I will now use film cameras to get as good quality as possible. Later, a year or three, let's see, I will get a (medium format) scanner and the required hardware and Photoshop software. That will cost a bomb, but probably not as much as it would today. And meanwhile, I can keep snapping on film without losing quality. Then, later still, when I can get sufficient quality on digital, at reasonable cost, I will start thinking about investing in digital back or digital SLR.

But I will always keep the Leica M6 as a purely mechanical back up. As an example, one can still buy 127 size film, even though there are only a few of those cameras left and they haven't been made in decades. I absolutely do not believe that 135 or 120 film will disappear during my or my (yet to be born) grandson's lifetime.

If I bought into digital now, I would end up spending a lot and getting only mediocre quality results. And two years later much better cameras would be available for less. For me, Leica represents lasting value that will not go out of date.

-- Ilkka (ikuu65@hotmail.com), May 30, 2002.



I use a Nikon 885 for snapshots and web postings, and have found that there is something immensely satisfying about having my shots almost immediately. (And being quickly ready for distribution.) This alone has changed my skeptical attitude towards digital. I still, not yet anyway, only consider my film based systems for serious and "keeper" photography. I also believe that with proper filing and storage that both color negative and positive films will far out last digital storage medias.

It reminds me of Homer Simpson responding to Moe's new navy surplus flash fryer that would fry a whole cow/buffalo in 45 seconds: "Awwwh, 45 seconds?! But I want it now!" ;-)

-- Reto (redcavereto@yahoo.com), May 30, 2002.


My 2 cents/pence -I have a Nikon Coolpix5000 and an M6 - the Nikon is still streets behind 35mm film in terms of image quality and has anyone tied to take a picture with a digital camera at the same time as you press the shutter? - you can't! The future is bright for digital but at the moment as a means of preserving and capturing images in a future proof system 35mm film wins as there will always be better film scanners but a digital camera image is doomed to be inferior to subsequent generation of camera technology. I use the Nikon for location scouting and as general visual notebook -I don't need the hassle of processing and scanning for this.

-- Johann Fuller (johannfuller@hotmail.com), May 30, 2002.

Photo finishers here in Hong Kong will take your memory card, CD-Rom or whatever and give you prints in an hour for about the same price as film processing. I have the Canon G2 and prior to that the Coolpix 950. What great cameras! I certainly have fun using them and the Leicas aren't one bit jealous.

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), May 30, 2002.

I thought some of you guys, might like to read the following click

if that doesn't work try copy/cut and pasting

http://www.pdnonline.com/pix/features/africa.html

-- bubble (bubblegrass@yahoo.com), May 30, 2002.


Godfrey,

you make an excellent argument. however, you seem to have forgotten about the costs of archiving those digital images. it is obvious that really good storage systems have astronomical price tags- -not to mention you will have to have them replaced every few years and should be redundant. you can't rely on CDs...as Michael Reichmann pointed out in his site, CDs begin to deteriorate after a couple of years (as opposed to 10 years as some manufacturers claim).

-- Dexter Legaspi (dalegaspi@hotmail.com), May 30, 2002.



... has anyone tied to take a picture with a digital camera at the same time as you press the shutter? - you can't! ...

In case no one has ever noticed, every camera has a different shutter response characteristic, whether digital or film. None operate instantaneously. This is something you accommodate with practice. I did say that there are some advantages to film in terms of responsiveness... ;-)

... as a means of preserving and capturing images in a future proof system 35mm film wins as there will always be better film scanners ...

Technological development of film scanners has plateaued. Discussion with various engineering organizations at Nikon/ Canon/Minolta/Epson/etc demonstrated to me conclusively that they are putting their money and effort into digital cameras, not scanners. None of them saw much purpose in a 35mm film scanner with greater than 4000 ppi spatial resolution.

you make an excellent argument. however, you seem to have forgotten about the costs of archiving those digital images. it is obvious that really good storage systems have astronomical price tags

Um, I just bought a 160Gbyte EIDE drive and enclosure for less than $350... The bare drive was $200 ... The average full- resolution 35mm TIFF scan at 2820 ppi and 16bit/channel depth is ~60MB, so that one drive will hold well over 2500 full resolution images in backup. For a sense of scale, that's 100 rolls of 135-24 film, and VueAll archive pages to store those negatives cost $50 ... So there's $350 for film and $50 for storage. CD-Rs are now costing me $0.22 apiece in packs of 100, that 650Mx100 or about $22 to store about 1000 images that way.

not to mention you will have to have them replaced every few years and should be redundant. you can't rely on CDs...

Even if you have to occasionally cycle digital media, the costs are far from astronomical. And Reichmann's numbers are very pessimistic compared to my experiences ... I've been making CD-Rs for about 10 years now, storing them properly in protective binders, etc. So far, every single one of them is completely readable and useable, and many of them contain image files that I created as long ago as 1984 and migrated through floppies and other storage media.

Even my inkjet prints from a decade ago, properly stored in archival mounts in binders, are lasting remarkably well. The older ones don't do so well when put in a frame and exposed constantly to actinic light, but that's been the case with darkroom photographs too.

As I said, it's a different medium. You can argue about it a lot, we're all reluctant to accept change in the things we love, but the realities are that it is useful and worth using in the pursuit of photography as long as its characteristics suit what you are trying to achieve.

-- Godfrey (ramarren@bayarea.net), May 30, 2002.


"With that you are now ready to make thousands of exposures, no further cost required."--this isn't quite true, is it. If you decide to print any of these on most likely your new printer hooked up to your new computer (about $1500 there at least), the ink and paper needed for quality prints including a bunch you'll throw away, is certainly not free and can be quite expensive. As others mention above, the time factor is the killer for me-anything that has anything to do with computers and image software is a time consuming process.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), May 30, 2002.

"With that you are now ready to make thousands of exposures, no further cost required."--this isn't quite true, is it. If you decide to print any of these on most likely your new printer hooked up to your new computer (about $1500 there at least), the ink and paper needed for quality prints including a bunch you'll throw away, is certainly not free and can be quite expensive. As others mention above, the time factor is the killer for me-anything that has anything to do with computers and image software is a time consuming process.

Not to be a nit-picker, but I did say "exposures" not "prints".

Making prints, whether darkroom or computer/printer, is * always* time consuming. That doesn't change... Unless you're willing to let a lab do it and pay the price accordingly. Which is just as easy for digital as it is for film nowadays, and at similar cost.

And as I said, most of the people on this forum likely have the computer and printer they need already.

-- Godfrey (ramarren@bayarea.net), May 30, 2002.


CDs begin to deteriorate after a couple of years (as opposed to 10 years as some manufacturers claim).

If you buy the ones that cost 22 cents each, that may be true. Otherwise my experience has been the same as Godfrey's. I've been saving on DVD's as of late. I'm not sure that is a good idea, but it works. Hell, nothing that I do needs to be protected like a great work of art [althought, by definition, it is a work of Art ;<)].

Art

-- Art (AKarr90975@aol.com), May 30, 2002.


Most all techical data from space probes is stored on 1/2 inch magnetic tape...There are still companies who make new machines...the 3M tape used will last 10 years before "print-thru" tends to corrupt the tape and thus the data...The data is re-written on new 1/2 inch magnetic tapes every 7 years; before the 10 year limit is reached.

I worked in the diskdrive industry for 20 years; and seen alot of ways to loose data.......Certain chemicals destroy the recording heads with time..If traces of these chemicals are in the recording head lapping process; or wafer process of the chip that is diced up to make heads.......Then slowly the diskdrive gets harder to read its own data.......Also these chemicals around ones computer tend to ruin the drives..The drives are not completely sealed; but have a small breather filter with the magical submicron filter.......Some vendors once placed charcoal also in the filter to absorb the chemicals which are harmfull.....

The first optical memory disks I worked with in the late 1970's only lasted a few days!. Today I am still worried that alot of CD's will be unreadable sooner than most people think.........Kelly Flanigan

-- Kelly Flanigan (zorki3c@netscape.net), May 30, 2002.


I am contineously amazed by all the dated and inaccurate information about digital that gets bandied about on this forum. Comparing a M camera to a consumer P&S digital??? The sensors in these cameras are tiny compared to ones in pro digitals, Better to get a ProSumer Canon D-30 than a higher meg count G2. Its' sensor is huge next to the Gs, making for much cleaner tonal gradations. And the price is lower than a M now that they've launched the D-60. Plus you can use interchangable lenses including stabilized ones. Digital can't match 35? I guess that's why many of the top wedding shooters have switched to digital... because they want to provide an inferior product and go out of business. Digital is an investment that will pay for itself very quickly especially in terms of creative control. Archiving images is WAY easier to maintain than with film. There are programs that allow you to file and/or find an image in nano seconds, not hours. Storage is WAY more space effective. I'm storing on a $300, 100gig drive right now, waiting for DVDs. And film is hardly dead or in danger of dying. Key manufacturers have applied for Patents for very thin, high res hinged backs-- allowing a user the option of film or digital capture by just swapping out the back . Just like a Polaroid back can be used now. Keep up everyone. The times they are a changing.

-- Marc Williams (mwilliams111313MI@comcast.net), May 30, 2002.

Godfrey - the shutter lag on my Coolpix 5000 makes it impossible to capture expressions on faces or capture a composition with moving objects - simple - you can't do it! this is not a feature you can work around or accomodate unless you only photograph still inanimate objects. When I press the shutter on my M6 I cannot percieve a time lag between that action and the release of the shutter. The resolution of film scanners may have plateaued but that's not the only measure of a scanner is it? They still have some way to go in the important areas of tonal seperation and density range - I doubt if my Nikon 4000 is going to be on my desktop in 5 years time - I hope not anyway!

-- Johann Fuller (johannfuller@hotmail.com), May 31, 2002.

The coolpix 5000 is an expensive digital point and shoot.

If you go to B&H and pick up a D1x, you'll note that there is no shutter lag. The only time the camera pauses is if you shoot several frames in a row at high speed and you have to wait for one frame to write to disk.

If you are willing to put up with less resolution, the D1H will shoot 40 frames before pausing with a bit of lag.

I'm pretty sure the high end Canon bodies have similar response times.

-- Pete Su (psu@kvdpsu.org), May 31, 2002.


I have negatives that span back over 40 years; my fathers stuff goes back to the 1930's...One of our old family albums is from 1890's to 1905....There are black and white photos in it that are over 100 years old that look like they were just developed yesterday....

The color prints I had developed at Kodak in the mid 1970's are faded...Some are really gone..

I started scanning my 35mm color negatives 2 1/2 years ago..These are 2700dpi scans with 16bit tiff files; which are 56Meg each...I stored 10 frames on each CD; with the extra space for later cropped and jpeged versions of each negative....For one 36 exposure roll, this uses up 4 Cd's...The volume of these 4 CDs is way larger than the volume of the 36 exposures in sleeves.......Thus my physical storage space for my hybrid digital system is way larger than purely negatives only..BUT; the advantages of digital and using Photoshop are great!!!!...

The 2 1/2 year old CD's have been babied and all kept in jewel cases; away from smoke humidity and dust....I wonder how long these Cd's will be readable..My experience is that they are at times a real pain in the butt to read.......many times one of the files takes many many minutes to open; unlike the other files on the same disk....After originally burning the Cd's; I used Photoshop to open each file as a check of a good burn...Now 2 1/2 years later some of the files really drag; sometimes taking 10 minutes! these i have placed on my hard disk and reburned on yet another CD...So that one roll's Cds now are many times 5 Cds...

This opening of files to see if they are still there is dead dog work.....but is the same as checking ones slides here from time to time for fungus growth....

All of the CDs I use are the name brand best CDs.....

The area of the 10 24x36 exposures is about the same as the surface area of the CD surface..

the hard drives that you are storing your photos on will die at some time...I live mine on all the time...Some of my drives still one are 7 years old; it only holds 100Mbtye..

My main work hard drive crashed last fall after 1 1/2 years usage...It was a 6 Gig drive and all photos were lost....I had burned Cds of alot of the stuff on a regular schedule; and have 50 to 100 CD's for work jobs saved for reprinting....; but as luck goes it the most recent and valuable stuff was lost......

I opened up the hard drive decapitated the crashed head....Then I cleaned off the other heads that were low flyers and crashing due to the garbage generated by the crashed head....Then I started up the drive..With alot of trial and error I was able to retreve some lost files...Some of the 80 Mbtye scans had there file saze almost correct; but only the top 40%of the image was there; and the bottom 60% was white....

-- Kelly Flanigan (zorki3c@netscape.net), May 31, 2002.

Kelly, was the hard drive you had problems with part of your regular operating system or a stand alone unit? I'd never archive on anything except a stand alone unit. When I transfer files from my desk top, I close all programs, (restart), plug in the stand alone, transfer, then unplug the stand alone. Keeping them on your working hard drive exposes the file to any aberrations of that system. I currently use a 100 Gig VST hard drive. When the next wave of TerraBite Drives the size of a pack of cigarettes get here, I'll transfer everything there. As far as CD ROMs are concerned, they are a temporary method of image access for now. I find it strange that you open the files in PhotoShop after burning a CD ROM. My Que! FIre has a verification step that rescans after the burn to make sure the copy was perfect. DVDs are already here, and are a much more effecient storage media. But, I even consider them to be temporary. Also, I save all the work I'm doing with digital cameras as RAW 16/24 bit files so the working tiffs can be "upgraded" later if / when PhotoShop allows more 16/24 bit functions and/ or the printers go to 16/24 bit cabability. Same with scanned images, such as all my Leica work for the past 10 years. The beauty of the Leica work is that you have both negs/trans and a corrected digital file. So you're covered in any event.

-- Marc Williams (mwilliams111313MI@comcast.net), June 01, 2002.

Hi Marc; My old system at work had an external Sony Sepressa USB 4x writer; I got it new for 280 bucks..about 3 years ago...This was long before most computers had internal Cd writers....The drive should have been called the "Depressa" ....It is the most royal pain in the ass piece of hardware / software I have ever fooled with....In order for the computer to see the CD burner; one has to only use the front USB port #1; and never the rear USB port #2... Then one has to turn the CD burner on first; with the computer OFF Then one most roll the dice and turn one's computer on....In about 1 out of 7 tries it will find the USB sony drive.....It is a valid Plug and Pray system....The above sequence is the only way in hell the external system can be used....It took weeks with Sony tech support to get the darn thing to work.....Today it is no longer used......

When I used the above Sony depressa drive and my later faster internal cd burner; several times I could not read the *.tiff files that i just burned.....

Many times these scans were for customers which get really ticked off when there paid for scans cannot be read......So as a quality control issue I have had to open the damn files to see if the file is ok...The burners do a precheck of the CD and a verify; but if the files cannot be opened, what the heck good are they? There verification process is a damn lie; mad customers do complain; so that is way I see if the burn is valid......Sometimes the files burned are scans of engineering drawings from our 36" wide scanner...When the customer is in another state trying to get their work printed off our CD disk; they call us up to have the missing drawings emailed to his temporary site or printer...Or Fed Ex of a new correct disk; where we eat the overnight next day morning fees............this is a royal pain in the ass to do...Thus as a printer I view the checking of ones CD's as the normal course of business...

Using a separate hard drive just for data is a good idea

When my one work machine's hard drive crashed last fall I placed the largest Hard drive quickly available locally..It s a 40G Maxtor 7200Rpm...I partioned the hard drive as 4 different logical drives...

Drive C: is about 9G and is for only programs/software

Drive D: is 2G for Photoshop scratch pad

Drive E: is 2G for Photoshop sratch pad or reserved for future use with adding a newer or older operating system...(Us printers still have programs that only work in DOS; and it will not work under windows...I hacked into the program and have portions of it running under windows......The vendor tried and gave up; but their windows version uses new internal file formats; the bottom line is either I maintain my existing DOS system; or fork out a cool 55k for a new system; and scrap out by old 2 engineering copiers......Recently I built up a new 200Mhz pure DOS machine for our printer; the old 50Mhz machine bit the dust..)

Drive F:is 26G's; which is used only for data; ie customer files...

Drive G: is the CD writer

Drive H: is the USB zip drive (as a printer I must be able to accept all types of inputs)..

The computer has 3 scanners; (1) USB Epson 1200U flatbed with transparency adapter (2) SCSI Canon FS2720 35mm scanner 2700dpi (3) parallel Port Mustek 11x17 flatbed scanner 300dpi

-- Kelly Flanigan (zorki3c@netscape.net), June 01, 2002.

Kelly, sounds like you have ( or had) a system Dante would've liked to write about. Try the free standing hard drive. They're cheap compared to all the bull-crap you've been struggling with. I even dumped my entire Operating System configuration, with all current programs and plug-ins, on one as a precaution against total system failure. I never use the internal CD-ROM Drive in my computer. My Que! Fire reads/writes up to 32X via a firewire, and it's like lightening. (and it's almost two years old, so who knows what's out there now). I've found the less you have on the main system the better. This week I will be getting a new G4 "Tower Of Power" Dual processor: 1 1/2 Gig of Ram, 1 Gigahertz speed demon with two hard drives ( one as a 60 Gig scratch disk just for PhotoShop) and a DVD reader/writer. I'll probably be in "set-up Hell" for at least a week.

-- Marc Williams (mwilliams111313MI@comcast.net), June 03, 2002.

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