Digital vs Film Photography

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Mike Farley
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Digital vs Film Photography

Postby Mike Farley » Wed 22 Nov 2017, 09:26

There is an interesting discussion going on at The Online Photographer in respect of film versus digital photography. It started out by comparing the cost of the two methods, but the most recent post has moved beyond that to what people do with their images.

There is a perception that digital photography is cheaper than analog since there are no direct costs associated with the act of pressing the shutter release, which is not the case when using film. That ignores the cameras being more costly as they incorporate expensive to produce sensors, not to mention that lenses have to be better to cater for higher resolutions than film is capable of.* That also contributes to higher cost. Then there is the requirement for a computer and disk storage to process and preserve the results. True, those considerations apply to film as well and in some respects computerisation makes it easier, although it introduces new issues as digital files are intangible. Against that, though, they do not fade like film does.

I definitely take more shots than I did in my film days and there is no doubt that the ease of working with digital images has lead to an increase in standards. When I did my 365 project in 2013, I ended up with nearly 16,000 exposures for the year and the enterprise would not have been viable had I been shooting film. The effort was sufficiently time consuming as it was and I would have been overwhelmed had I used film. Not to mention that sharing the results would have been more difficult as well. Maybe we have lost some things with the move away from film, but we have also gained in other regards.

Perhaps surprisingly, the debate at The OnLine Photographer started with a preview of a new camera, namely the Panasonic G9. The point was made that digital cameras require more frequent upgrades than with film. That is a fair point, although I would argue that most digital cameras of recent years are more than good enough for most purposes. The manufacturers are trying to tempt us with features such as higher resolution, which I argue most do not really need, and relatively small increments to dynamic range.

Here is the post which started it all: http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... -lens.html.

That lead to a very short post which elicited a massive response: http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... gital.html.

The latest post has moved on to other aspects of the merits of film and digital: http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... stion.html.

* I have recently become interested in using old manual focus lenses designed for film. Partly my motivation is to get results which exhibit characteristics which a modern, technically perfect lens cannot always provide. That is harder to achieve than it might seem as many older designs are actually very capable of delivering good results. It is really a topic for another post, so I will not elaborate here.

Here is a challenge for those going to tonight's DPI competition. One of my entries was taken with a zoom lens, probably manufactured well over 30 years ago, which cost £25 via eBay. Conventional wisdom has it that zoom lenses of that vintage are inferior to their contemporary prime lens counterparts. Will anyone be able to spot the image in question?
Regards

Mike Farley
(Visit my website and blog - www.mikefarley.net)

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