[JohnR]

Just wondering - am I the only one that feels this way? On the one hand, advancements in technology are making the cameras "of our dreams" available (think D3/D700 for Nikon lens owners, whatever equivalent for your own system).

On the other hand, new arrivals are stretching and pushing the boundaries, and threatening to make the "old paradigms" irrelevant. The Panny G1, mentioned in another thread, which has no mirror. The medium format digital cameras, such as from Leaf:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08091002leaf_afiII_aptus_10_7_6.asp

(56 Megapixels... high-end DSLR users: weep at your pathetic resolution... )

Is this a time to bow out of the race and go back to (medium/large format) film? At least until it all settles down? Who really needs to upgrade a $3k body every 2-3 years?? etc.

Just wondering What are your thoughts.

JohnR

[toocool4]

JohnR like you say technology is changing all the time and the cameras are getting better and better but they still lag behind film in terms resolution.

This new medium format DSLR at 56 Megapixels is only just approaching the very best 35mm film cameras. It’s now way near the medium / large format film cameras.

For me nothing does black & white like film, maybe I’m a bit biased as I mainly shoot black & white.

I cannot knock the convenience of digital and I have a Panasonic Lumix LX2 which is always in my bag so I can get snaps.

It’s not just you, I still prefer using my Canon EOS 1V and 1N as my main cameras.

Chris

[thunderbrick]

I love my D200 and D300 for my work stuff, but let us not forget the great Porta NC films and the chromes from Fuji and Kodak and what those magnificent films bring to the table, especially compared to the amateur films (too contrasty).  I still try to get brides to let me shoot their weddings with my Hassy gear (maybe because I have 5 bodies and many lenses) but fewer and fewer do.  While many recognize the quality of my prints (don't forget a good lab with great QC), they, like many people, are becoming attuned to the lowered quality expectations of what shitty WalMart has convinced people is good DIGITAL work.  Sounds like the early claims of "perfect sound forever" right?
I too, shoot B&W large format, 4x5 to 8x10, and love what it does especially with old reliable Tri-X.

In  summary, best film vs. digital quote I ever heard was from a long-time cinematographer who said " Pixels don't sing like silver".  Can't say it any better than that!

[lazydays]

I have a friend that owns one of those 20 + megapixel cameras from Canon. Nice camera, but not $9K nice thank you! On the otherhand I have a Pentax 645, and it will smoke that $9K Canon everyday of the week just doing 8x10's. Especially true with black and whites. Yet the 645 is not even close to the last word. (it is for me) A friend's wife shoots a Bronica with a digital back as well as a couple film backs. Has won a lot of photo contests just doing portraits alone. And I just about faint when I hear how much it cost Tim to get his wife all setup and running (over $15K including studio lighting) only to find out that he had to buy another PC just to connect to the Camera! So what the above tells me is that it's time to just use what pleases you, and forget trying to keep up with the latest and greatest fad.
gary

[brj]

Resolution isn't really what I'm concerned with these days... I don't see myself blowing up an image to the point where I'll notice pixelation from my 10.1 MP DSLR.  What I'd like to see is a digital sensor that better approximates the dynamic range of the human eyeball without requiring multiple exposures or a bunch of post-processing.  (Even film can't do that perfectly, to my knowledge, at least not with some degree of darkroom manipulation.)  I'd happily give up some resolution pixels for more light-gathering pixels, or better adaptive exposure control in general.

(Spending a bunch of time in slot canyons last week, with their massive range of shadow to direct light reaffirmed this for me.  Not once did any single image approach what I was able to appreciate directly with the naked eye.  That said, the naked eye can't really handle "long exposures" very well! )

Time to go back and read the camera manual to see if I've missed some tricks...

[thunderbrick]

My mostly (amateur) photography students often ask "why don't my photos look like what I saw (or shot)?".   While there are many, many factors, my usual first response is that the brain (and emotions) can see "this much" and I spread my arms full width.  Color slide film can see "this much" as I bring my arms in half way.  Pro negative film "this much" (arms slightly closer), and amateur films "this much" (way closer still).  The goal is to help them look at a scene and maybe understand that a scene may have too much range between shadows and highlights, so their expectations are more in line with the technological capacity they are using.  When you add totally shitty processing from Walmart and their ilk..............anyway, you get the idea.  I still haven't quite figured out where digital figures into the mix.
My goal is to get them to understand the limits of their technology, be it film or digital, and then learn to USE their skills to partially overcome those limitations.  My frustrations is that there is a total lack of fundamentals (ISO, shutter speed and aperture) and their impact on  the finished image; too much full auto! I get a kick out of a local photographer who claims to have 35 years of pro experience, yet he can't figure out why my film-based work, especially weddings, blows his digital stuff out of the water.  That is because he has never learned LIGHT and its ratios, and he is most concerned about his printing costs than his quality.  He figures that PhotoShop can fix everything (he is not very good at that, either), so he doesn't HAVE to shoot well.  That mindset, by the way, prevents amateurs from learning how to shoot, because they can go back and "fix" it, without knowing what the hell they have actually done at the beginning.   That is all too true a trend, especially among wanna-be pro's that think tinting a child's dress is more important than composition or light.
Having griped about all of that, I used to manage a regional photography exhibit and never failed to be be blown away by photographers that made magnificent use of digital technology, but I also saw poor use of film and digital.  Those images generally didn't make it to the walls.  And I have seen a few (rare) folks who didn't know an aperture from a butthole, and their work was exquisite

End of diatribe............it's someone else's turn. 

[ooheadsoo]

My camera is only 6mpx, and I do find myself wanting more megapixels.  This is because, in my limited experience, in the race against time to capture the magic moment, I tend to compose more and more loosely as I find myself missing heads/arms/legs/balls.  I end up shooting wider to compensate, and as a failsafe.  Often times, I find the best part of the image to be a very small area of the entire frame, especially as my concentration lapses while shooting, and at these times, I would dearly love more megapixels, so that I still have a decent sized image after cropping.  This probably wouldn't be an issue with film.

[lazydays]

Resolution isn't really what I'm concerned with these days... I don't see myself blowing up an image to the point where I'll notice pixelation from my 10.1 MP DSLR.  What I'd like to see is a digital sensor that better approximates the dynamic range of the human eyeball without requiring multiple exposures or a bunch of post-processing.  (Even film can't do that perfectly, to my knowledge, at least not with some degree of darkroom manipulation.)  I'd happily give up some resolution pixels for more light-gathering pixels, or better adaptive exposure control in general.

(Spending a bunch of time in slot canyons last week, with their massive range of shadow to direct light reaffirmed this for me.  Not once did any single image approach what I was able to appreciate directly with the naked eye.  That said, the naked eye can't really handle "long exposures" very well! )

Time to go back and read the camera manual to see if I've missed some tricks...

you may want to look at a Fuji S5 with it's dual pixels in a raw format (not my thing).
gary

[nathanm]

The equipment should be of sufficient quality to achieve your intended purpose.  So that the only thing you can blame the success or failure of your photograph on is yourself.  I was sick and tired of looking at digital artifacts from digital cameras, even if I liked the content I still was distracted.  I started doing special effects in Photoshop to achieve the look I wanted.  But it was still half-ass.  Now shooting on film those aesthetic problems are all solved and all that's left is my own skill, for better or worse.  That isn't to say I still don't lust after different gear to serve different shooting situations, but I can no longer think of the camera as a weak link if a shot is bad.

[thunderbrick]

Extremely well put!