digital vs film

Well sure it depends on your needs. But by simply looking through this forum I assume Mixtec is after airshow photography.

As for nightscenes, nothing could be better than digital as it allows you endless attempts with shutterspeed etc, without wasting any film.
http://skyraider3d.military-meshes.com/skyraider/photos/old_warden/ow_05-08-20_night_hangar.jpg
http://skyraider3d.military-meshes.com/skyraider/photos/old_warden/ow_05-08-20_night_hind.jpg
http://skyraider3d.military-meshes.com/skyraider/photos/old_warden/ow_05-08-20_night_martlet.jpg
Mind you these pictures were taken without the aid of a tripod. I simply held the camera tight against a fence for a few seconds at ISO 800. The hanager pic though is taken with the camera resting on the spoiler of my car at ISO 100 with a much longer exposure 😀
Considering the colour… again Digital provides unequalled opportunities to experiment with white balance and pictures can easily be adjusted in programs such as Photoshop – especially when shooting RAW. It’s all a matter of what you do and what you want – definitely not the capabilities.

The EOS 300D is aimed at the more serious amateur and is a really nice piece of kit for the price. Combined with a good lens (I am using rubbish lenses at the moment – still undecided what lens to buy) it can create professional quality pictures without a doubt.

What I don’t understand is why everyone is praising this digital stuff when it may not suit your needs. It all depends on what you do with your camera.

If you are the average joe or enthuased amature (most people) then sure a cheap Digital will work wonders as you can instantly view what you’ve taken and delete the junk (most of the pictures) and keep what you do like.

A EOS 300D in my mind is still only an amature camera. Although an SLR version where you have some choice with lens but limited working range. Your choice of lens and your set up if you have one will be limited to the money you can spend. For most people thats less then say $1000

So why spend ~$2000 getting an average camera with a average lens when you can buy a Nikon N80 film at a mind boggling price and a new spectacular prime lens?

And how many of you out there have done night scenes and long exposure with a digital or low light nature or bright cloud cover? The night scene gives flat tones and unrealistic colour. Cloud cover gets burned out and gives you way less colour depth than what you want.

There are places where you might want to use a digital but there are also places where film excel…it all depends on your needs.

What’s this “film” stuff you’re talking about? 😀

I’ve been using a digital SLR for a year and a bit now (6.3 MP Canon EOS 300D) and there’s no way I will ever go back to film. The ease of use, instant result, ability to edit and low cost per shot (I shoot hundreds of pics at a show and all it costs is the price of burning a DVD every now and then) far outweigh any possible benefits film might have.

Film still has a greater dynamic range compared to most digicams, but most Top DSLR’s can match and exceed film in most other areas. I hate to say it but I only use my SLR film cameras for wide angle landscapes or very long wildlife and some macro shots. All my day to day and family shots I do with digital, and will completely switch over as I get more lenses

A histogram is a graphical representation of the distribution of all the light values in a picture. The darkest parts are on the left and the lightest parts on the righthand side of the graph. If a histogram would show a distinct peak on the righthand side you’re obviously overexposing and you should compensate the exposure with a minus correction. A peak on the lefthand side means that you’re underexposing. An ideal histogram would show a peak somewhere in the middle and no “spikes” on either side. A more extensive explanation can be found at this site http://www.nikonians.org/html/resources/guides/digital/histogram_101/index.html

I’m not familiar with the Fuji Finepix S5000, so it could be that this camera doesn’t have the feature to display histograms. However most more advanced digital camera’s, including all DSLR’s (like Canon 350D, Nikon D50/D70, Konica Minolta A1/A2/A200/7D , Pentax), do offer this extremely valuable feature.

What is a histogram? How do I access & use/manipulate it? I use a Finepix S5000.

Where are the days when you can leave all the developing decision to your trusty photo finisher?

Shooting RAW has almost nothing to do with colour burn out and once the colour is already burnt out there is nothing you can do to bring them back.

Honestly I’ve never been impressed by the quality of work from the “trusty photo finisher”. Scratches on negatives, bad colour correction, etc. In addition to that, especially ground-to-air photography, often requires some final cropping to make a pleasant composition. Therefore some 40 years ago I made the decision to do all darkroomwork myself (B&W and colour negative). Compared to learning how to use programs like photoshop, learning how to frame, expose, colour correct and develop films and prints requires quite a bit more of effort and cost.

Colour burnt out has indeed to do with the initial (over)exposure, but this is very much the same with using colour positive film. Burnt out parts can never be regained. However, when using RAW digital and provided that you watch out for overexposure by checking the histograms regularly, many corrections in exposure, colour and contrast can be made in postprocessing which would not be possible with film in the same quality.

Having said that, I will continue to use both digital and film (especially for B&W).

You’re right Digital can take a lot of corrections where film cannot though processing. But that also means you need to learn photoshop along with picture taking which can be of a nuisance for beginners. Honestly how many beginners know who to correctly tweak photos on the computer, even professionals need help in this department? Where are the days when you can leave all the developing decision to your trusty photo finisher?

Shooting RAW has almost nothing to do with colour burn out and once the colour is already burnt out there is nothing you can do to bring them back. Unlike film which can take a variety of ranges and still give acceptable work digital don’t give you that pleasure. Thus meaning you’d better take everything darker and lighten them up in photoshop and again bring us to my first point…

I know that the dynamic range of digital is somewhat limited compared with film. With the better digital camera’s this can be overcome by shooting RAW, selecting low in-camera contrast and careful exposure (watch the histograms). In post processing the contrast can be brought at the desired level.

Film has of course its merits too and I will certainly continue to use my trusted Nikon F100, F4s and FM2n camera’s. However for photographing aircraft, especially ground to air shots, I’ve found that digital gives much cleaner skies, better colour and better sharpness.

Purple fringing, or chromatic aberation (CA), is not a problem which is exclusive to digital. It is usually limited to the extreme corners in wideangle lenses. However in digital it can easily be corrected by using programs like Photoshop or Nikon Capture in post processing. With film CA is almost impossible to correct.

I’ve worked with both film and Digital…

and I have to say except the fact that digital give you instant gratification of viewing pictures right away and reduced cost in negatives, film has better quality in all other respects.
Personally I don’t do action shots, as I mostly shoot nature or skin so to me a film really suffice. I’ve used D2H, olympus E-2 and such but found sharp colour and especially purple fringing to be a tough problem.

I can live with film that are a bit soft on the focus but if the final result of digital turn out that colour gets burned out in high contrast or vivid setting and the fact that bright light and chrome don’t mix is really limiting for my uses.

So I suggest film if you are not in a rush to see what you’ve shot and the camera is a lot cheaper too.

Since a few months I’ve turned digital with a Nikon D2X. The resolution, sharpness and colour fidelity of this camera surpasses anything I’ve used in film camera’s, including medium format. Not to mention its speed ……………

Film smaller than 5×4 died a long time ago.