Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

I found a really nice Olympus Accura Zoom 105 point and shoot 35mm film
camera at a web store. It has a zoom lens range of 38-105mm (3x), but the
reasons for instead buying a digital camera seem compelling enough.

What are the advantages, if any, of a film camera over a digital camera when
comparing two cameras of the same zoom range?

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

"Knack" wrote in message
k.net...
I found a really nice Olympus Accura Zoom 105 point and shoot 35mm film
camera at a web store. It has a zoom lens range of 38-105mm (3x), but the
reasons for instead buying a digital camera seem compelling enough.

What are the advantages, if any, of a film camera over a digital camera
when
comparing two cameras of the same zoom range?



Try this link: www.williamsphotographic.com/digital . It's a (IMHO) overview
of digital vs film.

Ken

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

cost to buy in is lower, film shooters shoot much less, there's the old
cliche about folks who have two christmases on one roll. films cameras
have a more responsive shutter, much less lag when you press. if you have
costco or wallmart you can get prints for less than a dime each, have images
scanned to a disk for you.

I found a really nice Olympus Accura Zoom 105 point and shoot 35mm film
camera at a web store. It has a zoom lens range of 38-105mm (3x), but the
reasons for instead buying a digital camera seem compelling enough.

What are the advantages, if any, of a film camera over a digital camera
when
comparing two cameras of the same zoom range?

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

Hi Knack,

Unless you are ready to spend substantially more for a digital camera
than a film camera, you will get a better quality image from the film
than from the digital taking of the scene. For those who never get more
than 4x6 prints, this may not be relevant. For those who care about the
quality of the final print and may make enlargements, this is very
relevant. For those who enter images in juried competitions, digital
still does not come close.


If, as some of us, you use medium format film (2 1/4 inches by 2 1/4
inches or more) or large format cameras (4 inch x 5 inch negatives or
even 5x7 or 8x10 or 11x14), there is no comparison whatsoever, and no
competition even unless you want to spend $20,000 on a digital
Hasselblad back for your Hasselblad system.


Archivability is better with film. Anyone anytime can make a print from
a negative. As digital formats change and the digital media on which
they are stored change, data can become irretrievable. It was not all
that long ago that people used 8 inch floppy disks. If you were given
one now and told to recover the data, could you? Could you, if it were
a 5 1/4 inch disk? If you had the hardware, would you have the right
software? Does anyone remember Leading Edge Word Processing program?


Digital cameras only work when the batteries are working. There are
those of us who prefer old fully manual cameras with no electronics,
because they never fail. They do not depend on batteries to function.
Many of my cameras are 50 years old. Will your digital camera still
work in 50 years?


Peripheral equipment to try to achieve "photographic" quality prints
from digital data is expensive. The deposition of ink jet dots still is
not as fine as a print from film image.


Many film cameras allow special effects such as double imaging. I am
not aware of this capability with digital cameras.


If you are intending to take many, many shots in the field, film is
easier and cheaper to handle than having multiple, expensive additional
memory chips. I have taken a couple hundred shots in a day when touring.


Francis A. Miniter




Knack wrote:

I found a really nice Olympus Accura Zoom 105 point and shoot 35mm film
camera at a web store. It has a zoom lens range of 38-105mm (3x), but the
reasons for instead buying a digital camera seem compelling enough.

What are the advantages, if any, of a film camera over a digital camera when
comparing two cameras of the same zoom range?

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

"Francis A. Miniter" wrote in message ...
Hi Knack,

Unless you are ready to spend substantially more for a digital camera
than a film camera, you will get a better quality image from the film
than from the digital taking of the scene.

It depends on the light levels, from what I've seen of sports photos
under dim light, I'd say digital looks pretty good. Otherwise, I'd
agree with you.

For those who never get more
than 4x6 prints, this may not be relevant. For those who care about the
quality of the final print and may make enlargements, this is very
relevant. For those who enter images in juried competitions, digital
still does not come close.


If, as some of us, you use medium format film (2 1/4 inches by 2 1/4
inches or more) or large format cameras (4 inch x 5 inch negatives or
even 5x7 or 8x10 or 11x14), there is no comparison whatsoever, and no
competition even unless you want to spend $20,000 on a digital
Hasselblad back for your Hasselblad system.


Archivability is better with film. Anyone anytime can make a print from
a negative. As digital formats change and the digital media on which
they are stored change, data can become irretrievable. It was not all
that long ago that people used 8 inch floppy disks. If you were given
one now and told to recover the data, could you? Could you, if it were
a 5 1/4 inch disk? If you had the hardware, would you have the right
software? Does anyone remember Leading Edge Word Processing program?


Digital cameras only work when the batteries are working. There are
those of us who prefer old fully manual cameras with no electronics,
because they never fail. They do not depend on batteries to function.
Many of my cameras are 50 years old. Will your digital camera still
work in 50 years?


Peripheral equipment to try to achieve "photographic" quality prints
from digital data is expensive. The deposition of ink jet dots still is
not as fine as a print from film image.


Many film cameras allow special effects such as double imaging. I am
not aware of this capability with digital cameras.


If you are intending to take many, many shots in the field, film is
easier and cheaper to handle than having multiple, expensive additional
memory chips. I have taken a couple hundred shots in a day when touring.


Francis A. Miniter




Knack wrote:

I found a really nice Olympus Accura Zoom 105 point and shoot 35mm film
camera at a web store. It has a zoom lens range of 38-105mm (3x), but the
reasons for instead buying a digital camera seem compelling enough.

What are the advantages, if any, of a film camera over a digital camera when
comparing two cameras of the same zoom range?

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

A footnote. Control. With a manual film camera, you don't even have
to take the image in focus, if you so not wish to do so. You can also
use a slow shutter speed to blur motion. Certainly auto everything
(film or digital) does not offer this level of artistic control. I
cannot say how well digital cameras allow you to blur focus or blur
speed. But manual controls put the decision in the hands of the
photographer, not the computer.


Francis A. Miniter


Francis A. Miniter wrote:

Hi Knack,

Unless you are ready to spend substantially more for a digital camera
than a film camera, you will get a better quality image from the film
than from the digital taking of the scene. For those who never get
more than 4x6 prints, this may not be relevant. For those who care
about the quality of the final print and may make enlargements, this
is very relevant. For those who enter images in juried competitions,
digital still does not come close.

If, as some of us, you use medium format film (2 1/4 inches by 2 1/4
inches or more) or large format cameras (4 inch x 5 inch negatives or
even 5x7 or 8x10 or 11x14), there is no comparison whatsoever, and no
competition even unless you want to spend $20,000 on a digital
Hasselblad back for your Hasselblad system.

Archivability is better with film. Anyone anytime can make a print
from a negative. As digital formats change and the digital media on
which they are stored change, data can become irretrievable. It was
not all that long ago that people used 8 inch floppy disks. If you
were given one now and told to recover the data, could you? Could
you, if it were a 5 1/4 inch disk? If you had the hardware, would you
have the right software? Does anyone remember Leading Edge Word
Processing program?


Digital cameras only work when the batteries are working. There are
those of us who prefer old fully manual cameras with no electronics,
because they never fail. They do not depend on batteries to
function. Many of my cameras are 50 years old. Will your digital
camera still work in 50 years?


Peripheral equipment to try to achieve "photographic" quality prints
from digital data is expensive. The deposition of ink jet dots still
is not as fine as a print from film image.

Many film cameras allow special effects such as double imaging. I am
not aware of this capability with digital cameras.

If you are intending to take many, many shots in the field, film is
easier and cheaper to handle than having multiple, expensive
additional memory chips. I have taken a couple hundred shots in a day
when touring.

Francis A. Miniter




Knack wrote:

I found a really nice Olympus Accura Zoom 105 point and shoot 35mm film
camera at a web store. It has a zoom lens range of 38-105mm (3x), but
the
reasons for instead buying a digital camera seem compelling enough.

What are the advantages, if any, of a film camera over a digital
camera when
comparing two cameras of the same zoom range?

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

"Francis A. Miniter" wrote:

A footnote. Control. With a manual film camera, you don't even have
to take the image in focus, if you so not wish to do so. You can also
use a slow shutter speed to blur motion. Certainly auto everything
(film or digital) does not offer this level of artistic control. I
cannot say how well digital cameras allow you to blur focus or blur
speed. But manual controls put the decision in the hands of the
photographer, not the computer.

Francis A. Miniter


A small rebuttal to your footnote:

Most "auto-everything" slr cameras usually have a fully manual mode, and
additionally, many auto-focus lenses usually have a manual focus option
included. Hence, it is possible to be very artisic and creative (keeping
in context with your PoV, even though you can still be creative in the
auto-everything modes I believe) in this manual mode.

cheers

Rob

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

"Rob Wild" wrote in message
...


"Francis A. Miniter" wrote:

A footnote. Control. With a manual film camera, you don't even have
to take the image in focus, if you so not wish to do so. You can also
use a slow shutter speed to blur motion. Certainly auto everything
(film or digital) does not offer this level of artistic control. I
cannot say how well digital cameras allow you to blur focus or blur
speed. But manual controls put the decision in the hands of the
photographer, not the computer.

Francis A. Miniter


A small rebuttal to your footnote:

Most "auto-everything" slr cameras usually have a fully manual mode, and
additionally, many auto-focus lenses usually have a manual focus option
included. Hence, it is possible to be very artisic and creative (keeping
in context with your PoV, even though you can still be creative in the
auto-everything modes I believe) in this manual mode.

cheers

Rob

I agree with both gentlemen regarding manual mode allowing more "artistic"
(or lack thereof!) control. My followup question is how many digital cameras
have manual modes, and how well do they work? If the exposure is off by a
stop or two (by accident or neccessity), how will the digital image compare
to the negative image?

Thanks
Ken

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

Multiple Exposures

Knack wrote:

I found a really nice Olympus Accura Zoom 105 point and shoot 35mm film
camera at a web store. It has a zoom lens range of 38-105mm (3x), but the
reasons for instead buying a digital camera seem compelling enough.

What are the advantages, if any, of a film camera over a digital camera when
comparing two cameras of the same zoom range?

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

Knack wrote:

I found a really nice Olympus Accura Zoom 105 point and shoot 35mm film
camera at a web store. It has a zoom lens range of 38-105mm (3x), but the
reasons for instead buying a digital camera seem compelling enough.

What are the advantages, if any, of a film camera over a digital camera when
comparing two cameras of the same zoom range?


You don't need a computer. You don't need a photo quality printer. (Ink
and paper are expensive) You don't need special software, You don't
have to spend time in front of the computer looking at your shots.
(Drop the film off and pick it up the next day or when you are done
shopping) You don't have to print, with your computer and printer and
software and your time, the shots you want to share with friends. The
faster the printer, the more expensive it is.

OTOH, untill you get familiar with your film camera and the film you
decide to use, you are not always sure that you got what you wanted on
film till after it is processed. If you are in "The Valley of Fire
State PArk" in Nevada and home is in Rhode Island, going back to redo
the shot isn't usually an option. Then too, shots you don't want, get
thrown away but you pay for them. With digital you just dump them in
the bit bucket. The film is not reusable and the digital media is.

Then again, as someone said on one of the fora I subscribe to, "I am
having trouble getting data off of a 5.25" diskette, nobody has a 5.25"
diskette drive anymore. Oh, by the way, I printed a sixty year old
negative last night....."

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

You don't need a computer. You don't need a photo quality printer. (Ink
and paper are expensive) You don't need special software, You don't
have to spend time in front of the computer looking at your shots.
(Drop the film off and pick it up the next day or when you are done
shopping) You don't have to print, with your computer and printer and
software and your time, the shots you want to share with friends. The
faster the printer, the more expensive it is.


You don't need any of this stuff to go digital either if you really don't
want to. There are plenty of places where you can take your memory card and
get prints done, and a CD with all the images (think film neagatives here).
At its simplest, a digital camera is like using film except you can check
the pics on the LCD after you have taken them, and only print the ones you
want to keep.

Most people see using a computer with their digitals as an advantage as they
can do their own "darkroom" tasks without the expense and hazardous
chemicals.

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

wrote:
You don't need a computer. You don't need a photo quality printer. (Ink
and paper are expensive) You don't need special software, You don't
have to spend time in front of the computer looking at your shots.
(Drop the film off and pick it up the next day or when you are done
shopping) You don't have to print, with your computer and printer and
software and your time, the shots you want to share with friends. The
faster the printer, the more expensive it is.



You don't need any of this stuff to go digital either if you really don't
want to. There are plenty of places where you can take your memory card and
get prints done, and a CD with all the images (think film neagatives here).
At its simplest, a digital camera is like using film except you can check
the pics on the LCD after you have taken them, and only print the ones you
want to keep.

Most people see using a computer with their digitals as an advantage as they
can do their own "darkroom" tasks without the expense and hazardous
chemicals.

So the only advantage to digital is you see what you think you got right
away.....

Bob

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

Bob Sull wrote:

wrote:

You don't need a computer. You don't need a photo quality printer.
(Ink
and paper are expensive) You don't need special software, You don't
have to spend time in front of the computer looking at your shots.
(Drop the film off and pick it up the next day or when you are done
shopping) You don't have to print, with your computer and printer and
software and your time, the shots you want to share with friends. The
faster the printer, the more expensive it is.



You don't need any of this stuff to go digital either if you really
don't
want to. There are plenty of places where you can take your memory
card and
get prints done, and a CD with all the images (think film neagatives
here).
At its simplest, a digital camera is like using film except you can
check
the pics on the LCD after you have taken them, and only print the
ones you
want to keep.

Most people see using a computer with their digitals as an advantage
as they
can do their own "darkroom" tasks without the expense and hazardous
chemicals.


So the only advantage to digital is you see what you think you got
right away.....

Bob

Just yesterday I went out to buy a new scanner for my office. The the
old scanner and software on it had become obsolete and when the hard
disk supporting it crashed, I could not find the software disks to
reinstall it. So, new scanner, new software for scanning, new optical
recognition program. I am glad nothing importatant was lost - I think,


Francis A. Miniter

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

So the only advantage to digital is you see what you think you got right
away.....


If you don't have a PC then yes, pretty much. But this is a significant
advantage, don't you think?

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

For equivalent cameras, film is cheaper. This is especially true at the
point and shoot level.

"Knack" wrote in message
k.net...
I found a really nice Olympus Accura Zoom 105 point and shoot 35mm film
camera at a web store. It has a zoom lens range of 38-105mm (3x), but the
reasons for instead buying a digital camera seem compelling enough.

What are the advantages, if any, of a film camera over a digital camera
when
comparing two cameras of the same zoom range?

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

"Norman Worth" wrote in message
hlink.net...
For equivalent cameras, film is cheaper. This is especially true at the
point and shoot level.

"Knack" wrote in message
k.net...
I found a really nice Olympus Accura Zoom 105 point and shoot 35mm film
camera at a web store. It has a zoom lens range of 38-105mm (3x), but
the
reasons for instead buying a digital camera seem compelling enough.

What are the advantages, if any, of a film camera over a digital camera
when
comparing two cameras of the same zoom range?


Here's a website that, IMHO, does a good comparison of film vs digital:
www.williamsphotographic.com/digital

Any advantages of conventional over digital?
 

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 21:56:04 -0400, "Francis A. Miniter"
wrote:

Bob Sull wrote:

wrote:

You don't need a computer. You don't need a photo quality printer.
(Ink
and paper are expensive) You don't need special software, You don't
have to spend time in front of the computer looking at your shots.
(Drop the film off and pick it up the next day or when you are done
shopping) You don't have to print, with your computer and printer and
software and your time, the shots you want to share with friends. The
faster the printer, the more expensive it is.



You don't need any of this stuff to go digital either if you really
don't
want to. There are plenty of places where you can take your memory
card and
get prints done, and a CD with all the images (think film neagatives
here).
At its simplest, a digital camera is like using film except you can
check
the pics on the LCD after you have taken them, and only print the
ones you
want to keep.

Most people see using a computer with their digitals as an advantage
as they
can do their own "darkroom" tasks without the expense and hazardous
chemicals.


So the only advantage to digital is you see what you think you got
right away.....

Bob

Just yesterday I went out to buy a new scanner for my office. The the
old scanner and software on it had become obsolete and when the hard
disk supporting it crashed, I could not find the software disks to
reinstall it. So, new scanner, new software for scanning, new optical
recognition program. I am glad nothing importatant was lost - I think,


Francis A. Miniter

Most manufacturers' sites have software and drivers for their old
hardware on the support pages. Some time ago I set up a ratty old
Genius scanner for a friend this way. I'm aware you won't need this by
now unless you install it elsewhere but might be handy to know in the
future.

- YD.

--
Remove HAT if replying by mail.