below $1000 film vs digital

C J D wrote:

Stacey wrote:

nospam wrote:
what if your studio has a fire and the negatives are destroyed? with
digital, the backups can be kept offsite, completely avoiding this
problem. and unlike film, copies are 100% identical - no generation
loss from a 'backup' of a negative.


Well since a medformat negative is WAY better than any digital camera,
even a dupe of a medformat negative is going to be better than a digital
camera shot.

Next...


Way better in what way? Sharpness, gradation, perhaps - in the original
negative. A duplicate negative will lose gradation, specially in the
shadows and highlights, and a dupe of a dupe will be crappola regardless
of the format.

Still will look better than a digicam...

If you believe there is this much loss, scan the film and dupe it that way
if keeping the image safe from fire is the reason for not using film.
That's a silly argument IMHO for using a digital camera. How many people
burn dupe CD's and store them off site anyway?
--

Stacey

bagal wrote:

Hi Stacy

I respect your view and opinion

Can we agree to differ without creating offence?

Sure, but this "fire will destroy your film" arguement for digcams is silly.
If you really need to store dupes of your images, why not scan them and
save those elsewhere?


If there is any good out of the comparision between digital & film it
appears that SLR cameras (film based) seem to be dropping in price. If I
was really interested in 35mm SLR I think I would pounce on some of the
well branded SLR offers on the go at the moment



No doubt, I just bought a used M645 mamiya with a 35mm super wide and a
55-110 pro zoom for under $1000. Just these two lenses were over $3000 new.
I'm loving it!
--

Stacey

MikeWhy wrote:

"Sabineellen" wrote in message

Are you serious?

I won't disagree at all about it being faster, but giving a "superior
result"??!!

Would I kid you? Yes, superior result, as in better. Drop off a jpg at
your local Costco and see for yourself.

So did you use -Kroger- for your analog prints as a comparison? :-)
--

Stacey

"Stacey" wrote in message
...
MikeWhy wrote:

"Sabineellen" wrote in message

Are you serious?

I won't disagree at all about it being faster, but giving a "superior
result"??!!

Would I kid you? Yes, superior result, as in better. Drop off a jpg at
your local Costco and see for yourself.

So did you use -Kroger- for your analog prints as a comparison? :-)

Funny. Nothing like deli fresh prints.

No. I'm comparing it to my best efforts in the darkroom. If you like, I'll
send you a neg I have trouble printing. Contrast is a bit high but not too
bad; what kills it is cross over in both cyan and magenta. I gave up after
two evenings and four contrast masks. The next day, I scanned it, fixed the
curves in Photoshop, printed it, and then paid Costco to run a copy. Total
time was 40 minutes, including the two mile drive. The Frontier wins with
cleaner and deeper blacks, and brighter deeper blue-cyan. Dmax in shadows is
2.01, compared to 1.89 on the inkjet. Not quite the 2.35 of selenium toned
Galerie, but both -- Fuji Frontier and Epson 1280 -- are anything but deli
trash.

Stacey wrote:

C J D wrote:

Stacey wrote:

nospam wrote:
what if your studio has a fire and the negatives are destroyed? with
digital, the backups can be kept offsite, completely avoiding this
problem. and unlike film, copies are 100% identical - no generation
loss from a 'backup' of a negative.


Well since a medformat negative is WAY better than any digital camera,
even a dupe of a medformat negative is going to be better than a digital
camera shot.

Next...


Way better in what way? Sharpness, gradation, perhaps - in the original
negative. A duplicate negative will lose gradation, specially in the
shadows and highlights, and a dupe of a dupe will be crappola regardless
of the format.

Still will look better than a digicam...

Just a minute there, Stace. You said above "medformat negative is WAY better
than any digital camera". Note the 'any'. I take that to include high-end
Canon and Nikon gear, not just digicams. You're shifting the goalposts here.


If you believe there is this much loss, scan the film and dupe it that way
if keeping the image safe from fire is the reason for not using film.
That's a silly argument IMHO for using a digital camera.

That's not my argument. Safe from fire etc. was somebody else's post.


How many people burn dupe CD's and store them off site anyway?

How many people dupe their negatives and store them offsite that you know of?
Duping and storing is not a function of the medium, film or disk. It's a
procedure that most know about, but few do. Until they've been caught. I know
of a scientist in the botanical field who lost 20 years of cross-breeding and
hybridising data on his computer when his office burnt down, and he had no
offsite backups of his work. It ruined the poor bloke. Moral: Offsite backups
are a life-saving precaution, whether film, digital images, or other computer
data. The principle is independent of the medium. However, digital copying is
trivial compared with the skill and time required to make a satisfactory dupe
negative, so it's more likely to be done. Which means that people storing
negatives are more likely to have a catastrophic loss than people copying and
storing digital files.

Colin D.


--

Stacey

Mike - Give up, Stacey has a thing about digital. She thinks that all
digital systems are inherently inferor to all film based/traditional wet
darkroom systems so that any "traditional" photograph will always be
"better" than any digital photograph simply because it was made with film
and printed in a traditional darkroom. The fact that you and I and thousands
of others have seen (and in some cases made) many digital prints that were
at least the equal of, and often superior to, "traditional" prints and
therefore know that in the hands of some photographers, using some
equipment, under some circumstances, digital printing can produce superior
results makes no difference to Stacey. She knows what she knows and she
isn't going to let the facts get in the way of her prejudices.

With most of the major technological changes in photography there have
always been a few who for some reason aren't content to simply ignore the
change and continue working the way they always have but who also find it
necessary to heap criticism on the change and the people who embrace it. I
find it amusing that Stacey is so enamored of roll film and her medium
format camera. She probably doesn't realize that when George Eastman
popularized roll film the "serious photographers" ridiculed it, saying that
it was something only for the unknowing masses, that its only advantage was
speed and ease of use, and that its quality was no good compared to sheet
film in large format cameras. Sound familiar?



"MikeWhy" wrote in message
m...
"Stacey" wrote in message
...
MikeWhy wrote:

"Sabineellen" wrote in message

Are you serious?

I won't disagree at all about it being faster, but giving a "superior
result"??!!

Would I kid you? Yes, superior result, as in better. Drop off a jpg at
your local Costco and see for yourself.

So did you use -Kroger- for your analog prints as a comparison? :-)

Funny. Nothing like deli fresh prints.

No. I'm comparing it to my best efforts in the darkroom. If you like, I'll
send you a neg I have trouble printing. Contrast is a bit high but not too
bad; what kills it is cross over in both cyan and magenta. I gave up after
two evenings and four contrast masks. The next day, I scanned it, fixed
the
curves in Photoshop, printed it, and then paid Costco to run a copy. Total
time was 40 minutes, including the two mile drive. The Frontier wins with
cleaner and deeper blacks, and brighter deeper blue-cyan. Dmax in shadows
is
2.01, compared to 1.89 on the inkjet. Not quite the 2.35 of selenium toned
Galerie, but both -- Fuji Frontier and Epson 1280 -- are anything but deli
trash.

C J D wrote:

Stacey wrote:
Still will look better than a digicam...

Just a minute there, Stace. You said above "medformat negative is WAY
better
than any digital camera". Note the 'any'. I take that to include
high-end
Canon and Nikon gear, not just digicams. You're shifting the goalposts
here.


I consider "high end canon and nikon" digital camera's digicams, no shifting
goal posts here. :-)



If you believe there is this much loss, scan the film and dupe it that
way if keeping the image safe from fire is the reason for not using film.
That's a silly argument IMHO for using a digital camera.

That's not my argument. Safe from fire etc. was somebody else's post.


How many people burn dupe CD's and store them off site anyway?

How many people dupe their negatives and store them offsite that you know
of?
Duping and storing is not a function of the medium, film or disk. It's a
procedure that most know about, but few do.

Exactly and why it's a lame arguement for shooting digitally. Especially
since it's easy enough to have a CD made at the time of developing and
store that somewhere else if someone is inclined to do this.


Which means that people storing
negatives are more likely to have a catastrophic loss than people copying
and storing digital files.


That's assuming their digital files are actually archival, most aren't. I'd
say the chances of someone's "stored" digital files being readable, without
active participation of the user, to be unlikely at best. YMMV on that
point and only time will tell how many digital images taken today will be
around 20-30 years from now. I know I can't read any of the punch cards or
"digital cassettes" I have from 30 years ago on anything I own today! :-)
--

Stacey

MikeWhy wrote:

"Stacey" wrote in message
...
MikeWhy wrote:

"Sabineellen" wrote in message

Are you serious?

I won't disagree at all about it being faster, but giving a "superior
result"??!!

Would I kid you? Yes, superior result, as in better. Drop off a jpg at
your local Costco and see for yourself.

So did you use -Kroger- for your analog prints as a comparison? :-)

Funny. Nothing like deli fresh prints.

No. I'm comparing it to my best efforts in the darkroom. If you like, I'll
send you a neg I have trouble printing. Contrast is a bit high but not too
bad; what kills it is cross over in both cyan and magenta. I gave up after
two evenings and four contrast masks. The next day, I scanned it, fixed
the curves in Photoshop, printed it, and then paid Costco to run a copy.


That's a great fix for a problem negative. I've printed several images
digitally that needed fixes like this or needed cloning, heavy
color/contrast corrections etc and yes those specific negatives/chromes
-look- better printed digitally.

My point is: Film was designed to be printed optically and the best results
I've seen have been prints done optically from film negatives. Sometimes I
have to use different papers to suit the image, I'm not sure many people
even realize there are different contrast color papers? I just don't think
it's -fair- to compare film vs digital using scanned film to a digitally
captured image but that's what everyone does.

Why can't people compare a good optical print to a digitally printed digital
shot? Why do they always scan the film and use that to compare them? IMHO
that's just comparing scanner technology to digital capture, not comparing
film to digital. Both film and digital can be direct printed so why not
just compare the end results using the highest quality method?
--

Stacey

Vladamir30 wrote:

I
find it amusing that Stacey is so enamored of roll film and her medium
format camera. She probably doesn't realize that when George Eastman
popularized roll film the "serious photographers" ridiculed it, saying
that it was something only for the unknowing masses, that its only
advantage was speed and ease of use, and that its quality was no good
compared to sheet film in large format cameras. Sound familiar?


At the time they were right. Have you ever printed any med format negatives
from back then? I have and they aren't that great, nothing like medformat
film today. The film technology wasn't good enough for medformat at that
time and it needed the film area of 4X5 or 8X10 (it was best contact
printed) to not be massively grainy and to have any sharpness in 8X10 or
larger prints.

Digital is at that same place. It's gaining ground but even the -best-
digital normal people can afford isn't equal to medformat or even 35mm
IMHO. At some point, like with film development, it will be. For some
people the speed and ease of use is more important than haveing the best
quality? This also explains why most people are happy with an autofocus
35mm film camera. There are alwasy the people who jump on new technology
and assume it's better just because they are told it is. I'm waiting to see
something with my eyes that is better before I jump.
--

Stacey

You have to balance out the risks. I have digital backups - the plural is
critical. I have recently reviewed the claims and disputes over archival
qualities of CD and DVD material, including with some pro librarians, and
concluded I had to retain my original digital video magnetic media along
with the processed DVD and backups. Few users take the care to store the
media in the conditions under which the archival claims are made. So life
of DVDs and CD are likely to be much less than the 150 years often claimed

Yes, there are modest losses in duping film, esp. if you don't use the
appropriate slide copying film etc. (cf. Kodak's brochure on Copying and
Duplicating for details). Most movie films are copies of copies, so the
generational losses are rather modest. Likewise, many pro photographers
keep their originals, provide dupes or seconds to the stock library or for
use by printers. So most published photos are probably from dupes too ;-)

There are modest losses in compressing still and video data in most file
formats too. Repeated compressing and uncompressing in various programs
can produce significant losses in image quality even in digital "copies".

One reason I am retaining my magnetic video media is the discovery that my
mini-DV 720x480 format was being cropped to 640x480 formats for TV viewing
by our G-MAC's DVD production software ;-( I'll bet most users don't
realize this ;-)

However, the Fuji UK study found that 63% of digital images were "at
risk", including many users who had their images stored on hard drives
with no backups whatever. For digital images to be archival, they probably
have to be carefully managed and frequently copied to new media formats
and converted from obsolete formats to newer versions and so on. Very few
of the hundreds of millions of digital image taking consumers do this,
right? Most don't have any backups at all ;-) And many of those digital
prints are fading away, for the few digicam consumers (11% per PMAI) who
made prints, right? ;-)

In short, it is possible for digital images to be archival, with very
careful technical attention to details and frequent backups etc. Film
remains inherently archival (even 150 yr old negatives can still be
printed..). Both film and digital imagery have archival issues which are
not well addressed or communicated to users, IMHO.

my $.02 again ;-)

bobm
--
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