What are the pros and cons of Digital and Film SLRs? I've been looking at Nikon for both.
Thanks all!
Thanks all!
SLR: Digital vs. Film
- Thread starter TimmyBoston
- Start date
I have both a Nikon film and digital SLR. They are both fantastic. In short I like the digital for the instant gratification and ease of upload aspects and I like the film for the simple reason that you can't take slides with a digital. As good as my digital is, if you really want to live and breathe the photo, nothing tops a good slide.
What sort of photography do you plan on using your camera for?
Something I have noticed-
Start up time for a candid shot- With Digital- you need to wait for the system to start up and focus-
With film- almost instantaneous - thus what you see- you shoot-
But over all on a very high level- Digital - based on the lens quality- will give you more - memory cards are getting larger and cheaper- as well as editing programs- thus brings the darkroom back to you - but in the computer and not the basement. You will be able to control your photos much better with digital.
Start up time for a candid shot- With Digital- you need to wait for the system to start up and focus-
With film- almost instantaneous - thus what you see- you shoot-
But over all on a very high level- Digital - based on the lens quality- will give you more - memory cards are getting larger and cheaper- as well as editing programs- thus brings the darkroom back to you - but in the computer and not the basement. You will be able to control your photos much better with digital.
This is in fact the great debate for the last number of years. My take on it is simple: film cameras and all the related equipment costs a fraction of digital. You can pick up a truly fabulous film camera for a fraction of the cost of a mediocre or poor digital. These days film actually costs almost nothing if you buy it in bulk on the internet. To process and print film costs the same as to print digital images.
Bottom line: a used film camera from Nikon, Canon or Pentax will cost you almost noting compared to digital.
Lots of film camera lenses, such as those that fit the EOS line from Canon will work fine with the EOS digital bodies. Same with lots of the Pentax and Nikon lenses. So your film lenses will continue to work fine with digital if you buy the right ones.
Buy a new film camera and you'll pay a fraction of the cost of an equal quality digital. Buy one used, and you'll be getting the camera for essentially nothing.
You can easily pick up a recently serviced fully guaranteed film camera for no more than $150. I did just that. You can load it with a roll of 400 ASA film and you are getting better images than you will get from a $1,000 digital camera. And the cost of the film? Take a look at the bay, you'll find you can pick up some of the best film ever made for $2.00 a roll. I recently bought a load of Kodak Portra VC 160 for $1.60 a roll including the shipping. And, the cost to process and to print the pictures costs the same as to print an equal number of digital images.
If you want to manipulate the images on a computer, scan the negatives, or the prints and you have digital images.
Lots of the accessories you'll want such as filters, bags, tripods and so on will all work fine with digital cameras, save for polarizers that you need to ensure compatability, but even they will work fine if you get the right one.
As things currently stand, film technology is a mature technology. It may be on its last legs, and it may well be that it will be replaced soon by digital. Certainly it looks that way. For most people digital probably has already replaced film. Digital is a new technology and the cost of entering the market is very high, the cameras all become obsolete in a few months or perhaps in a year. Will digital replace film, almost certainly for the mass market. How long will film be around? No one knows.
But, if you buy a good quality film camera, and learn to use it properly, if and when you eventually move to digital you'll know what you're looking for and you'll know enough about the equipment to not be ripped off.
For whatever it's worth to anyone, were I in the market for a first time camera, knowing what I now know, I would have a hard time not taking a good hard look at a used Canon EOS film camera. I would use it for a few years until I knew more about what type of photography I enjoyed, and I would then look around at the market to see what new stuff is out there. One thing I will almost certainly guarantee: doing it that way will cost you a fraction of what it will cost to go digital.
Bottom line: a used film camera from Nikon, Canon or Pentax will cost you almost noting compared to digital.
Lots of film camera lenses, such as those that fit the EOS line from Canon will work fine with the EOS digital bodies. Same with lots of the Pentax and Nikon lenses. So your film lenses will continue to work fine with digital if you buy the right ones.
Buy a new film camera and you'll pay a fraction of the cost of an equal quality digital. Buy one used, and you'll be getting the camera for essentially nothing.
You can easily pick up a recently serviced fully guaranteed film camera for no more than $150. I did just that. You can load it with a roll of 400 ASA film and you are getting better images than you will get from a $1,000 digital camera. And the cost of the film? Take a look at the bay, you'll find you can pick up some of the best film ever made for $2.00 a roll. I recently bought a load of Kodak Portra VC 160 for $1.60 a roll including the shipping. And, the cost to process and to print the pictures costs the same as to print an equal number of digital images.
If you want to manipulate the images on a computer, scan the negatives, or the prints and you have digital images.
Lots of the accessories you'll want such as filters, bags, tripods and so on will all work fine with digital cameras, save for polarizers that you need to ensure compatability, but even they will work fine if you get the right one.
As things currently stand, film technology is a mature technology. It may be on its last legs, and it may well be that it will be replaced soon by digital. Certainly it looks that way. For most people digital probably has already replaced film. Digital is a new technology and the cost of entering the market is very high, the cameras all become obsolete in a few months or perhaps in a year. Will digital replace film, almost certainly for the mass market. How long will film be around? No one knows.
But, if you buy a good quality film camera, and learn to use it properly, if and when you eventually move to digital you'll know what you're looking for and you'll know enough about the equipment to not be ripped off.
For whatever it's worth to anyone, were I in the market for a first time camera, knowing what I now know, I would have a hard time not taking a good hard look at a used Canon EOS film camera. I would use it for a few years until I knew more about what type of photography I enjoyed, and I would then look around at the market to see what new stuff is out there. One thing I will almost certainly guarantee: doing it that way will cost you a fraction of what it will cost to go digital.
Will, start-up time and focus for digital SLRs isn't an issue. They're just as fast as film SLRs, if not faster now. P&S cameras is a different story.
Tim, I was a die-hard film user for many many years. I swore I'd never go digital. Then I bought a N70. All my film gear has been sold.
Very true John- I jumped from an old school F3- one of my original cameras for press work- and now have only two digital- older models- and since I no longer work in that field- they are not the newer ones available- so i guess the initial start up time is quicker- not sure if they can be faster though- since the older SLRs are turn on point focus and shoot- and I will challenge you to a shoot off on that one
This is a perfect example of the type of thing I was speaking of. John is a knowledgeable and experienced film camera user who bought a digital camera and never looked back. He knew what he was buying and why.
Am I correct that the Nikon N-70 is the previous generation of the N-80? If so, the body alone, without any lenses sells for more than $1,000.00. To my way of thinking, if someone does not yet know whether digital or film is right for them, that's the type of money that they should not spend right off the bat on a camera body.
I went thru this debate myself a year ago. From everything I read about print quality, you would need a 10 megapixel digital camera to approach the quality of 35 mm film. And as others have said you can get used 35 mm gear very cheap today. Digital has an advantage in that you can computerize your pictures, but you can do the same with film. Just ask the developers to put it on CD for you. I wanted to get into photography cheap and I did not have alot of time to learn new technology. So for me, a simple mechanical rangefinder has been great.
I can't imagine pulling out my Nikon stuff since shooting digital. Instant gratification, you shoot until you get the shot and know that you have it. With film, you may be bracketing, pushing ISO, etc... and you will likely use only one of those shots so multiply your film cost by 2 or 3. I don't think there is much of a difference now between film and digital, most especially if you are not printing large format. I do think film cameras are useful for actually learning how to shoot photographs. There is nothing like the hands on of changing f-stops and shutter speeds and seeing the difference either in DOF preview or when you get the slides back. I find digitals (that I have used) not as intuitive compared to film cameras like an F3, but I have not used the nice high end new Nikons either.
Dennis
Dennis
Regarding megapixels, it really depends on your final output. I have 13x19 prints from my 6.2 MP D70 that some photography friends swore were from film. For anyone not really doing LARGE format printing, don't even pay attention to megapixels when selecting cameras.
The N70 and N80 were film cameras. I owned the N80...very nice camera. They're really different to the digital bodies out now, so are hard to compare.
Unless you're talking medium format then film is pretty obsolete, and has been since about the time the 6 megapixel cameras came out. If I were still into photography I'd be in standing in line for the new Leica M-series digital body.
That's my story, and also about one year.
My entire set up, including two used Canon cameras, two 50mm lenses, one 135, two bags, one superb tripod with a ball head, a load of filters incuding a Nikon polarizer and some macro equipment cost me about $500 - $600. Everything I own is mint. I bought the tripod new for $200, it can hold 11 pounds on the ball head and it is good enough to last me the rest of my life.
I think that if one does a rough and ready calculation, even including the cost of my tripod and the rest of the gear that I can use with digital cameras, at $10 to $15 per roll of 36 pictures counting the cost of the film the processing and the printing of it, I can shoot a roll of film every two weeks for the next five years before I equal the cost of a middle of the road digital camera, not counting the cost to print my digital images, nor the cost of a computer, or software or printer or memory card or anything else. Add the rest of it in and I can shoot a roll of film every two weeks for the next ten years and still come out ahead. Add in the cost to print digital pictures and that equals the cost to me to buy, shoot, process and print my film.
Will I eventually buy a digital? I am sure I will. But not quite yet.
Bottom line: for me my two used 25 year old Canon cameras has been the answer.
Your answer may be something else including up to a top of the line Arca Swiss Monolith or a Sinar P3 with a $20,000 Phase One back. Personally, I don't think anyone can go far wrong in starting out with a quality used 35 mm film camera.
After going digital, I could never shoot only a roll of film every two weeks. I used to shoot about that much with film, because I just didn't want to spend more on it. Now often shoot 50 shots in a day, sometimes many more. I shot over 5000 shots last year. At $15 a roll for a 36 shot roll, that would be over $2000, twice what I paid for my D70.
Recommend this site to anyone-
www.kenrockwell.com
fantastic site and he knows his stuff. This is where I learned not to fret the megapixel.
www.kenrockwell.com
fantastic site and he knows his stuff. This is where I learned not to fret the megapixel.
LetterK and Ontario represent opposite sides of my brain, and their constant bickering is making me dizzy. I have a terrific set of EOS film gear. When I bought it, only Leica types would think of spending the kind of money it would take for me to get the digital SLR of my dreams. But now, everybody is spending $1,000 or much more to go digital, and they seem happy. I've come close to pulling the digital trigger a few times, but I keep waiting for the perfect wave of price and quality. For example, I want the full-frame feature, but Canon's cheapest digital SLR now has more megapixels than the $2500 5D. In fact, that relatively cheap Rebel has more features than most of Canon's other digital SLR's, but I'd never be happy with such a small viewfinder or the cheap feel of the thing. By the time Canon comes out with the maga-megapixels in a better body, I won't be happy with the price. In the meantime, I'm getting the standard two to three "keepers" per roll, and basically wasting the rest of my film, which really is the standard ratio for almost all photographers, if we're honest with each other. That means I'd save a bundle by going digital and just deleting the duds.
Help--I'm going crazy!
Help--I'm going crazy!
Let me say that I love film. I still have 3 Canon SLR bodies including an Eos 1N. I have a Leica rangefinder. I have two autofocus Pentax 645Ns and a Bronica 6x7.
I just threw out probably 40 rolls of out of date film both 35mm and medium format.
After moving to digital several years ago, I've become addicted to the instant gratification. I like being able to shoot freely and delete what I don't like. If you've learned your craft, that's not a bad thing. If you haven't, I think it CAN be more difficult with digital. You do slow down shooting film and really concentrate on your exposure and framing because you know you're paying for each shot. With digital, it's easy to become sloppy and just shoot machine gun style and hope you get something good.
On the flip side, it's easier to experiment with digital because it costs you nothing to screw up 100 shots. So.....as it started out, pros and cons.
I would probably sell all my film cameras but they're worth so little, I may just use them as door stops.
I just threw out probably 40 rolls of out of date film both 35mm and medium format.
After moving to digital several years ago, I've become addicted to the instant gratification. I like being able to shoot freely and delete what I don't like. If you've learned your craft, that's not a bad thing. If you haven't, I think it CAN be more difficult with digital. You do slow down shooting film and really concentrate on your exposure and framing because you know you're paying for each shot. With digital, it's easy to become sloppy and just shoot machine gun style and hope you get something good.
On the flip side, it's easier to experiment with digital because it costs you nothing to screw up 100 shots. So.....as it started out, pros and cons.
I would probably sell all my film cameras but they're worth so little, I may just use them as door stops.
Steve, I wasn't trying to bicker, and I'm sorry if it came off that way. I was just trying to point out alternative ways of thinking about the delima. I apologize to Ontario as well if this was how it was taken.
