I've been using my Olympus OM gear (even bought a mint black OM-2n last year) sporadically and still love the look of film, but am finding that after buying a Leica D-Lux 5 (made by Panasonic under license from Leitz), it's harder to break out the film camera and spend the time necessary to get what I want.
I still have a complete wet darkroom and mix all my own developers and such, but the at the moment am sadly in the "instant gratification" mode that digital fosters. Quality is getting so good that it's more a matter of pride in film skills than final product that dictates one's preference.
Here's a scanned film shot (OM-2n with spectacular bokeh afforded by the legendary Zuiko f/2.8 35-80 lens) :
and a pure digital shot with the Leica:
Different to be sure, for many reasons. Going "figital" with scanning negatives gives you the pleasure of developing your film, but without the hassle and expense of silver printing. I'm using Pixelmater on my Mac, and the time difference between that and tweaking the chemistry and enlargement settings is enormous.
I still have a complete wet darkroom and mix all my own developers and such, but the at the moment am sadly in the "instant gratification" mode that digital fosters. Quality is getting so good that it's more a matter of pride in film skills than final product that dictates one's preference.
Here's a scanned film shot (OM-2n with spectacular bokeh afforded by the legendary Zuiko f/2.8 35-80 lens) :
and a pure digital shot with the Leica:
Different to be sure, for many reasons. Going "figital" with scanning negatives gives you the pleasure of developing your film, but without the hassle and expense of silver printing. I'm using Pixelmater on my Mac, and the time difference between that and tweaking the chemistry and enlargement settings is enormous.