Instead of shooting digital photos with a dinky camera, why not shoot black and white with a SLR? Film can cost under $2.00 a roll. You’ll get super high quality.
They say that digital cameras will have to be 12 mega-pixel to get the equivalent of 35mm. I’m thinking of setting up a photo lab in my apartment to develop film. And then I’ll scan the negatives to get prints.
Thanks to Margret for this idea.
Hmmm, actually this page makes a strong argument for using digital instead of 35mm film… ISO 100 = 6 mega-pixels ISO 400 = 4 mega-pixels ISO 3200 = 2.5 mega-pixels ISO 25 = 15 mega-pixels (who shoots at ISO 25? sheesh!) All those formulas and numbers. I wonder if they are correct. http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/film.vs.digital.1.html
Another article claims: 35mm = 6 megapixels Kodachrome = 12 megapixels Velvia = 22 megapixels Technical Pan = 35 megapixels There’s a very interesting discussion on this page: http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/resolution.html It’s quite long. If you put the text into a two-column quark page, with the type at 8-point Times, it will be 70 pages long!
This is a fascinating topic. I will read that http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/resolution.html at work sometime. I have been shooting with digital part-time for about 4 years for a direct marketing agency. In October of 2002, I was able to start using a Nikon D100 6.1 megapixel SLR camera.
Let’s say I shoot something with a 35mm SLR and scan it in and then I shoot the same subject with the D100 digital. What is a crucial point in comparing these two techniques is the scanner used for the 35mm scan. You need a top-end scanner to even start thinking about how the 35mm will match the D100. If you use a $500 scanner, there will be no comparison. The D100 will blow away the 35mm. Guaranteed.
I never had the experience of shooting 35mm and getting the film scanned on high-end drum scan and then comparing it to a digital photo. So, I really can’t say which is better. I guess what my point was before is this: when you start introducing extra stages of “imaging” in the process, your final product is only as good as the weakest link. And the more stages you go through, the more detail you will lose.
So if you shoot 35mm, make prints, scan in the prints, you are going through 3 steps to get to digital. AND your result is only as good as the weakest link in your imaging. Is the print printed as crystal clear as possible? Is the scanner high-quality? You could lose one step in that process and scan in the negative, but then there is a lot of pressure on your scanner to make sure that it captures all the detail. But it’s still another step. With digital there is only one step. You can’t get any shorter than that. You shoot digital and it’s digital. wham.
Now if your intent is to have physical prints, and having them digitally is secondary, then you have another issue. By going digital, your weakest link will be your printer. How good is your printer? You can shoot with the great D100 camera with a great lens, but then you get crappy prints cuz you have a 100 dollar printer. But with 35mm you shoot and make prints from the film. Ah.. I’ve gone on too long. I need to eat lunch.
what’s SLR? super long rats? sandalwood leaf raisins? surly London roadkill?
single lens reflex
I will admit that I love the convenience of my digital, but when I was a 35mm dude I always [well, almost always”> shot in black and white. The quality [thanks to Helix and a good camera”> was always excellent.
Yeah, but the moose brings up a good point about how many generations film has to go through. Your end print will only be as strong as your weakest link. However, Helix IS a strong link.
OK so I’m old school, I used to use a fully manual 35 mm SLR then moved on to a manual / auto focus 35 SLR. Over the years shooting some B & W’s, done some of my own developing in the past. I have a newly Red painted living room. Decided to put some of my B & W’s up that I have taken over the past years.
My newest camera is the Cannon EOS Rebel XT 350 D. (10meg) I’ve been happy with the snapshots, the ability to delete the prints that weren’t so great before printing. Sooo… last summer took some beach shots with the newer D Camera. I took them to be developed to a lab, wet processing. Boy was I disappointed!
Compared to my previous beach shots from the 35 camera they can’t compare. Even the color is not correct it’s a cooler white almost green or bluish compared to my previous SLR prints done at the same lab from an SLR negative. I could blame the lab but it happened 2 different places. I had the camera set to B & W setting adjusting some for the bright day.
Anyway this summer I’ll be taking my older version SLR camera to the beach. Using my D camera for color prints…