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Quote: Nostalgia tells me my LP's @ 33 1/3 were better, reality tells me the mp3 player I have now is a superior solution.
I suppose that comes down to whether you value convenience over ultimate sound quality. With each new technology, convenience improves yet quality somehow suffers. And whilst digital cameras are, in many ways, superior to film there are a few areas where film wins: colour fidelity, colour detail, long exposures, dynamic range...
Yesterday evening I was out photographing a field of wild flowers and had a choice: heavy and inconvenient LF gear with five primes and related paraphernalia or relatively light DSLR and a couple of zooms. I didn't really think about it for too long: LF it had to be.
Jools I picked that as an example because it has a parallel, the trade off between ultimate quality and portability. I know full well that the potential for the LP to produce better sound than the mp3 player is there, you just have to look at the CD compression strategy and sampling frequency to work it out. But I also know how badly LPs wear and how much my own hearing has degraded as I age, so for me there is no effective difference in the real world.
but to take your film points, colour fidelity not convinced I have seen too many colour shifts with film and also reciprocal failure and colour shifts to consider that significant. Same with colour detail. Dynamic range, single shot film negative V's digital, I can see that but with HDR techniques not certain its a real world difference. Long exposure, single shot yes I can see your point but given you can create a very long exposure shot by combining time lapse photographs again is that relevant. I have seen people use that for night time or astronomy photographs with great effect.
Quote: I know full well that the potential for the LP to produce better sound than the mp3 player is there, you just have to look at the CD compression strategy and sampling frequency to work it out.
Now you are conflating technology and how the technology is implemented. The third element is whether you like the result and that is independent of things like accuracy and fidelity (no expert that I know says that LP is more accurate but many people prefer it).
And as you say, digital photography can be processed in a way that minimises any perceived benefits of film to an insignificant minimum.
Please let me kn ow WHERE IS your 'Council Dump ' ???? I would love to take any 'Old Gear' off your hands to go with my outdated films -- I was GIVEN some good gear by a Gent I met on a trip to Whitby for the cost of postage -- will try to show you some here ----
The Voigtlander Brilliant was in a ladies' LOFT for many years and she mentioned to a fellow Camera Club member about it and he told her of a member 'Who could give it a Good Home '' that was ME !! I cleaned it up with w toothbrush on all the outside dirty areas and the lens surfaces with lens fluid and tissues and have taken some good photos with it - the MINOX from the Whitby Gent I needed to get a replacemant battery as it took the MERCURY type but have now got it working and have sent him e-mailed photos of the results and he is delighted that I am using it in a 'Good Home' -- I was also given a Canon A1 amd a Rolleiflex 2.8E Xenotar and a Rolleiflex 3.5 E Planar and I never mind the WEIGHT and do my own film processing in about 20 minutes no probs !!
There is a whole generation of photographers now who are only concerned with getting the end photograph, rather than the enjoyment of how you get it and the processes you go through. Many will never even print any of their work, but merely view it on a screen.
I still use medium and large format because I enjoy using them. A digital back (if I could afford one!) would still have the enjoyment as the process of using these wonderful old beasts is still there. Plus, done well, a larger film format will still blow away a digital print when you print large.
I enjoy processing film like I always have done, and though I like the immediacy and convenience of digital, film isn't dead by a long chalk, and I intend to keep using it as long as I can.
If the OP wishes to unload any of his gear, I can make a contribution to his beer/wine/coffee/whatever supply, rather than junk it all.....
Nick
Quote: Many will never even print any of their work, but merely view it on a screen.
I keep hearing this one, but still don't quite understand it. When I used to do my own B/W processing I enjoyed the process, but very few of my prints went into frames on walls. Most stayed in albums or drawers and were (and are) seldom looked at. So what precisely is the difference between leaving a print in a drawer, to be dragged out on occasion, and putting a file on a disc to be viewed whenever? At least image files don't take up physical space or get dog-eared, and they are easier to backup.
Then I would suggest a lot of your prints might not have reached your own standards of being worthy of a frame.
I see no point in hand printing small pictures these days, ie below 6x8 or 8x10, as you can get them done commercially for peanuts, but that small you will never realise all the detail that can be had from a well exposed and developed film. A contact print should show which were worth enlarging, and the rest are kept on one sheet with the negs.
Even contact printing a good 5x4 neg will reveal a huge amount of detail, and you can keep on enlarging way beyond that to poster size with no detriment to the image.
On the other hand, hand printing allows you to dodge/burn etc and each print is unique, so better saved for those you really like or want to see large.
I'm not saying there aren't parallels, and it is easier to catalogue and archive digital files, but some people still prefer the process of taking pictures as much as the end result.
Nick
I think not enough members here belong to a 'Club' so they do not know what to do with their prints -- I enter the Print comps. at my Club so USE the prints and they are also shown in competitions with other Clubs and in the Library for our Exhibition -- also, if the original Poster wanted to get rid of his Jobo for example, there would have been many members willing to take it rather than the local Council Dump ( Or SCHOOLS even -- local SCHOOLS do 'traditional Darkroom processing' and would be glad of any free gear )
This really isn't a contribution to the film v. digital debate but, rather, a comment on prints.
Back in the "olden days" (1960 - 1990) when I had my own darkroom, I made prints for two principal reasons:
1. To send to magazines (most publications, in those days, wanted 10x8 b&w prints on glossy, contrasty paper for interior use and medium format trannies for colour covers).
2. To keep in albums or drawers.
Most of those produced for albums or drawers got looked at once or twice and never saw the light of day again.
Today, having joined a camera club (for the first time at the age of 65 a couple of years ago), I now produce prints for two main reasons:
1. For competition entries (not just camera club competitions but RPS etc., as well)
2. To hang on my walls (Just done a quick count and I currently have 42 colour and monochrome prints in 50x40 frames hanging on the walls of my house. Than God for cheap B&Q frames!! )
Two points from this:
1. It doesn't really matter whether the prints are made from film or digital capture (probably 85% of mine are now digital). I would disagree with Sooty that a large format film print will "blow away" any digital one. The best of film will blow away mediocre digital and vice-versa. At the A3+ prints I make to frame in 50x40 frames, it is certainly totally impossible to tell the difference of origin.
2. My photographs get looked at far more nowadays than they ever did before. OK a photo in a magazine might have been seen by 50,000 readers but how many actually appreciated it?
So my advice to every aspiring hobbyist photographer would be: Get yourself a good quality A3+ printer (it will cost less than your camera in all probability) and print your best pictures for hanging on your walls, entering in competitions and maybe, some day, hanging in your own exhibition.
.
Quote: few areas where film wins: colour fidelity
Which film stock are we talking about here?
Quote:
1. It doesn't really matter whether the prints are made from film or digital capture (probably 85% of mine are now digital). I would disagree with Sooty that a large format film print will "blow away" any digital one. The best of film will blow away mediocre digital and vice-versa. At the A3+ prints I make to frame in 50x40 frames, it is certainly totally impossible to tell the difference of origin.
I sell my work at craft fairs, and whenever the film vs digital debate comes up, then I ask them to identify which of my prints are film and which are digital .... nobody has ever managed it.
Quote: So my advice to every aspiring hobbyist photographer would be: Get yourself a good quality A3+ printer (it will cost less than your camera in all probability) and print your best pictures for hanging on your walls, entering in competitions and maybe, some day, hanging in your own exhibition.
Very good advice there
Quote: I sell my work at craft fairs, and whenever the film vs digital debate comes up, then I ask them to identify which of my prints are film and which are digital .... nobody has ever managed it.
Most commercial printing houses use digital printing processes, so there is very little difference between film or digital as place of origin if the printing process is the limiting factor.
Quote: I would disagree with Sooty that a large format film print will "blow away" any digital one.
I qualified that by saying, "done well, a larger film format will still blow away a digital print when you print large." The digital print in this instance being that from a small format camera.
The saying, "a good big'un will always beat a good little'un" still holds true. Why would people still use medium and large format (even with digital backs costing £20 000+) if a modern dslr will do the job just as well? Truth is, it won't, however much digital users wish it so.
I have a number of old cameras kicking around, somehow they all seem, well, dead. I find it sad. Admittedly I'd moved from SLRs to a pair of compacts for most of my stuff, a Yashica T4 and a Pentax ESPIO something or other - but then, they both used the same 35mm film rather than the sub-optimal sensors in most compacts these days.
Ah well, one day I'll photograph my collection of 'cheapies' - meanwhile here's my Ensign Fulview
Well -Done ! Let those cameras 'Live On' rather than in the Council Dump ( I remember the Full-View -- I was amazed at school when I peered into one -- it was all in COLOUR in the viewfinder ! )
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