Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Smith 
The two subjects in this digital vs film debate is obsolesence in both cameras and much more problematic is the files themselves. Do you want to drop $1800 for a decent body every three to five years? If you have a compusion to keep with the pace of camea evolution, it will cost you. Second Image files are much more temporary with digital compared to film. I remember listening to a program on technology called Spark on CBC Radio One, one person close to the subject of image storage conservatively estimates most of the digital images shot now will be lost within five years due to deteriorating storage media, format changes, computer failure. I am not looking forward to hearing soccer mom's screaming when they can't access photos of their kids they forgot to print. Now I am coming at this with a bias, I shoot film, mostly black and white, I develop and print at home. I have shot digital for a community relations project providing photography for the Industry Association Website and Facebook page, for editorial work, digital is great. My beef with digital is the images are too perfect and lack character. I like the look I get with my hand made black and white prints made from negs I created in a Leica M3 (one of the coolest cameras made) or my Nikon F (The other coolest camera ever made). I do it for fun, film photography is safer not cheaper than drugs and it gets me away from the computer. check out my photoblog:
http://funwithcameras.blogspot.com decide for yourself.
Obsolescene is planned in this day and age. You submit only if you want to. I bought my first digital camera, an Olympus E-10, in 2000. I only replaced it last year, which was a pretty good run -- I still shoot it. And if most of the digital images that are taken are lost, it's still an order of magnitude more images than would have existed otherwise (since every other soccer mom is clicking away these days). But honestly, what's changed? Casual users who don't take care of their images often lose them, pros take care of their slides and their negs and don't lose them. Nothing's changed, except that there are a lot more images (if digital) in the hands of the former, casual users. A pro shooting digital
will back up his files, and he
will upgrade his media as appropriate. In which case he will never experience
degradation (as occurs with all films at different timescales) though loss is always possible (though frankly, much less likely -- he will back up offsite so fires floods and theft will not affect him, though global thermonuclear war still could).
Quote:
My beef with digital is the images are too perfect and lack character.
Now this sounds like a beef with the photographer, not the medium. People love what they love, and that's important, but it's also important not to back that up with bad information or reasoning. ~ H
