Which has a better quality picture: 35m SLR or Nikon D80? - Page 2

yes, but 90% of them used medium format film. still, i agree with what you say.

jon, you know as well as i do that a good shot is a good shot. it doesn't matter if you use 35mm, mf, digital, whatever.

cartier-bresson's pics would have been just as interesting if he'd used a p&s digicam. to me, the only issues are cost, workflow (convenience), and resolution (if you intend to make enlargements or if you are shooting professionally and the client wants large image files.)

edit: if you have any hopes of having your images up in a museum/art gallery, i understand the need to shoot film, as museums generally only like to put up b&w prints on b&w paper, or cibachrome (ilfochrome) for color.

btw, i sent you an e-mail.

So you started yet another thread to ask advice, it goes overwhelmingly to one side... but are you still arguing back? Honestly, this is one of those "if you have to ask," scenarios. If you don't know what the nuances of quality are between the different camera models, there's no point in paying tons of money for a full-frame DSLR, or even worrying about the differences between them and the lower-mid DSLRs (like the D80). With that out of the way, this is simply an issue of digital SLRs in general vs. film in general. Your question was basically, "is the quality there?," and the answer is a resounding "Yes." There should be nothing to hold you back from going digital, unless you are personally partial to the look and style of film pictures. If the issue is that you don't want to stray from the mystical preferences of Bresson or another photographer (I would also staunchly argue that such masters of photography would most definitely be shooting in digital had they been born this era), then don't stray from it. Keep chasing that style if that's what you want. But recognize that that's what it is, a style. I'll provide a sample image taken from my D80 a few days ago - I feel like it's a good example of a non-oversaturated, non-oversharpened photo with noticeable depth of field. You're going to have a really hard time getting scanned negatives of any film above ISO200 to look this good (again, speaking on the quality of equipment, not the quality of the photo - this is at ISO 200, 135mm, f/5.6): It doesn't look like film, but that's not necessarily the aim. Rather, the aim is for a very pure image from lens to sensor, and that's what the current crop of digitals deliver (though my heart resides with Nikon, moreso than the others). I will say, though, that among the choices, Nikon's noise tends to look much more film-grainy and much less color-speckled than the others. There's a reason for this (there are basically two sources of noise, Nikon cameras heavily reduce on of these types), but I can't be arsed into looking up the exact names of em.

Adorama in NYC rents D80 for $90/day during midweek and D300 for $158/day. I don't know if you have a comparable store in Florida. It may be easier to buy a slighlty used DSLR, use it for a couple of month and sell, if you decide it is not for you.

I am not crazy about buying pre-owned electronics either. If I had to do it though, I would look at Buy and Sell forum on Fred Miranda and B&H used section . If you plan to keep the camera for a while, you might be happier buying new.

Depends what you are taking pictures of. I am very passionate about photography and still shoot film 100% of the time. I don't think the long term safe storage and retrieval of digital files have been sorted out and I really don't like the short product cycles DSLR's have.

Give my a well sorted out Leica M3 or a Nikon F, F2 or F3HP and I can squeeze out magic especially if it ends up a hand made black and white print on glossy fibre paper.

http://flickr.com/photos/funwithcameras

Archiving digital is a huge problem. This is the overwhelming reason people still use analog technologies like film and magnetic tape.

Digital was originally put forth as an archiving solution since there was no degradation in making copies, which is great on an information theory level, but flawed in practice since storage media fails at long term stability. The best advice I give to those wishing to archive digital work is to make as many copies as possible across the widest range of storage media. The best solution is for mass replication like a CD or DVD, but this is not always practical.

I work in digital fine art, and this is a prominent issue in the field. Honestly, my view is to decrease the expectations of the collectors by informing them that this work is simply not permanent. This is a bit of a tough sell especially now that contemporary artwork is now seen as a financial investment.

Or you want to blow the image up very large while still keeping very high resolution. Though that's less a 35mm vs digital as it is a 120mm/4x5 vs digital, unless the 35mm is a particularly low ASA like Pan-X where you can get away with blowing the image up large while still maintaing particle density.

The only digital cameras that can equal 35mm are generally Hasselblads, and the only ones even foolishly pretending to approach 120mm are the $40,000 Hasselblads. Makes me wish I could play around with one of those.

I have the same reservations about digital and archiving work. However, over time I've gotten over the notion that my work may need archiving .

I switched to digital prior to an overseas trip where I wanted the freedom to shoot an abundance of photos. I find the lens to be *extremely* important -- which of course is stating the obvious, but a worthwhile point to underscore.

My philosophy on digital is to make prints soon after a trip in a variety of formats and back up more than once. My assumption is that my negatives will like the digital images some day be lost forever -- even where the print may remain for years to come.