The manufacturers of digital camera tout very highly the fact that there is no film cost, hence digital is cheaper. Once the camera cost is compensated for, the images are free!
BUNK!!!!
Since you went ditigal what film costs have you incured? They are right about this one. I have yet to see an ad from any major camera manufacture that states that the images are free. That is a preception we develop and has been passed on by sales people for businesses.
A digital body costs well over $1000, where an equivalent film body only a few hundred dollars. But, as they say, the difference in body price is quickly offset by the cost of film and processing. I'll grant that this is true. But only in theory!
In 1970 the cost of a Nikon F2 body was easily the equivelent of a $1000. The cost of that body was almost three times the monthly payment for my parents 1500 square foot ranch house. It cost $19,500 and they bought it three years after it was built from a Doctors family. That same house would now sell for a minimum of $210,000. My father was a CPA making $14,000 a year. A good salery back then. They now take as much out of my check for taxes each month as his gross monthly paycheck was back then.
Digital is much easier than film, so other factors apply.
The same fundimentals apply to digital as to film when taking a photograph. If you are well grounded in the basics and have good techniqure film is no tougher than digital. The post process is more cost effective but not necessarly easier.
When on a casual outing, such as last weekend's trip to Bosque del Apache in New Mexico, we took well over twelve-hundred pictures. If we had been using film, we would have taken a dozen rolls or so at best. That's approximately a 3:1 difference.
When it comes to shooting digital or film, the amount of photos you take should not a product of the format. Take the time to take the photograph you want the first time just as if it was film. The fact that there is not developing cost is no excuse for poor technique.
Assume that in a given shoot about 20% of the shots are worth printing. With digital, we would be (and are) printing about 220-250 pictures. If we had used film (Ektachrome), I would be exposing and developing about 80-90 Cibachrome prints.
Why would you be printing that many photos? Do you have a gallery showing? If you are using a digital camera why are you not embracing the value of digital? Print what you NEED. Store and show the rest in a digital format on a computer or TV. In 30 plus years of shooting film I developed my own most of the time. I only printed the photos I needed/wanted, not every photo I shot.
The cost of developing the Ektachrome slides and producing the Cibachrome prints in-house would be less (considerably less) than the ink and paper to make the digital prints.
Again, why are you printing that much? As with anything else, self control is a must. Print what you need. Save all the images. The file cabines, negative sleves, storage envelopes, I have full of negatives were expensive at the time. I could have bought hundreds if not thousands of cd's/dvd's for storage for the same money.
These "free" electronic images are bankrupting me!
"Any man who has $10,000 left when he dies is a failure."
Errol Flynn.
