The Digital Trap (A Rant)

I bought a nice photo printer and have printed 3 shots in 6 months. They are nice, but they are lying on a desk under a pile of papers somewhere. I shoot and view digitally. I also shoot lean and junk the rubbish so I don't have to waste money on huge HD's. It can be expensive but so can any hobby. It can also be pretty cheap. Depends on you. Film is dead ... I agree!

20droger wrote in post #2771215
...These "free" electronic images are bankrupting me!

Easy. Shoot less.

Lord_Malone wrote in post #2772208
Film is dead?

Film will die when it doesn't make enough profit for the industry that manufactures it. It will have nothing to do with it being a better/worse medium or with it being a better/worse value than digital.

I don't need no stinkin' digtal or film cameras. I've got a photographic memory.


J/K



Cost isn't the biggest factor for me. Not that I have a lot of money. It's the fun factor for me.

Digital is a real joy.

condyk wrote in post #2772248
I bought a nice photo printer and have printed 3 shots in 6 months. They are nice, but they are lying on a desk under a pile of papers somewhere. I shoot and view digitally. I also shoot lean and junk the rubbish so I don't have to waste money on huge HD's. It can be expensive but so can any hobby. It can also be pretty cheap. Depends on you. Film is dead ... I agree!

Dave, since you shoot and view digitally, why would the IQ of a lens be important for you? Also, wouldn't a 3 or 4 MP suffice?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to start an argument, because I agree with a lot that you say on this forum. I also don't print everything, and a lot of what I do print is 4x6 proofs ... which also don't show off the capabilities of my equipment. Yearly I print several hundred 4x6's, a few dozen 5x7's, a couple of 8x10's and maybe 1 or 2 16x20's.

Let's do some quick analysis...Assume you shot 100 photos in a day. Just using prices based upon ads in the Sunday newspaper, that is about $7 in film and $25 in processing cost (SF Bay area chain drugstore photoprocessing). $32.
Let us also assume $300 film SLR vs. $1300 dSLR...$1000 differential to be offset. That is only 31 days of shooting 100 photos a day! OK, so we have prints vs. no-prints in that analysis. So I would end up spending $19 per day to print all of my digital photos at the same drugstore...differenti​al is $13. So in 77 days of shooting 100 photos and getting prints of all photos, the film+processing costs have equalled the dSLR cost of higher initial investment. Any more shooting that that, and digital is less expensive.

"Wait", you say, "I am not printing every photo"... in the case of film, you would be printing every color neg simply to see if a photo is worth enlarging or not. Or "shooting color slide, I don't have printing cost", but there is the greater processing cost per roll, plus the higher expense per roll of slide film. Yes, you can do color slide processing yourself, but the theoretical savings is lost when you do not process the full number of rolls of film before the color developer has oxidized and depleted itself and you go out to buy another color processing chemistry kit.

Well that is a very fine question sir ... and I don't know the answer. What I do know is that the shots taken with my 3-4mp P&S are not good enough, even tho' the compositions are just as good/bad as from my DSLR, and it is also totally clear that shots from a decent lens looks better than a mediocre lens on my monitor. I'm not really a techie, sorry! Also, I may print something one day. Who knows

Wilt wrote in post #2772373
Let's do some quick analysis...Assume you shot 100 photos in a day. Just using prices based upon ads in the Sunday newspaper, that is about $7 in film and $25 in processing cost (SF Bay area chain drugstore photoprocessing). $32.
Let us also assume $300 film SLR vs. $1300 dSLR...$1000 differential to be offset. That is only 31 days of shooting 100 photos a day! OK, so we have prints vs. no-prints in that analysis. So I would end up spending $19 per day to print all of my digital photos at the same drugstore...differenti​al is $13. So in 77 days of shooting 100 photos and getting prints of all photos, the film+processing costs have equalled the dSLR cost of higher initial investment. Any more shooting that that, and digital is less expensive.

But Wilt, the point is that most of the amateurs that came from film didn't shoot anywhere close to 100 images per day. Most would be shooting maybe 100 images a month. For that group film is much, much cheaper, especially when you throw into the mix that a lot replace bodies every two years to get the latest and greatest.

When I first got my 20D I was shooting 1000 images per month because of the novelty. Now I shoot about the same as I did using film.

I shoot digital even though it is more expensive for the instant feedback, better control over the final product, and because I like techno-toys.

To me one of the real advantages of digital is that you get to see what you have captured before going to the expense of printing. With the last wedding I shot I ended up with 800+ shots, 200+ were keepers (as selected by the bride and her mom), and then we made 40 prints (4x6), 8 prints (5x7), and 2 prints (8x10). The bride's mom had one made into a poster and we went to www.mpix.com for that. Except for the poster print I did them all on my Epson R800 using matte paper.

Bob_A wrote in post #2772449
But Wilt, the point is that most of the amateurs that came from film didn't shoot anywhere close to 100 images per day. Most would be shooting maybe 100 images a month. For that group film is much, much cheaper, especially when you throw into the mix that a lot replace bodies every two years to get the latest and greatest.

When I first got my 20D I was shooting 1000 images per month because of the novelty. Now I shoot about the same as I did using film.

I shoot digital even though it is more expensive for the instant feedback, better control over the final product, and because I like techno-toys.

I won't argue that point. It is very valid! On the other hand, such a person probably is well served with a $300 digital P&S rather than a $1300 dSLR! Spending $1300 on a dSLR is just as 'wasteful' as spending $1300 on a pro quality SLR for 35mm film, after all, if you are merely going to be a snapshooter.

Certainly I myself would find it very hard to justify a $2700 FF dSLR simply as a snapshooting device....20% depreciation on a $2700 is greater than 20% depreciation on a $1300 dSLR, and given the same number of photos taken on both, the cost per photo is doubled!

condyk wrote in post #2772382
Well that is a very fine question sir ... and I don't know the answer. What I do know is that the shots taken with my 3-4mp P&S are not good enough, even tho' the compositions are just as good/bad as from my DSLR, and it is also totally clear that shots from a decent lens looks better than a mediocre lens on my monitor. I'm not really a techie, sorry! Also, I may print something one day. Who knows

I have to admit that I can see some small difference in IQ between a really mediocre and good lens on my crappy monitor, and the shallow DOF and low noise that you can get from a DSLR just can't be matched by a P&S. I just wonder why many that never print, and will never print, want cameras with more and more MP's instead of cameras with less noise and better colours. Good marketing by the manufacturers I suppose.

I print about 25 pictures a week on newsprint... for me the costs of film would be absolutely prohibitive. In a given week I might shoot between 300 and 500 frames, when you take everything into account (particularly things like basketball games...)

Wilt wrote in post #2772502
I won't argue that point. It is very valid! On the other hand, such a person probably is well served with a $300 digital P&S rather than a $1300 dSLR! Spending $1300 on a dSLR is just as 'wasteful' as spending $1300 on a pro quality SLR for 35mm film, after all, if you are merely going to be a snapshooter.

Certainly I myself would find it very hard to justify a $2700 FF dSLR simply as a snapshooting device....20% depreciation on a $2700 is greater than 20% depreciation on a $1300 dSLR, and given the same number of photos taken on both, the cost per photo is doubled!

For snapshooting certainly ... but I'm not talking about snapshooting. For myself, like a lot of others have shot film for years, we use a SLR for the flexibility you can get from the system, quality of lenses, and to get very narrow DOF for separation of the subject from the background. We just don't shoot 1000 images a day like a pro.

And a lot of the amateurs that shoot 1000 images a day are getting very few keepers because they use a pray and spray approach where the ones coming from the film ranks tend to take more time to set up because they are used to economizing. I'd argue that many of the ex-film users shooting 100-200 images per month fully understand their equipment and truly utilize a DSLR where the ones shooting 1000 images per day should have a P&S A good photographer shooting 100-200 images per month will also often have better product to show at the end of the year than someone else blasting away simply wearing their camera out.

I wonder how many images Yousef Karsh or Ansel Adam captured on average a day?

Bob_A wrote in post #2772544
I have to admit that I can see some small difference in IQ between a really mediocre and good lens on my crappy monitor, and the shallow DOF and low noise that you can get from a DSLR just can't be matched by a P&S. I just wonder why many that never print, and will never print, want cameras with more and more MP's instead of cameras with less noise and better colours. Good marketing by the manufacturers I suppose.

Well get yourself a decent monitor. I tell you, the quality of the monitor determines the IQ of the shot. I seen plenty of my shots look soft and dull on one monitor and sharp and saturated on another

The advantage of digital over film is the ability to take as many pics as you want at ZERO cost.

The cost of printing those images remains similar to the cost of printing from film.

But, printing cost is totally different from "shooting cost"

With Film, shooting cost is still high, film cost and development for contact sheets ...
Again with digital that part is free after initial investment, and turn around on this required step for both media is a time investment. However the turn around time for Digital is essentially immediate and totally within the photographers control.

Shooting and film, after initial investment, is free with digital.

Printing still costs.