For those who have gone from good film SLRs to digital - Why?

Well put CDS... I agree.

-daniel

I've shot film for 25 years and switched to digital 3-4 years ago. My film cameras are now paper weights.
My suggestion: Borrow or rent a D-SLR for an afternoon, shoot side by side with your wife and her film camera. Compare the results. Whether its quality/resolution, greater flexiblity, outstanding Dynamic Range, or cost effectiveness, You will not want to shoot 35mm film again. I print and sell A3 / 13x19" images on a regular basis and in my own experience, 35mm cannot touch 6-8mp DSLR resolution, you must see that for yourself to be convinced.
PS as also noted the ability to shoot usable images at ISO 1600....

Why shoot digital?

Everybody has a reason, all are very good and they got me to thinking ...

I went digital in February 1999. If I divide the number of shots I've taken with my digital cameras by 36 (as in a 36 exp roll of film) plus the cost of developing (at cheap prices) I've saved about $13,000. Cost for all my digital cameras, lenses and so on ... Probably a little better than half of that (but that also includes film camera and my Canon lenses for both digital and film)

Now, would I have shot that much film? Never! Doubt I shot that many rolls my entire life. BUT ... here's the kicker ... Photography has become my hobby, a passion, that it never could before because I could not justify the expense for the results I got. Now, I'm asked to shoot weddings (which I hate) parties (which I hate) and even sell my photos in a few shows I've been in.

I feel I have improved greatly in what I get from shooting digital ... and even my film prints and slides prove it now.

As mentioned ... just the cost savings in printing only the good shots is reason enough.

Having said that ... it's because of digital that I'm enjoying shooting film again and shooting films I never would have wasted my money on previous to digital.

My regret ... I wish there was digital about 30 years ago so I MAYBE would have had a chance to do it professionally ... OR ... I wish I were 30 years younger!

Digital has costs that aren't as obvious. Not only do you buy the body, memory cards, batteries..., but you end up improving your computer processor and memory, then you need an excellent monitor to callibrate and the device to do it, and Photoshop of course. I know I haven't "paid for" all the new investments I've made to go digital over the two years since my switch.

On the other hand, I'm shooting a lot more, and having more fun with my photographs with complete control from capture to print. I wouldn't do it for the cost -- high volume pros might see the benefit that way, but I don't as much. I consider myself a serious amature, and last week I just had a 1D MarkII delivered.... Back in film days I thought my A2 was just fine and I didn't own one L lens. Really, digital won't save you money, but it will probably increase your enjoyment and might just improve your photography.

Good luck,

Greg

All good points made above.

However, you say you are quite happy to bang out a couple of rolls on one flower. How about if you could do that and more and incur no cost after the fact. I.e. you could select the three or so you really like from a session and get them and only them printed ?

How about shooting continously for several hours ? Build a time lapse sequence from shots taken. Or maybe try and capture lightning ? Run the camera non-stop taking shots until you have a good capture. Things like that are cheap on digital and expensive on film.

But do note, that going digital also means you are going to have to invest in a digital darkroom to go with it to get the best out of it, e.g. shooting RAW, processing these/using Photoshop, computer costs etc.

Not an easy decision to make and it does require quite a large initial investment, but just having the ability to experiment and see the results instantly was the biggest reason for me, closely followed by lack of processing costs.

I haven't looked back since going digital. Saying that I still bang off a couple of rolls of B&W from time to time and process them myself, just to keep my hand in.

Cheers

Ian

Two more points that may hit home because of your recent vacation. My wife and I recently went to Europe for two weeks. The digital did two things that film could not have done (besides all the other things mentioned above). First, we did not have to worry about x-rays. Our stuff went through multiple x-ray machines, and let me tell you, it was nice not to have to ask for a hand inspection, or worry about it at all. Second, ISO 3600 allowed me to take low light pictures, that frankly, there is no way I could have gotten with a film camera. Stuff in museums, shows in low light, etc.

More to think about.

Oh yes, and welcome to the forum. Digital camera or not.

To be frank, it just more fun and don't smell as bad.
Not to forget its cheaper in the long run.
Allows me to save more money for more glasses.

Film processing and films are very expensive.
Think about this in one year I've shot over 8000 frames.
Thats 222.22 rolls of film
Thats $889 worth of film at $4/roll
Thats $1556 of developing and 4X6 prints.
Thats $2445 I could use for new Glass.

I beg to differ. I think that most people will print less and shoot more in digital because you can. So when it is time to print, one would less likely to print images that serve very little interest and rellagate them to digital slide shows of sort. I think one would more likely print maybe 20% and enlarge maybe 1%. 20% of 1600 shot is 320. At $0.19/print at Sam's Club thats about $61. Even if he was crazy enough to print them all thats only $304, thats half off. Now there is nothing that assume that one would shoot in RAW in all incidences and even if one did, one might also have the option to shoot in RAW+JPEG and could definitely just use the JPEG for printing.

Here's my situation:
I never had a real interest with photography until my step-father bought a film SLR in 1985 (I think). It had autofocus, auto aperture and auto shutter speed - or manual for any/all. I ended up buying the same camera with 35-80 (or something like that) plus a 70-210 lens. I enjoyed it very much, but the cost of film+processing always restricted what I could afford to do. A few years later I was low on money and couldn't afford to have a couple of rolls developed, so I sold my camera and lenses.

After a few years I was missing having a camera, mainly at times when I went somewhere and wanted to take some photos.

Then digital cameras came out and I thought they were pretty neat. I bought a Kodak DC-50 and had some fun with it, but the res was too low. I then replaced that with a NIkon CP950 in 1999 - it was a good camera, I wanted a 6MPix D-SLR at the time but they cost well over $10K. In 2003 the 10D was released and cheaper than the D60, so I took the plunge back into SLR photography. Now I have shot 18,000 images over the last 2 years, my camera is still going strong and I would have spent over twice as much if I had been shooting with film.

So:
How much have you spent on film + developing over the last couple of years?
Have you found yourself inhibited in your photography knowing the cost of each shot?
Do you already have a computer that is suitable for processing the images?

Have you considered the ability to take a couple of hundred shots of a flower and picking the best one, having it printed at a large size, framed and hanging it on the wall in the living room? With digital you can take the pics, check them on the computer and if you don't see the results you were trying for you can go back outside and try again. With film I would never consider shooting that much just to get one good picture.

Depending on what you find comfortable to hold I think that either the 350D (Rebel XT) or 20D would meet your needs rather well. Compared to spending $600 on a single trip, the cost of a D-SLR is not that prohibitive (how much do you spend per year on film and developing).

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed shooting with my film cameras. They are legends and still perform perfectly after years of use. But - - -
film cost a lot of money to process and print and it is getting harder and harder to find decent labs that consistently understand how you would like your images to look.

Advantages of digital - instant feedback in the form of histogram, not LCD!
choice of which shots to bother with in post processing, creative control over cropping, filtering, and other effects without extra lab costs, ability to shoot as much as you like while experimenting and learning, with no lab fees. Ability to shoot in low light and adjust settings on the fly without changing film or bodies.

Disadvantages - up front costs of computer gear and related hardware for decent post processing, continuous upgrading of gear when new technology is available/needed, time spent in front of a computer (puts a crimp in your other extra-curricular activities), carrying a computer (the camera body) into the field under harsh conditions and worrying about damage.

There are probably a lot more on both accounts, but even though I have the best film gear money can buy, if it weren't for my 20D at the last wedding (no flash allowed in dark church) I would have been sweating bullets about shooting at ISO 1600 @ 1.4.

Try digital. You might get hooked.


Lou

Wow.

Thank you!

This kind of advice/experience/feed​back is exactly what I was hoping for. I won't recap - no need - but you've all given me lots of serious points to ponder.

My wife and I both have new-ish 3+ GHz 'puters, each with a gig of RAM. I have an nVidia 6800 driving a color-calibrated 21" CRT, and she has a 5700 driving a 17" LCD. Computing horsepower is not a problem! We also have an Epson 1270 printer, which will go to A3, and it has been calibrated to CorelDRAW. Yeah, I'm a geek.

My wife is out of town this weekend, and she and I talked about my question and some of your responses when I called her a couple of hours ago. Not only does she think I need to go digital, she thinks we both need to (!?!). Quite a different reaction from what I expected! I make the money in our house, but she runs it - stay-at-home expert Mom (and an accounting-type, to boot) - and I expected she'd give me a virtual pat on the head and tell me to cool my jets (again). We have a chance for some additional income from a couple of patent applications, and if they come through I'll have the liquidity to pull the trigger (not to mix metaphors or anything...) If not, we'll have to see what else we can sell on eBay to pay for this... I'll keep lurking, and will let you know how things progress. Thanks again for your thoughts, and keep 'em coming!

One of my reasons for going digital was that over the years I've amassed it seems thousands of prints. Some get filed in albums, but most not. The albums take up a fair amount of space and tend to be stored away where neither myself or my wife seem to take them out often.
With digital I've gone the route of creating Photo slideshows which I burn onto DVD-R media. I build the show with the images I want and add a music track. The software I'm using has the ability to add effects and transitions as well. Best of all they don't take up much space and thus are viewed more often. Much more enjoyable this way than flipping pages of an album. I can imagine your vacation presented in this manner would be wonderful to watch. If you haven't had your vacations photos processed yet, you may want to consider having them digitized to a CD with the prints. Generally it doesn't cost that much more and then you could use them later in a slideshow if you wanted.
I've also done a few weddings in this manner and it makes for a wonderful storybook of the wedding events which is very well recieved by the bride, groom, and families.

Proshow Gold 2.5 > http://www.photodex.co​m/

As others have said also, with digital you tend to shoot more pictures with digital than with film. I've started to shoot some local events (essentially freebies) with digital that I would have never have thought to do with film due to the cost of film processing and developing. I do still shoot film on occasion, but it is becoming less and less as I learn how to use digital more and more.

Glen, glad that we gave you some hints. Now that you're sold, go out and become digital

I had been shooting 35 mm film for about 25 years.

We were planning a trip to Africa and had to take a variety of telephoto to wide angle lenses and enough film for four weeks of heavy shooting. I do not trust baggage handlers and want to bring the camera equipment as carry-on. Film cannot safely be sent in checked luggage due to the X-ray machines. Airlines have reduced the sized and weight restrictions for carry on luggage so I could not fit all my camera equipment and film into my bags. The choice was made for me. Go digital or leave some of the equipment I needed at home.

It did not take long shooting digital before the other advantages became so obvious that I have hardly touched my 35 mm cameras in the last three years.

Quality. Enlargements from digital are just as good as what I was getting from film, and better in some cases because the shadow detail is better than film like Velvia is capable of.

ISO changes. You can change the ISO of your digital from shot to shot when going from indoors to outdoors, twilight to daylight, shadows to open sunlight. With film you have to either waste the rest of a film or go through that process of recording the number of exposures, unloading the film, inserting the partially exposed film of the correct ISO, and advancing the film for the number of exposures needed.

Cost. I shot 35 mm Provia and Velvia film. Film and processing usually cost me about $20 CDN per roll. If I wanted prints, I would then have the slides scanned. Unless you paid for custom scanning the results were often disappointing. A quality film scanner was not that much cheaper than a digital camera. It was not long before my digital camera had paid for itself just in the cost of film, processing and scanning.

Time. I come home, download my digital shots to my computer and can make prints immediately. With film I had to drive to the shop (or wait for the next day after shop hours), to drop off my film, drive back the next day to pick it up, make a third trip to drop off the slides I wanted scanned and a fourth trip to pick up the prints or scans if I was doing the printing myself. A week or more has passed before I have my prints.

Changing film. With digital I can get 200 RAW shots on a 2 gb card. With film you have to reload every 36. I missed some very good sports shots while I was putting a new film in the camera.

Immediate feedback. With digital you have a histogram and a display available to check exposure and composition. In tricky lighting conditions you have to bracket with film in tricky lighting conditions and can't tell whether you got it right until the film is processed.

In short, my advise is DO NOT GO DIGITAL because your film cameras will feel lonely sitting on the shelf all the time.

Scott