random arguement question

i got in a bit of a random debate over magazines and stuff today, i was helping someone out from another photography forum with a pixelpost photoblog installation and other than the fact they were rude as piss to me the entire time while i was trying to help them, telling me how the code was dirty and his friend couldnt install it cause it sucked so bad and he was IT PHP admin guru for bellsouth (riiiiiiight, over 4,000 installations and one one major flaw in the last year with the code)....ok now im blabbing

*smacks self*

anyways the dude shot film, so we started talking about film (i love the darkroom) and got into an arguement over films use in magazines...he claimed that most major skate/surf/ motocross/extreme sports magazines used film, medium and large format...

now I have been to the xgames, photographed ncaa basketball and tennis, ran video camera for an extreme sports company, and never once in the last two years have i seen an extreme sports photographer use anything but digital...

so their claim was that film is REQUIRED by these mags...am i just like on another planet or is this dude on crack?

i know this is a pointless thread...but i have to know if i am just wrong on this

ive never seen a medium format camera witha 500mm lens on it for surfing, never...

Dude is on crack, and has a bad drinking habit to boot.

Just point out that two of the very limited Canon 1200mm lenses are in Sports Illistrated's hands and they only fit a 35mm camera. I can't say if they use 35mm film or digital, but I would guess digital at this point. SI even has (or had) the recommended custom settings desired for Canon 1D series, which means at least that magazine is highly into digital.

On the flip side I have seen some Hassleblad H-1 series cameras on the TV shooting sports events. So those are probably using film.

I have no idea where I read it, but I do recall reading an article last year about SI's change to digital. In the article they listed the approximate number of film vs. digital pictures taken in the year, I don't recall the numbers but I remember being floored by how lopsided it was towards digital now.

To the best of my knowledge, almost all print media has now gone almost compleatly digital. Newspapers were the first (time constraits being the major motivator there) and now mags. I'm no expert or anything, but I seem to recall reading an article on this...(could be the same one Mazer's refering to.)

L8r,

Ok, after a little looking (Obviously not interested in work this morning ) I found this article which is close on Rob Galbraith's site: Sports Illustrated's digital workflow. I don't think it was the one I was originally thinking about but it comes close.

Some highligts if you don't want to read the 3 page article:

"SI's take from Super Bowl XXXVIII, 16,183 digital pictures shot in Houston's Reliant Stadium by eleven of the magazine's staff photographers over the course of about six hours. "

"In 2003, Sports Illustrated's photo department processed 1,028,000 digital photographs shot by staffers or freelancers under assignment. In 2004, an Olympic year, they estimate they will process closer to 3 million." (WOW!)

"The switchover began in earnest in the second half of 2002, and it was Canon's EOS-1D that really made it possible, says Phil Jache. That camera provided the combination of framing rate and image resolution necessary for the magazine's day-in, day-out demands, and the large majority of SI's staff images are made with it. The magazine's 19 staff photographers also make heavy use of the EOS-1Ds, and lighter use of several other models, including the EOS 10D, the Nikon D1X and, more recently, the D2H."

dude's on crack. I haven't been to many sporting events, but all I've been to I saw digital SLRs being carried.
Film "REQUIRED" ? hahahaha