On Fri, 7 Nov 2003, graywolf wrote: > This brings up an interesting comparisons that applies to serious > photographers who make their own prints. > > Digital: The more expensive the camera or scanner the better > results you get (by a large factor). The more expensive the > software you use the better the results you get.
I agree for the most part on the hardware, but I don't agree on the software. Full Photoshop is expensive, but plenty of people are getting great results without using Photoshop. I personally do all of my work with Picture Window (about $50) and we've seen that many list members are using IrfanView. > Film: The more expensive the lenses you use the better the results > you get (nowhere near as large a factor as in digital). One thing that I'm finding with the *ist D is that lens speed isn't as important to me as it once was. I used to shoot with an MX and hated using lenses slower than f2.8 because they were painful to use in low light and the screen was dim with them too. The *ist D screen is still bright with f4 lenses (I don't have anything slower right now) and ISO 800 on it gives me pretty good results too. That is 3 stops faster than the ISO 100 slide film that I used to shoot with. > Both: The more knowledge and practice you have the better your > results. Yup. And folks with knowledge but less expensive equipment almost always take better photographs than those with the expensive equipment and no knowledge. > > Conclusion: Initial dollar outlay is far higher to get great > results with digital. Time factors for good prints are similar and > prices about the same. So film cost is the only real disadvantage > to the older technology, but film is the reason a $200 camera can > make the same quality image as a $2000 one. Digital is also a very valuable learning tool because digital cameras are very good meters (as long as they have the histogram feature). You can very quickly evaluate metering using the histogram and learn the situation where your camera's pre-exposure meter isn't so accurate. On the other hand the *ist D's meter is more accurate then anything I've used before, so I don't find myself compensating very much. If you are paying a lab for processing then the processing costs of film can quickly add up too. Figure that a month long trip might result in shooting 20 36 exposure rolls of film. You pay $5/roll for the film and another $7/roll for proof shots from a decent minilab. That is about $250 in processing. If you take a lot of photographs a year of shooting can get you a D-SLR. alex
