Shaun Canning wrote: > Here's my problem - and I am sure you can all relate. Do I sell all my > gorgeous near mint 35mm gear and buy a *ist D or do I keep shooting > 35mm trannies and buy a really good film scanner? Obviously, the *ist D > option will be cheaper in the long run (film use wise), but are the results > going to be as good as 35mm high resolution scans?
I think Mark Cassino covered the question of whether the ist-D shots will be as good as scanned film: It depends. He's of the opinion that digital is better at subjects that are defined by edges and things that really benefit from lack of noise/grain. Film is better at things that are defined by textures. Landscapes generally (but not always) fall into the latter category. Portraits fall into the former. (Search the PDML archives for the subject "Re: *istD - Hmmmmm" for Mark's complete, very informative post.) My own, brief experiments with a few ist-D shots bear this out. I made a 12 x 18 print of a landscape shot I took with an ist-D. It was very good, but not *quite* as good as I think I could have achieved with ISO 100 film (if you want to see the type of image I'm talking about the photo in question is at http://www.robertstech.com/graphics/pages/7d3d0001.htm). On the other hand Tom Van Veen's digital portraits that I've seen are probably *better* than what could be done with film. So what kind of photography do you do? Another question is how much you want/need the immediacy of digital. Do you have an archive of existing slides that you want to save in digital form? Finally, you might want to consider the continuing decline in the cost of digital cameras. They're going to get better *and* cheaper. At what point in this process is it most advantageous for you to get in? Getting a decent film scanner now and a DSLR in a year might actually be the cheaper way to go. But I'm guessing you won't be able to resist the siren song of digital that long ;-) -- Mark Roberts Photography and writing www.robertstech.com
