[shplorgh]

Interesting, I was just talking to a proffesional photographer (friend of my dad) for an article I was writing for my journalism class about this very matter. He said that the quality has almost entirely caught up, and film only has an advantage in things like advertisin, where you need large negatives to enlarge the pic. I dunno, I'm not a photographer.

 

[PSmith08]

The photo fora have been predicting this for a few years now, so it isn't an enormous surprise to me. In fact, I was somewhat more astonished when Nikon introduced the F6. Minolta has been losing market share for twenty years, and Konica isn't likely to be fond of that.

When digital became cheap, 90% of all camera consumers became satisfied. That remaining 10% probably isn't going to carry film on its back. That having been said, my F100 will likely see as much shutter-time as my D70.

 

[aerius]

Question: How does one archive digital shots?

Film negatives and prints last pretty much forever while digital storage media is still kinda iffy. Some CDRs are good for 10 years, maybe more, others crap out after a couple years. Harddrives & computers crash and it's just not reassuring.

 

[eric343]

If I remember correctly, the per-area resolution of digital long ago surpassed that of film (even if film prints better at higher resolution). Hence the more obvious improvements with better lenses.

I think the advent of 30 megapixel DSLRs will make things quite interesting. Consider that the highest resolution MF back (excepting the weird 44MP hex-format thing) is 22MP, and it moves the CCD to quadruple the resolution.

Granted, it will be quite a while before medium and large format film go out of use, especially for poster or architectural photography. The architects just can't get enough of their tilt/shift, a feature that's technically very difficult with the 35mm format. I have the 85mm Nikon tilt/shift lens, and the range of movement is quite limited. (a truly excellent lens, though, and the tilt is extremely useful for macro photography)

 

[eric343]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vibin247 True, but the really good privately-owned labs are either going out of business or giving in to digital processing. I don't mind working digitally because it's more convenient and saves you time. Film has a romantic touch that the digital format might achieve someday, which is why a handful of pros still use film. Anyone check out the new Hasselblad H2D-39? (as in 39 megapixels!)

Wow, goes to show how long it's been since I looked at MF digital.

The Hasselblad H2 is the most comfortable camera I've ever held, bar none. It's a joy to play with.

 

[eric343]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markl Once again, superior analog technology replaced with worse digital. So sad. One day, when digital cameras can equal or surpass the resolution of medium format film, I will give up on film, but not before.

You shoot medium format exclusively and usually print >8x10 images?

 

[markl]

Quote:

You shoot medium format exclusively and usually print >8x10 images?

I'm a landscape photographer, I shoot medium format slides and have blown up images 16x24, and a few 24x30.

I admit to not paying attention to digital photography at all, so I'm almost 100% ignorant (though I've used a few cheap digicams for things like posting pics on ebay), and I honestly don't even understand the process through which digital images are made into photographic quality prints. I am blissfully unaware of the dificulties (or maybe even some advantages if there are any) of doing that. I assume that eventually, they are going to have to figure out how to do it if they eliminate film. Color me skeptical that the technology is there to make digital images look as good as enlargements of slides or negatives. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I picture jagged-edges, visible digital "grain", and images that look more like pohotographs of a TV screen than real life.


There is also the issue of storage long-term. I've been reading how when digital hard drives were new-ish, and audio engineers took their crumbling old master tapes to transfer to digital (sometimes for the last time as the master tapes were toast) and left them on those old obsolete, hard drives, now there is no equipment available to retrieve this data, and even if they could, it is all in archaic formats that modern digital signal processing equipment can't do a thing with. I foresee the same issues with digital images.

What if Ansel Adams entire output was stored digitally but was irretrievably lost due to technology compatibility issues, hard-drive failures or what not? (Heh, not that I'm Ansel Adams, but I want my slides/images to last).

 

[Snake]

I think, personally, that a lot of "issues" for the "minor" camera manufacturing players could be solved if they all get behind 4-Thirds. Instead of all the smaller manufacturers competing against one another they could be "cooperating", that is contributing to a industry-wide 'system' that consumers could buy into.

From there, once a consumer decides 4-Thirds, he/she would have a huge selection of compatible components and simply choose which implementation of features, specs and ergonomics they want. Each company would have their own take on what a 4-Thirds SLR system means to them and a consumer would choose if that is the implementation they want.

Maybe it's just me being a bit biased, as I rather am an Olympus man - I really like their beliefs of compact size and full user control. I miss handling my OM-4 with Motor Drive 2 and Ni-Cad pack - all other SLR's seem completely needlessly bulky and inconvenient. Once you handle a small SLR with a hand strap (not neck strap) you'll understand - instant camera availability, it becomes an extension of your hand. I've been hoping for a "E-2" or "E-3" from Olympus for some time; update the E-1 and I'm there.

 

[eric343]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markl I'm a landscape photographer, I shoot medium format slides and have blown up images 16x24, and a few 24x30. I admit to not paying attention to digital photography at all, so I'm almost 100% ignorant (though I've used a few cheap digicams for things like posting pics on ebay), and I honestly don't even understand the process through which digital images are made into photographic quality prints. I am blissfully unaware of the dificulties (or maybe even some advantages if there are any) of doing that. I assume that eventually, they are going to have to figure out how to do it if they eliminate film. Color me skeptical that the technology is there to make digital images look as good as enlargements of slides or negatives. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I picture jagged-edges, visible digital "grain", and images that look more like pohotographs of a TV screen than real life. There is also the issue of storage long-term. I've been reading how when digital hard drives were new-ish, and audio engineers took their crumbling old master tapes to transfer to digital (sometimes for the last time as the master tapes were toast) and left them on those old obsolete, hard drives, now there is no equipment available to retrieve this data, and even if they could, it is all in archaic formats that modern digital signal processing equipment can't do a thing with. I foresee the same issues with digital images. What if Ansel Adams entire output was stored digitally but was irretrievably lost due to technology compatibility issues, hard-drive failures or what not? (Heh, not that I'm Ansel Adams, but I want my slides/images to last).

Well, the largest image I ever printed was 20x30, with the source image from my 6MP Nikon D70. It is effectively indistinguishable from a paper-and-developer photo at distances >6 feet; the colors are quite stunning. Absolutely no jagged edges, grain, or TV-screen effect. (I scaled the image up in Photoshop prior to printing.) The insufficient resolution manifests itself as less detail in the final print, rather than horrible artifacts.

This is the image, albeit not full-size:
http://www.audiogeek.net/images/port...s/Image13.html
Apparently the print shop made several sales based on customers seeing that print.

Now, 6MP isn't a lot. New cameras are in the 30+ range... though you'll pay lots of money for them.

Regarding longevity, JPEG and TIFF have been around for a long long time and will probably never go away. The various proprietary RAW formats, who knows. The water-tight solution would be to archive a laptop with the file-reading software along with the files...

 

[eric343]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markl I honestly don't even understand the process through which digital images are made into photographic quality prints.

a) Burn images to CD.
b) Take to qualified local printer.
c) Fork over money.
d) Pick up images when they're done.

You can do it yourself, but the equipment isn't cheap. Once you have the equipment, you have to do color calibration, pay consumables cost, set up the equipment...
Quote:

What if Ansel Adams entire output was stored digitally but was irretrievably lost due to technology compatibility issues, hard-drive failures or what not? (Heh, not that I'm Ansel Adams, but I want my slides/images to last).

I just had a hard drive failure (on Wed.). The hard drive to my Powerbook, which contains my entire library of 10,000+ images (that I've taken, not pr*n

) died.

That said, it's no big deal. My Powerbook gets backed up on a weekly basis, and fortunately the backup finished just an hour or two before the crash. Once I get a new hard drive in, I can do a restore and I'm good to go.

The backups are stored offsite, at the MIT datacenter. If my dorm room was destroyed in a fire, I'd still have my data. Incidentally, a number of Ansel Adams' images were irrecoverably destroyed in a darkroom fire, if I remember correctly.

My desktop computer has three hard drives in RAID-5, so if one dies I can keep working until a new hard drive arrives. Not fireproof, but then again I only use Windows for Battlefield 2 and the electronic version of Locks, Safes, and Security.

 

[Snake]

You want to know the "funny" thing? I just logged on to KonicaMinolta's web site, where DCViews sends you to get more info on KM dropping out of the photo business.

What's on their main page?

...an animated ad for the Maxxum 5D, of course!

 

[kramer5150]

dang!

I was just talking about this with my brother, and citing parallels to the consumer audio market.

There will always be a small market segment who loves their vinyl collection and would not replace it for anthing digital.

CD's are kind of evolving into the same nitch thing... there are those who will never replace their CD collection for anything MP3.

My brother and I were thinking the photography world would eveltually follow suit.... Nitch users with 35mm film and everyone else with digital. Things could get real interesting though, and (folow a different model than CDs/Vinyl) if Kodak and others stop producing film and paper all together.

My brother BTW is a die hard Nikon fan, and clearly prefers film to digital.

Garrett

 

[Jasper994]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aerius Question: How does one archive digital shots? Film negatives and prints last pretty much forever while digital storage media is still kinda iffy. Some CDRs are good for 10 years, maybe more, others crap out after a couple years. Harddrives & computers crash and it's just not reassuring.

If it's that critical, have your digital photos backed up to a second hard drive (you could use a RAID mirror or just copy onto a seperate drive), and backup to CDR or DVDR (and store them offsite). It's very unlikely that all of the above would fail at the same time (probably more likely that something would happen to your negatives).

 

[Jasper994]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markl There is also the issue of storage long-term. I've been reading how when digital hard drives were new-ish, and audio engineers took their crumbling old master tapes to transfer to digital (sometimes for the last time as the master tapes were toast) and left them on those old obsolete, hard drives, now there is no equipment available to retrieve this data, and even if they could, it is all in archaic formats that modern digital signal processing equipment can't do a thing with. I foresee the same issues with digital images. What if Ansel Adams entire output was stored digitally but was irretrievably lost due to technology compatibility issues, hard-drive failures or what not? (Heh, not that I'm Ansel Adams, but I want my slides/images to last).

That's just neglegence on their part. With digital, you can't just store and forget, you should have your important data on more than one drive. As you upgrade your system that data should migrate with you. The beauty of digital is in how easy (and relatively cheap) it is to have a bunch of copies of your data in various places. You can have copies on multiple hard drives at your own house, backup CD/DVDs in a safe deposit box, and backup CD/DVDs at your mother/father/brother/sister's house, plus a backup in a portable hard drive in your briefcase. Hell, with the current crop of P2P software that's out right now, you wouldn't even have to mail anything and you could have several of your friends backup your data on their hard drives without the risk of having anyone else gain access you your data (controlled user access list).

 

[Dimitris]

Unfortunately or fortunately we are coming to an end of an era. Much as i love shooting with my Nikon F3hp + MF 85mm f1.4 the convinience and level of control I have with shooting my Canon 20D + EF85mm f1.8 easily tip the scale.