My friend George and I have been carrying on a running debate for the last six months on the virtues of film photography and digital photography. We've been taking pictures for a very long time with a wide variety of cameras. For film he has Hasselblads and Leicas; I have a Linhof view camera, a Rollei twin-lens and a Pentax 645 and 67. For digital we both have Canon 5D Mk2 cameras.
There is no question that the Canon 5D Mk2 takes superb pictures. It has a full-size 35mm sensor and an excellent lens. The pix are 23 megapixel pictures, which blow up directly into 16x20 and larger, and with Creative Fractals to almost any imaginable size, without any loss of sharpness or detail. What more could we want (besides talent), you may ask? Well, the Canon is large, heavy, and very complex. There are more menus than you can shake a stick at, more options than you can keep in your head, and all of them take a lot of time to change or shift modes.
George's Leica (from the late 50s) has an attached light meter, weighs next to nothing, feels wonderful in the hand, and there ARE NO MENUS! He can put it in his pocket and take pictures he can hang on a wall at almost any size. My Pentax 645 is similar, though bulkier and more heavy; nevertheless, taking a picture with it is quick and easy. The meter is built-in and there are a couple of adjustments on the top that are quick and easy AND optional.
We can send our exposed films to a lab on the West coast and get the films developed and scanned with a very high quality scanner and then sent back to us as developed film and a DVD with the large scans on it. We still do our own printing, but that's a pleasure and gives us considerable control over the outcome; even the professional labs do ink-jet printing because there is almost no-one out there doing prints and chemical development. So there's a delay in getting results back of maybe a couple of weeks. Not the instant gratification of dropping a memory chip into a slot and looking at the pix immediately.
I'm planning to make a set of identical photos, matching digital camera with film. I should be able to see if there is a quality difference fairly easily. But beyond that the issue of ease of on-the-spot use comes up. When you don't take the camera with you because it's too much trouble, you don't take any pictures. There's some kind of balance with quality and ease of use that has to be considered. George actually loves the process of using his Leica. He says he has begun to think of the 5d as more of a "chore" than a pleasure.
Well, we're not professional photographers, far from it. The digital camera has made life hugely better for wedding photographers and many professionals. No delays, no developing expense, and you can put the pix on a web site immediately. But we don't have the pressure of quantity production. What we're doing is something we do for the love of it, and for the occasional picture of which we are truly proud. So we have the leisure/privilege of just seeing which we like better.
I would certainly value comments or experiences in this area.
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What I shoot has constantly changing environments. One minute I might need 200iso the next I might need 6400iso. I to shoot the 5dmk.2 I think its all about what you shoot and what results youre looking for(ART). If I shot landscapes or architecture I would use both 5d mk.2 and largeformat for perspecive control. If I shot a wedding I would want the same with tons of lenses. If I shot sports or journalism I would use top end digital nikon or canon. I shoot documentaries of people so I use 5d mk.2 it gives me what I need to get the results I want, if money was no object I would shoot a 1 series just for the durability. Film was so fun, I remember saying that if digital was the future of photo then I would stop shooting. But like most of the time I was wrong, digital is also fun I still question the life span of a digital image because to truly back-up your archives takes so much not fun, But I came to the conclusion that I was ok if my photos werent around in 150yrs. the earth has a limited life span to but I still want to play.
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree that different cameras work better for different purposes. Mostly I take pix of landscapes or nature as "art pictures", which means for me that you could hang them over the mantel in your living room and enjoy looking at them longer than 30 seconds. "Pretty" just doesn't cut it. A lot of pix I see in magazines are spectacular, btw, but wouldn't be enjoyable over the mantel. What does it take to make that happen?
ReplyDeleteI think its personal interest. I think I have sensory overload it takes more to keep peoples attention then ever before. If I see a great picture of a lion it is really cool but it is really cool and then never thought about again, but I dont find a personal connection with lions, but if I see a great picture of my son then I will enjoy it every time I pass by it. As time has passed by I take less pictures of stuff and tend to take photos that I really feel a connection with. I have never truly counted my photos as art, I like photos that tell a story and only shoot stories that interest me. If I shot for art I would have a hard time connecting so I guess I would have to realize what it is about art that I connect with and shoot based on that. I guess we all depend on the numbers game, if 100 people see my photo 90 may not connect with it, 9 may really feel something, 1 may have a true experience that isnt easily forgotten.
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