Poll: What kind of camera do you have?

what's film? :)

*smack* :) hey some people still like the versatility of film. Though I do admit I like the ability to know when I mess up and can easily delete bad shots.

Now, if I had the money to afford this then maybe I would think differently.

Plus, if you're going for anything other than total sharpness (ie: depth, hue, etc), and even then, if you don't have a fairly high-end digital camera, film looks better.

I have a digital, becasue I do like the quickness, and they fill my needs better for snapshots, but for now at least, I think film is better for anything important.

Then again, send me that Canon and I might reconsider ;-)

If I had more money, and darkroom access, I'd love to do more work with real film...

I am a purist when it comes to taking pictures, and anything artsy that I want to shoot *has* to be on a film camera. I have control over the depth of field, shutter speed, focus. I like the way film reads light more than the way digital does. For quick easy snapshots, I have a tiny 2-pixel digital that can fit in my purse, since my giant SLR is too big to lug around most of the time.

plus? I don't like the dimensions that digitals give you. If you want to get them actually devloped, they don't fit the same 3x5 or 4x6 or 5x7 dimensions that film does. So the composition is messed up.

With the exception of preferring the way film reads light more than the way digital does, everything else in your reasoning is false, assuming you are shooting 35mm film.

I have the Canon EOS-10D. It is a digital SLR and uses interchangeable lenses, so I have total control of the depth of field, shutter speed, and focus.

Also, the aspect ratio of film is 1:1.5 which is identical to the aspect ratio of many digital SLR cameras such as mine. That means that while 4x6 is a native enlargement size for both 35mm and my digital SLR, some cropping is going to occur with a 3x5 (1:1.67), 5x7 (1:1.4) and even 8x10 (1:1.25) for both formats. So the composition is identical when comparing an SLR film camera to an SLR digital camera. Point and shoots usually use 3:4 which is the ratio of a TV or computer screen (Macs notwithstanding). But then I wouldn't compare a traditional SLR with a traditional point and shoot either.

I switched from a film SLR to a digital SLR for economical reasons and for convenience. While the body cost me double for the digital SLR, I have saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars on rolls of film and processing. Also, I know that I have the shot I want before I leave the location of my shoot. My camera is 6MP and I can do enlargements of 8x10 with no problem whatsoever. I have even made 11x17 and 13x19 prints that look terrific. The new EOS-20D is 8MP and can go even higher, although I have no need to print higher than that. I print proofs (and sometimes even finished product) on my Canon S9000 printer and send my work off to a lab for production.

While I do agree to some extent about the way film reads light versus a digital, I have found that by a) never using the internal flash b) creatively using my external flash c) whenever possible using natural light and d) adjusting how I shoot compared to when I shot film I can get pictures to look just how I want them. But of course your mileage may vary.

Here are some samples. Aside from reduction in size for web, no post processing except where noted:

a) Lucy (room lighting, no tripod)
b) Puppy and wife (external flash bounced off ceiling, no tripod)
c) EA (natural light, no tripod)
d) Thanksgiving (natural light, tripod)
e) Sugarloaf (natural light, no tripod, adjusted levels in Photoshop)

I am by no means a professional photographer, just an amateur who is really into his hobby. I can respect your decision to stick with film over digital, I just wanted people thinking of making the switch to understand what the true differences really are.

omfg. what kind of puppy is that? looks like�she has a little springer in her. (and yes, i realize that's an awful picture of my dog, but i'm not so lucky as to have a digital slr ;) your puppy is *so cute!*

She has more than a little springer in her, she is a purebred English Springer Spaniel. :)

hey mine too! mine are field-bred pure breeds though. they are FANTASTIC dogs. loveable. sweet. but i hope you dont have birds :D

I thought as much since your dog was mostly white. Lucy is from a bench line. I have no birds for her to spring, thankfully. She is such a great dog! :)

between me and my family we have........5.

1 is my dog's father, 1 is her mother and 2 are her brothers.

they had 11 babies! we sold them. mostly to hunters in michigan. zim's brother was bought by my boyfriend before he was my boyfriend. now they live together. they're so funny. there's more pictures of them in my profile :P

ahaha, and this video.

Hahaha that is great!

what does field-bred mean?

It's a bred that is grown like a vegibal!

somtims i put vegtebls on my tost.

tost is mad from bred but not dogs.

The English Springer Spaniel breed has diverged into two distinct lines.

The field-bred spaniels are mostly white, have shorter, curlier hair, and usually some "ticking" (spots). They excel at what they were originally bred for--springing birds for hunters, tracking, etc.

The bench-bred spaniels are mostly solid black and white or liver and white with more color and have longer, straighter hair. They are the line you will see at dog shows and tend to be more relaxed.

Both lines are incredibly smart, family friendly dogs.

Okay! I got it.

I'll add that to my obscenely vast animal trivia library.

...and tend to be more relaxed.

my field bred, the female, is particularly NOT RELAXED :D

she was the runt. she's at least 10 pounds smaller than all her siblings and parents. and she's wound�as tight as a�spring :P no pun intended.

hey paul, whatever happened to that new digital technique thing where the camera reads the light in layers, that every pixel has readings for red, blue and green? or however it worked :p

Typical consumer digicams have an aspect ratio of 4:3 in contrast to 35mm (which is 3:2). I think they adapted the dimensions to the aspect ration of a typical computer screen. This isn't very new though - the smallest medium format (645 = 6 x 4.5 cm) is 4:3, too. According to popular apprehension 4:3 is better suited for people and wedding photography whereas 3:2 is better for lanscapes.
There are however digicams that can be switched to 3:2 (mostly Sony, but there are others, too).

Using film highlights and shadows are compressed (that's actually an exponential function) - digital on the other hand is completely linear. This has an serious impact on how digital reads light compared to film. Apart from that (affordable) digital nowadays has the latitude/dynamic range of professional slide film. This has to be taken into account when metering - if you treat digital like film in that respect the result won't be stellar => lots of blown out highlights. etc.
If you teach yourself to see like digital does you can get awesome results :)

Reinhard (who will go completely digital this year)