[aurele]

i think a full frame is kina a must for good quality prints, the sensor is full frame and therefor you get better quality.

You should not believe the sensor is the key to good quality. As 6BQ5 said it, the glass is far more important. IF i had a single example to give to show that sensor ain't the key, it would be annie Leibovitz who did some very good shots with a simple Iphone (no kidding).
You should better get a slightly less good camera and have a wonderful set of good lens, than a very good camera but a shitty lens.

On the top of that, nowadays sensor, if you don't push them in their limits (high iso, dynamic range of a scene), you almost can't distinguish them. They are all very similar in rendering (color and DR of a basic scene) on "basic" situation.

[6BQ5]

... IF i had a single example to give to show that sensor ain't the key, it would be annie Leibovitz who did some very good shots with a simple Iphone (no kidding).

Can you find a copy of that image online and post a link? I'd like to see.

[Califmike2003]

Thanks for all your replies. I understand now the scanning thing and digital. I dont have to scan my negs or E6 unless i want to put them on a disc and have digital files to share.


Can somebody give me a ball park cost on a full frame 35mm dslr , of course the low end price., I would like to see how much it would cost me out the gate to do this, i may sell the bronica i bought if the full frame is not outrageous. Maybe you give me a few models to see.


Where do i get those sample images from Pentax, Sony, Cannon.

---------- Post added 07-02-14 at 11:59 PM ----------

You should not believe the sensor is the key to good quality. As 6BQ5 said it, the glass is far more important. IF i had a single example to give to show that sensor ain't the key, it would be annie Leibovitz who did some very good shots with a simple Iphone (no kidding).
You should better get a slightly less good camera and have a wonderful set of good lens, than a very good camera but a shitty lens.

On the top of that, nowadays sensor, if you don't push them in their limits (high iso, dynamic range of a scene), you almost can't distinguish them. They are all very similar in rendering (color and DR of a basic scene) on "basic" situation.

How funny your from Paris, i just moved to Paris 2 months ago. Can you recommend me a good 35mm digital camera and a nice set of glass, but on the low end of cost, i dont have alot of cash, i will sell my bronica if i have to and can save money on all the film purchasing and devolping.

[Nuff]

Califmike, I think your posts or thoughts are allover the shop and you are not sure what to do. What's your aim and goal?
E6 isn't for printing, for printing it's C41 or BW. E6 is for projecting.

Why would you sell bronica for couple hundred $$$ and then invest into something that costs $1000s? And I'm talking with good lenses. Don't forget that MF will have different look that FF.
If you want sharp 6x7, don't get pentax, get Mamiya RB/RZ 67 or Mamiya 7. Sharp lenses and leaf shutters so they don't suffer from shutter bounce like Pentax 67. That's why those photos are not sharp.

As for me, sharpness is an easy to quantify marketing term. Focus on getting good photos instead, it usually has nothing to do with sharpness.

Great photographers are not great because of how sharp their photos are. Actually, a lot of them are opposite, since they focus on other aspect of photos that we don't hear mentioned anywhere.

[Califmike2003]

Yes i maybe all over the place, thats because im just getting back into photography after 15 years and its changed alot. All i know is film, yes i shot your point a shoot cheap digital for fun. My goal is landscape, , portraits. I think now after reading , i feel a good digital is better in the long run for saving cash, and alot less hasstle to load film, process it, scan it. I think i jumped to quickly back and just bought a film camera cause its all i know, i didnt give digital a good look. I think all the film processing, buying film can add up to alot of cash over time.


I know what E6 is, it isnt just for projection, you can have prints made to off them, yes and c41 to, im fully aware of all the film aspects. It was the digital i was lost, but now i am seeing. I have never shot a good digital camera or seen the photos from a good 35mm digital in person,.


I think i may shoot a few shots with my bronica when it arrives and see how it goes, but i think its a mistake i now wish i didnt make, im not talking about images, or it cant make good photos, i know it can, im talking time, money, film, scanning, etc.

[Nuff]

E6 isn't great for prints. Since it needs to be scanned. Anyway, I'm switching from digital to film. Since I find digital way to expensive. My k5 cost me $1600 when it came out. Now it's close to $300. Don't forget the cost for decent FF lenses. My estimate for what I wanted was 8k. Not to mention it was heavier.

Also I like the results from film better and for me it's about the result and final outcome.

I would say digital is great if you want to shoot endless test shots and show how great your camera gear is. But if you are after serious photos only instead of lots of pointless ones. Film is great and cheaper too. Even hasselblad gear like mine. I will not even mention the viewfinder.

You are forgetting the time you will waste with digital. Taking lots of photos you don't need. Because just maybe. Then deleting the bad ones. Deciding what is good. Since all of them are the same. Then post processing them. You will spend many nights in front of computer. Since I work in IT, that's the last thing I want to do in my spare time.

And do to forget depreciation.

The last time I went on holiday to Okinawa, I took 5000+ photos on K5. It took me 3 months before I posted any (I don't want to be imprisoned in front of my PC). Now that I look at them, none are decent.

I didn't put a single one on my website :-/

[Silent Street]

Let's just say that using film requires commitment. If money is an object, analogue could well have you living off a boiled egg for a fortnight if you get heavy with it.

Of the two mediums, digital is cheapest, fastest and most convenient, even if it is awash with technology that is for the most part entirely superfluous to the creative image making process. Of course, there is no additional cost involved after the shot and you are at liberty to shoot as many of the scene as you want. But with film, you will require discipline and planning.

Film (and its foreseeable diminishment of variety in the future), as you know, will involve the processing (your own) and/or outside processing cost, scanning (whether it is for the web or for exhibition, which would require high level scanner-image post-op workflow) and then printing. I find film to be expensive in an holistic sense e.g. from exposure all the way to finished frame-up (BTW, all of my work is from modified exposure E6 e.g. Velvia 50 and has been for more than 20 years) butit is head and shoulders above digital in terms of the finished quality (from scanning). And this finished work has a very different look to it, especially the now common analogue-to-digital hybridisation print process.

But even with the devotion to film, I also own a Nikon P7700, which "could" be described as a sort of "35mm digital" (but it is not!). I don't even know, nor care, how many pixels it has: I bought it for its robustness. "Little Nik" is useful for proofing a scene that may have a doubtful quality about it. At other times, it is great to have something small and very capable to cart along in lieu of a big film camera. On a challenging remote area bushwalk last year from that camera I had a 1.2metre wallpaper print made off a tiff image file and it was very good indeed. I had mulled for weeks whether I would take the 13kg 6x7 kit. I decided at the last moment to leave the big 6x7 kit at home rather than drag it through such difficult terrain — thank the Lord for sensible thinking!! I would never have got of Green Chasm Gorge with all that stuff weighing me down...

Film photography will get more and more expensive as time goes on, as will chemicals used for B&W work. We are seeing price increases in film products more frequently which can be telling in that it suggests manufacturers are not all that happy to churn out a product of an increasingly smaller market. A couple of manufacturers have gone in the last few years (Efke... who else??)

Sharpness isn't everything in an image, but in certain defined instances of the craft, it can make or break the image. Then, remember that sharpness in digital cameras can be adjusted back and forth (e.g. on the RAW file). With film, specifically medium format, you have baseline sharpness inherent in the quality of the optics and the larger format size (note there is no significant cost-benefit difference from 6x7 to 4x5 in terms of sharpness).

Refined technique and experience will be the best guides as to which of the two mediums (digital / analogue) is best for you. Don't be sidetracked by floss and folly that is so much of the mainstream full frame and medium format camera scene — I cannot for the life of me believe how people are getting all sweaty and shaky for a $10,000 camera and only photographing scenes that could be done equally if not considerably better with a $20 disposable camera. How? All to do with how skills are applied to the making of an image and not pandering to technology.

---------- Post added 03-07-14 at 07:35 PM ----------

E6 isn't great for prints. Since it needs to be scanned. Anyway, I'm switching from digital to film. Since I find digital way to expensive. My k5 cost me $1600 when it came out. Now it's close to $300. Don't forget the cost for decent FF lenses. My estimate for what I wanted was 8k. Not to mention it was heavier.

Actually E6 is very suitable for printing (always has been, even through the Kodachrome era), when you know how. This is something one needs to look at, critically, on an individual basis. As I said in my earlier post, film requires commitment. A medium format camera and a dozen rolls of film plus a notebook and repetition/refinement is an excellent way to learn.

I talk with too many people who have whinges and whines about E6. They have been bitterly disappointed, expecting a gift from the heavens with the first roll of Velvia (or E100VS, an atrocious film). Adopting a forensic "why is that so?" approach, I often discovered that problems lay in the lousy base exposure of transparency film (the number one repeating problem); next, the failure to understand specific scanning methodology involving the translation and profiling of transparency film (hence, learn it yourself over time or leave this to a pro-level lab) specific to the media the image will be printed to; that is to say, preparation of the scan/image is not the same for inkjet printing as it is for hybridised RA-4 (wet) printing and visualising how a print looks from your transparency. Typically, the print process loses between a third to half a stop, so exposure should be slightly over, rather than under (with transparency film, even slight over-exposure can introduce a whole new set of problems in the scene). The learning curve is quite steep. So who does best? People with a background in graphic arts/electronic or digital arts (my initial training decades ago was in typesetting and the "novel innovation" (in 1989) of desktop publishing) will handle these things much easier than somebody coming off the street with no experience of analogue, digital or even scanning. In that case, digital is probably the best option, but it's a personal decision.

[itshimitis]

My word there are angular views on this!

Whether film is cheaper than digital or vice versa will depend on your workflow and how many shots/rolls of film you go through and whether you process them yourself. The moment you get other people to process them, then you need someone good who truly understands it and this can multiply cost. I have a few 6 x 7 and a 645N and I haven't shot film for a while, mainly because I have no one close by that does a good job in processing. I did have someone I was using but the film were regularly arriving back badly scratched. The best processing I found was in a small kodak store in Seoul which was a tenth of the price of here in the UK. There are specialist places in London who have drum scanners but they are very expensive.

As said film and digital are different formats and they have different looks. I love the colours of Reala 100 (RIP) it has a a certain something that isn't in digital. In a discussion I started on the Canon Rumors site many of the other users stated that you could replicate it easily in digital, but I don't really see the point. I am not a pixel peeper, I will check for reasonable sharpness and focus, but I go by the overall look of a shot.

As far as depreciation is concerned, I have to admit that I don't really take this in to account very much. I sold my 645D for £2100 last week in order to buy the 645Z. I paid £6k for it. I don't see that I have lost £3900. I got three years very good use out of it and took around 30,000 photos with it. How many are keepers? Couldn't say, but you don't keep every shot with film either. The 645D is not a sprayer in any shape or form. I paid £6,000, and effectively paid £3900 for those 30k shots. That is 13p a shot. That's 22 cents a shot.

Ok I have spent time going through them and processing, but you have a choice whether you spend your time doing the wet processing or you pay someone else to do it. To have the same level of control as in digital, would also take up time.

To the OP, why not rent some gear and test the water before you jump in? Perhaps there is a store that will rent out the gear and give credit in the event that you buy? Or if you have a friend who has good gear see about borrowing for a weekend. Only you can know whether you prefer the look of film over the convenience of digital or vice versa. There will be some trade offs and compromises on either side. Only you can tell how much you are happy to make in either direction.

To me it would be a waste to spend £5k+ and then decide that you don't like the look of digital.

[Califmike2003]

Let's just say that using film requires commitment. If money is an object, analogue could well have you living off a boiled egg for a fortnight if you get heavy with it.

Of the two mediums, digital is cheapest, fastest and most convenient, even if it is awash with technology that is for the most part entirely superfluous to the creative image making process. Of course, there is no additional cost involved after the shot and you are at liberty to shoot as many of the scene as you want. But with film, you will require discipline and planning.

Film (and its foreseeable diminishment of variety in the future), as you know, will involve the processing (your own) and/or outside processing cost, scanning (whether it is for the web or for exhibition, which would require high level scanner-image post-op workflow) and then printing. I find film to be expensive in an holistic sense e.g. from exposure all the way to finished frame-up (BTW, all of my work is from modified exposure E6 e.g. Velvia 50 and has been for more than 20 years) butit is head and shoulders above digital in terms of the finished quality (from scanning). And this finished work has a very different look to it, especially the now common analogue-to-digital hybridisation print process.

But even with the devotion to film, I also own a Nikon P7700, which "could" be described as a sort of "35mm digital" (but it is not!). I don't even know, nor care, how many pixels it has: I bought it for its robustness. "Little Nik" is useful for proofing a scene that may have a doubtful quality about it. At other times, it is great to have something small and very capable to cart along in lieu of a big film camera. On a challenging remote area bushwalk last year from that camera I had a 1.2metre wallpaper print made off a tiff image file and it was very good indeed. I had mulled for weeks whether I would take the 13kg 6x7 kit. I decided at the last moment to leave the big 6x7 kit at home rather than drag it through such difficult terrain — thank the Lord for sensible thinking!! I would never have got of Green Chasm Gorge with all that stuff weighing me down...

Film photography will get more and more expensive as time goes on, as will chemicals used for B&W work. We are seeing price increases in film products more frequently which can be telling in that it suggests manufacturers are not all that happy to churn out a product of an increasingly smaller market. A couple of manufacturers have gone in the last few years (Efke... who else??)

Sharpness isn't everything in an image, but in certain defined instances of the craft, it can make or break the image. Then, remember that sharpness in digital cameras can be adjusted back and forth (e.g. on the RAW file). With film, specifically medium format, you have baseline sharpness inherent in the quality of the optics and the larger format size (note there is no significant cost-benefit difference from 6x7 to 4x5 in terms of sharpness).

Refined technique and experience will be the best guides as to which of the two mediums (digital / analogue) is best for you. Don't be sidetracked by floss and folly that is so much of the mainstream full frame and medium format camera scene — I cannot for the life of me believe how people are getting all sweaty and shaky for a $10,000 camera and only photographing scenes that could be done equally if not considerably better with a $20 disposable camera. How? All to do with how skills are applied to the making of an image and not pandering to technology.

---------- Post added 03-07-14 at 07:35 PM ----------




Actually E6 is very suitable for printing (always has been, even through the Kodachrome era), when you know how. This is something one needs to look at, critically, on an individual basis. As I said in my earlier post, film requires commitment. A medium format camera and a dozen rolls of film plus a notebook and repetition/refinement is an excellent way to learn.

I talk with too many people who have whinges and whines about E6. They have been bitterly disappointed, expecting a gift from the heavens with the first roll of Velvia (or E100VS, an atrocious film). Adopting a forensic "why is that so?" approach, I often discovered that problems lay in the lousy base exposure of transparency film (the number one repeating problem); next, the failure to understand specific scanning methodology involving the translation and profiling of transparency film (hence, learn it yourself over time or leave this to a pro-level lab) specific to the media the image will be printed to; that is to say, preparation of the scan/image is not the same for inkjet printing as it is for hybridised RA-4 (wet) printing and visualising how a print looks from your transparency. Typically, the print process loses between a third to half a stop, so exposure should be slightly over, rather than under (with transparency film, even slight over-exposure can introduce a whole new set of problems in the scene). The learning curve is quite steep. So who does best? People with a background in graphic arts/electronic or digital arts (my initial training decades ago was in typesetting and the "novel innovation" (in 1989) of desktop publishing) will handle these things much easier than somebody coming off the street with no experience of analogue, digital or even scanning. In that case, digital is probably the best option, but it's a personal decision.

Wow great answer, you covered it very very well, thank you for that. I do worry about film and E6 going out in the future, but then i guess you go digital at that point in time. I agree you dont shoot shots like crazy with 8 dollar a roll film, you plan and select your shots very careful. I think the digital stuff you shoot like crazy cause you can, i think digital would be cheaper in the long run, but. I think for now i will keep my bronica and shoot velvia 50 and Tmax 100 and Tri x and enjoy getting back into it, im very very rusty from alot of years away. I moved from California to Paris France 2 months ago, so things here are more pricey, film, devolping, etc, i may send them to a lab in California that i have read rave reviews about and spoke on the phone with them.. This is a very good forum and full of great information, i just cant wait to get my camera from usa sent here and get started. I think i got a fair deal on my camera, and i know as time passes and film becomes less and less available, my cameras value will continue to decline, but thats ok, i didnt dump thousands into it.

[Silent Street]

Well! There should be no shortage of evocative scenes for you to shoot in Paris! It's one of the best places for photographers to find their groove; I do think it's one of a number of countries on earth that endears itself perfectly to the prepared photographer irrespective of what format, film or genre he/she uses. Despite the romantic connotations that the French landscape evokes, Paris is much more to me than star-struck lovebirds, croissants and chic fashion: my crosshairs would be on the architecture, the river and the countryside. I might go there next year (but I aint no lovebird, sweetheart... ).

[Nuff]

If you want to know more about film, the forum to visit is apug.org

As for me, I don't like wasting money on camera gear etc. I prefer to take overseas holidays instead. So FF digital is out for that reason.

Also you will see the trend in software and computers in general. Not to mention most likely with digi cams, the companies want you to subscribe and pay monthly or yearly fees as a service. Adobe started it and others are following. No big company can survive by releasing one great product and no one buying the next one. Since everyone is content with the last one. The software costs will not be cheap in the future...

And if you don't play their game, there is always planned obsolescence.

And since Veronica was cheap, get a good meter and see how it goes. I'm sure you are not going to spend a lot on film and processing unless you have really itchy finger and need to take photos of your cat or what you are for breakfast.

[Califmike2003]

Well! There should be no shortage of evocative scenes for you to shoot in Paris! It's one of the best places for photographers to find their groove; I do think it's one of a number of countries on earth that endears itself perfectly to the prepared photographer irrespective of what format, film or genre he/she uses. Despite the romantic connotations that the French landscape evokes, Paris is much more to me than star-struck lovebirds, croissants and chic fashion: my crosshairs would be on the architecture, the river and the countryside. I might go there next year (but I aint no lovebird, sweetheart... ).

I agree the buldings and Streets are amazing here, forget the the Eifel tower, lourve, etc, im interested in the buildings, old doors, seine river, to me its a paridise for photography, im already scouting locations for when my camera comes. Let me know if you come here, would love to show you around, talk a little shop, thank for all your input and thanks for everybodys comments.

[6BQ5]

Where do i get those sample images from Pentax, Sony, Cannon.

Google is your friend.

Sample Images?K-3 | RICOH IMAGING

Download the full size 24 MP images and print them. Print them big. That should help you get grounded in what a K-3 can do. If you find it lacking then it only cost you a few dollars to find out vs. buying thousands of dollars of gear and finding our afterwards.

You can find samples of almost every camera online. Some will be from review sites like DP Review and some may come from the companies themselves.

[aurele]

Wow great answer, you covered it very very well, thank you for that. I do worry about film and E6 going out in the future, but then i guess you go digital at that point in time. I agree you dont shoot shots like crazy with 8 dollar a roll film, you plan and select your shots very careful. I think the digital stuff you shoot like crazy cause you can, i think digital would be cheaper in the long run, but. I think for now i will keep my bronica and shoot velvia 50 and Tmax 100 and Tri x and enjoy getting back into it, im very very rusty from alot of years away. I moved from California to Paris France 2 months ago, so things here are more pricey, film, devolping, etc, i may send them to a lab in California that i have read rave reviews about and spoke on the phone with them.. This is a very good forum and full of great information, i just cant wait to get my camera from usa sent here and get started. I think i got a fair deal on my camera, and i know as time passes and film becomes less and less available, my cameras value will continue to decline, but thats ok, i didnt dump thousands into it.

May i suggest you by PM a shop for processing ? I find one big lab, which is quite good. They have films and chemicals, and the usual scanning, printing, processing.
(btw : no, i don't earn anything buy doing some ads for them.)

[johnha]

As most have posted, shooting film is simply different to digital, unless you're enthusiastic about analogue photography you'll be much happier with the convenience of digital as long as you can backup the data to a level you see fit (I can't be bothered to follow the rigid/regular process you should go through to make sure you never lose a shot). Once you've scanned film you have both a digital & analogue capture. I don't think you need a 36MP FF DSLR though, but that's your decision.

Also as others have posted, getting a MF film scan that extracts most of the information on the film is expensive and/or time consuming, I get low res scans from the lab when they develop the film (1500x1200) for use on the web, but anything higher is significantly more expensive. Putting a 6x7 transparency on a light box is so much more satisfying.

For me though, the whole process of MF film shooting is much more enjoyable and interesting, that in itself is enough for me.

John.