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01-28-2010, 03:36 PM   #121
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QuoteOriginally posted by distudio Quote
There are ways to deal with many types of moving objects, animal photography how ever is one area that I'm not experienced with, the Mamiya 7II is more of a contemplative camera ;-)

See those tallish orb topped things in the photo that you posted? Those are called people, and they tend to move. And the Mamiya 7 II is a camera practically designed for street photography. A Linhof 4x5 is a contemplative camera. I'm sure that the Mamiya can be used in many different ways, but to call it a contemplative is just weird.

01-28-2010, 03:38 PM   #122
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QuoteOriginally posted by GeneV Quote
It was also easier because a teenager could buy a bag of D-76, a stop and a fixer and still have some bucks left over for another roll of Tri-X. It was the nearest thing to digital in granting the economic freedom to shoot and to learn. ...
This is almost exactly what I should have added to my post.
01-28-2010, 04:28 PM   #123
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QuoteOriginally posted by Steve Beswick Quote
See those tallish orb topped things in the photo that you posted? Those are called people, and they tend to move. And the Mamiya 7 II is a camera practically designed for street photography. A Linhof 4x5 is a contemplative camera. I'm sure that the Mamiya can be used in many different ways, but to call it a contemplative is just weird.
There's really no need for you to be so abrasive in your posts.

You realize that these things are *subjective*, right? Your opinion on the topic is no more or less valid than any other person's. You seem to take it as an insult whenever somebody doesn't agree with you...
01-28-2010, 07:02 PM   #124
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QuoteOriginally posted by Steve Beswick Quote
See those tallish orb topped things in the photo that you posted? Those are called people, and they tend to move.
Glad to see you're observant, that's a multi-image cylindrical pano shot with a DSLR, I couldn't have shot the same image with my Mamiya (though there is actually a guy in the shot who has one) as it covers over 200 degrees FOV.

QuoteOriginally posted by Steve Beswick Quote
And the Mamiya 7 II is a camera practically designed for street photography. A Linhof 4x5 is a contemplative camera. I'm sure that the Mamiya can be used in many different ways, but to call it a contemplative is just weird.
In my case I used the Mamiya exclusively for landscape shooting, so yes it was contemplative in my case, and light so great on a hike, 3 lenses + 1 body = 1 P67 + 1 lens. Each to their own as I said.

01-28-2010, 10:07 PM   #125
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QuoteOriginally posted by Steve Beswick Quote
I'm curious, exactly how much film shooting have you done? I only ask because while somewhat technically correct, your post wreaks of inexperience with film. And no, Kodak Gold 200 in a plastic lens point and shoot doesn't count.
Well, I was done with this thread but since you called me out.. My first experience shooting with an SLR was on B&W film using some generic camera body and a 50mm lens. My output medium, however, is entirely digital. So when I decided to upgrade from a P&S to something better, I ended up with a K100D. The price of a good film scanner was on par with a dSLR, and therefore the digital body proved the most cost effect means of transferring an image from the mind's eye to the hard drive. I have since bought a K1000 simply for nostalgia's sake, using it from time to time because I enjoy the spacious viewfinder and the "klak" noise the shutter makes. My mother shot almost exclusively with kodachrome slides, and I have two rolls I am saving to shoot a very special event since this year is the last year that kodachrome will ever be processed.

QuoteOriginally posted by Steve Beswick Quote
The reason that B&W was, and still is, the best teacher is that you had to think - There is no green mode, there is no mashing the shutter down until you get the image you want. Instead, you peer through the viewfinder until you are sure you have it right, exposure, composition, focus. The cost of shooting film made you learn to get it right.
Ironically, it wasn't until I started researching dSLRs that I began to understand the correlation between shutter speed and aperture, and the effects of each setting. When I first shot with a film SLR I just turned the knobs until the light meter needle pointed to where it should be. The wide highlight latitude of B&W print film let me cover up exposure mistakes in the darkroom with proof sheets and trial and error. Furthermore, the lack of different types of light metering selectable in camera meant that I had no idea how my camera was metering a scene, so a lot of my shots came up by chance. I feel that having instant feedback allowed me to learn much quicker than I would have on film. By the time I finished a roll I had no idea what settings I used to capture a particular shot, but with digital I can simply see the shot in camera to see the effects of a setting, or review it at a later time through the exif data.

In any event, so what if someone mashes the green button and takes five hundred pictures to get the shot he wants? I seem to recall pros saying that they would expect a couple "keepers" per roll. I also seem to recall that pros shot a lot of film. So am I to believe that everyone who shot film, and still shoots film, comes away with every roll containing 36 perfect shots? A good picture will be a good picture, regardless of the method used to obtain the image.

QuoteOriginally posted by Steve Beswick Quote
But for image quality, MF film slaughters "Full frame" and smaller digital - even if you scan your negatives and do the rest on the computer. Just the resolution advantage is enough to call it a landslide. That's before you take into account other factors, such as dynamic range, the fact that film is so much more forgiving when it comes to exposure, etc, etc.
MF has nothing to do with film. That's like saying a gas engine is better than a hybrid because a Ferrari Enzo blows a Toyota Prius out of the water. There are such things as digital MF cameras, and there are such things as digital backs for your beloved Mamiyas. Moreover, it's pretty well accepted that digital sensors are on par with slide film in terms of DR, which is what most MF shooters use for landscapes anyway. And, should you decide to output to a digital medium, you become limited by a scanner which is (surprise) a digital sensor.

In any event, arguing film against digital out of context is pointless, they are simply different mediums with different applications.

If I were shooting to have my work displayed at a fine art gallery, I would shoot B&W negative film printed onto fiber paper. If I was looking to project pictures to show to friends and family, I would shoot color slide film with a MF camera. If I wanted to share my photos with people from around the world, and with friends and family whom I am geographically separated from, I would shoot digital.

Each one is a unique experience, and none are the be-all end-all for every application. And, in the end, photography is all about sharing the unique way you view the world. It's capturing light and committing shapes to an eternal frame. If you are dependent on one particular type of man-made equipment to create your art, then I daresay you are not an artist. An artist will find a way to get their vision across, be it with a pinhole box, Kodak Gold 200 in a plastic lens point and shoot, a SLR, or a MF camera.

Last edited by Kirivon; 01-28-2010 at 10:21 PM.
01-29-2010, 05:22 AM   #126
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I cannot comment for anyone else, but I learned nothing from film, except a feel for composition. Cost wise I never felt like I could waste a bunch of film, just to get a roll done and generally I would wait till I had a couple of rolls before I would get them developed. I did not do the developing myself and so in the end, I could never remember what settings I had applied to my photos, or understand why some turned out and some didn't.

Auto modes are not new to digital. There were plenty of film cameras in the 90s that had both auto and scene modes. There is nothing great about having your light meter separate from your camera, in fact, it is awfully handy to have it inside the camera.

All I can say is that I take a lot more photos now and have a lot better results because of digital.
01-29-2010, 07:44 AM   #127
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QuoteOriginally posted by pingflood Quote
No kidding. "Film cameras don't intrude on the creative process" -- right. If you want a certain shot that requires ISO 1600 and you have 100 loaded, then you either have to fuss with swapping film mid roll or settling for what you can get out of what you have.
Not to mention the fact that half of the aspects of the DSLR that annoyed me and interfered with my creative process when I got into more serious digital photography were features that had been added to FILM cameras in the years since I had purchased my last SLR, chief among them being autofocus and tons of program modes. I now have one body set up to work pretty much the way my 1970s film bodies worked--without having to change out the films or pick up a handheld meter.

Toward the end of my most serious film days, I shot my B&W in an MX body with a broken meter. 20 years of shooting the same films gives a pretty good sense about exposure. I have not felt the need to duplicate that experience in digital, but I suppose I could, with some practice.

I will leave it to the hundred other threads to discuss the difference in the results between film and digital. But most of what I personally treasure about the film experience of taking the photo can be duplicated pretty easily by turning a few DSLR features off.

01-29-2010, 01:28 PM   #128
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Dear nuts43, for me it's not the film that I have missed. I can't forget when I stopped printing b&w because of the lack of a darkroom and sent the films to workshops to print .What a disappointment . I almost stoped shooting to start again with digital .Now I can process & print my photos again in my living room this time . Of course each facility contains a trap that is to make us lazy or neglecting. I got a lot of disappointments especially after going out shooting with my " brand new super duper ultra expensive lens". This brought me back to the earth and now I know that if I fall asleep the "machine " cannot do the work for me and , speaking for me , I found that " manualisms " help me at this and give me time also . So we can go on shooting with the DSLR's as we used to do with film and get benefit of the instant preview , low cost shooting and processing etc .
Good shooting
01-29-2010, 03:02 PM   #129
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QuoteOriginally posted by pniauris Quote
Dear nuts43, for me it's not the film that I have missed. I can't forget when I stopped printing b&w because of the lack of a darkroom and sent the films to workshops to print .What a disappointment . I almost stoped shooting to start again with digital .Now I can process & print my photos again in my living room this time . Of course each facility contains a trap that is to make us lazy or neglecting. I got a lot of disappointments especially after going out shooting with my " brand new super duper ultra expensive lens". This brought me back to the earth and now I know that if I fall asleep the "machine " cannot do the work for me and , speaking for me , I found that " manualisms " help me at this and give me time also . So we can go on shooting with the DSLR's as we used to do with film and get benefit of the instant preview , low cost shooting and processing etc .
Good shooting
Yeah, I can trace my backing off serious photography to the early 90s, when I moved from the third home in which I had built a darkroom. The digital world made it easier to come back.
01-29-2010, 04:00 PM   #130
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Im an old far-, err, fogey, and I love digital - I will take it over film in one of my limited remaining heartbeats. Some who have been around awhile also prefer vinyl audio, 8-tracks, and cooking over wood. Comfort levels are very constrictive things - much like fear.
01-30-2010, 11:49 PM   #131
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QuoteOriginally posted by pingflood Quote
There's really no need for you to be so abrasive in your posts.
It was an attempt at sarcastic humor. Sorry if it came off the wrong way.

QuoteQuote:
You realize that these things are *subjective*, right?
Maybe I'm not the only one you should be saying this to.

QuoteQuote:
Your opinion on the topic is no more or less valid than any other person's.
Hmm... you said valid, not valuable, so I guess technically you are right.

QuoteQuote:
You seem to take it as an insult whenever somebody doesn't agree with you...
I'm sorry, but I think you have it wrong. I take it as insult when people are condescending. People agreeing with me has nothing to do with it.
01-30-2010, 11:58 PM   #132
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QuoteOriginally posted by distudio Quote
Glad to see you're observant, that's a multi-image cylindrical pano shot with a DSLR, I couldn't have shot the same image with my Mamiya (though there is actually a guy in the shot who has one) as it covers over 200 degrees FOV.
Actually you could have, it just would have been much harder to "stitch".

QuoteQuote:
In my case I used the Mamiya exclusively for landscape shooting, so yes it was contemplative in my case, and light so great on a hike, 3 lenses + 1 body = 1 P67 + 1 lens. Each to their own as I said.
Ah. Before you made it sound like it was a contemplative camera, not that you were using it as one. I'm sure you can see how, at least to some degree, they are two different things. I can definitely see where for hiking & medium format it would be a wise choice.
01-31-2010, 01:08 AM   #133
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QuoteOriginally posted by Kirivon Quote
Well, I was done with this thread but since you called me out.. My first experience shooting with an SLR was on B&W film using some generic camera body and a 50mm lens. My output medium, however, is entirely digital. So when I decided to upgrade from a P&S to something better, I ended up with a K100D. The price of a good film scanner was on par with a dSLR, and therefore the digital body proved the most cost effect means of transferring an image from the mind's eye to the hard drive. I have since bought a K1000 simply for nostalgia's sake, using it from time to time because I enjoy the spacious viewfinder and the "klak" noise the shutter makes. My mother shot almost exclusively with kodachrome slides, and I have two rolls I am saving to shoot a very special event since this year is the last year that kodachrome will ever be processed.
Well, you don't seem to remember the brand of camera, and it sounds like you have never been in a darkroom. It sounds like your experience is pretty limited to me.

QuoteQuote:
Ironically, it wasn't until I started researching dSLRs that I began to understand the correlation between shutter speed and aperture, and the effects of each setting. When I first shot with a film SLR I just turned the knobs until the light meter needle pointed to where it should be.
Then you were either poorly taught, weren't paying enough attention, or were being lazy.

QuoteQuote:
The wide highlight latitude of B&W print film let me cover up exposure mistakes in the darkroom with proof sheets and trial and error.
So you did spend some time in the darkroom.

QuoteQuote:
Furthermore, the lack of different types of light metering selectable in camera meant that I had no idea how my camera was metering a scene, so a lot of my shots came up by chance.
Compared to the bulletproof metering of, let's say, a K10D with a screw mount lens on it?

This is an issue of education, not camera shortcoming. Also keep in mind "The wide highlight latitude of B&W print film".

QuoteQuote:
I feel that having instant feedback allowed me to learn much quicker than I would have on film. By the time I finished a roll I had no idea what settings I used to capture a particular shot, but with digital I can simply see the shot in camera to see the effects of a setting, or review it at a later time through the exif data.
While I see your point, the problem is it can breed laziness.

QuoteQuote:
In any event, so what if someone mashes the green button and takes five hundred pictures to get the shot he wants?
Then the art is gone, and it is simply a process anyone can do.

QuoteQuote:
I seem to recall pros saying that they would expect a couple "keepers" per roll. I also seem to recall that pros shot a lot of film. So am I to believe that everyone who shot film, and still shoots film, comes away with every roll containing 36 perfect shots? A good picture will be a good picture, regardless of the method used to obtain the image.
A couple of keepers per roll is at most 1 every 18 frames, and could be as little as one every 1 every 4 frames, depending on the format. It is definitely not 1 keeper per 500 frames.

QuoteQuote:
MF has nothing to do with film. That's like saying a gas engine is better than a hybrid because a Ferrari Enzo blows a Toyota Prius out of the water. There are such things as digital MF cameras, and there are such things as digital backs for your beloved Mamiyas. Moreover, it's pretty well accepted that digital sensors are on par with slide film in terms of DR, which is what most MF shooters use for landscapes anyway. And, should you decide to output to a digital medium, you become limited by a scanner which is (surprise) a digital sensor.
It's obvious you misunderstood what I was saying before, so let me put it another way.

A 6x4.5 negative scanned at full resolution in an epson v500, a $200 6400 dpi scanner, works out to just over 161 megapixels. The scanner is also capable of resolving far more colors or levels of gray than any "full frame" or smaller sensor. If you are aware of any camera with more than 50 megapixels for under $5,000 then you might have a cost versus performance arguement in the long run, but even then I doubt it. $4,800 buys a lot of film and chemistry.

QuoteQuote:
In any event, arguing film against digital out of context is pointless, they are simply different mediums with different applications.

If I were shooting to have my work displayed at a fine art gallery, I would shoot B&W negative film printed onto fiber paper.
Then you would be artificially limiting yourself.

QuoteQuote:
If I was looking to project pictures to show to friends and family, I would shoot color slide film with a MF camera.
What, no digital projector?

QuoteQuote:
If I wanted to share my photos with people from around the world, and with friends and family whom I am geographically separated from, I would shoot digital.
While I generally agree with this, you can still always scan something you want to email, post, etcetera.

QuoteQuote:
Each one is a unique experience, and none are the be-all end-all for every application. And, in the end, photography is all about sharing the unique way you view the world. It's capturing light and committing shapes to an eternal frame. If you are dependent on one particular type of man-made equipment to create your art, then I daresay you are not an artist. An artist will find a way to get their vision across, be it with a pinhole box, Kodak Gold 200 in a plastic lens point and shoot, a SLR, or a MF camera.
Perhaps, but a hammer is still better than driving a nail than a rock is, and some hammers are more versatile than others.
01-31-2010, 01:34 AM   #134
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QuoteOriginally posted by Rondec Quote
There is nothing great about having your light meter separate from your camera,...
If you really believe that then you should read this.
01-31-2010, 07:30 AM   #135
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To add my 2 cents...

Digital has brought forward my skills light years, compared to my use of film. I'm not going to lie and say I've spent decades in the the art of shooting, developing and printing film because well, I'm a young guy! However, I HAVE used film for about 5 years, intermittently. When I finally saved enough money for my K20 and paired it with my 50mm from my ME Super, my photography improved immeasurably.

The reason? Well, I suspect its because using digital has allowed me to take more photos and then when I make a mistake, or good a good shot, I can look at massively detailed EXIF information and pinpoint why a shot did, or didn't work. I understand that an excellent photo is all about composure and framing, but the technical knowledge has to be there too in order to get the exposure spot on. Using film, I was able to get a few 'keepers', but rarely did I remember to note down the shutter speed or aperture I used, why my bokeh looked terrible at times, etc etc.
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