[ziggy7]

Yes, a full frame Pentax DSLR would be great if you have $2500 or so to spend, but I'm happy as a clam using my wonderful old LX. I just order a disc along with my prints & negatives for a wopping $3 extra. Sure, it is nice to see your image immediately on the LCD, but if in doubt I just bracket my exposure.

[bobmaxja]

Not related
Great for you but I use a DSLR not to see the photo immediatly but to take a lot of phote and choose the one I want + I Can decide myself what kind of ajustment I make

I took 1000 photo on my last vacation and I keep 150

[Pablom]

I took 1000 photo on my last vacation and I keep 150

not related, but maybe if you shot less you'd keep more

[brofkand]

I'm not one of those million monkeys pounding away at a typewriter type of photographer.

Even if you do shoot digital, there's no reason to hold your finger on the shutter all the time. Slow down, STUDY YOUR SUBJECT, think about what you want to say with your photograph, meter, and expose.

I've shot just over 5000 images with my K-7 since I've had it, and I've kept nearly all of them. Now, not all of them are "gallery-quality," but I like to think many of them are good.

[philbaum]

Yes, a full frame Pentax DSLR would be great if you have $2500 or so to spend, but I'm happy as a clam using my wonderful old LX. I just order a disc along with my prints & negatives for a wopping $3 extra. Sure, it is nice to see your image immediately on the LCD, but if in doubt I just bracket my exposure.

Ziggy,
thanks for the thread. My brother just gave me his 30 year old Pentax ME Super, what a wonderful experience to use these old jewels. Glad to see you are making such good use of that LX - what a pro camera that is. Has a better meter than most cameras today, down to minus something or other :-) Could you comment on what flexibility you have to pp those files. Haven't had my first roll developed yet, but i'll be sure to get the disk as suggested.

[Adam]

Moved to the film section.

[dlacouture]

And its dynamic range just beats the crap out of the 5DII... And it has 50 iso! And never, ever a dirt on the sensor ruining your whole shooting session...

And for those saying digital is cheaper, well, I'm not so sure anymore (at least for us amateurs)... Once you factor in the body price, against the film cost, well...
I've just spent 2150€ in successive DSLRs (k10-k20-k7-kx) in the last 2 years... One roll cost me around 12€ (film+dev), I used to shoot 1 or 2 rolls/month... Say 24€/month, that's 90 months worth of shooting!!!!! 7 1/2 years!

[tonyjayice]

well.. I see where you're going with this thought, but, the scans you get from the photo lab don't include as much information as a full size RAW file from a full frame sensor.. its most probably a medium-sized jpeg.. not much to work with in post, I keep my film and digital work seperate.

[John Poirier]

well.. I see where you're going with this thought, but, the scans you get from the photo lab don't include as much information as a full size RAW file from a full frame sensor.. its most probably a medium-sized jpeg.. not much to work with in post, I keep my film and digital work seperate.

You have that right. Unless you are prepared to do your own scanning (and know how to do it properly), or pay a custom lab a lot of money, 35mm film will not equal full frame digital. Results from most consumer labs, both scans and prints, are simply crap.

The true cost of really good results from film is much higher thant the OP suggests.

[brofkand]

A good scanner is in many ways just as useful as a good enlarger and a gallon of dektol and rapid fix these days.

But oh how I love that smell...

[Gashog]

At CVS, I get 5mp scans. Not very good ones either.
I agree that with a decent scanner, you will get big files with a lot of info. It'll cost you more then $3 though.
Having said that, my own 5mp scanner, which is marginally better then CVS's, is all I really need. I'm a hobbyist, not an artist. Besides, I have my S5 Pro.

An interesting read (analog vs digital print)....if you haven't already.

[Buffy]

LX + Scan=Full Frame Digital?

No, it isn't. Similar, yes, but not the same. When you take a digital photo, you have a digital capture of the scene. When you scan film, you have a digital capture of the film containing the scene. That is, your scan includes the characteristics inherent in the film, e.g. grain, as well as the scene.

This is not necessarily a bad thing! In fact, there is software available to help you make your images look as though they were captured on film.

I still shoot film and have been asked numerous times if (or why) I think film is better than digital. My answer is that film and digital are simply different, not better or worse, and which one I use depends on the task at hand; I pick the right tool for the job.

Buffy

[ziggy7]

Yes, it all depends on what you need to do with the digital scan. For my fun photos on film, I'm lucky to have the manager of the CVS photo departments for the whole Jacksonville, Florida area working three days a week at the store one mile from my house. She does an amazing job for a total of $12 a roll. If I want the best, we have the fantastic pro shop Fototechnika Fine Art Imaging only ten miles away. They normally output Tiff-RGB files, but will do Jpegs on request. They develop and scan film up to 11x14".
The great thing is that I still have my negatives, so I can always get a special image re-scanned.

I shoot weddings with a pair of DX DSLR's, but I offer the brides the option of film, including 35MM using the LX and the Nikon F4, and even 6x6CM from the Yashica 12 and 6x9CM from the Moskva 5 for big prints. Fototechnika can print the 6x9CM image as big as 30x45". I don't think it would make sense for me to invest in a pair of full frame DSLR's because I can get the same quality when needed from my paid-for film cameras.

[ziggy7]

My father, the retired industrial engineer, has a favorite expression: "For most practical purposes".

It is true that scans of negatives are not exactly the same thing as the files produced by a DSLR. But for most practical purposes they are close enough. My point in starting this thread is that for most of us, it makes more economic sense to shoot film and scan it than to invest in a full frame DSLR. This is even more true for medium format. You can get a nice used Pentax 645N kit for around $1000, but a 645D is around $10,000.

Mindy & I are pretty careful wedding shooters. We usually do a custom white balance for each area, and try to compose to minimize the need for cropping. We normally shoot in Fine Large JPEG for the sake of speed and room on our 2GB SD cards. We have had 12x18" prints made from these files and they look good.

Post processing is the same whether the JPEG file came from the DSLR or from film. It mainly consists of selecting about 100 out of the 500 to 1000 images we usually shoot at a wedding and reception, then some of the images might get a slight color adjustment or a little crop. Sometimes unwanted things in the background will be removed. Blemishes may be touched up on portraits, and sometimes the clone tool is used to hide something that is not flattering. A few images get changed to black & white just for fun. If I think there will be a lot of adjustment needed, I'll shoot in RAW.

[KungPOW]

Who are you? The Ken Rockwell of Pentax?

Free Digital Camera