When will you give up large format and switch completely to digital?

[Cornelius]

Another post for never. If I can no longer get film I will switch to wet plate or some other method. That doesn't mean I don't shoot digital, but I don't enjoy it nearly as much. I work in LF for my enjoyment.

[eddie]

Another post for never. If I can no longer get film I will switch to wet plate or some other method. That doesn't mean I don't shoot digital, but I don't enjoy it nearly as much. I work in LF for my enjoyment.

+1

and i already shoot wet plate....

[evan clarke]

When they nail the lid on my box..went through the whole digital thing from 1998 until about 2005 and it wrecked the enjoyment.

[Steve Smith]

went through the whole digital thing from 1998 until about 2005 and it wrecked the enjoyment.

Me too. 2003 - 2005.


Stevbe

[Steve Smith]

[QUOTE=Ed Richards;724569I have the two classic Nikon fast lenses - 55 1.2 & 34 1.4 - complete with wonderful aberrations. They really take the digital edge off my D700.:-)[/QUOTE]

That might not be as daft as it seems (if that was the intention!).

I have lots of musician friends who all like to record their music. Most of them record digitally but will usually use a valve (tube) microphone pre-amplifier to warm up the sound (and old microphones). Some use valve pre-amplifiers which I have made. One of my friends does his final mix on an all valve mixing desk which I made for him.

I see an analogy here with the modern camera/old lens combination.


Steve.

[Jim collum]

Even when shooting with the Betterlight, I always have film holders with me. there's a different look to each, and I shoot depending on what i want with the final image. I'm finding it's a joy shooting old glass (leftovers from the Galli collection and such) with the Betterlight. I have a MBDB , with a technical camera and very good glass, but find much more character from the old.

there's been room for both... and will continue to be. Even though I have the digital, I'm starting to play around with wet plate.


all tools to an end

[rdenney]

I have lots of musician friends who all like to record their music. Most of them record digitally but will usually use a valve (tube) microphone pre-amplifier to warm up the sound (and old microphones). Some use valve pre-amplifiers which I have made. One of my friends does his final mix on an all valve mixing desk which I made for him.

I see an analogy here with the modern camera/old lens combination.

But take the analogy all the way. There is no question that those vacuum tubes apply non-linearities to the amplification process. The difference is that you and those of whom you speak happen to like the resulting distortions. That doesn't mean they aren't distortions, or that some other aesthetic might be undermined by them.

And that's even before we talk about the effects of those giant ferro-resonant transformers needed to provide the bias voltage on vacuum tubes.

Many of the complaints in this thread apply to modern equipment, not merely to digital equipment. High-end small-format cameras had long since gone to all electronic and fully automated technologies by the time digital image was practical. Instead of being opposed to the distortions caused by digital process (which are easy enough to alter to the common analog distortion so that any uncoached observer can't tell the difference), they seem to complain about cameras that use any electronics at all. My Pentax 6x7 is a bastion of traditional mechanical operation--or is it? Yup, it still requires a battery to time the shutter. And it's one reason that shutter is accurate after 30 years. And those who eschew cameras that require batteries seem not to mind meters that do.

One thing old lenses on digital cameras do is force us to abandon some of the automation, which slows us down. I have adapters for a range of different lenses for my Canon DSLR, and can mount lenses in the Pentacon 6 (including an adapter that provide tilt), M42, and Nikon F mounts. I must have dozens of lenses in those mounts. I can use them for a range of purposes, all of which require a slower, more considered approach. If that has an effect on the outcome, it's entirely because of what's going on between my ears. There are differences in bokeh between my old Nikkor 180/2.8ED and my older Carl Zeiss Jena 180/2.8 Sonnar, and the Nikkor is sharper generally, but it would take a coached eye to see the difference when used on a DSLR. I doubt any difference is visible between the old Nikkor and a new one at the same focal length and aperture.

Rick "who owns a couple of vacuum-tube amplifiers himself--RF amplifiers" Denney

[Brian Ellis]

I pretty much already have to a considerable extent though I plan to get back into 8x10 one of these days. However, that will be strictly for fun. For day in, day out photography digital has so many advantages that for me it's hard to get excited about film except for 8x10 which is such a pleasure to do. And of course printing in a darkroom is like something from the middle ages.

[rdenney]

Rick, you know many of us can shoot without meters if needed.

Let's see you do it not in bright sun, using Velvia.

Try explaining the 'sunny 16 rule' to some of the totally digital shooters today and look at the blank expressions you get. No different from some in years past - but the grounding in the basics seems to be missing more often now. Maybe it isn't, but it sure seems that way.

No doubt, and I always do a reality check in my head with Sunny 16 as the frame of reference. Of course, if Sunny 16 applied in all my work, I'd be using shutter speeds in the 30-125 range pretty much all the time. But I keep finding myself with shutter speeds in the 1/2 to 1-second range. I wonder why?

Of course, most even moderately advanced users with a digital camera can just make a provisional photo, check the histogram, and then know what exposure they need to capture just what they want to capture. And they'll probably take less time than I will with my Pentax spot meter.

Beginners struggle with technical stuff no matter what medium or format they use. Nothing new there.

Rick "whose subjects are often in varying degrees of shade" Denney

[Frank Petronio]

Over on the RFF they are arguing about the quality of the new Olympus 12mm f/2 lens for m4/3s digital cameras and one fellow commented that it was getting absurd to be splitting hairs over the lens quality when most of them were shooting 35mm Tri-X with $x000-plus Leica and Zeiss lenses and film bodies... while $150 digital small-sensor point & shoot compact camera has equal or superior image resolving capabilities.

At this point, it is simply fun to use film while we still can get it with relative ease.