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

[Lachlan 717]

When Lobotomies come down to an affordable price.

[Richard Mahoney]

When there isn't any more water or moisture. When there is no longer any dust or dirt. When there is a constant supply of power absolutely everywhere. When I look forward to carrying even more gear than I carry already. When -- I think it's been said already -- pigs fly.

Oh, and hello Mr Troll Out from under the bridge today?

Kind regards,

Richard

[Ed Kelsey]

Nobody said when they stop making film

[Jay DeFehr]

When the materials become prohibitively expensive, or unavailable.

[mdm]

even when digital is best, there will still be people with film cameras making big negatives for contact printing and alternative processes. It is a valid creative option and will only become more so as digital gets better. Maybe the Sally Manns of the future will be revelling in the imperfection of 4x5 film. Flaunting dust spots and light leaks.

[Vaughn]

When I get too old to carry the 8x10 or to use an LF camera, I'll start printing all the negatives I have ignored because of the newer negs I was making.

[tim o'brien]

Never. I shoot digital as a recording medium. The Nikon has not been out in a couple of years. But...

LF 8x10 is what it is. If the film goes away, i stop shooting. Digital just records, LF (and to an extent MF) are photography.

tim in san jose

[Maris Rusis]

Phooey to digital. I only make pictures out of light sensitive materials. This is the process for which the name photography was coined. These are the only pictures I'm really interested in looking at.

Not because the picture looks one way or another, digital can already mimic the surface appearance of almost any medium, but because of the necessary physical connection between the subject and the picture. This special relationship between photograph and subject means a photograph offers a special relationship to me the viewer.

Digital picture-making offers a viewer the same aesthetic speil as traditional painting and drawing and is no substitute for the thrills and goosebumps of being in the presence of a real photograph.

Why large format? Nothing in photography looks so gorgeous.

[Scotty230358]

Never - the process, from start to finish, is just too satisfying.

[Struan Gray]

Were I making money from my photography I suspect I would be using a combination of the Pentax 645D and 8x10. Since I'm not, I use neither :-)

I'll make the switch to MF digital when body/back prices drop to four or five years of my MF and LF film costs. That time is another two-three cycles of Moore's Law away by my reckoning. I will miss movements, but I won't miss handling film - I've never felt that material magic that I know is so important to many.