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Why I switched to digital, then switched back to film... day 5 |
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14-01-2005 |
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I'm one of those photographers who made the switch to digital when I felt that quality was getting close to 35mm film. I bought a Fujifilm S2 pro camera, because I already owned a couple of nikon lenses, and that i liked the superCCDs from Fuji. In the 7 months I had the camera, I probably shot more than 6 thousand frames, something I would have never done in film (that more than 150 rolls of film...). It "freed" me from thinking about per-frame cost when I was shooting, so I experimented, I tried lighting setups, subjects, macro, infrared, without any restraint.
On the computer, everything looked fine, but when printed, the images, especially the black and white ones, were lacking in depth, and I clearly saw a difference between my usual film prints (I use Ilford Pan F+ printed in 16x20 FB Ilford paper...) and the digital prints. I thought that there was something lacking in the prints that made a switch back to film worthwhile.
The "crop factor" factor of the digital equation is what kills it for me. On a pro-level SLR, it's not such a big deal, but one of the reasons why I shoot on larger formats is to get shallow depth of field. I often shoot 4x5 with my 135mm f4.7 lens wide-open... Now, depth of field is directly linked to focal length, and since the smaller sensors call for shorter focal length, the direct result is that it is very hard to get a shallow depth of field in digital, aven with "prosumer" digicams with f2.0 lenses.
So what did I do ? I sold my S2pro, and bought a Hasselblad 500cm with the money. A whole other world, one in which I feel a lot more at home... Your own experience may be different, but I happen to value the feel and sound of a mechanical camera... |
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