Monte,

I never owned a Leica but for 15 years worked with the Nikon 6006 film SLR. Buying the Nikon D70 dSLR almost 2 years ago was the best thing photographic that happened to me in about 48 years of photography. Don't be afraid to make the plunge because I'm pretty sure a whole new world will open up for you with possibilities not available with film.

Frans Waterlander
pixographer/printer

Thanks Frans. I believe you are right. Only when I go through with this will I really know, but I have a feeling this will work for me if I let it. Monte.

Monte,

I was using a new Leica some years ago shooting some antique aircraft and was moving about and stepped on a broken piece of concrete that gave way and I went down on the runway with the camera under me. Unless you are loaded with money that is an experience you want to avoid.

I've never been loaded with anything other than sometimes too much invested in cameras. In those days my favorite camera was a Rollei 6008 system. It never ever went out of my studio door.

Why do so many people think that they have to be one or the other?

AJUK has nailed it, Monte. Going from film to digital is not like loyalty to one's country or fidelity to the wife. These are tools that can be used in different situations where one may be better than the other for a particular job.
Hell, you can forgo digital capture and scan the film, if you so desire.

Ronk, really is silly how many times we value others thoughts about what is rtight for ourselves. I have scanned film and now I am ready for a new adventure and to learn new things. David,Good point about the Leica. I am excited now about the move to digital. I am just tired of all the hassel dealing with things around film. I think David said once it is nice to be able to just enjoy taking pictures. I am ready for that. As soon as I can figure out the financing issue it is a go. I have plenty of memories shooting film so there is no real loss for me. As far as I can see the only limits I have is what I put on myself. Monte.

Monte - I am sure the D200 is a great camera, but if the economics are holding you back then look for something you can afford. With the EOS-30D out I suspect prices on the 20D will come down, and the Dig Rebel is not a bad place to start either. I love my 5D, but if it were to break I don't think I could afford to replace it.

I'll second (or third, or fourth) what others here have said, try it -- you'll like it!

Hi Ed, I know a profesional that shoots with a 20D and does a nice job. The 30D is getting close to the D200 so thats makes the choice hard. The two cameras I want are either the D200 or the 5D. If the 5D held out their rebate longer I might have bought one. I can understand your thought on being able to replace the 5D if something happen to it. I figure either Canon or Nikon is the way to go because that is where the money is focused on.I would love to keep my film cameras but for me it is the only way to make the change.Right now the D200 looks like the best option but until I make the final chioce the 5D is still on my mind. I have read about everything I can find on both cameras. I feel in the end the choice I make will depend on how much money I feel I can spend without taxing my buget. If my computer was newer I would certainly shoot for the 5D. Monte.

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I am excited now about the move to digital. I am just tired of all the hassle dealing with things around film. I think David said once it is nice to be able to just enjoy taking pictures. I am ready for that.

Funny, I feel just the opposite way. Digital seems so incredibly complicated (as far as image processing and producing exhibition quality prints) and film seems so much simpler and even less time consuming! I'm turning to digital for the ability to take pictures and immediately send them via the internet to the magazine I write for, but the idea of spending hours fiddling around with a computer and Photoshop to get one image worth hanging on a wall seems ridiculous to me. Cameras, whether film or digital, are merely tools and different tools perform better at different tasks. Sometimes digital does the job at hand better, sometimes film is the way to go. From what I've seen, a lot of the digital faithful are really more into the technology than the creation of photographs. I prefer the simplicity of film, but sometimes I need the immediacy of digital.

The medium of photography is technology driven. Every few years I traded old equipment for that new lens, camera body or flash to keep the creative spark alive in my work. As a fine art photographer for over 30 years, I subscribed to every photography magazine and read about every different technique and purchased any accessory I thought could give me an image that would set my work apart.

Additionally I love that current technology is enabling me to earn a living licensing or selling prints from my 30 year old work along with my new work. And fulfillment for editorial or commercial use within minutes. I can't remember how many times I sent out original film in the 1970s that ended up damaged if it was returned at all.

Yes, the technology is great, but it always has been. It keeps getting better and easier to earn a living.

Quote:
Funny, I feel just the opposite way. Digital seems so incredibly complicated (as far as image processing... From what I've seen, a lot of the digital faithful are really more into the technology than the creation of photographs.

Quote:
Digital seems so incredibly complicated (as far as image processing and producing exhibition quality prints) and film seems so much simpler and even less time consuming!

When I closed my last fume-room about two decades back, I lost most of my enthusiasm for personal photography. To a great extent working as a photographer became "just a job". Buying my first digital camera was an epiphany. I realized that I was once again liberated from the commercial lab.

When I did personal work in this long period, the prints did not seem like my own. I had collaborated - with me making the exposures, and an uncaring lab-tech interpreting them to the lowest common homogenized blandness that would still be acceptable by a non-critical customer. I found myself shooting for the lab tech - taking no chances, making sure that my exposures would cause no problems. Now my prints, web-images and slide shows are mine - all mine. I constantly push the edge of the possible, and pride has returned to my work. Photography is once again an adventure.

Time? Pick any print in my old working portfolio, and you will see the result of a day of dodging, burning, spot colour correction, fine tuning exposure and so on. A single print could devour a box of paper and the chemistry to process it. I had colleagues who regarded me as a slacker, they spending days in pursuit of the perfect print.

Now, I process my work on the monitor, and don't hit "Print" until is is exactly what I want. In fume-room days I could hardly wait to pull the print out of the processing tube to see what I had. Today, I go do something else while it prints. I love having no surprises! In a small fraction of the time, even a casual shot for a friend will be of a quality equal to the very best of my portfolio.

Given fluency in image processing, even under the worst mixed light conditions, dealing with a huge contrast range, requiring heroic use of layers and layer masks, the print will be printing in under an hour in most cases. Shot under normal conditions - landscape, portrait and so on - with a reasonable dynamic range and single light source type, a matter of minutes.

When working with legacy film images, a scanner simply beats an enlarger in every way, and an inkjet printer means no mixing of fresh chemicals, maintaining a

You need not spend hours in Photoshop to produce an exhibition quality image - once you are up to speed it will be minutes. Comnpared to setting up the darkroom, doing the work and cleaning everything away digital will save a lot of time. However, there is a steep learning curve and initially it needs working on.
I still shoot film as well as digital, but only for specific purposes, and for the majoroty of shots it's digital. It is also far easier to prepare an article for submission using digital imaging.
In summary,my suggestion is do what you are comfortable with and enjoy it.

Monte,

As Ed Truitt said:

>Monte - I am sure the D200 is a great camera, but if the economics are holding you back then look for something you can afford.<

Recalling David Brooks' expensive fall, do recall that the lens takes the picture: A Leica or a cheap Russian knockoff will take the ame picture, the camera just holds the film, or sensor.

If economics is holding you back, I'd suggest the following:

Get a SMALL digital Point and Shoot - emphasis on small. Carry it in your pocket at ALL times. Take plenty of pictures - no need to worry about wasing film. Discard the culls and duplicates and touch the better ones up in PhotoShop.

As to PhotoShop - i'd say get an old, cheap version of P/S Elements. I just checked on eBay: there was a P/S Elements 2 for 20 bucks. Elements - any version - is entirely adequate at least to start.

In case you have heard too many times that Digital isn't "up to" film standards, I invite you to take a look at this picture:

www.flickr.com/photos/djotai/177642078/in/photostream/

Click on the Magnifying Glass "View Larger" icon & immediatly click on "Original" size.

This is a two second exposure on a tripod. (the camera wanted to go 8 seconds, but then the Earth's motion blurred it, so the guy put his hand in front of the lens for 6 seconds - I asked.)

This was taken with a Panasonic TZ1 at 10x zoom, which brings the camera's Leica lens all the way up to 52mm. Pretty good, huh?

I'd love to see this experiment done with a 50 or 55mm lens on film: betch'a it won't be much better - or maybe not as good?

Since my beloved Minolta Xt is broken, I just got a TZ1 for $220 including shipping, from Amazon.

So for about $250, you can get a versetile Digital camera and a "Darkroom" far better than your old "Fume Room", as Larry Bolch calls it in his post - please read it again!

With P/S your 'darkroom' experience will be a revelation: sittiing in comfort with a cup of coffee!

You can spend even less, but the versatility of the TZ1 - 10x zoom, Optical Image Stabilization, and up to 60 sec time exposure in a pocketable camera is, I think, a great combination. And Elements is ALL most folks will ever need, even those of us who have done our time in "Fume Rooms".

After a year or so, if you want to go back to film & darkroom, your mind will be clear on why. Or you might want to "upgrade" to a DSLR (although why you'd want to go back to carrying all that stuff beats me) or "Full" PhotoShop - the cameras and P/S will be newer "better" versions! And you will know what to look for!

Try it! Youll like it! -Erik

Hi Eric, Thanks for the feed back. I have been using the D200 for a several months now. I still use 2.0 Elements but hope to upgrade later. Monte.

Monte,

Thanks for the reply.

There were sufficient replies to this thread that I lost sight of the date on your original post.

Hope you're enjoying your new camera - sounds like it!

Speaking of "broken records", you might still enjoy carrying something really tiny in a P&S around in your shirt pocket, it might be a life-changing experience as it was for me.

-Erik