wet or dry, be prepared for a steep learning curve.

Larry,

Don't pay too much attention to what you may read from users, it may reflect more about the photographer than it does about what is being used.

I've been doing digital photography for 15 years based mostly on scanning all kinds of film. But if you are starting from scratch and don't have a big library of film already you won't miss anything by skipping the film/scan route to digital. If as you say you have a bunch of Canon EF lenses the 5D is a great bet and will obtain image quality as good or better than 35mm color film. I had the good fortune to spend 30 intense days shooting with a 5D for a report soon to come out in Shutterbug. And on the basis of that experience I expect to buy a 5D for my personal use before the end of the month even though it isn't really essential considering what I do and have available to me. And you can also be sure a poor writer like myself wouldn't shell out $3,000 without being pretty sure of what I'll be getting.

Larry,

I did the slow conversion from film to digital. Five years ago I started scanning negatives and slides and printing them on an Epson 1270. I liked the results, but scanning particularly negatives is a royal pain in the neck as far as I am concerned. Then 3 years ago my wife bought a 2MP Canon compact digital and I have done all the printing ever since for her. What an improvement over scanning! A year ago I bought myself a Nikon D70 6MP and that has been the best that has happened to me in all of my 47 years of photography. I would strongly recommend to skip the scanning film phase and dive head-on into 100% digital.

In terms of dSLRs, I think you owe it to yourself to also consider the Nikon brand. Look at the D50, D70s and D200. If I was going to buy my first dSLR today it would be the D200 at a very reasonable price of $1700 for the body only. You could buy a couple of high-quality Nikon lenses for this camera and still spend less money then the $3300 for the Canon 5D body only.

I hope we can welcome you soon to the dSLR community.

Frans Waterlander
frans2001@netzero.net

Go for the digital camera. The instant feedback lets you know if you got the picture you want as soon as you trip the shutter, the histogram keeps you on target with your exposures and having a digital image means you won't have to fight with scratched film or slides ever again.

Homer Arment

Larry,

Listen to what David is saying. I have been shooting DSLR cameras for 5 years now and would not go back to film. I'm still using a 1D but will get a 5D next month.

My 13" by 19" R1800 prints with the 1D are remarkable. I was trained with Cibachrome printing in college.

I'm sure prints from the 5D will blow me away!
_______________________
Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL
http://naturesphotographs.com

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Go for the digital camera. The instant feedback lets you know if you got the picture you want as soon as you trip the shutter, the histogram keeps you on target with your exposures and having a digital image means you won't have to fight with scratched film or slides ever again.

Homer Arment

I have all the feedback I need - it's called experience.

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After research it seems the best bet for the money would be a Nikon SuperCoolscan 5000ED with ICE and an Epson2400 printer. The proponents of this method say they are actually getting better results this way.

That isn't a bad way to go. Most modern films are much more scan friendly, than those produced just a few years ago. The Nikon has a 20 second scan time, which is pretty good (you can also get a bulk feeder for it). Recently, I returned from a shoot in New Zealand where I shot mostly Velvia 100, and found most of the transparencies scanned very easily, much easier than the Velvia 50 I shot in 2001.

The choice to whether you go for a darkroom or a computer workstation for processing prints is a very personal one. I know how to scan, and I'm proficient in Photoshop, but I get so much more enjoyment out of going into the darkroom, turning on the safelight and producing prints with my hands. FWIW, there is no reason you can't do both - I do all my color prints from a digital negative produced with a computer workstation, printing on a Chromira printer with Fuji Crystal Archive paper (a traditional RA4 paper) and all my B&W in the darkroom. I can't comment on the Epson, since I don't use ink jet printers for any of my work.

Choose between a Canon 5D and a Nikon 5000 SuperCoolscan. For the moment I have A Nikon 5000ED for about 2 years. Before that, I was using film (Kodak NC160 and VC160).
I tried a Fuji Velvia50. The diff between film and slide was so big that I had to buy the 5000-ED, Because the photolab (Afga) does not develop slide and did not scan slide. After a calculation it was better to buy the 5000-ED and switch to slide.
But, and this is very importaned. There was NO digital camera that could give me this result (slide FujiVelvia50) at that time.
If the Canon 5D was on the market 2 years ago, I never had to buy the 5000-ED. I just went digital. Scanning a slide at highres (19Mega) takes a lot of time.
So if you don't care about the old films you still have, just go for the Canon 5D. If I the money I just switch to the Canon 5D.
For the moment I also have some old bodies and lenses (Canon FD) and still love to work with these models, but it takes a lot of time to scan-crop the slides. 6 minutes for scanning one photo (48bit 19M highres double scan) and then you still have to remove the black borders (1 minute a photo). So just a lot of time, that you can spent on other things...

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Sorry, if you still have any Questions, Erwin@e-vdh.be
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