Originally Posted by
Jagboi
I bought the F6 new, and at the time the best DSLR out there was the Canon 1DsMKII, which was $10K, and I paid $2500 for the F6.
i don't know where you are shopping, but the canon 1ds (all versions) listed for $8k and the 1ds iii is currently about $6.5-7k street price, usa currency. $2500 sounds about right for an f6, however.
and you don't need to get a 1ds ii to outperform an f6 (or any 35mm film camera for that matter). a nikon d200 (at the time) would have sufficed and a d300 very definitely will.
A friend of mine is also a photographer and he has the 1DsMKII as well as a 5D MKII. I've shot with both extensively, and given that they both are full frame cameras they certainly do not produce images "substantially better". Different, yes, substantially better, no.
no offense, but something is wrong. a canon 1ds mark ii and certainly a 5d mark ii enter into medium format film territory. they both produce images that are much better than from any 35mm film camera.
here's a comparison with a nikkormat ft3 35mm camera & velvia iso 50 film, a hasselbald 503cw camera & velvia 50 iso film, and a 12 megapixel full frame canon 5d digital slr (about half as many megapixels as the 5d ii):
http://www.ales.litomisky.com/projec...anon%205D).htm
"The best quality both in print and on the screen viewed at 100% are clearly from the Canon 5D, followed by the Hasselblad, and lastly - after a significant gap – by the 35 mm film camera."
another comparison (and note that the canon d60 was a 6 megapixel camera):
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...shootout.shtml
"Then in mid-2002 I upgraded to the Canon EOS D60. This cameras clearly surpassed 35mm film quality in every respect and so I retired my film-based Canon EOS 1V. But I still continued to do my landscape work with medium format and film."
i've had better results from a lowly 6 megapixel nikon dslr than i
ever got with 35mm film, especially at medium to high iso. with a 12 megapixel dslr, it is simply no longer a contest.
My camera has proven to be much more rugged, as we've gone hiking together in the rockies, and his has failed while mine kept working. It was pouring rain, and the Canon didn't like that, while mine kept going.
that has more to do with the build quality of a given body than it does for film versus digital. the 5d mark ii is not well sealed while the f6 is.
I have two 16x20's on my office wall, one digital printed on an Epson inkjet, the other from film that I printed in my darkroom on Ilfochrome. My colleagues know nothing about photography, but so far they have all preferred the film print, even though the subject matter is very similar.
there are far too many variables for that comparison to be meaningful.
In black and white the difference is much more pronounced, digital simply cannot produce prints with the subtilty of tone that a traditional print can, and from a large format negative it's not a contest, people pick the film every time.
and they'd pick a large format print over one made from 35mm film too. that has more to do with the vast difference in format size than film being better.
Digital has a place, but its too expensive for me. My cameras are still precision optical mechanical instruments, instead of disposable consumer electronics.
dslrs are hardly what i'd call disposable consumer electronics and they're just as much precision as any film camera, if not more so. digital is also significantly cheaper and more convenient than film for anyone who shoots more than a few rolls a year.