Originally Posted by
pdxer
there are plenty of crappy film images cluttering up people's closets in the proverbial shoebox. just because it's easy to post lousy photos on flickr does not mean digital itself is a lousy medium.
What I meant was that most people don't care about the quality, as long as it's easy. How else could 110 and Kodak disk have had commercial success?
Originally Posted by
pdxer
i'm curious how you determined that, since digital can have a wider and more accurate colour gamut than film. and what about the rest of the spectrum, other than the one shade of red?
I mainly do railroad photography, and nothing else makes Canadian Pacific red look right. Since its outdoors, other films or digital can get everything else pretty close, but that's not critical. As long as the trees are green, the eye is happy. However, the red seems to be tricky to render so that you can look at an image and say its right. With Fuji, it tends to go to orange, same with digital. If I correct it, the other colours go off. The now discontinued Ektachrome EPN was a close second because it doesn't have the hyper saturation that most films have. Velvia is terrible, it makes everything look like Disneyland. I probably could get everything right if I spent a lot of time in Photoshop with masking and layers, but why bother when I can do it the easy way?
Kodachrome has one other unique advantage, and that's the rem-jet backing that no other film has had. It absorbs stray light and makes for a cleaner image. In railfan circles, there is a well known phenomon called "FHB" or Fuji headlight blob, which is a secondary ghosting or halo image of the headlights caused by light scatter within the emulsion. The coating on Kodachrome absorbs this, and its never a problem.
Originally Posted by
pdxer
film requires more effort to preserve than digital,
How so? I file the negs in archival sleeves, index it and forget about it. It really couldn't be much easier. I never have to worry about upgrading to "shoebox 2.0". Perhaps try Googling "digital dark age" to see why I'm concerned about all electronic data.
Originally Posted by
pdxer
instead, you have to worry about fire, floods, mold, fungus, fading, tearing, scratches, etc. you have only one original copy of film images and if they're destroyed or damaged in any way, you lose everything.
Never lost anything yet in 25 years. I live in a dry climate so mould isn't an issue, and I usually shoot several in camera "dupes". One to file, another to make prints from. I have had hard drive crashes and lost data though.
Originally Posted by
pdxer
in 50 years, there will be noticeable degradation of the film images, whereas there will be none with digital.
That's certainly not true. I've made Cibachromes from 5"x7" Kodachrome originals shot between 1945 and 1953 and the colours are as bright as when they were shot. Ektachromes faded badly, but not Kodachrome. Modern E6 films are estimated to be good for at least 100 years, and of course colour fading isn't an issue with B&W. I wish I could still buy Kodachrome sheet film...
Originally Posted by
pdxer
in addition to having more features, such as more sophisticated autofocus, live view, etc.
I don't want all the so called "features"! I'd be very happy if there was a digital version of a Canon F1 or Nikon F3/F4: Tough, reliable, simple and totally controllable by me without drilling through layers of menus. Most of the time I don't even need a light meter, I can estimate within 1/3 of a stop in daylight.
I bought the F6 as a backup for the F4, and its autofocus and metering is the same as the D2x. AF is better than the F4, no question, but the F4's meter is more accurate. Since I shoot trains I really don't need AF, since I know where they are going to be! I don't like being battery dependant either, espcialy in winter when the batteries and LCD screens freeze. When its cold is when the large format comes out, as they are totally mechanical and have never stopped in cold weather.
Obviously, we'll have to agree to disagree. Film works for me, and it works well. It gives images that are pleasing and my clients are satisfied. What more could I ask for?