What will happen when the digital imaging wave dies

monkeypainter said:
Well, no. It's a transcription from the data stored on the Camera's image processor. This data is an interpretation of the light that was captured by the sensor at a given moment.

With film, the negative is the original print of the light that fell on it. You can't have more than one negative of a photo, the original.
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I do NOT want to get into a digital vs film fight here. I've already (if you like) conceded that by the three criteria in your post, a RAW file at best meets one of them.

Let's leave it there. You win. Digital is cr*p and film rules. The end.

...Mike
 
Darkhorse said:
This disaster will spark a renaissance in film photography. However there will be many restrictions in taking photographs thanks to America's new Canadian overlords.
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No, they'll force use to exercise our rights more. Those of us in the 'States live in the nominally "land of the free," but Canucks enjoy a wider palette of freedoms, particularly in Vancouver "coffee shops".

The OP's rambling original question about the inevitable passing of digital is laughable.
 
jfretless said:
I can't ask this question on other forums as I believe that most of the participants of those forums would fall in to this category and would be bias in their opinions.

It seems to me that the current "wave" of digital imaging is very similar to when Kodak introduced the Brownie. ...pretty much bringing photography to the masses. Not sure of the timeline, but I sure that after a while, the number of photographs taken by the masses dropped. ...leaving a certain percentage of people that continued on with photography.

There are always forum posts about somebody who had no or very little knowledge about photography jumping with fists full of money in digital photography. ...spending thousands of dollars of equipment, thinking that will buy them great photographs.

I can only think that in a few, ten years, the amount of images produced, uploaded, shared will be less than now. I also think that a good percentage of the images created today will cease to exist ten years from now. Some where along the lines of.... "news today, fish wrap tomorrow." People snap pictures to tell the latest story and very few of them put enough value in those images to make sure those images last past the next camera upgrade, computer hard drive crash, flash card format or online image hosting company goes out of business.

At least with film, the negative were lost in the box for years until someone found them. I don't think that we be the case now, digital is too fragile.

What do you think?

John
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In reply to your original question, I'll give you the same answer I use when the question is posed regarding how long before film is extinct:
first we'll see, and then we'll know.
 
monkeypainter said:
Digital imagery has a big handicap: the lack of the 'original'.

Artists & collectors do need the original to sell, store or exhibit. You can't do this with digital files. That's why film won't die completely, people who need originals, will keep it alive.
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I must take issue with this. A RAW is every bit as much a legitimate "original" as a negative. To suggest that because it represents a record of a something measured by a sensor and stored in a file makes it somehow less legitimate or lacking in quality is completely bogus. The "interpretation" done by the sensor and circuits is no different, in effect, from the "interpretation" by a film's color sensitivity and other characteristic curves. Yeah, with film light falls on the film and makes an original. So what? With digital, the very same kind of light focused by the very same kind of lens falls on a sensor and is stored in a different but equivalent manner.

Can you exhibit an original RAW file? Sure, and it'll be as pointless as exhibiting an original negative. If you mean prints, then you have a greater range of options with a digital file than you do with a negative in terms of producing prints for exhibition.

Can you sell a digital file? Of course you can. When I license an image for something, the client gets a file. This is true whether the original shot is film or digital. Same with anything for publication in a magazine. If I'm making fine art prints to sell, it generally starts with a file.

I reject completely the concept that a digital file cannot be an original. The file that came out of the camera is the original. How can it be anything else?

All the same, a RAW file has a number of advantages over a physical negative. One big one is storage. I can't burn archive copies of a negative to a DVD and house it at a remote facility while still having an identical copy to work with at my fingertips any time I need. That there can be more than one original is a clear ADVANTAGE if you care about the longevity of your work.

I don't see why film, digital, and their various users have to be at odds or somehow serve to divide photography into categories of varying legitimacy. Digital isn't going anywhere and, at least for the foreseeable, neither is film. Past certain basic economic factors, they are not in direct competition as I see it. They are different tools, both with distinct advantages or disadvantages. Claiming the outright superiority of one over the other is myopic at best. People claiming digital isn't photography are just as wrong as those screaming that film is dead.

And for the record, I'm about to order 200 rolls of 120 and am working on getting set up again for making Palladium prints, primarily from digital negatives.
 
I'm getting ready to start shooting 120 again myself. What kind of film are you using? I just picked up a few rolls of FP4 to try out.
 
It'll be some Fuji ACROS 100, which will mostly be used for long exposure work, but mostly Neopan 400. I normally shoot it at EI 200, but it also pushes extremely well to 1600 in D76. My primary camera is a Mamiya 645 with the 80mm f/1.9, and I was thrilled when I found how good that film looked pushed to 1600. Finally a practical way to shoot handheld MF in low light without Delta 3200 (which I have never been able to like as an emulsion). An example.
 
Thanks, David. My project will involve long exposures. I've also tried Neopan 400 in 35mm and like it. Being able to push it to an effective 1600 is good to know.
 
Do note that I haven't done much with using the Neopan 400 for long exposures. I don't see why it couldn't be used for that, but I haven't tested it for that purpose. It's just my general-purpose, versatile film of choice.
 
Just thought I'd stick my head inside the "RFF door" it's been a while.

Jeez FID is still going on... okay.

Will I see you guys in the field in a while?

best, Jan
 
Ultimately I think this is about "artists" and their audience.

Pre internet, you had an audience of family with your slide projector/pile of photos, or of the general public if you got published. Sites like FlickR have changed that, and are now somewhere between the two.

There's just a lot more "stuff". Much more capturing going on. There's also a lot more people consuming that "stuff". The more you consume the less time you have. For this reason, I think the still image will persist, and the video will not achieve overall dominance. I don't have time to watch video, unless it's very very good. With a still, I can often see instantly whether I want to spend longer looking at it.

As long as the still image persists, I'm happy. I hope the "wave" doesn't die out principally because I hope FlickR doesn't go bust :D Film/digital who cares, sorry.
 
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David R Munson said:
And for the record, I'm about to order 200 rolls of 120 and am working on getting set up again for making Palladium prints, primarily from digital negatives.
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nice discussion going on here..

@ david: digital negatives you mean DNG/RAW/TIFF?JPEG etc from digicams or scanned film negatives? or both? :bang::D
 
tenderobject said:
nice discussion going on here..

@ david: digital negatives you mean DNG/RAW/TIFF?JPEG etc from digicams or scanned film negatives? or both? :bang::D
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Not trying to substitute David, though in my understanding JPEG, t.i. readily viewable image can be considered as positive, while raw data from sensor whatever format it is saved, has to be considered as negative.
 
tenderobject said:
@ david: digital negatives you mean DNG/RAW/TIFF?JPEG etc from digicams or scanned film negatives? or both? :bang::D
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Sorry for the delay in response - still distracted in getting used to living in another country.

By "digital negative," I am referring to a physical negative output on transparency material with an inkjet printer. It's another way to create the large negatives needed for contact printing used in Platinum/Palladium printing (among other processes). The traditional method has, of course, been to just shoot as big a large format negative as you need to make a print of the size you want, but digital negatives are opening up a great deal of possibility with alternative process printing now that you can make an excellent negative with any kind of digital image file that can be output via inkjet printer. It's also adding new levels of control to the process that would have been exceedingly difficult or impossible to achieve without the use of digital negatives.
 
I have really enjoyed this thread and the divergent opinions. Since this is my first post, what better time to jump into a film vs digital bitch fight right? ;)
I think it is impossible for the time being to have a consensus. A lot is speculation, and analogies with old technologies that may or may not happen with film.

As David just pointed out, there being no realistic difference in the validity (or legitimacy) of a digital file and a tangible negative. I'm not totally sure at this stage what I think, but i think it comes down to feelings rather than logical deduction. Though there is nothing illegimate about that.
Besides which, a raw or jpg file isn't an abstract concept. They are physical, saved on disk, hard drive, or whatever, they are physical in that sense.

Film makes me shoot in a different way to digital. There is no rational reason, I could shoot just as slowly with a digital. The reality is, I am enjoying photography a lot more with my M4 and developing B&W than I ever was with digital. There doesn't seem to be any real reason why. Still mulling over that one..
Assume I may not be alone here, since you are all mostly qualifying what you say with a "i'm still shooting film" qualifier.
 
greebo said:
The reality is, I am enjoying photography a lot more with my M4 and developing B&W than I ever was with digital. There doesn't seem to be any real reason why. Still mulling over that one..
Assume I may not be alone here, since you are all mostly qualifying what you say with a "i'm still shooting film" qualifier.
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I think I hear that more from people who are younger and started with digital and then explored film than from people my own age or older who started with film and then moved to digital. Just as many younger people who essentially grew up with digital and are now bored with it and find film exciting and new, I grew up with film. Still use it, still like it, but I don't see the downside of digital, and I do see considerable upside, so I use it and like it too.

The younger people who now love film seem not to hate digital as much as the older folks who just cannot (for whatever reason) change. Those worthies will continue to manufacture 'reasons' why digital is inferior to film until they cack it, so I have ceased listening.
 
Will the digital imaging wave die? EMP aside, no. My take is that digital does some things better than film, and film does some things better than digital. Its just that the advantage of digital is in the process, and not necessarily the final image. The advantages of film are directly tied to the final image, and not all the steps it takes to get there. Some may enjoy those steps (like I do), but most dont.

People my age (28) and younger are mostly satisfied with what comes out of their cell phones and point and shoots. Its not about dynamic range, sharpness, tonality, etc. Its about making it as easy as possible to get a recognizable image of their friends up on the web, and digital is obviously the way to achieve their goal. This doesn't apply to serious photographers, but it probably describes the majority of people who fuel the market.

If I choose 20 of my friends, probably 10 of them will have point and shoot digitals, 8 will use their cell phones, and one or two will shoot film.

This is about ice cream, not insulin. The digital vs. film debate is a tired one, and it boils down to your preference. Do you like the way film looks and the steps to get there? Or do you prefer the instant feedback and clean look of digital? Chocolate or Vanilla? Take your pic. (bad pun, but intentional :)
 
Interesting observation about film and digital and age.

I learned about photography via my father. We used his old mechanical Canons and we developed and processed the film in his darkroom. I remember him talking about Leica, hasselblad, etc and how they were the pinnacle of cameramaking. This was the early 90's. My old Canon crapped out in college around 99 or so and being broke I didn't replace it until 2002 when I was graduated and gainfully employed and feeling the itch to shoot once again. Digital was new and intriguing and I went from point and click to DSLR.

I am now back to film 100%, though not because I'm nostalgic or think it's better. For one, I enjoy the process more than digital. Second, people are giving away amazing gear that I once only dreamed about. My father sees me buying second hand hasselblads and is stunned. Thrd, I could never get used to the crop factor. I like wides. Fourth, I like simple cameras.

I plan to get back into digital once full frame cameras are cheaper and smaller, simpler, etc. It will happen in time. A FF digital with an option to shoot in 6x6 mode would be my dream.
 
bmattock said:
I think I hear that more from people who are younger and started with digital and then explored film than from people my own age or older who started with film and then moved to digital. Just as many younger people who essentially grew up with digital and are now bored with it and find film exciting and new, I grew up with film. Still use it, still like it, but I don't see the downside of digital, and I do see considerable upside, so I use it and like it too.

The younger people who now love film seem not to hate digital as much as the older folks who just cannot (for whatever reason) change. Those worthies will continue to manufacture 'reasons' why digital is inferior to film until they cack it, so I have ceased listening.
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I noticed that too, a lot of my friends who have been shooting since the 70's, now only want to shoot digital, but I find film more fun.

And I too have ceased listening...to those that continuously say film is dead !

Cheers.
Steven
 
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