Tried to like digital, but didnt work out...

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I have owned easily more than a dozen cameras in my photographic "career", both film and digital. But whatever I try, be it the 5D, the D700 or the M8 lately, I always return to film.

So another R2M on order for me. Thanks Cosina for still being in the film camera business... :D
 
I have owned easily more than a dozen cameras in my photographic "career", both film and digital. But whatever I try, be it the 5D, the D700 or the M8 lately, I always return to film.

So another R2M on order for me. Thanks Cosina for still being in the film camera business... :D

Why? I mean, seriously? Whats wrong with digital so you keep coming to film? You list some fine digital cameras that you tried, so i wonder whats your reason. I use both and like both. Plus I'm fairly sure that in many cases it's be hard to tell based on the internet photo if it was taken with film or digital.
 
Why? I mean, seriously? Whats wrong with digital so you keep coming to film? You list some fine digital cameras that you tried, so i wonder whats your reason. I use both and like both. Plus I'm fairly sure that in many cases it's be hard to tell based on the internet photo if it was taken with film or digital.

I love the look of grain. I love the funny color palette you get with film, from cheap negative to Portra or Velvia. Digital looks flat and cold in comparison. It can be tweaked to some extent but it just wont look "like film". Plus I always liked mechanical cameras better than electronic.
 
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Digital needs to be kept in perspective. It's handy and convenient. But it does not replace film, only augments it. We must not lose our heads jumping into digital. A small amount of gear, one toe in the water is fine, but no jumping off the high dive into the deep end.
 
I love the look of grain. I love the funny color palette you get with film, from cheap negative to Portra or Velvia. Digital looks flat and cold in comparison. It can be tweaked to some extent but it just wont look "like film". Plus I always liked mechanical cameras better than electronic.

Well, this got me thinking - can one tell if photo is digital or film if looking online. So, here is a little excercise for anyone that wishes to try - which is digital and which is film? (All shot with RF camera):

1.
3170327328_1482c1fc8d_b.jpg


2.
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3.
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4.
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5.
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6.
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7.
3259405108_d0cf3c87f6_b.jpg
 
These are either post-processed film(really badly) or a bad scan. You cannot compare these. On the 99% of properly scanned images I will tell digital apart. FILM has it's OWN look, you cannot argue here...
 
Yeah, many of them have too much digital artifacts to judge. And of course once it's scanned, film photo really loses its "soul" anyway.

That said, nose/"grain" on 1 looks digital to me.
 
Yes... But???

Yes... But???

Scanned film pictures are just pictures taken with a superior capture device, turned to digital with a very poor capture device.

The only true test would be film, properly developed, and then wet printed on a reasonable .. (say 11X14) photo paper.

Compare this to an image captured with a high quality DSLR camera printed at 11X14 on a high quality Epson printer on good paper.

THEN!!! compare this to the film image, properly scanned to a digital image and printed to 11X14....

OK. last condition... NO POST PROCESSING ALLOWED. Which precludes RAW methinks.

This is about the media and capture equipment... not what you can do with your computer and hours spent at the keyboard.

Personally, digital just continues to disappoint, but I do agree with the one poster.... Maybe in ten years???
 
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Scanned film is not ideal but at the moment is all I can do.The images seem to retain their dimensionality and so do not have that flat perspective that to me characterises digital and ,I have to say,to a lesser extent the chromogenic films.
 
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