Slashdot Mirror
Digital Cameras Force Film Off Dixons' Shelves
ngibbons writes "BBC News story regarding digital camera sales: 'High Street retailer Dixons, which started by selling 35mm cameras, is to stop stocking the items because of the popularity of digital cameras.' Digital cameras will out-sell 35mm cameras in the UK by a ratio of 15:1 this year."
It was only going to be a matter of time before the only place you could buy a film camera was at a dedicated photography store.
They are not really forcing them off the shelves - its simple economics - Dixons are totally mainstream and 35mm film has become non-mainstream. Therefore they aren't going to sell film cameras anymore.
Not really news - we all know digital camera's are mainstream now.
Dixon's cater for the "must buy now" category, not the well thought out purchase. People won't buy an SLR in Dixons, but they might buy a compact digital on the spur of th moment.
It is worth noting, for our foreign readers, that Dixons are a terrible chain of stores selling overpriced electronic goods. The staff are all salesmen they don't have any one who actually knows anything (eg difference between RAM and HD, or Mac and PC). Prices are usually between 50% and 100% more than online (eg Amazon).
So basically, no one would really mind if the whole chain just upped and died.
Dixons is seen as a dealer in electronics. If you wanted film technology, you would probably go somewhere else - perhaps where the staff know what "ASA" means?
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Dixons are always striving to present an image as being cutting edge. They don't want to be seen as catering for outdated or niche markets.
This is probably why they did much the same with VCRs a couple of years ago as they are doing with film based cameras now.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Take a look at the various kinds of camera.
There is the SLR and the P&S, not counting the medium format monsters which aren't flying off the shelf with digital backs.
Before digital came along, most people owned either a 35mm or an APS point and shoot pocket camera. SLRs were generally thought of (undeservedly in many cases) as "professional" cameras, so most people weren't interested.
Now digital offers the same convenience as the old film point and shoots but with virtually unlimited shot counts. Whereas you could only get 36 shots in your old pocket camera, now you can get upwards of a 100 on a single battery charge. And the loss in quality is pretty minimal because you are using a pretty small, substandard lens to begin with. It is no surprise that digital has essentially eliminated the film P&S market.
The SLR side of the coin is much more interesting. What we are seeing is a resurgence in popularity of the SLR in the form of cheap dSLRs like the Canon Rebel 350D and the Nikon D70. These are cheap, offer superior lens choices than the digital P&S class, and you don't need to swap out film every 24-36 shots. Add to this that digital sensors are quickly gaining ground on film technologies such that the quality of data from a digital sensor is equal to or better than the data off of a scanned negative.
There are many reasons why digital is gaining popularity, the first is simply that it is so much less hassle to plug the camera into the computer than it is to take roll after roll to the photo shop. Also, the boom in blogging has got everyone becoming a photographer with little to no effort. And the cost is coming into the range that mere mortals can afford it.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
It should be noted that Dixon principally sell compact cameras, and I think in respect to compacts they're right. Nobody is going to put something like Fuji Velvia into a compact camera, they're going to put the ISO 400 print film made by Boots. There is no advantage to using film on a compact camera over using a modern CCD, and the total running cost for digital - in that market - is significantly smaller.
Of course, the argument over whether this is true for SLR's is a different matter. I recently traded my old Minolta SLR film kit for a Canon 300D (thanks to Canon bringing out the 350D, the 300D dramatically dropped in price). It's great - but not when using a non-digital lens (chromatic aberation and all that jazz) - and until that problem is solved there will always be a huge market for file SLRs.
The ways of gods are mysteriously indistinguishable from chance.
But the greatest advantage of a digicam is being able to take pictures of naked girls. Some may advocate a videocam for this, but I find that they're much more shy when you whip out the tripod...clicking away with the camera is much better.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Why should anyone be surprised that digital will outsell film, when the high-street retailers aren't stocking film cameras any more?
To be honest, I think it's inevitable that digital will take over the consumer market - and those who can't afford a digital camera will (presumably) continue to be ripped off with single-use point-and-shoot film cameras. But this statistic is partly a result of shops no longer stocking film, and thus isn't an adequate justification for ceasing to do so.
Oh, and another vote for not shopping at Dixons. I notice that they'll keep stocking film cameras in airports, for "professional photographers". I've yet to meet a professional photographer who would buy a camera from Dixons.
When I see people everywhere shooting digital point and shoot cameras I really wonder what they are doing with all the files. Are they burning them to CD? buying hard drives? I know this has been said a million times before, but what will be the equivalent of an old shoebox filled with family snapshots look like 50 years from now? I have a feeling when a lot of people want to take a look back at that trip to disneyland when they were a kid the images will either be gone or stored on a medium which is obsolete. I doubt most people shooting with digital cameras realize how fragile their images are without care over the long term. With today's emulsions you can put your slides in a sleeve, throw them in a dark drawer, and they will still look pretty good in a couple decades. Can you say the same for a memory stick or even a cd? Is their a business opportunity for digital banks which will provide longevity of digital information so people don't need to worry about it?
The reason i look for specialist shops is exactly that i need to get my hands on things that other shops don't have. Then again, I don't know if supermarkets etc. in Britain also pull 35 mm film off their shelves?
I never buy anything from Dixons or PC World as the spend 5 minutes selling you something and then 20 minutes trying to get you to buy their overpriced extended warrenties.
Last thing I bought there was a £20 Toaster and they wanted me to buy a £16 3 year warrenty for it.
Jonathan
http://donkeydoeslondon.freeservers.com/
How are the people that are buying digital cameras from Dixons using a digital camera? The software that comes with Windows XP is bad, the software that comes with the camera is worse and Googles excellent offering is hidden away, and involves a knowledge of web searching and software installation.
My Dad, who though far from computer illiterate, uses the software that came with his FujiFilm SLR. The camera is excellent, but the software is so bad, that it takes him 20 minutes to find the picture he wants, and he keeps a paper index to give him an idea of when he took the photo so he can find it by date. He doesn't do any photo editing, because its too complicated (the guy runs a primary school, and uses computers on a daily basis... he's not stupid) and getting the pictures to print well is an effort.
My completely computer illiterate girlfriends mother really struggles to use iPhoto. And why wouldn't she? In order to get the pictures off the camera she has to find the right wire, make sure its connected in the right socket, makes sure the camera is on (this always confuses her) and then has to eject the camera before she can disconnect it. She has mastered albums, but can't do keywords. She can't burn a CD of her favourites to take down Boots to get it printed without my help.
I'm no expert, in fact I would shudder to call myself a novice when it comes to digital photography, but they are fascinated that I can put together a DVD of the trip we've just taken in iDVD and iPhoto even though most of the work is done for me by the Mac, or that I can type 'Zoes birthday' in Spotlight an be provided with every picture from Zoes birthday instantly.
I always thought the advantages of digital photography were having a searchable library of of all my pictures, and being able to email them to friends, and take out the odd bit of red eye. It turns out the reason people by digital cameras is that they can take over hundred photos without changing the film (great for holidays), can see those photo immediately and delete them if they're bad (perceived reduction of cost), and continue to just hand the camera over to the guy at Boots and get the pictures back an hour later. For this they are willing to pay over £100 for a camera that has a lower picture quality, artifacts and dead pixels, than a £20 35mm film. Norms are funny arn't they?
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I once bought something from Dixons. It was a pile of junk, so I returned it. My conversation with the chavette at the checkout went something like this:
Me: "I'd like to return this item, please."
Her: "Why?"
Me: "It's of substandard quality."
Her: "You didn't need it. Have you opened it?"
Me: "Yes."
Her: "You said no."
The girl was clearly too lazy to process the return properly, so she just filed it as an unwanted, unopened item. Fantastic.
-Stephen
I believe even the photographers are switching to digital en masse since that way they can publish there images faster (demand driven by magazines, newspapers adn customers alike: A full blown lab for high quality photoprinting is too expensive, so if you want to publish fast on non standard or larger sizes, digital is better, a printer is a lot cheaper than a photography lab). The new digital camera's also have high enough resolution to do this (Expensive, not for sale at dixons). The photographers are even leading the market in demand for higher quality camera's. The people who talk about SLR here are mainly talking about SLR which takes 35mm film, which is not great in granularity to make real high quality photo's with anyway.
The real high quality camera's which take larger size films for larger or much higher quality photo's will most likely stick around, but then again who pays ~$25000 for a camera which can do that?
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Although it seems that Dixon pulling out of the 35 mm market doesn't seem that significant but if other retailers start to follow suit then I can see that 35 mm camera (esp. SLR) will rise in price. Ok Digital prices will drop but for pro photographers and amateurs who still like use 35mm format they will be the losers as they have to pay the extra price. Ok a lot of pro photograpers (magazine and newspapers) use use digital because its easiar and quicker to get into print. However for the more artistically minded 35 mm is better. Have you ever tried to use a wide angle lens on digital the focal length multiplier really screws things up. For example on cannon I think the multiplier is 1.6 great for zoom but tribble for wide angle unless you buy a 10 mm lens!! As a some one that records music its now becoming more expensive to record analogue tracks its really hard to get hold of tapes for my 8track. I know that digital eventually can cope with the requirements but why take samples of the real thing! Have you tried to do distortion in digital its horrible!
What I would like to see is these digital camera's becoming more intuitive, and seemless in use. I find that some of the digital cameras that people find themselves purchasing are too complex for them to understand. I met someone the otherday who is very quick when it comes to learning how to use something, however she still couldn't get the flash to work. Something that simple - whatever happened to the flash button??? It was replaced with too much. The user was required to enter "appropriate" light levels. What we need is a "simplistic" approach to cameras - much like what vodafone has done with their new simple phones.
The automobile replaces the horseless carriage.
Pocket calculators replace adding machines.
Electronic spreadsheets replace accountant's ledger.
Pointless drivel replaces meaningful articles on Slashdot.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour? Hell no!
..but you can still buy VHS gear from them. Cheap way to get lots of publicity.
isnt there a photodevelopment service (kodak?) that not only gives you your hardcopy film prints + negatives back but the lot also on a CD too. handy! and i have noticed that if you scan in a standard photo on max dpi you can zoom in stupid amounts (cost of film dependant) which is cool. once digital cameras provide aforementioned 10*6 foot 300dpi print out i'll be happy with them. until then i'll be buying film flavoured. infact i'm buying one this weekend! as for dixons, they're trying to ditch all the old technology to big themselves up in the tech market. essentially moving away from fridges and towards ipods. this is just another step in that direction, not the death-of-film.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
As for chomatic aberration, it is a lens property and nothing at all to do with interaction between lens and media. It is harder to control as focal length gets shorter, that is all. Cheap short focus long range over compressed lenses will have aberration. Fact of life. Good quality lenses with limited zoom range and sufficient physical volume to give the designer freedom can have good correction. The highest quality Leitz 35mm lenses were all fixed focal length, but when Leitz started producing varifocal lenses it was an admission that lens design had moved on and new options were possible.
It's sad, because like many people I enjoyed the physical process of developing and printing, watching the 20 by 16s come up under the safelight. And for certain art purposes film may be around for a long time, though I guess almost entirely B&W. But let us not pretend that 35mm had huge reserves of quality that digital cannot match. It was, after all, invented as a cheap way of doing photography under difficult conditions. The little waterproof Pentax I now use for snapshots is the heir of the Leitz tradition, not the SLR.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
No technology that was the size of film photography ever, ever went away completely.
LPs were "killed" by CDs, yet enthusiats and some DJs are still using them for various properties - including superior sound - that the CD don't hold.
But for the vast majority of music listeners, who were playing thier LPs on a $150 stereo and never cleaning the pickup, CDs are better.
Same thing goes for photography. Some enthusiasts and artists will keep on using film, although probably not 35mm. The rest of us will be using digital.
but surely this comment could only be considered "redundant" if the point that "Dixon's issue controversial Press Release in order to get their name splashed accross a load of headlines" had already been made by a number of posters prior to this.
Last time I checked, it hadn't.
I was going to post something along the lines of the parent: chromatic aberrations happen, as you can see in the linked article, because the lenses have a index of refraction that is dependent on the wavelength of light.
Mod parent up as informative please.
The upsell thing drives me right up the wall, but I really can't blame the salesperson since I figure given the choice he'd just stfu and run the cash register.
;-)
I tend to vote with my wallet, normally declining to patronize establishments whose corporate policy is to squeeze every last dime they can out of me but I don't think it's fair to blame the kid behind the register. They'd fire the kid if he didn't at least try.
I've had pretty good success with a technique like this:
salesperson: Would you like to buy a three-year extended warranty on that package of blank DVDs? How about batteries for your portable DVD player?
me: No, thank you.
salesperson: But it's a really spiffy extended warranty.
me: No thank you. I'd just like the DVDs, please.
salesperson: Are you sure?
me: I'm sure you're about to lose a sale.
Now you'd think that any person with half a brain would stop right there, but I had one Best Buy salesperson tell me he didn't work on commission and had no financial motive for trying to upsell (I guess keeping your job isn't motivation). I asked to see a manager and the kid backed right down
I feel kinda sorry for the kids that have to go through that crap to keep their job, but I'm the customer, I'm the one with the Franklins in my wallet and if it weren't for people like me he wouldn't have a job in the first place. So - I try being polite but firm and that usually works.
The hell of it is that the upsell technique must generate enough profit to make it worthwhile, otherwise the company wouldn't make the poor kid do it.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
You're not really comparing apples to apples here... although I'm not disputing the argument that film will be around for a long time (hell, even Black&White film is still around).
>> she says that standard digital SLR is still not high resolution enough to be blown up to 6ft on the wall of an art gallery - for that, you need medium format or at a push 35mm slide film.
Ok... but you wouldn't do that with a 35mm film camera either. There ARE medium-format digital cameras (equivalents) with 20MP or more of resolution that could do this easily. There are even scanning backs for view cameras that can give you 1GB sized image files (I've done photo-quality 4x10 foot posters from this on a photo output device, you can't tell them from the BEST photo prints).
Digital technology is there quality wise... maybe not on a portability/convenience/price level though.
Lastly - your comments about chromatic abberation are not quite accurate... the more likely cause of the issue you mention is due to the fact that standard CCD/CMOS digital cameras have only 1/3 the amount of pixels for each color (Red, Green, Blue), and GUESS at the rest - this interpolation can cause issues. High-end cameras have 3 CCD's (or other cool technology to achieve the same effect, check out Sigma's SLR) so each pixel has real data for EACH of the color channels.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
It's going to be everywhere except in your hands. Vinyls aren't dead, at all, skratch artists almost can't do without them, I own Final Skratch from Stanton and despite all the phoney claims it doesn't hold its own against a real vinyl, even if it comes really really close, and until some technology comes along that truly make the vinyl obsolete we'll see tons of them under dj's hands.
;) ) probably until digital has more resolution than 35mm films (around 22megapixels it seems).
35mm pictures will be everywhere, in magazine, large displays and so on but all the while consummers won't be able to procure the films and material to themselves easily.
Lets face it, for consummers digital is way more convenient, not better, convenient. If digital was better marketing wouldn't compare it to analog they would simply show it. Digital technologies have never been strong because they were good, they always caught up because they were convenient but professionnal will drop convenience really fast if it can produce better results. Think high end studio recording, we stuck to analog reels for very long until digital finally became so good that we could embrace its convenience but not at the expense of quality, not even 5 years ago spliccing was still common in studio. Therefore I don't think 35mm is dying, as much as vinyls aren't dead, they're just hidden from "normal people"(
My completely computer illiterate girlfriends mother really struggles to use iPhoto. And why wouldn't she? In order to get the pictures off the camera she has to find the right wire, make sure its connected in the right socket, makes sure the camera is on (this always confuses her) and then has to eject the camera before she can disconnect it. She has mastered albums, but can't do keywords. She can't burn a CD of her favourites to take down Boots to get it printed without my help.
If she finds those tasks confusing, perhaps you could put together a couple of cheat sheets for her - complete with pictures of the connectors, screen shots, etc. - so she doesn't have to struggle. I imagine both of them (girlfriend, mother) would appreciate it. It sounds like your dad could use something like that, too.
Like many
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
They basically rely on morons walking into their catchy shops and buying something. The reason they're successful is because morons vastly outnumber informed consumers.
...and it's rarely more plentiful than in the Dixons customer demographics. Sad, but true.
Or, as my dearly missed Uncle Frank of Zappa fame once said:
"The most plentiful element in the universe is stupidity"
John
Maybe almost 10 years ago I remember reading something... somewhere... about this cool technology to turn any 35 mm camera into a digital camera. Basically it was this thing that looked like an ordinary 35 mm film canister, except instead of having a tongue of film sticking out, it had a rigid piece of plastic or metal which was fixed in place (which contained the CCD). You just plopped it into any 35 mm camera where the film would normally go, and voila, instant digital camera. No need to toss away your fancy SLR with all those lenses and filters.
Whatever happened to that? I've been dying for it. I think it might have been in Popular Science "What's New" back in 1995 or something.
I think the interesting thing is that before digital, you'd never see someone go out and spend $300 on a camera. But slap digital in front of it, and people will easily drop $300 or more. Same goes for PDAs and cell phones. 20 years ago, nobody would have spent more than $10 on a phone or an address book. But make it into a computer, and all of a sudden, people want to spend hundreds of dollars on these items. I realize the new items offer a lot of new functionality over the ones their replacing, but what's with the sudden willingness to spend hundreds of dollars on items like these?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Yes, this is the same press release as the "we're no longer stocking VHS" one.
p ?BV_SessionID=@@@@0184077931.1123587161@@@@&BV_Eng ineID=ccekaddfgghmmhjcflgceggdhhmdgml.0&page=Produ ctList&category_oid=-24719&fm=15&sm=4&tm=1&use_cat egory=true
Except, of course that they still do:
http://www.dixons.co.uk/martprd/store/dix_page.js
When I read it yesterday I was surprised that the BBC didn't appear to do any fact checking or analysis but just ran DSG's PR intact. Maybe journalism is on holiday in Tuscany at the moment with the rest of the meeja.
Digital camera are a great thing for the digital camera makers/sellers. Unlike old camera you can't upgrade them by using better film. In a sense they are picture taking computers. Conversly its not a good time to be a film maker.
When in college I was using a 10 year old camera with great results. 10 year old digital camera is maybe 1 megapixel and probably doesn't have a zoom. As cameras get better and more functionality (12x image stablized zooms!) people want better ones. Film cameras features are pretty stable and people hold on to them longer as a result (new film cameras didn't really have must have features and the leaps in image quality that digital has over the last few years).
I think digitals growth is because the technology is getting better so much faster people who bought a camera a couple years ago are buying a new one now. I think as the technology matures the growth of digital will subside. But film is going to be harder to find in 10 years. 35mm film will probably become niche market like medium format/ large format film is today. Artists will long for grainy images and someone will come up with a photoshop filter to add it.
I like digital and film. Both have there place. I think my film images have a better quality than my 8 megapixel DSLR, but I take a lot of wildlife shots and save a lot of film with the digital. And digital is more fun. It will be interesting to see if in 20 years I can pull up all my digital images or will they disapear in a hd/backup crash...I know my negatives should sill be around.
A couple of years ago when I bought a Sony NetMD minidisc player I thought "the Sony store will be the best place to go".
...
So I went to the Sony store, they didn't know anything about the model I wanted (that they were selling). I asked "does it have a microphone input" and they'd say "no", then I'd say "what about this socket that says 'mic'"
I went to Dixons to get a price check. The guy there knew all the features of the model and the next best Panasonic (IIR-the-brand-C).
Still neither of them told me that I couldn't upload live audio digitally, so I still ended up buying the damn thing!!
I've used a 35mm Pentax K1000 (pretty basic SLR) for a while and scanned the best photos, but they never came out that great and there was always some dust. I like to use shots of nature as desktop backgrounds.
I recently used a digital camera (Nikon Coolpix 4300, 4 megapixel) and would rather not go back to 35mm except for really special circumstances. I can transfer the pictures to the computer in a couple of minutes and they look great. Just messing around with it for the first time on the porch I took around 50 pictures of plants and the cat. Then on the first outing in nature I took 150 pictures. I didn't have to bother with thinking about the cost of each photo nor running out of film. I could easily check to be sure the pictures were being taken properly.
I need to put my Canon EOS 35mm on E-bay NOW.
What?
Got your camera's right here! Only at Crazy Eddy's!
I think that's a quote from the Dixons marketing manager, who's at odds with their website which says Dixons started as a photographic studio in 1937 and only diversified into selling assorted camera equipment 11 years later.
Methinks they've ramped up the press release for a little rose-tinted, nostaglia induced, free publicity.
boakes.org
Average point and shoot resolution on average 400ASA film is nowhere near 22MP, except under ideal conditions, which you won't get with point and shoot cameras in the first place. Above about 4-6MP seems to me to be a good enough compromise for anything below A4 size prints or serious art exhibitions, according to the site linked previously whose author seems to sound like he knows what he's talking about.
The big advantage of digital is that you can take multiple exposures on a tripod and blend them very easily indeed : Max Lyons has some impressive images on his site of digital panoramics using stitching, and multiple exposures blended in Photoshop to give high contrast scenes a lower contrast rendering and the results look very nice indeed.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Alan: Let battle commence! Do you like me doing that? Shall I do it more quickly or shall I maintain the same speed?
Jill: That's fine.
Alan: Right. Shall I move on to the other one? Oh, that's lovely. That's first class. That is superb. Ooh, there you go, it's all happening! Jill I'm afraid I have no sheathes.
Jill: No what?
Alan: Sheathes, er, prophylactics, you know, rubber johnnies. Actually, being your age and everything there's probably no need for them. I'm talking about the menopau - whoooo! Jill you know your onions! Do you mind if I talk? It helps me keep the... wolf from the door, so to speak. Jill, what do you think about the pedestrianisation of Norwich town centre? I'll be honest I'm dead against it. People forget that traders need access to Dixons! They do say it'll help people in wheeeeelchairs...
I went to both these countries for over a week each with a digital camera and one of those cheesey adapter sets. You won't have a problem as long as you have a hotel room.
Taking pictures at a foreign airshow is illegal over there? I think that could quite possibly be the craziest thing I've ever heard! Wow.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
35mm film cameras outsold Wet Plate Photography kits by a ratio of over 1,000,000:1
The moral: If you don't feel digital cameras are as high a quality as film cameras, you really have to admit they come pretty close and will only get better. Even if they are not-quite-as-good-yet the extra flexibility and convenience more than makes up for it.
Progress marches on. Quit bitchin'.
=Smidge=
The only cure for this is to make every British person spend an afternoon in a Turkish market. If you don't learn to walk away then it takes forever to even get down the street.I went there in March and if you think the sales people in England are pushy then Turkey is an eye opener. If you even so much as look at their shop they chase you down the bloody street screaming at you to buy things. I had the same guy try to sell me a fake Rolex 4 times in the space of 30 minutes. After an afternoon there you can quite easily walk up to a Dixons/PCworld salesperson and tell them in no uncertain terms how tightly to roll their extended warrenty and which hole to insert it in.
I've an old Nikon FM from the late 1970s that I love. I always develop prints and have a CD of JPEGs burned now. It doesnt concern me if impulse buying stores don't carry film cameras. What concerns me is that it's harder and harder to find 35mm film and more and more often the services seem to damage the negatives during processing (isnt it done by machine?!). They've killed of black & white support which I still used to shoot now and again too.
Like it or not 35mm sems to be reaching end of life.
I recently purchased a very nice film SLR for 150 bucks new, because I wanted an SLR but was unwilling to pony up the equivelant of my monthly mortgage for one.
:-)
I own a decent digital, as well, so I have come to know both breeds.
I hate the digital. I hate its crappy, battery-sucking LCD viewfinder that is useless in bright sunlight. I hate its shutter lag that assures I always miss the shot. I hate its habit of saving power by shutting off every two minutes , assuring that I am still rebooting my camera whenever the next photo op occurs. I hate the fact that I need to carry twice my weight in batteries to every major event. I hate burrowing through menus using only two tiny buttons whose functions change at the whim of the camera's software developer in order to change simple camera settings.
I LIKE my film camera. I like that it only cost me 150 bucks, so if I lose or break it, I won't be suicidal. I like that it has a clearly marked button or dial for everything I want to do, so that I can change settings with ease. I like that I can change film stocks when I want different results. I like that when I depress the shutter, it takes a picture RIGHT NOW, instead of later. I like that I can forget and leave it on, and my battery will still be good for weeks.
I even kind've like waiting for my film to be developed (even if it's as long as a whole hour). Until that moment, EVERY picture I take is a potential pulizter prize winner
To bring them into the digital realm, I just have them dropped on Kodak CD's, which are high-res, cheaper than prints and look much better
than scans of prints. I figure it is a small price to pay for actually getting the shots I want, and it's handy to have the stuff already archived on CD.
Above all, I like being secure in the knowledge that ten years from now, my camera will still be working. I don't feel that secure with my digital, which will probably be a doorstop in a few years.
The only benefits I see to digitals are increased picture capacity, the ability to review your photos on the spot and the means to make your own porn (the internet gets all the credit for the porn explosion in this country, but I think that people forget that a lot of porn sites owe their existence to a bunch of horny people who didn't have to sneak into a photo lab at night to build their websites).
My take, anyway. Your mileage may vary. But I see a lot of money being spent these days on stuff that is more promises of a better world than a truly better one. Ten years ago, a 17 inch CRT monitor cost me 500 bucks. However, thanks to the magic of modern technology, I can now purchase a far less durable 17 inch monitor that can only be viewed from one angle for....drumroll...500 bucks! But, hey, they're lighter, right?
Somewhere along the way, people stopped selling BETTER ideas, and just starting selling NEW ones. There is a difference...
An Epson 4990 flatbed scanner will give me over 100 megapixels from a scanned 4x5" large-format negative. Digital will not come near this for quite awhile and it won't come cheaply. This allows me to make a nice 16x20 print at 400dpi.
Of course large-format is very heavy. My pocket shooter is a $16 Zeiss Ikonta folder camera. It folds up to about 1.5" thick and pockets easily. Yet it gives me 6x6cm medium-format negatives. So $4000 Canon dSLR might equal a 6x6 negative, but for $16 I get better price-performance ratio.
Anyone have any tips on the best (cheapest) way to convert old films to digital?
I've got about 30 or 40 old APS films that i had developed, but i never look at the pics because sorting them and putting them in albums makes it such a hassle. My digital pics on the other hand can be nicely and quickly tagged, ploaded to flickr, shared and sorted.
I can't find any info on the best way to convert my old films though. Jessops (uk camera shop) quoted me £9.95 per film to put them on cd... which is going to cost me 300-400 pounds. Anyone have any ideas?
From Amateur Photographer magazine, 30 July 2005: "edge fringing... is part and parcel of the digital experience... to give the maximum charge and therefore the clearest signal, tiny microlenses are positioned above each photosite and these microlenses can be partly responsible for causing chromatic aberration... when you use a film camera the emulsion is flat... can receive light from the rear of the lens at any angle... the microlenses on a sensor need to receive light directly... if the light does not hit them square on... then the result can be 'false color' (seen as fringing) and 'shading' (seen in the image as vignetting)."
I've cut lots of the detailed explanation out becuase it runs to three columns. I take the point that film is not immune to this - I obviously overstated that - but this is definitely an issue with digital cameras in the way it's not with film. The fact that light doesn't hit the medium at 90 degrees if its coming from near the edge of the lens is a property of the lens, but the way that it's handled by the media in the case of digital does lead to fringing.
Even with shutter lag, even with battery issues, even with the damn thing turning off at just the wrong moment, I switched to digital 5 years ago, and haven't looked back. In a couple of years, I might buy myself a nice digital SLR to resolve some of those problems, but in the mean time, my little Canon will do fine.
Why do I agree with all of your points and disagree with your position? The tipping point is the medium. The cost of good quality film, the cost of developing, the time it takes, and the likelihood that the film is going to sit on a shelf waiting for me to bring it to the developer is just enough for me to have to think about whether or not I really want to take that picture when it comes up.
With digital, I don't even think about it any more. Once you've gotten over the barrier to entry, the marginal cost per picture is essentially zero. I went to Belize with a 1MB card and pretty much filled it up with pretty fish pictures. A lot of them were not so pretty. If I had been using an underwater film camera, I would have had to either be sparing with my pictures or climb onto the boat every few minutes, dry off the camera, open it, change the film, re-oil the seals, close it up, and go back down.
With my digital in its case, I could just keep snapping and snapping. It did not matter that some of the pictures were bad. I could just throw them away.
For me, I guess its that I am sort of a shotgun photographer. I take a lot of pictures and find the good one, rather than waiting for the perfect one and grabbing it right then. It may not be the afficianado's way, but if it takes me 500 shots to get that one picture of a lobster defending its home, or a shark slumbering under a patch of coral, It's worth it to me.
I do miss long hours in the darkroom developing my own b/w pictures, but that, too, was an expensive habit, and while there's no digital replacement for the smell of the fixative, well, I have to admit that the end result I get with photoshop is a lot better than anything I was able to do in the darkroom.
So Ansel Adams I'm not. But us average joes need digital in order to churn out a good number of great pictures.
The CB App. What's your 20?
"Keep in mind that digital SLRs are only really needed for those people who want a system that is interchangeable with film systems"
.25 seconds
Actually, that is a minor consideration, since I'm not sure anybody but Canon offers that right now.
The advantages of the latest generation of Digital SLRs:
1) Instant on - typically in less than
2) Instant focus - in most circumstances well under 1 seconds.
3) Longer battery life
4) Higher quality lenses - with all the advantages that applies, including truely outstanding lenses that can be moves to newer bodies as they appear
I found I was very frustrated by the point-and-shoot's inability to focus in many circumstances and a 1-2 second pause after I pressed the shutter. Plus low-light sensitivity is poor.
Don't get me wrong, a point and shoot is great, because I can put it in my jacket pocket, and I use it, but a digital SLR is really a joy to operate and it makes photography fun (if you're so inclined).
I think part of it is the convenience of using digital cameras. No mucking about wasting time loading film. See a good shot? Take the camera switch it on and you have it in a couple of seconds. It lends itself to getting better pictures for amateur photographers, as you can review, and with computers you can sort it out and print only the best pictures, rather than hope that your prints came out good.
On top of this is the competition for mobile phones with cameras. As a lot of people will have phones with them it makes it even more convenient if you see a good shot (see all those pictures from the London Bombing as an example of the 'new photojournalist'). I've seen a friends SonyEricsson K750 - a middle of the range phone I think. However the phone has a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus - perfect for on-the-spot pictures. The pictures it takes look pretty good. This is why old style film is out the door. It just isn't a convenient proposition for most people.
If you've seen the digital still cameras designed to be replacements for 35 mm or APS point and shoot film cameras, note how amazingly small they have become even with bigger and bigger LCD displays on the camera itself.
If you've seen the Konica Minolta DiMAGE X50 (now replaced by the X60 model), Nikon CoolPix S1, Casio EXILIM ZX-4 or new model, FujiPix F10 Zoom, or similar models, note the digital camera is about the size of a pack of cigarettes (or smaller!). Given these small sizes, small wonder why they have become very popular replacements for all film point and shoot cameras. If I had the money I'd buy an F10 Zoom myself, especially given the wide ISO range of the sensor and the nice and big preview LCD.
"nd for all the noise about the perceived smallness of bodies like the 350D, they are still quite a bit larger than most film SLRs."
This is complete B.S. (no offense).
The 350D is so tiny that I didn't buy it; its too hard to hold steady with a long telephoto.
Its certainly smaller than my old AE-1, A-1 and T-90 and lots smaller than my EOS630.
The Rebel XT really is a tiny SLR. However, I prefer the 20D, primarily because the 20D has a magnesium body and it offers ISO 3200.
My wife and I just got a digital camera and I am never going back to 35mm. It's good to see photo shoppes to start specializing in these now--and for Kodak to finally start moving to digital technology themselves. When I got our camera I got it at Office Depot where the clerk now absolutely nothing about this stuff, so I had to research it beforehand.
Oh, film cameras have more advantages than that.
1. Very wide exposure latitude. You can mis-expose a shot and it will almost always be salvageable later. With digital, if the shot is even slightly mis-exposed you lose highlights or shadow detail permanently.
2. Cheap media. If you're going to Tibet for the trip of a lifetime and plan on taking a few hundred shots, it's much cheaper to take 'em on film.
3. Automatic backups. Once you get your prints, you still have the negatives.
4. Cheaper cameras. A 35mm SLR that'll give better quality than any one hour photo lab can make use of, can be had for under $200. For digital, you're looking at $400+ for a comparable quality of image, $800+ if you want an SLR.
That said, I'm almost entirely digital now... Just waiting for an affordable SLR with a full-frame sensor...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Dixons is like Ritz Camera, if it sold all the stuff that Best Buy sells.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
According to an older explanation (photographers don't seem to jump on new technology very fast, so I imagine that's still reasonably accurate), 4"x5" film works out to about 24 megapixels. You can't magically add extra detail by running the prints through a hi-res scanner. By your logic, my little Sony digital is really 110MP, since I could make an 8"x10" print and scan it on my 1200DPI scanner.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I used to work at a camera store while in college. We'd have people come in all the time looking for a digital camera, even though they had no idea what "digital" meant. But they definitely wanted it, whatever it was. Then came the obligatory "so, where does the film go?" followed by "do I have to have a computer?"
The figures that report that digital cameras are dramatically outselling film cameras don't necessarily mean that consumers on the whole prefer digital. It just means that people are purchasing a lot of digital cameras.
See, in the digital market, people are constantly buying new cameras because of the increase in resolution. Buying a new film camera won't really get you that, so there's not much need to constantly replace your trusty 35mm camera.
People with lots of disposable income buy digital cameras like they would buy an ipod or a any other "gadget" - not necessarily for functionality, but more for the "coolness" factor. Normally, these people wouldn't be in the market for a new camera, but digital is "in," so they buy one.
whilst I agree with you that film cameras are a good thing, mr and mrs joe bloggs want the best picture they can take with the least hassle possible - which is digital. They don't want to know what shutter speed setting they need or film to buy etc they just want to take photographs, therefore digital cameras are here to stay - until the next "easy" thing comes along.
If you were me, then I'd be you, oh look breasts
You know camera manufacturers are reluctant to give out details of their RAW formats? I have an idea why this may be the case.
.....
Suppose you have an image sensor that produces 2M pixels natively. Usually, 1/2 of the pixels are green, 1/4 are red and 1/4 are blue, in this pattern:
R G R G R G R G
G B G B G B G B
So you have to do some interpolation on this, based on assumptions about how much other-colour light is falling on each pixel but not being responded to. {"Interpolation" is just mathematician's speak for "guessing what comes inbetween"} Now while you are doing this process, you can easily interpolate the whole lot up to a 4M pixel, or even 8M pixel JPEG image, just by adding imaginary pixels inbetween the real ones and guessing how much light would have hit them.
When you come to look at the RAW data, though, it will be obvious that there are only 2M pixels in it.
And that is why I think camera manufacturers do not like to reveal their RAW formats. I challenge them to prove me wrong
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
What's next? Will IBM stop selling mechanical adding machines?
The answer is that many people all over are loosing a lot of precious photos.
I think after having this happen a few times people will wise up... but it's still hard for the average person to have a really good plan for backup.
In drastic cases people go to the HD recovery people and pay $500 to have photos extracted from a dead drive.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Will less film manufacturing cause a decline in silver demand?
And will the reduction in demand lead to a lower price?
Sig em Duke !
Get any Sony from the last year or any Canon with the DIGIC II processor (this does not include the G6, BTW). They have very little shutter lag.
And it isn't like SLRs don't have shutter lag anyway. They have to move the mirror box before taking the shot.
Batteries last a long time on digital cameras now. You don't need to change film stocks, because you can use photoshop to do that stuff, and if you leave it turned on by mistake, the battery will still be good weeks later because (as you point out), it will turn itself off automatically after 2 minutes.
Note that on the Sony DSC-T1 camera, you can turn the backlight OFF and read the LCD perfectly in broad daylight. It's a fantastic display. The DSC-T7 has the same LCD, it still looks great in direct sunlight, although you cannot turn the backlight off for some reason.
As to buttons and dials being clearly marked, again, you just need to get a decent camera. There are poor SLRs and there are good digital SLRs (and good digital SLRs too).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
If you really want quality, get a large format view camera. Can be had for half the price of a good digital SLR, and you get much higher resolution with film that size. Digital will not be able to touch it for the forseeable future, you just can't fit enough pixels into a CCD small enough to be economical, yet still big enough that a lens can resolve individual detail onto each pixel. You just have to get out of the mindset of taking 200 to 400 exposures in an afternoon, and into the mindset of taking 2 to 4.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
They're called Best Buy, Fry's, and Comp USA!
:) I started out with digital... progressing from a digicam to a prosumer cam to a DSLR... then went film. i now have 2 film SLRs now, and 2 film rangefinders. all of which STILL costs less than my D70... but produce just as good results if not better.
with film, i get 14MP scans with my film scanner, better colors, better exposure latitude (print film), better tonality (slide film), and a wealth of different films to shoot with... each with their own characteristics. with digital, i get 1 sensor and image processor, when i want a new one, i have to buy a new camera... and frankly, with digitial i find i have to process my photos a lot more in photoshop, and the results are less natural than with scanned film.
that said, here's a suggestion for film shooters who prefer a digital darkroom, or who primarily presents their work online instead of in print:
ask your film processor, e.g. Wal-Mart or Albertson's, if they'll develop your film only and skip the prints.
Wal-Mart does this for me for only $1.76 and it takes them only 15 minutes to do when they're not busy!
with the developed negatives, scan them in, process them yourself to your own preferences, and make your own prints. the Minolta Scan Dual IV is only $230 and will produce 90MB 16bit color files, 14MP resolution.
$1.76 is so much better than the $7-9 for prints... heck, you might not even want prints of all of the shots... the digital darkroom approach is much more cost effective in the long run.
the film processors generally don't advertise this option, but they'll do it, so just ask.
Amazing. I think they have a grossly inflated value to their classified materials. Does Greece even have enemies?
Turkey, especially on Cyprus.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Just because they bought a $400 digital camera and I have a $125,000 Fuji Frontier 370 doesn't mean their 1 megapixel photo is going to make a beautiful 8x10. Cramming 600 photos onto the memory card should not be the selling point of a digital camera.
35mm is obnoxious but has great applications in photography. I would hate to see it become obsolete.
What are you doing that 200 Gigs is not enough? I've got a 50 Gig hard drive and it's mostly empty despite all the *nix software I throw on it and pictures. You must have one hell of a porn collection!
It's only a matter of tyme before the biggest hd fills up. My documents partition is 85.4 GB and only has 4.05 GB free space. Some of the folders I have on it: arts, business, careers, economics, education, email, health, ands renewable energy. In my arts folder I'm setting up a db of info on movies I own and/or like, another one for music, and third for the photographs I took amoung other folders. I think I may end up repartitioning my hd before I get a new one, I've got my primary hd partitioned into 5 logical partitions. C: drive holds Windows, E: is where I install software, F: is my documents, G: is for temperary internet files, and H: is for swap.
Simply information expands to fill the space to hold it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Let's just say there's a reason that mag isn't called Professional Photographer. They're dead wrong. Trust me, I'm going for my PhD in Imaging Science.
Well, analog camera has one big advantage over digital camera: independent of power. I'm European, and if I leave this continent (heck, I only need to go to swiss or italy) I will be confronted with numerous different plugs and/or voltages and/or frequencies.
For now at least, film offers other advantages over ditigal cameras. One is resolution. Though digital cameras are catching up film cameras like SLRs and mediuum formats still have better resolution than digital cameras. And except for expensive ones SLRs have bigger frame sizes. Currently the digital camera that comes the closest to a good SLR is Canon's 16.7 MP EOS 1Ds Mark II with a price of $8000. A digital back for a medium format camera can cost more than that. And if you're going to be taking a lot of photos you're going to be needing it to be tethered to a computer, a laptop if you're in the field. To get the quality of a film camera in a digital setup a photographer may be required to take out a second mortgage on their house to afford it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Are you saying CDs are of inferior quality to audiotapes?
Yeap!!! CDs couldn't touch the quality of the Akai reel to reel tape deck I used to have. Boy I miss that desk and wish I still had it. Fact is is that analogue sound has continous sound waves whereas digital sound waves are discrete.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Assuming very-high-quality lenses and professional film, you can get 80-100 line pairs per millimeter of resolution on an analog camera. In a worst-case it takes 4 pixels to guarentee coverage of a line pair, that translates to about 100-150 megapixels for a standard 35mm, porportionately more for larger film sizes. In a typical case, you can probably get away with 25-40 megapixels. In most applications, today's 10-and-up-megapixel cameras are good enough, and for snapshots printed at 4"x6", 4-6 megapixels is plenty. However, if you have a high-end analog camera and routinely enlarge small bits of your film 100x for up-close viewing, today's digitals will be less sharp.
Granted, resolution isn't everything, and a good digital has a lot more dynamic range than most film, but it IS a factor.
Once you get 35mm-sized digital cameras up to the 25 megapixel range without costing an arm and a leg, film will truly be a niche market, in the same way that specialty films are today. That day may come before the end of the decade.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I have a Yashica medium, I hardly use it,
You may not find medium or large format film in most stores but then again you won't find these cameras in them either. I can get them in a shop near me though, NatCam or National camera Exchage. Have you seen Mamiya's medium format ZD? I'd rather get a 645 like Mamiya's AFD II or 645 AFD and get both a film and a digital back for it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
with companies like Canon IIRC playing silly buggers with their RAW file formats (e.g. taking legal action against open-source programs that allow you to download/modify the raw data from the camera because they make money off their own poorly-designed software that does the same thing)
This is the first I heard of Canon doing something like this. Nikon yes, by making their raw file format proprietary. I don't know why they would do anything like it, as it is now most of these file converters work only with one line of cameras and they don't loose money from having OSS people can use as they don't sale them, usually when you buy a camera it comes with the software. Many will also include something like Photoshop Elements. Speaking of Adobe, I like what their doing in trying to get different camera manufacturers to use standard file formats.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Try Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic
falconShould there be a Law?
I pine for thee!
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Though I didn't look in all the sections I liked your nature photos.
Im suprised you like to shoot in color then print b&w, you have a double hit of contrast lost in that workflow. If you are shooting slide film tho, you probably don't see the difference that much tho.
I like to shoot in colour because you can always print in B&W but your can't print in colour from B&W. Something I've been wanting to do is to hand colour B&W photos. I'm planning on upgrading to a Mac Powerbook in a few months and when I do I'd like to also get PhotoshopCS and a tablet. If I do then I'll try some hand colouring.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yea, the processing for C41 B&W is the same as for consumer level colour. The film companies came out with C41 so labs can use the same chemicals for it and colour.
Most digitals only shoot color anyway
Though it voids warranties on new cameras it is possible to modify digicams to shoot inferred. Digicams with inferred offers such startling photos, though I don't recall bookmarking any website I came across a few that had some terrific photos. I think Photo.net had some.
Its funny you liked the nature photos.
Other than inferred I love two areas of photography, nature and photojournalism. I don't get into shooting parties, weddings, or studio work. Occasionally is alright but that's it.
I just bought a wacom tablet, its great.
Tablets are much better than mice, amoung other things using a pen is much more natural than using a mouse and offers greater control and pressure sensitivity.
Falcon
Yea I know medium format doesn't work well with photojournalism but it allows big enlargements of nature shots.
Should there be a Law?
How does dixons get free Advertising? :)