[Leica] Film, a few thoughts.

[kleinp at BATTELLE.ORG (Klein, Peter A)]

Harrison:  Good thoughts, all.

I find myself thinking much like you. But I still find myself lusting
after this week's edition of the perfect digital camera, which is
starting to look like the M8.  

I too have found Costco's services to be a godsend.  For ten bucks a
roll, I get prints, I get decent C-41 developing, and I get JPGs that
are the equivalent of a 6 megapixel digital camera in resolution.  If I
tell them to preserve highlight detail, the JPGs are usually adjustable
to my liking for web use or even a 5x7 inkjet print.  If I want bigger,
I scan with my Canon FS4000.

A Pro B&W lab here will do much the same for traditional B&W film,
giving me 16-bit TIFFs, but minus the prints. For $15 per roll.

All that said, I think I would use an M8 more than film if I had one.
And I wonder if that really makes sense or not.  Economically, it
doesn't make sense.  I'm not a pro photographer.  Last night I counted
up my shooting for the last two years.  Per year, it comes to about two
dozen 36 exposure rolls of film, plus about 1,034 digital frames, the
equivalent of not quite 29 more rolls of film.  That's the equivalent of
53 rolls per year total.  If I shot that much film, it would save about
$925/year in film costs, assuming $5/roll for the film.

But I doubt I would shoot nearly that much if I didn't have the E-1. I
didn't before I got it.  So the supposed savings would actually be less.
Probably more like three dozen rolls, tops.  So it's more like $630. At
that rate, it would take 7.5 years to pay for an M8.

Why shoot digital?  It's the time factor.  Re-scanning the good shots
takes time.  Hassling with negatives, dealing with scratches, it takes
time.  And storage space.  I have three years of negs and prints piled
on a work table, and other stuff scattered all over the house.  The
ability to experiment and see the results immediately is wonderful.

For really important stuff, I still shoot film.  For friend's and
relatives' weddings, travel, or projects in B&W, it's film.  Certainly
it's film for available light, as my E-1 is too noisy to shoot at 800
without a lot of postprocessing work.  And for things that need a lot of
fine detail, or a lot of dynamic range, film is still "it."  And I
really like the look of some film.

But for a family event like my mother's 85th birthday party, or a casual
weekend walkabout such as I posted last night, I take the E-1.  It just
seems the best way to get it done fast enough.  The files the E-1
generates under reasonable conditions need little post-processing.  I
take the E-1 even though I'd much rather be shooting an RF.  Now if I
had an RF digital, I'd probably be taking it most of the time.  And if
it had resolution approaching the films I use, which the 5 megapixel E-1
and the 6 megapixel DSLRs decidedly do not, I might use it more than
film.

Maybe this is my equivalent of the middle-aged "hot red sports car."
Maybe I just want to keep up with the times.  Maybe I've been
brainwashed by a cabal of sinister marketing executives.  But when it
comes down to it, I still just plain *want* a good digital RF.  Or at
least a more affordable digital camera more usable for my style of
shooting.  I'm working through this through myself, so I reserve the
right to change my mind next week.   :-)

One thing I can tell you--if I had to carry a huge pro DSLR for work,
I'd want to ditch it for my personal work, too. As I quipped several
years ago, I don't want to be toting a hulking behemoth with a honking
bazooka.  :-)

--Peter


Harrison wrote:

> Why would I shoot film, when I have one of the best digital cameras 
> made? For me there are several reasons.

> First is that I get to use my Leica M6es more. Those are, to me,
simply 
> the best photographic tools I have ever used. They are a no nonsense 
> camera. Somehow the M's seem to "get out of the way" of my creative 
> shooting and allow me to make photos that I like better and easier
with 
> less thought than any SLR I have used.

> Second I like dropping my film off, going back picking up the negs, 
> prints and a CD...all done and ready to put in a scrap book or
whatever. 
> With digital I have to download, edit and then put on a CD take to the

> lab and get prints made. The ability to edit and do final prep work on

> the images is why I like Digital for work, but I HATE it for personal 
> photos. I do more than enough of that junk on a daily basis for paying

> customers, do not care to do it for myself. I am just too lazy. LOL

> I have discovered that at Costco they give excellent prints at a very
> cheap price, also the photos they place on CD are more than adequate
for 
> putting on the web, or other things I need a digital file for. Should
I 
> need a larger file from a film image I can always scan it with my
Nikon 
> 4000 and get a 40 meg scan.