Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/09/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I use digital and traditional and both have a special place in my heart. Mostly I think of digital as 'creative playtime' and traditional as 'real playtime' because the work I do with either medium is different. Most of my snapshot work is done with digital anymore...because it's so darn cheap and so blasted fast. And did I say fun? I can get 100 sheets of Epson photo gloss paper at Costco for just under 20 bucks, shoot a card full of images, create 4-up contact sheets in Photoshop at a 250-300 dpi resolution, print them out, cut in quarters and VIOLA, insta-prints. I back up all my digital work to cd and keep them on file. And easy? Today I did a last-minute ad shoot for some friends who own a restaurant. My job was to shoot their very tired 5 year old with his very NOT tired 24-month-old brother. It was exhausting work...but fun. I could edit on the fly with my camera; delete what was awful, shoot more, keep some, delete, shoot again and so on. I came home, downloaded, created a contact sheet and the owners will proof out tomorrow. The final image will be emailed to the magazine for the ad and not a bit of photo paper will have been used. Is it expensive? Probably. But what I save on film and processing more than offset what I spend on inkjet ink and paper. No question. Rarely do I shoot color film anymore...unless I'm doing a wedding. My color work is digital 99% of the time. Black and white gets real film. Lea - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adam Bridge" <abridge@mac.com> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 9:37 PM Subject: RE: [Leica] re: how easy/expensive is digital > On 9/30/02 Austin Franklin wrote: > > > > >> i hate the process between > >> pushing the shutter and seeing the result. and i hate the darkroom. and i > >> hate developing film. and i hate spending money to have someone > >> else develop > >> it. > > > >Well, for $17, for 72 prints that make the in-laws happy, it's cheap. > > > >We are talking about two different uses. I am comparing, what I consider, > >comparable use...of course, when I shoot something for "art", it's developed > >by me, and printed by me...and I print very few...but the ones I print are > >spectacular, and they have a different audience. > > > > I think Kyle was addressing the typical uses of the LUG. I think most of the > conversation here is about more serious work and not snapshots. > > However, digital has completely changed the way I shoot snapshots. I take tons > of pictures, my wife takes tons of pictures, we pull 'em into the Mac either > with iPhoto or ImageCapture and toss out what we don't want - which is most of > 'em. I typically back up the images to CD before deleting unless there are a ton > of 'em I don't like. Then print the few images I want. I can write files from > Photoshop to CD and take them to PhotoSource in Sacramento and have them wet > printed. I've liked that result. > > This is all faster than shooting, taking in the film to be processed, printing a > bunch of 4 x 5's I don't want, and then taking the pictures back to be printed > larger. It's completely liberating to work this way because it's so cheap. My > wife loves it and has improved her photography greatly because she can see > better. > > This is with a D30. I don't like this camera very much, as I've said here > before. But it holds 700 images (jpeg) and does good job. Digital doesn't have > the latitude that film does. Exposures have to be done with greater care. Maybe > new sensor technology does a better job. But it's like the difference between > shooting HDTV and film - it's just so much harder to shoot digital than film - > but it's a lot cheaper too. > > So I guess I'm saying that digital has a different work-flow because the costs > are different. With a FireWire connection to the camera the process from capture > to sort is much faster than for film. > > I'd still like to have the R8 ergonomics/design with digital and FireWire > instead of film. > > Adam Bridge > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html > > - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html