[Leica] Trip to the Sequioas: analog and digital, like steel and wood

[attinasi at mac.com (Marc Attinasi)]

My family took a nice week long vacation to see the giant Sequoia trees 
in Central California, in the Sequoia National Park and surrounding 
areas. I brought a digital camera, the Digital Rebel, an OM2 and M7, 
along with an Olympus XA pocket camera that failed and had to be left 
in the suitcase. It was 5 days of hiking, shooting, and generally 
enjoying a chance to take pictures of beautiful things.

The DRebel performed beautifully and I had to recharge batteries only 
once. That was great, and I filled 4 256K cards in 4 days had to shoot 
only film the last day (no computer to transfer images to, which was 
intentional). The digital was a blast to shoot with and I am growing 
more and more fond of auto focus all the time ;-)  The M7 is like 
second mature to me, I don't even think about the camera when I use it, 
though the slide film was a bit darker than I expected so maybe I 
better get back to thinking about the camera a bit! the AUTO mode has 
spoiled me I think. The OM2, as always, worked great.

So now that the films have come back and the digital images have been 
edited I have to say that for shooting environmental pictures, 
landscapes and people in nature, digital is a far cry from film. True, 
my digital camera is not the best, but then neither is my OM2, and the 
images from the OM2 at 16" X 20" BLOW AWAY the digitals. Even at 8" X 
12" the prints from the digital are nowhere near as smooth, bright or 
crisp as those from the Fuji Reala negs or Provia slides, from either 
the Leica or the Olympus.  For portraits of the family, the digital 
does OK, particularly when I use a nice Canon L lens (or even the 50 
prime), but for the nature shots... well I hate it!

But for ease of use, and for carrying around and shooting, the digital 
is great. No film, no processing, and I can show the kids their picture 
instead of the back of a camera after I take it (funny how kids always 
want to see the picture after I take it, and how disappointed they are 
when it is not there on the back of the camera) :-)  And scanning all 
of this film is a total nightmare and will take me literally months...

The key is to use the right tool for the job. I have found over the 
course of a week and about 500 shots that film is far superior to a 6MP 
prosumer DSLR for nature shots. I'm fortunate to have both digital and 
analog gear, but if I had to choose one, it would be the analog gear 
for sure. I hope and pray that I can keep getting good film and good 
processing for the rest of my life.

OK I'm done blabbering now. I wonder what other people think about all 
of this?

Cheers!
- marc