Digital Or Film SLR?

[jyl]

I've been looking with great interest at the latest crop of digital SLRs. Models like the Canon D20 have finally advanced to the point where I could see using one instead of my film SLRs. (The top-of-the-line EOS-1D/1DS have been there for a while, but they remain unaffordable for me.)

On the other hand, the move to digital has left lots of film SLR gear very reasonably priced on eBay. For the price of a D20 plus two good EF USM zooms, I could get an awful lot of great Canon FD glass. For example, I could pick up the FD 35-105mm f3.5, the FD 200mm f2.8, the FD 80-200mm f4.0 and even the awesome FD 300mm f2.8L for the same total price (or less). Together with the FD 16mm f4.0, FD 24mm f2.8, FD 50mm f1.4 and T-90 and A-1 bodies that I already have, I could have a heck of a system - from superwide to tele, with some nice fast lenses.

I've been shooting with manual-focus film cameras for a long time and don't feel any particular need for AF. I've already got a point/shoot digital for the kids' birthdays etc. I like the ease of manipulating digital images, but I could simply get the film developed and run the best shots through a negative scanner.

What do the photo buffs here think? Who is wrestling with the same dilemma?

[StevoRocket]

Film - I remember those days - get a Nikon D70 - sell your Cannon stuff on Ebay and buy the 35mm Nikon kits that people are selling complete with zoom lenses, bags and filters and flashes. Sell the 35mm bodies with a standard lens and that leaves you with a D70 and lots of lenses for little money.

[morganb]

I still prefer film. (Maybe its age) Even my brothers 5 M-Pixel digital SLR does not give as good results as my T90 Canon.
Best results are still from film at the moment as every scanner will have some limit on the resolution. If you are not making large prints then this will be no issue but for large (poster) prints you will see a difference in qulaity.
I love the digital for ease of use and use it most of the time but on important occassions I always take a few with the tradional film.

[928ram]

Still in question is the true archival abilities of digital images, by true I mean other than what those selling the eqip. are saying. It's been sayed that an entire generation will lose it's memories witht he rise of digital into the marketplace.
If you are looking to make prints at home; a digital "darkroom" as it were, there is a much deeper investment in equipment, supplies, and software that needs to be considered. If you're having your prints processed at a lab, there's really no advantage to either medium, since to final output arrives on true photo paper.
The death of film is nowhere in sight; consider that you can still purchase 110 film, and reports of it's demise most likely are rooted in marketing by digital product companies. The point and shoot market has, and will continue to go all digital, these are the snapshooters and "simple" rules this market. The film market is currently and will continue to divide into two distinct markets; snapshooters and throw-away users who will buy the chaeper films and the throw-away cameras, and the advanced amatuer+ crowd who will continue to migrate to the more advanced and pro films. At the very least, one should shoot with several pro level films before committing full digital.
I have arsenals of each EOS and FD gear plus some other '60's 35mm gear which satisfies the collector in me, I shoot them all and they all produce excellent photos. By far the most common thing you'll see stuck to my face is a T90 with a 35-105 mounted, followed by my EOS 3 with a variety of long glass mounted. I had the 10D for a while but once the newness of the gagetry wore off, I was quickly bored with the digital side; I do carry with me a Nikon Coolpix which I use in place of carrting a Polaroid plus for e-mail destined snapshots.
All of that being said: You can't go wrong building a system of modern high-quality Canon or Nikon lenses around either a film or digital body because using both mediums is just a matter of buying the other body; good glass and far more a good eye/brain are what produce great photographs, the camera is just a box to keep them in.

[jyl]

Thinking about this some more, it may come down to the lenses (as it often does, in photography).

If I went further down the FD route, I could assemble the following set of glass: FD 17mm f4.0 (have), FD 24mm f2.8 (have), FD 50mm f1.4 (have), FD 35-105mm f3.5 ($180 on eBay), FD 200mm f2.8 ($140), FD 80-200mm f4.0 (have), and FD 300mm f2.8L ($700). This would be a pretty wide range of focal lengths (17mm to 300mm), reasonably fast (a f2.8 or faster choice at most focal lengths), mostly consumer-grade glass, for around $1,000.

If I went the digital route, I'd have to use zooms to keep this affordable. There are so many choices, but just skimming over the catalog, maybe the 17-40mm f4.0 ($650 street price), 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 ($200), 75-300mm f4.0-5.6 ($160), and a fast 50mm f1.4 ($100?). Anyway, I could do this for about $1,100. I'd have bought the least expensive consumer-grade lenses. I'd be giving up the super-wide end (17mm x 1.5 multiplier = 26mm is as wide as I could get). And I'd have fairly slow lenses; f3.5 or f4.0 would be my fastest choice at most focal lengths. On the positive side, I'd have a nice telephoto end (300mm x 1.5 = 450mm).

Since the digital route would also require buying a body ($1,600 for 20D body-only) and memory cards, I couldn't hope to accumulate the higher-end or faster Canon EF glass any time soon. I wouldn't buy the new lenses that are specifically designed for the APS-sized image chips - I want the glass to be usable on film and full-frame digital SLRs too.

So, this leads me to two questions.

First, how would the FD lenses I've described compare with the EF lenses I've described (or an alternative set for roughly the same price?) In optical quality, durability, and "feel"?

Second, how much can in-camera digital ISO adjustment compensate for the slower EF lenses? When shooting indoors with a 20D and a f4.0 lens, can I simply set the ISO to 800? What do you lose in image quality, etc, by cranking up the ISO?

Thanks to the photo buffs for helping me figure this out.

[targa911S]

I have the Canon digital. The are great for the internet. sending photos to people, posting pics, web sites and stuff. But good clear creative photos are still best with a 35 mm SLR to me. Just my .02

[techweenie]

Originally posted by jyl
Thinking about this some more, it may come down to the lenses (as it often does, in photography).

If I went further down the FD route, I could assemble the following set of glass: FD 17mm f4.0 (have), FD 24mm f2.8 (have), FD 50mm f1.4 (have), FD 35-105mm f3.5 ($180 on eBay), FD 200mm f2.8 ($140), FD 80-200mm f4.0 (have), and FD 300mm f2.8L ($700). This would be a pretty wide range of focal lengths (17mm to 300mm), reasonably fast (a f2.8 or faster choice at most focal lengths), mostly consumer-grade glass, for around $1,000.

If I went the digital route, I'd have to use zooms to keep this affordable. There are so many choices, but just skimming over the catalog, maybe the 17-40mm f4.0 ($650 street price), 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 ($200), 75-300mm f4.0-5.6 ($160), and a fast 50mm f1.4 ($100?). Anyway, I could do this for about $1,100. I'd have bought the least expensive consumer-grade lenses. I'd be giving up the super-wide end (17mm x 1.5 multiplier = 26mm is as wide as I could get). And I'd have fairly slow lenses; f3.5 or f4.0 would be my fastest choice at most focal lengths. On the positive side, I'd have a nice telephoto end (300mm x 1.5 = 450mm).

Since the digital route would also require buying a body ($1,600 for 20D body-only) and memory cards, I couldn't hope to accumulate the higher-end or faster Canon EF glass any time soon. I wouldn't buy the new lenses that are specifically designed for the APS-sized image chips - I want the glass to be usable on film and full-frame digital SLRs too.

So, this leads me to two questions.

First, how would the FD lenses I've described compare with the EF lenses I've described (or an alternative set for roughly the same price?) In optical quality, durability, and "feel"?

Second, how much can in-camera digital ISO adjustment compensate for the slower EF lenses? When shooting indoors with a 20D and a f4.0 lens, can I simply set the ISO to 800? What do you lose in image quality, etc, by cranking up the ISO?

Thanks to the photo buffs for helping me figure this out.

jyl: as a convert to digital of 3 years, I have some opinions. I went from a Nikon F3 to an Olympus RS-100. Resolution was low (2.1MP) by comparison to current cameras, but the Olympus cost about what I got from selling all the Nikon stuff... The Olympus added an anti-motion control that turned out to be an unexpected boon in low-light shooting. The low resolution was deceptive. I was able to enlarge images in PhotoShop with surprisingly little loss.

Ultimately, needing (I thought) more resolution, i got a Canon Digital Rebel, after extensive research. In truth, I'm unimpressed with the results vs. the Olympus. I don't have a macro lens, so I bought a little $200 Fujifilm to take care of that stuff, and end up using it more than the Canon.

I recommend borrowing/renting and spending time with whatever camera you're thinking about before buying. You'll also need a very good image-maniputation program (PhotoShop is really the only recommendation) because it will work miracles on images, once you figure it all out.

Oh, and an important point: focal lengths with digital SLRs are not necessarily equivalent to 35mm focal lengths. Your 28mm lens may effectively be a 40mm lens on a digtial body, meaning that to get true (film) wide-angle you may have to go into expensive fish-eye range.

[concentric]

Originally posted by 928ram
Still in question is the true archival abilities of digital images, by true I mean other than what those selling the eqip. are saying. It's been sayed that an entire generation will lose it's memories witht he rise of digital into the marketplace.

This won't be a problem if you practice good data management techniques. CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and hard-drives all have a shelf life, but the deterioration period for quality media in the CD-R range (which appears to have the shortest life-span, although DVD-R has not been out a long time) is about 10 years. With the amount of photos you'd really need to store (think about how many 640x480 jpgs you could store on ONE DVD-R), it's not that big of a deal to either replicate your media after a couple years or transfer it to the next emerging technology.

We have to think a lot about these issues, since most of the music information we use is stored digitally these days.

JCM

[StevoRocket]

Further to my earlier reply, I have been using digital since it first appeared - initially with Nikon film SLR in parallel.
Then I moved in 1998 to a Fujifilm 2700 1 megapixel then to a Canon S40 4 megapixel in 2001.
Then March this year I got a Sony F828 8 megapixel with a fixed zoom lens - and a tiny Minolta XT 3 megapixel as a take anywhere camera.

I also started using Webshots last Christmas to store a view- able copy of some photos on-line. I quickly used up the 3000 picture maximum. Anyone in the world with internet access can see them.

The rest of my 18000 pictures are on the computer - with a copy on a second hard drive. And copies of most on CD too.
I had a primary hard drive fail last October and again last month. So I take backup seriously. Fitting a second drive is simple and is the most convenient way to achieve full backup. I now use Norton Ghost to copy the entire C drive to the spare drive.

The Nikon D70 became a must have after reading every review I could find in a magazine or on line - it is universally praised.

I still have lots of other old 35mm and 110 cameras - Agfa, Minolta, Pentax etc but have'nt put a film in for processing since 2000.

[KNS]

I've been slow to move over to digital even though I have since purchased a dig. camera (Olympus C5050). I still shoot once in a while with my Nikon F2 and love it's contruction/durability. Film will be around for a while, it's still sharper. Nikon has just introduced their latest pro film camera, the F6. They wouldn't do that if they didn't think there was a future in film. On the other hand, more and more pros are turning to digital. If you take an expensive plunge with an SLR digital, go with a Nikon for lens compatabiltiy. You'll be glad you did years down the road.