Digital vs 35mm photography (Slides or Film)

Wow, where to begin... No matter where I begin, this story will not have a good ending. I will start by saying this... In this never-ending battle, the winner is irrelevant to a professional. However, most photographers are not professional, as shown by the "Majority" of "Opinions of the best" and "Actual camera sales". This obviously deserves an explanation, but I will hold-off on that until I have spouted my "Observations". Am I a pro? It doesn't matter when you are the artist looking for the best archival reproductions of his or her works. I am a professional consumer with the strictest standards for "My art".

Before I start to fill-in what many reviewers are leaving out, I would like to say... "I love digital cameras!", but "I love film more." However, I don't care for the many idiots writing reviews, delivering false hope and justifying lower quality at higher expenses, when they didn't have to work for the money spent on the devices, and only review to get "Props" from the people selling the devices, in hopes of keeping the device, getting a raise, getting sponsorship, keeping their job, or just seeming like they have some kind of educated knowledge beyond the instruction manual and advertisement publications.

To begin, I must say this first. Digital photo capturing devices have reached an inevitable limitation, as they always do. The best digital photo capturing devices are still out of the price-range of any normal consumer, and barely in the budget of a professional. They may be able to afford the camera initial purchase, but the life expectancy of the microscopic sensors and controllers makes it over the top. However, if you don't mind throwing away expensive equipment when it goes bad and becomes out-dated, then shop away!

Let me explain some of this with a wide-view perspective. I keep reading about comparisons of digital to film, and the people doing the comparison stop when they see grain on the film. That is unfair. There is detail within the grain, and on the grain. They also compare cheap film and film processing on cheap cameras with cheap lenses from non-professionals, to the "Pro Digital Cameras". However, they fail to show any real "Detail standard test", which I did see one, which a 20 mega-pixel camera failed horribly. It failed against a non-professional camera, non-pro lens, standard ISO consumer film, processed by a generic consumer developing lab. (EG, this pro digital camera failed standard detail/quality tests.)

What irked me more than anything was the failure to mention the cons of any and all digital cameras in these comparisons. Must be the "New owner glow", where you completely overlook the fact that you just wasted hundreds or thousands of dollars on something that is a guaranteed poor investment. Possibly in combination with the fact that the user is not actually a professional, as they strive to be, but biased reviews like they publish are keeping them from getting to that point. So, what are these overlooked and significant points that are "Always" left out of these spontaneous uneducated, unprofessional reviews?

To start, digital cameras have grain, more than any film. You can't get less by spending more and you can't ever remove it. Digital grain is part of the package when you are attempting to capture individual photons on super-sensitive and microscopic digital sensors. The smaller they get, the more grain you will see, and do see. Photograph pure white light, and pure blackness with any digital camera. What do you see? Digital grain. This also comes from decaying sensors, which happens faster when you add heat or light or time or power to any digital CCD. Basically, you have X-amount of photos you can take, before a CCD is no longer taking high quality shots. Most pro cameras seem to decay fast and live only a few years before they start taking Polaroid style, washed-out, spotted, photos with dead spots. Oh, dead pixels or sensors is another common issue, so common, that they explicitly say in the warranty that these "Natural" occurrences are not covered in any warranty or guarantee.

Should I stop there? Hell no! What do you do with a $10,000.00 camera when it goes bad? Have it repaired... If it dies within a two year period, is it worth repairing? After two years, you will only be able to get it repaired by them dissecting another perfectly operating device. They don't let these CCD's sit on shelves, they rot in time. They also stopped producing those older models, two years before they started selling them. (Takes time to make a million cameras. They don't start selling them until they can put one in the store, and keep three on the shelves.) So, you are already purchasing old technology, the minute you saw it released for sale. There is $10,000.00 down the drain, or another $5,000.00 to repair it with the $1,000.00 paperweight sitting on their shelves, for the first few years. After that 2 year period, they have to hunt down replacement parts, and they are all going to be sub-par, but functional if they can be found.

I know it seems like I am slamming, but I will end the digital camera review with a positive note, I promise! Now, back to the slaughter house. Speed and power are the two largest hurdles that digital cameras have to contend with. The good CCDs require massive power to detect these microscopic light changes, and to process them for display and storage. Storage has obvious limitations when you get into Gigabytes of raw data storage. Unless the camera is a super-computer also, it will never be fast. Imagine walking around with a camera that has a 300 Watt power-supply and ten laptop batteries to power it for two hours of photography. That is what you need to get the speed of the cheapest 35mm film camera. Speed between snapshots, not speed of the single snapshot.

Power mentioned above, is my last topic for review in the digital professional camera area, also for the consumer camera. Unlike a normal film camera which uses microvolts of power for light, millivolts for adjustments, and volts for a few occasional flashes. Digital cameras require ten times the power for simple display, twenty times the power for capture, and thirty times the power for storage and processing the final image. Translation, you need several large and expensive batteries for a few hours of operation. These batteries are heavy and bulky too. Battery technology is at a stand-still, however, processing and sleeping is getting better. However, it is the awake time that is important. Going into low-power when not being used is irrelevant, since you are not using the camera and saving only millivolts of power consumption.

The grand total of the cost to operate and own one of these devices is not even comparable to any other film camera. That $10,000.00 camera will need $5,000.00 a year to add adequate power from multiple batteries, and add in the energy cost required to charge them all hourly. Once you purchase the required pro-lenses, you can add another $10,000.00 onto that cost. Throw-in the required super-media computer and you have another $10,000.00 which includes any decent pro-digital photo software and all hardware for transferring and processing data in your lifetime. Add the power cost of operating that computer, $5,000.00 a year is modest for a professional computer. Your grand total for a generous four years of use, comes to $70,000.00 for the complete setup, and $60,000.00 required every four years. (The lenses will hopefully be recycled, but you would not continue using a four year old digital camera, or pay to have one that old repaired. The battery and power cost for operating was per year, so multiply that times four years to get $20,000.00 each.) Remember, you are PRO, so you are not taking only 100 photos a year, you are taking 1,000 a week or 52,000 a year or 208,000 in four years. Estimations are not as far-off as you would think. Consumers pay less for electricity than a business, and the hidden costs of fuel to tote this equipment from location to location and hours to process images at wages are in those numbers, modestly I might add.

Now back to film and slides. Obviously, slides have the best potential within the common speed limits. the ability to find high-speed ISO 1600 slides is not likely, though it does exist. On the opposite end, there is not a large market for ISO 50 slides. The most obvious advantage is the potential for additional detail with slides that you will not get from film of equal value. Why is that? Because of ISO, the standard size for 35mm film as a photo, is 5" X 7". Like with OEM parts for vehicles, most films will MEET that standard quality, and not spend additional money on frills. That is why they are standards, they guarantee that you do not get LESS, but never limit your ability to get MORE. The places that manufacture more into that standard, make it noted in the label or the price. The standard it for time and grain/quality. Each speed has an allowable level of grain in that standard. When you buy good quality pro films, ISO 1600 can be comparable to ISO 50, but ISO 50 will always be the better than most ISO 1600 of the same process.

When it comes to film and slides, you get what you pay for. Unfortunately, this is where I love digital more. You have to pay, and pay, and pay with film and slides. You also have to wait. This is where the digital is a better choice, and why it is still a consumer item, and not a professional staple for all pros. You have to pay for the film, for the development, for the print, possibly for delivery too. Even if you do it yourself, you still have to pay, and add hour-wages onto that bill. Since you have to pay, and you get what you pay for, obviously if you pay for cheap processing you will get quality that is lower than those pro digital cameras. That makes you unprofessional, not the photos. That also doesn't make the digital cameras better, it just makes them better than your photos. Stop going to the 1-hour photo on the street-corner, and stop using those nasty photos for your comparisons. Anyone can drive a Lamborghini fast, only a pro-racer with a pro-pit-crew can win the race.

What are the comparable costs of the 35mm SLR? A good pro camera body could cost you $5,000.00 but a $300.00 camera body will take the same photos. Modest pro film ISO 50 - 1600 with low grain can be purchased for $30,000.00 for 208,000 frames. Overpriced but trusted at $30,000.00 for developing all those into quality photos. Quality lenses $10,000.00. Batteries only for flashes possibly add up to $2,000.00 in four years. Every four years you only pay $32,000.00, since the camera and lenses should last nearly 30 years with modest repairs. If it comforts you, add $4,000.00 onto that four year cost. Compared to the $60,000.00 every four years for the digital, which is sub-par on these 35mm photos.

Now, if you are only photographing where quality needs to be adequate, printing only images smaller than 9" X 12", and intend to junk most of your shots, or work in disposable media... Than the digital method is perfect, as it will provide more than four years of adequate use, and the batteries can be fewer if you use wall-power, and you use a modest computer and have plenty of cheap hourly labor to process the many images at leisure. (AKA, the normal consumer application.) Go ahead, and buy that $10,000.00 camera and only fork-out $2,000.00 for a modest set of lenses. But don't boast about the quality being better, when it is clearly not, with the real pro-setup, which you don't even own. No-one cares about the guy in second place. They don't even care who wins first-place. Just don't expect to sell or show anything large enough to be inspected in detail with your digital camera, unless you don't mind the snide comments about the pixels. (EG, Don't print anything larger than a magazine cover.)