Ok just an off beat topic here. I am surrounded by photographers, most of whom are digital, but now are swooshing back to analog like crows to roadkill. I'm not a film guy so I am neither here nor there on the subject. I do think it is an interesting trend though. Some of their reasons for switching back: 1. Most low end printers do not have archival ink. Believe it or not even printing with a printer can be fairly involved. 2. It just doesn't look as good as film. 3. Ending up with something you can hold in your hand How many of you actually print your pictures? Do you have a cheap printer or a pricey (1000's of $$) one? How many megapixels is acceptable resolution for you?
I've shot digital with my Canon A40 (4 megapixels) for about three years now, after using film exclusively for many more years than that. Now, I take both cameras along on my railfanning excursions because I'm working on expanding my photography skills. I'm pleased with many of the shots that I've taken with both cameras. I like that I can very quickly see the results with digital and that I can make my own quick prints at home, but I am finding more of a sense of permanence and better overall appearance again with film. Plus, you mentioned archival factors, and as a computer tech professionally, I'm always worried about the next hard drive failure. I know I don't have enough backups, and I'd like to get away from that problem. I plan to order some equipment to develop my film at home so I can save a little money on processing and print only the images that I really want, which will help reduce the amount of storage space needed. I've also got a couple older film cameras (including a Kodak Brownie from the 1940s; yes, 620 film is still available) that I want to experiment with, so home processing is going to become essential for me.
I have a Walgreens photo account, I can upload my digital photos and have prints made. After discussing this with my photogrpahy professor last semester, I settled on a Digital Rebel XT (maybe the XTi now if I can afford it)...he has his own studio and uses one with great results. Its not all in the camera guys, its the LENS!!!! Lens quality means everything. Right now, all of my pictures are backed up in two places, once a week, I go in a mirror my two computers, so if somethine were to happen to one, I still have 99% of the data on the other one. I hope to get a stand alone raid hard drive set someday for storage purposes...but thats $$$ I have been debating selling my Rebel T2 in order to get a Rebel XT or XTi. I may come closer to selling my A320 though.
I don't store anything on my hard drive. I keep at least two CD's burned. With data verified on both of them, checked on two computers. Boxcab E50
I definitely print my own on an Epson 2200, which was about $700 three years ago. I have 6 Mpixel Nikon DSLRs. An 11 x 17 costs me about $2 for the sheet of glossy photo paper and about $3 for archival ink. I can print up to 13 x 44. 6 Mp is just fine for 13 x 19. It's the quality of the pixel, and the quality of the lens, that makes the biggest difference. Digital image to digital print works swell. Analog to digital or analog to analog (except for an enlarger) depends on the quality of your scanner. The $499 Epson 4990 Phot0 scanner is the equivalent of a $40K drum scanner.
What am I missing? If one never prints more than an 8X10, is it cheaper to have your own photo printer, or is it cheaper to send it to the Wals (green or mart) or to the Kroger store? From what I have seen, the quality from the Wals is always as good and usually better than what I see from photo printers. Turn around from these online photo finishers and the much lower cost have kept me from even thinking about messing with an inkjet printer. All of my experiences with ink jet printers has been at best awful. So what am I missing? Is there a great reason to have photo printer if you can live with the online delivery time of two days? Thanks, Joe Daddy
1. Not true. Even $150 Epson or Canon printers have archival inks. 2. That's subjective. 3. You can get prints from digital to hold in your hands. I print my own pictures. My wife uses places like Shutterfly. My printer is a years old Canon S820 that I paid about $250 way back when. Any DSLR is perfectly acceptable. It's not the number of pixels but rather the quality of the pixels. DSLRs have much larger photon sites (a pixel) due to their larger sensors. I've been mucking around with cameras for over 25 years. The last 6 years have been totally digital and I will never go back to film. The DSLRs of today's world is so much better. I get better results with my D70 than if I scanned some of my older negatives with a Nikon Coolscan IV.
I switched to digital last Christmas and the one question I have not found an answer to is "does a digital image that is projected onto a screen measure in up quality to a slide"?
I have done this many times and it all depends on several factors. If the picture is high resolution with lots of pixels, such as a jpg greater than say 500KB it is probably going to look great. If it looks great on your PC screen it should look as good on the projector. Resolution of the screen of your PC is the other issue coupled with a projector that will project at least a 1024x768 screen should work fine. Breaking it down if it is a 'garbage' low res picture, the projector will follow the garbage in garbage out law of computing. I show hot rod pictures during the breaks when I teach classes and we show candid shots of students as well. Now I am not a perfectionist, but they are every bit as good as my Dad's old kodachromes were. IMHO. Joe Daddy
Don't know about projecting pictures, but as for printing them, I get very good results with my Epson inkjet set for high quality photo paper. The originals are 6 megapixel, and I have shown one produced thus and another regular Kodak print to people and asked which was done on the Epson. No-one could notice any difference in quality. And yes, there are injet inks which will last MANY years, so will efinitely be ok for the rest of my life
Regards "Projecting", consider scanning your slides, massaging them as needed with PhotoShop, or equivalent, then burning CD or DVDs. We scanned ~7000 slides with a Konica/Minolta and the end results displayed better than the original slides in most cases. BTW, the scanner has a resolution of 2800 DPI, and firmware that removed most dust spots and the like.
Alan, I will not get into the quality of the picture debate, having seen output from inkjets that rival the best and the worst photo processing work. But I will ask the cost. From every thing I can tell, it is indeed more expensive to use the ink jet, especially for smaller prints where there are so many sources of prints for 15-20 cents for 4*6 or even lower. I see only two potential advantages for the inkjet. First is possibly quicker - You can possibly get the pictures quicker than sending them to an online developer, but you certainly would have a hard time printing them in quantity faster than a one hour service. If you live remote, no issue. Second larger formats are available for inkjets, huge even. Am I missing something? BTW, I have no patience with putzing around, tweaking printers, which are typically the most contankerous devices on a personal computer. my 2 cents
I am not looking to print lots of pictures at high speed. But if I want to, I can have a good quality print in my hands just minutes after taking the photograph. Anyone remember the original Polaroid 'instant' cameras? We have moved one a long way since then.
Yes. My wife had one. Their popularity wasn't really that long ago. But now sure seems that way. mg: Boxcab E50
Another reason that some people print their own is the sense of total control. They can crop to the pixel (ok, I'm exaggerating a bit here. ), tweak the colors, saturation, etc.
It's cheaper to print small 4 x 6 prints at your local grocery, if they can accept your big Jpegs. More and more can, but at first it gave them fits.
Since I purchased my Nikon D-50, I doubt I will ever shoot film again. This after wearing out three Pentaxes. I print my own and get them printed elswhere. Local grocery charges $2.49 per 8X10. As soon as I get home I'll post some from the trip. At the moment we're in Santa Clarita, CA at daughter's. Wedding last Saturday in Kingman, AZ of our granddaughter--with digital, the whole family has already seen on their own computers all of the pictures my daughter shot. Mine will follow soon thanks to grandson posting them on one of the online viewing sites, before I even get home. Can't do that with film. And, I'm sure Pete will confirm that the Nikon batteries are bulletproof and ever so long lasting. I love this camera. :teeth:
Well, maybe. When you do things you don't normally do, such as shoot in a drenching rain, or download from the camera to the laptop, battery life changes. I have never seen a Nikon go from 90% charged to 10% charged in a time period of about 45 minutes. But then, I've never seen the command panel go wild, either, when water got into it. Oh well, live and learn. . . I WILL pack a battery charger next time.:teeth:
Don't know about Nikon and others, but Canon provided a PROM update for the Rebel XT that I was able to download and install. The update included many tweaks and corrections, including a better battery monitor and control. Check your manufacturer's support webpage for whichever camera model you have, they may just have an update.....?
