Film or Digital

[DanNV]

I have a 20d and love it. I did find, however, that it doesn't like cheep lenses at all. The 28-90 that worked fine with my ELan 7E wouldn't give me a sharp picture for anything on the 20d. Upgrading glass solved that problem. I purchased a Tamron 28-75 Xr Di lense from Jason at Unique.

I also have an RB67 for sale. Two lenses, two back and hte body. I'm looking for about $600 out of it. Let me know if that's a direction you'd like to go.

Dan

[Bonner]

In my opinion, scanned images never look as "clean" as a high quality digital capture.
-Jim

[DavidMoyle]

I agree with you 100%, at least not from a desktop scanner. I've seen some high-end scans from service bureaus that are awesome, but they cost quite a bit. I've had allot less clean-up to do since going digital.

[vsrdan]

I agree with Chipbulgin. If you are going to buy Mamiya, that's the best thing to do. Buy a good film scanner and whenever you want you can make your pictures digital with that. People say these new digital cameras (such as 20D) are 'exceptionally good' .. well the fact is they are not profssional quality cameras (unless you spend all your $3000 + some more on buying one - still it wouldn't be even nearly professional to your Mamiya). I was having the same dilemma few days ago and did extensive search and product testing at dealers on digital SLR's. In my opinion, this is not the time to invest on a digital SLR of ANY kind if you already don't have a good camera. Their features are very very limited compared to a traditional film SLR and they ALL have less control over what you are doing. Moreover, almost all of these have one or more very bad features along with all the good features (for example, flash sync. at low shutter speeds, low battery life, no apature control on lens, doesn't come with all required software, very limited 'scene modes', to name a few) In other words, they all are 'ameteurish'. If you really want a digital SLR, wait some more time until they refine the technology and make better ones. The ONLY advantage of having a digital SLR right now is that you save money on films/developing and the results are quickly detectable (over a computer).

I ended up buying a new lens for my old Nikon (film) SLR and a film scanner (Konica/Minolta). BTW I have a point-and-shoot type 4MP digital camera just for day-today work.

-Dan

[ChipBulgin]

I'm hearing some good things about the new Epson 4990 PRO flatbed scanner (can scan up to 8x10 transparencies) in conjunction with 3rd. party wet film holders, but that sounds kind of tedious. On the other hand, it costs me $40 and up to have 4x5 slides drum scanned, so I only do it when the client is paying. If I could get more than decent 4x5 scans from ~$800 worth of equipment, I'd buy it.

As a follow-up to my previous post, I discovered today that Minolta has recently ceased production of the MultiScan Pro, their medium format film scanner.

[vsrdan]

Absolutely... if you have urgent and busy clients liek that a digital is a must have.

-Dan(2)

[LarryDehring]

Canon EOS systems will work on the canon 20D and its a fine camera I believe you like it as much as I do. With what is left over you can get some glass to go with it.

I believe you Like It.
LARRY

[DeanP]

Thank you all for the comments. I believe im going to stay with film for a while and maybe look into a scanner that will handle med format films. One day maybe i will make the move to digital. Also thinking of geting a lower end, but still decent digital to start learning how they operate so when im ready to be serious with digital shooting i will have a little more understanding and experience behind me.

Im kinda hooked on developing film and prints right now and not sure im ready for something different.

Arguments for both sides have been educational for me. I hope to continue to learn from the folks in GG.

Thanks again,
Dean

[Art]

Good choice. You won't regret it.

Art. (Still lighting my fires by rubbing two sticks together...)

Just look at all that crap on the side of his face! Does that look human...or natural to anyone? In the shadows, Film kicks the ass out of digital!

Shot with the 20D body, with the 10-22mm lens at 10mm, iso 100, F11 125th/sec with strobe flash... Now, some call that mess in the shadows "noise" but it isn't noise...it is simply the inability to process data in the shadow areas... Dark things are difficult for digital cameras...and some will say that the 10D or the D30 would have not produced this sort of problem...true, but the image quality would have been much worse.. The 20D has much better laditude than that of the 10D and D30 cameras.. or 1D which I have seen side by side..

This was simply a screen grab from a portion of a 300ppi image that I will soon be getting printed for my book.. Is it really noticable? Yes. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

JP