I shoot digital U/W for fun and film - topside professionally. I don't mind handing off camera bodies to assistants to change film for me on land, but I'm with ssra30 that I wouldn't want to come to the surface after each roll. I have shot a few underwater jobs on film and it's a pain.
Digital V film
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RonFrank
Contributor
There are certainly a LARGE number of much better articles comparing the two formats. However I'm never clear on why it has to be a one or another thing. Here are a few statements I find rather off the mark...
"We now see digital cameras boasting high-resolution image-gathering devices, but often included in hardware with the optical-equivalent quality of a Box Brownie."
Technology AND manufacting capabilites have advanced greatly, and even the lenses found on lower end camera's (digital or otherwise) are very good, AND have zoom capabilities.
"This (the LCD)can be very useful, but it is only an approximation. The brightness of the image depends on the angle at which you view the LCD."
Obviously not familiar with a histogram....
"the obsession with seeing what you took often leaves you looking at the back of the camera when you might be better off seeing what your subject is doing."
Nice observation, but really not relevent to anything as it's the choice of the shooter.
"This (RAW) takes the pressure off "getting it right" at the time"
I would completely disagree with this approach to digital.
""Film can be shot as quickly as the flash can recycle, ready for the next shot. "
So can digital, pick a newer camera.
"This makes the housing for it that much bulkier and harder to handle in difficult currents than the equivalent NX-90 housing that I used with the Nikon F90X."
Again, based on the body. The D70 uses a much smaller housing vs. the S2Pro, and the F5 uses a bigger housing than the D70, what is the point?
"During our test, the digital camera happened to run out of battery power shortly after I started shooting. This meant getting out of the water and stripping the camera out of its housing to insert freshly charged batteries. Digital cameras go through a lot of battery power. "
Newbie, and rookie mistake. I'm rather surprised this was included, but the author seems to imply that this is a negative on digital. Camera's like the D70 do about a 1000 frames between charges. Sure film camera's use less power, but so what, they can't shoot hundreds of frames UW, and that is a big advantage to using digital.
"With the wet-film camera set to autofocus and full TTL exposure control (aperture-priority set to f/8), I am confident that I can jump into the water and get perfectly exposed pictures."
A good photographer can do the same with digital.
One major thing this guy did NOT bother to explain (likely he does not understand) is that the Fuji flash TTL is rather poor compared to film based camera's, and current Nikon iTTL models. Once he turned on the flash, he was comparing apples to oranges when using his standard film based TTL flash.
I guess the most disappointing thing about this review is here is a guy that is obvoiusly NOT comfortable with shooting digital comparing the two mediums, and drawing conclusions that are based on what? I was amazed of the complete lack of any photo evidence to support the conclusions. The shot provided IMO were a joke.
Another issue is the fact that scanners have a heck of a lot of software built in to increase dynamic range (DEE in Nikon).
There are so many flaws in the testing approch used it's hard to know where to begin, not the least of which is choosing to use the older S2 Pro, and acting like Sensia is some middle of the road film when in fact it has some of the best grain charasteristics on the market.
In any event I found the article so biased towards film that I did not have to read the conclusion to know the outcome. Is it valid? Well IMO no, and less so if one looks at camera's like the D2x/Canon 1Ds Mark II.
"We now see digital cameras boasting high-resolution image-gathering devices, but often included in hardware with the optical-equivalent quality of a Box Brownie."
Technology AND manufacting capabilites have advanced greatly, and even the lenses found on lower end camera's (digital or otherwise) are very good, AND have zoom capabilities.
"This (the LCD)can be very useful, but it is only an approximation. The brightness of the image depends on the angle at which you view the LCD."
Obviously not familiar with a histogram....
"the obsession with seeing what you took often leaves you looking at the back of the camera when you might be better off seeing what your subject is doing."
Nice observation, but really not relevent to anything as it's the choice of the shooter.
"This (RAW) takes the pressure off "getting it right" at the time"
I would completely disagree with this approach to digital.
""Film can be shot as quickly as the flash can recycle, ready for the next shot. "
So can digital, pick a newer camera.
"This makes the housing for it that much bulkier and harder to handle in difficult currents than the equivalent NX-90 housing that I used with the Nikon F90X."
Again, based on the body. The D70 uses a much smaller housing vs. the S2Pro, and the F5 uses a bigger housing than the D70, what is the point?
"During our test, the digital camera happened to run out of battery power shortly after I started shooting. This meant getting out of the water and stripping the camera out of its housing to insert freshly charged batteries. Digital cameras go through a lot of battery power. "
Newbie, and rookie mistake. I'm rather surprised this was included, but the author seems to imply that this is a negative on digital. Camera's like the D70 do about a 1000 frames between charges. Sure film camera's use less power, but so what, they can't shoot hundreds of frames UW, and that is a big advantage to using digital.
"With the wet-film camera set to autofocus and full TTL exposure control (aperture-priority set to f/8), I am confident that I can jump into the water and get perfectly exposed pictures."
A good photographer can do the same with digital.
One major thing this guy did NOT bother to explain (likely he does not understand) is that the Fuji flash TTL is rather poor compared to film based camera's, and current Nikon iTTL models. Once he turned on the flash, he was comparing apples to oranges when using his standard film based TTL flash.
I guess the most disappointing thing about this review is here is a guy that is obvoiusly NOT comfortable with shooting digital comparing the two mediums, and drawing conclusions that are based on what? I was amazed of the complete lack of any photo evidence to support the conclusions. The shot provided IMO were a joke.
Another issue is the fact that scanners have a heck of a lot of software built in to increase dynamic range (DEE in Nikon).
There are so many flaws in the testing approch used it's hard to know where to begin, not the least of which is choosing to use the older S2 Pro, and acting like Sensia is some middle of the road film when in fact it has some of the best grain charasteristics on the market.
In any event I found the article so biased towards film that I did not have to read the conclusion to know the outcome. Is it valid? Well IMO no, and less so if one looks at camera's like the D2x/Canon 1Ds Mark II.
Actually Ron, you will be interested to know that John (the author) has pretty much converted to digital full time now.
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