Reply To: Getting a new camera- digital vs film

[staplermofo]

Right now I’m kind of just researching and trying to figure out which is better for me. I think $1000ish CDN is the maximum I’ll be willing to go at this point, although more is doable it would mean saving up for longer.

With that kind of budget you could get one hell of a digital camera (fancy D-SLR with lenses) and crazy storage (ie, a 2 gig card, a DVD burner and 100 DVDs) and gobs of prints.

Two things I’m worried about with digital (aside from the storage issues…) which have me still sticking with film are the actual colour tones from a digital camera and the pixelation for resizing. I’m assuming that if I want prints I can take the memory card to a photo shop and just give them the numbers, else the cost of buying a high-quality printer/ink/paper would be prohibitive.

Regarding the colour…I’ve not seen a digital image that has as true a representation as a film-based one. Perhaps I’ve been seeing images from poor quality cameras, I’m not sure. Digital images also seem to lack a kind of “warmth” that film ones have, though I’m not entirely sure if that’s my imagination playing the romantic.

If I want to blow up an image to 8×10, 11×14, or larger, I don’t want to have the image become too pixellated. Obviously, this isn’t a concern with film, but with digital it may be. How well do digital images enlarge?

I don’t know about 11×14, but even with my Canon A620 I can crop quite a bit and still get really nice 8×10 prints. I’m sure with a fancier camera you could print larger. It’s not quite film quality, but it’ll take some squinting to see a difference (at least for me).
As for tones, you can check out full-size images here: http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/
It varies camera to camera, but again, with your budget you should find something you can be very happy with. I’m sure you can find someone on here that could give you a full-size image of the camera you’re looking at if you want to try one the many, very easy to use online printing services out there. There are usually coupons out that’ll let you try at least one service for free, if not a couple. So definitly try before you buy.

I do enjoy shooting in black & white, though perhaps a digital colour image stripped to grayscale would work. I’ve not tried it.

(I know nothing about B&W)

Opinion #2

See if you like the Nikon D50 (digital, $400(US) factory reconditioned). You can get a 2 gig card for about $60(US) and a refurbed Nikon N75 for about $140 (US). That leaves you a nice $275 (US) for lenses, so you should be able to find something respectable that’ll fit both bodies. They’re both pretty entry-level, but they’re award-winning and well-loved.

I just ordered a D-SLR myself, if you were wondering why I had these prices so handy.