DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2008-11-17, Christopher Tidy wrote:
DoN. Nichols wrote:
[ ... ]
Hmm ... my Nikon D70 is probably around 5 years now, and it is
still working fine. And -- it uses lenses from the earlier film Nikon
cameras.
In my mind the 5 year figure was referring to compact digital cameras,
as opposed to digital SLRs. With a good digital SLR you may do better.
But any digital camera suffers from the problem that it is usually
impossible to repair and refurbish faulty parts, so when the supply of
spare parts dries up, you can no longer fix the camera.
With a DSLR, by the time that point is reached, you will also be
very tempted to move to a newer one -- higher resolution, more features,
etc -- and keep your glass (lenses) and other accessories. When the
quality stabilizes at some physically-imposed limit (quantum mechanics
and such), you will probably find that the repair parts will remain
available for much longer.
But if you take two cameras for which spares are no longer readily
available, one a mechanical film camera and the other a digital camera,
the mechanical film camera will always be easier to repair when
something goes wrong.
For me, having the highest possible resolution is not my first priority.
If it was, I would shoot large format. But as I'm not the world's best
photographer, I want the chance to take more pictures than large format
allows. So I want good resolution (and 35 mm film resolution is pretty
good, despite many claims to the contrary) at a reasonable cost per
frame. But I also want a camera which lasts, so I choose film over digital.
And the
repairman's task is not helped by the fact that a digital camera is so
complex that a single person cannot be familiar with the detail of how
each part functions.
Granted -- but typically repairs are like those with computers
these days -- not component replacement, but sub-assembly replacement,
so as long as the ability to trace the problem down to a given
sub-assembly is present, the ability to repair will remain within the
capabilities of a single repairman.
I think computers are way ahead of cameras in terms of ease of repair,
because standardisation is so widespread.
It's a personal thing. I like the idea that I've got a camera that I can
always get fixed.
Perhaps -- though the number of people capable of working on
them is slowly reducing.
I know of two good repairers at present, and they weren't too difficult
to find. But I think it's easier to find repairers who specialise in the
higher quality film cameras.
O.K. Of course, certain parts are no longer available for my
Nikon F cameras and it's lenses.
I've got a Nikon F2 system. I think a Nikon F2 is easier to get repaired
than an F, although you can't get spares for either from Nikon.
Unless you drop a manual focus lens, they'll pretty much last forever.
Especially the early ones with the scalloped focusing ring. Those are
wonderful. I have just the 85 mm f/1.8 in that series, but I want to
acquire more (cash permitting). The 35 mm f/1.4 will be the first on my
list.
Also, I find that because film isn't free, the quality
of the pictures I get is actually better.
Note that film is becoming less available and more expensive as
time goes on -- along with photographic paper. The reason is the silver
in the emulsion plus the reduction in the number of users over time.
Personally, I pay less for film today than I did 5 years ago, and the
film itself is better. Online shopping means that I can get better deals
on film than I could in the past. But I don't use the most unusual types
of film, and I have heard that some of those are being discontinued.
And the number of typed discontinued will increase as the number
of users decreases.
I don't think film availability is going to decline a lot more. You'll
no doubt see it decline further in high street shops, but they're
overpriced sources anyway. I haven't bought any film on the high street
in a long time. I don't think there will be a day in the foreseeable
future when good quality colour negative film in 35 mm becomes
unavailable. After all, you can still buy 110 film, and who uses that?
I get the film scanned by the laboratory, as the results are far better
than I could get scanning at home. Today's scanners are far superior to
the scanners of just a few years ago. Here's an example of a picture I
was particularly pleased with:
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/~cdt22/north_bridge.jpg
That's Edinburgh, Scotland.
A very nice shot -- and the scanning is at a level which makes
the grain typically a bit larger than the pixels -- though JPEG
artifacts do show up in places like the illuminated windows, and there they
are larger than the grain.
Thanks. But I'm not sure that what you're seeing are JPEG artifacts.
With a scan of that resolution, you can see all kinds of detail which
you would never see in a regular print. I think some of the fine detail
around the edges is the result of diffraction, scattered light from the
film surface and noise due to variation in grain size. The only place
where I can see what look like JPEG artifacts is around the top of the
building in the centre of the picture. Even there, I'm not convinced as
there are edges elsewhere in the picture with higher contrast where I
can't see such artifacts. I don't suppose I'll know for sure without
looking at the negative under a microscope.
But that scan is nearly 17 megapixels. At a more usual 6 megapixel
resolution, the scan would be pretty much grainless. Here a different
picture I had scanned at 6 megapixels:
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/~cdt22/rust_large.jpg
I've got an old Nikon LS-3500 scanner (35mm only, and very slow
and hot -- the reason that the later versions were called "coolscan").
That's funny. I didn't know that. Where did the name "Coolpix" come
from, I wonder?
Best wishes,
Chris