"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
I fully agree. Do you accept that not *all* digital cameras are "toys".

I'd say that even fewer film cameras were toys.

Instamatic? Other similar cameras with no accurate control of exposure other
than "sunny/cloudy/flash" settings and constant shutter speed. Though maybe
not quite as bad as the cameras in some mobiles.


like
this and that many give you the same level of manual override that you'd
have with a film SLR?

I'd say no, they are differnt.

What additional manual override do you get with film SLR that you don't with
digital SLR? In what other ways (apart from the obvious one of silcon versus
film for sensor) are they significantly different and how might you learn
less with a digital SLR?

It is those (and not the fully-auto cameras in phones)
that I think the rest of us on this thread are talking about when we say
that digital has the manual modes to aid teaching but additionally, over
and
above film, the instant feedback of what effect these manual adjustments
have on your photo.

so a photo shot at say f11 at 1/125th is the same as f4 at 1/1000
on the LCD the picture looks the same.

There are some photos (static subject, everything at infinity) where you'd
be hard-pressed to distinguish the pictures even at full size never mind on
an LCD screen. At the other end of the scale, a subject with a very large
range of distances would look different at the two different apertures, even
on small LCD; likewise for a fast-moving subject where the amount of blur
would be different. But the LCD gives you a more approximate impression
mainly to check brightness (ie do you want f11, f8 or f5.6 at 1/125). Which
you can tell even in the live view before exposing. Those are the sort of
things where the instant nature of digital probably offers its greatest
advantage, although there's nothing to stop you checking the taken proto on
the LCD, maybe magnifying some critical part to check that what you want to
be in or out of focus really is.

Accurate focussing is easier on an optical viewfinder than an LCD, which is
why I prefer a DSLR with this feature or a film SLR over a camera that
*only* has an LCD viewfinder.

A digital SLR, if you decide not to view the playback of taken photos, is
no worse than a digital, assuming you view you photos at a reasonable size
on a computer afterwards. You can take as many variants as you like without
having to pay for them, which encourages experimentation, and each photo is
tagged with the parameters that you might need to note for the future,
without you having to keep a separate paper note of them and match them to
the correct frame of film, especially if the slides or prints are not
labelled with frame number. Only Kodak numbered their slide mounts on
Kodachrome; when I had Ektachrome developed in my local photo shop the
mounts were invariably un-numbered.

what if you either change the film from ISO 400 to 100 ?

Digital camera users are almost spoilt for choice here because you can take
different photos at different ISO numbers and see *some* difference, though
probably less than with film. You don't get the increase in contrast and
garish colours if you push-process Ektachrome by 3 stops (been there) and
you don't get such an increase in graininess. Indeed I've take found
identically framed/exposed pictures at 3200 ASA and averaged them to produce
a result that is virtually indistinguishable from one at 200 ASA. Even if
you could register the film accurately, I think the increase in grain of an
average of the film frames would be noticeable compared with 200 ASA film.



does shutter speed and aperature actually matter if the exposure
as seen on the LCD looks correct.
is that all you need to do is check the brightness of the LCD.

There is a tendency (and I'm guilty of this myself) to let the camera choose
its own aperture and shutter speed - both on digital and film. For many
subjects it doesn't matter much. But I'm well aware of when it is critical -
which is why I'd use aperture priority if I wanted to force a very deep or
shallow DOF (and preview the effect in the viewfinder or else the LCD [maybe
magnified] on a camera that had not optical viewfinder or DOF preview;
conversely I'd use shutter priority if I wanted deliberately slow shutter
speed to blur the water of a waterfall or else deliberately fast to catch
the droplets of a fountain - and digital would give me the opportunity to
see what effect this had to check if I need to retake with even slower or
even faster.

The times when this level of checking is needed are relatively small, but
it's nice to have to opportunity if necessary.

Is there anything where a film camera plus close examination afterwards of
slides/prints can teach you more than a digital camera plus close
examination on a PC screen of the photos, assuming in both cases you use an
SLR with the same degree of manual or semi-auto (aperture/shutter priority)
settings and turn off autofocus and any other auto settings if they inhibit
learning.

It's a shame that a lot of lenses (especially zoom) are not made any more
with focussing markings on the barrel to show, for a given focus point,
roughly what range of distances should be in focus at a given aperture.
Obviously it's bit more difficult with a zoom lens rather than a prime lens
because you need curved lines to indicate reducing DOF, for a given
aperture, as you increase the focal length, and you can only do it for a
zoom with trombone rather than twist ring adjustment of focal length.
Without these lines it's harder to learn about setting hyperfocal distance.
But that applies to both film and digital - indeed if you have a DSLR with a
35mm sensor you'd use the same lens as for a film camera.