I have often been labeled as a 'Gadget Freak'. In fact, my computer room/digital
darkroom has often been referred to as the 'Bat Cave' by my family. I am always
interested in new technologies. Usually, I am not the first kid on the block to have
the latest. I like to wait just a little to see if the new actually works.
Take the CD format. Not too long after they were introduced, I bought a player and
began to build my collection of music. I read all the negative reports about the
digital sound, not pure and all the rest. My ears did not hear it that way and I
ignored the naysayer and continued my collection. My big misread in technology
was buying into the Betamax format instead of VHS. Eventually, I came around and
mothballed the Beta.
Digital cameras came along and at first I was not interested. We had some at work
and the photos were fine for viewing on the screen, but would not produce
photographic quality prints. I did not 'early adopt' on this one. I was pleased with
my film SLR, a Canon Elan IIe and had a nice collection of lenses.
I finally broke down in November of 2000 and bought my first digital camera. It was
a Fuji (I can't even remember the model anymore). It had the super CCD, a nice
zoom and was close to the look and feel of an SLR. Prints were respectable. I
added some photo printers to the Bat Cave with two dye-sublimation printers. As
usually happens, technology advances and so did my interest in digital photography.
I moved from the Fuji to the Canon G2 because digital SLR's were over $10,000.
But, I would still use my film camera for the 'best and most important'. I did not
like the look and feel of the point and shoot cameras and longed for an affordable
digital SLR since I was used to the size of the SLR and how it handled.
Then Canon did it. They introduced the EOS D30 digital SLR and I bought one. It
was like coming home to be back in the SLR world. Because Canon developed and
used a CMOS sensor in the camera, the photos had that film like quality I was
looking for. The photos were great and printouts wonderful. All of my lenses from
my film camera would work. Then I upgraded to the D60 and that is what did it.
I was using the D60 with its 6 Megapixel sensor almost exclusively and was not
using my film camera much, I decided to compare prints of the same scene and
determine if I should continue to use my film gear because there was no perceptible
difference in print quality. I headed out on a nice sunny day with my digital and film
SLR's and tripod. I setup the tripod and would take photos with each camera using
the same scene. There were people, water, trees and flowers, buildings. I tried to
include most things I take pictures of. I sent the film for processing and did my own
processing of the digital images.
The test was to compare the prints from each process. My digital prints were glossy
from my dye sublimation printer. The film prints were glossy from the lab. I
installed the prints in plastic album sheets side by side and asked family and friends
to evaluate. This was in addition to my own evaluation. Everyone struggled to
identify which prints were from which camera. Most could not. Some were lucky. I
printed larger 8x10 prints to evaluate as well. My reasoning was if the quality of the
prints from the digital camera are equal to that of film prints, why continue to buy
film and have all the associated hassles of going to the lab and going back to pick up
prints. And I could just "make film" anyway by re-using the compact flash cards in
my camera.
As time has gone by, the quality of the new DSLR cameras have continued to
improve. With sensors now up to 16 megapixels, the cameras are pushing the
resolution limits of todays best lenses. Even most pro photographers are making
the switch to digital.