lemmy wrote:
I always liked Robert Capa's maxim:

If your pictures are no good, you're too far way.

ericp wrote:
I have just developed 5 rolls of 35mm film using the Tamron 28-75 and the MZ-6. I used them all in one day at the Notting Hill Carnival in London last week as I decided it was a good place to train my skills and use film after recently purchasing the MZ-6. I also took pictures at the same even last year with the same lens but the camera then was my k10d.

The differences between film and digital according to moi:

1) I took a lot more pictures when digital, not just mire in general but also a lot more of the same scene. I essentially took as many as were necessary until I saw one I liked. I could not do thus with film and had to trust my composition.

2) Film is a lot more expensive! It cost me £8 for the film and £50 to have them developed. That expense is probably offset by post processing though. Although I have jpg files I habve not even though about any PP. In digital, I would have spent quite a lot of my time in Lightroom/Photoshop, probably more than £50 worth

3) I find the dynamic range on film much much better than with digital. This could just be due to the fact the different camera bodies are different. It could be the K10d has poor dynamic range and the K7 is much better.

Actually due to film having a much higher dynamic range than sensors.

Either way, the range from the pictures I developed was excellent, no blown out skys and the it was very overcast in the morning. No loss of detail in the shadows either and there were scenes with plenty of both and the camera exposed perfectly.

The lack of dynamic range in digital could also be down to my poor technique.

It's not.

4) I found the colours on film a lot more vibrant and natural. Yes, you can achieve similar effects in PP but I have not been able to get the right balance in digital. In film, the colours were all very accurate the greens were not tending towards a florescent yellow as they do on my K10

Negative films these days far outperform most digital systems. Velvia still out resolves digital sensors.

5) The lack of RAW files was frustrating. I have some captures which are very well composed (in my opinion ) but there is a distracting arm arm, half a body in view or the background is distracting. I could PP the jpeg files but seems pointless as the loss in quality when printing the jpeg might not be worth the effort.

6) The depth of field is much narrower on film. I have some results at f2.8 and the background is gone and the bokeh is very nice. The narrow DOF also makes it very easy to have the subject out of focus especially when it is moving as it was at the carnival!

Purely based on the fact that the neg is larger than your sensor, small sensors have huge depth of field. This is the reason that small digital cameras never went below f/8, didn't need to.

Edit: typo

aminstar wrote:
Gary

I am not sure about other makes but Canon for example display the cost of printing on their website including high end paper. I print on Fine Art paper on A3+ sizes and the costs which include ink and paper is well under £2. Its somewhere in this long review link

So I am assuming A4 sizes must be much cheaper.

So it all depends upon your individual needs and whether you will be printing a lot or not.
I do send images for printing to the printers but only A2 sizes and bigger.

Hope that helps

Clarky wrote:
420quid surely its not worth that much

If someone gave me that much for it I would buy that 200mm macro

smc wrote:
Canon would get my vote: you can use M42 and almost all K mount glass. I suspect the 7D may also be at the same level as the Nikons for low light performance. Otherwise, I think from limited experience Canon handling is better than Nikon.