> > My (presently) biggest gripe with digital imaging is the cost. For a > process that is not significantly better, except in immediacy of > results, I am expected to pay a very significant premium? No, thank > you. I can do almost the same thing by buying a film scanner for about > 1/5th of the price.
Not really. You can get decent results from a dedicated film scanner at around half the price of a *ist-D/D100/10D (or something quite close to the price of a 300D), but the cheaper units are usually just flatbed scanners with transparency adapters, which don't work as well. Then, of course, there's the sheer tedium of doing the scanning. You can get film scanners with bulk feed magazines, of course, but those cost about as much as a DSLR. By the time you've scanned a couple of hundred frames you'll welcome anything to relieve you of this task. Next problem; dust. Unless you live in a semiconductor manufacturing plant, there's going to be dust on your slides. Cleaning up dust spots is yet another tedious chore. You can get semi-automated software and hardware to help with this task, but this too is not without drawbacks. And, finally, cost. I'm sure that many of the DSLR purchasers here shoot enough that using the *ist-D will end up being cheaper than the cost of film and processing over the next couple of years. If you only shoot one roll a month, and if you are prepared to let WalMart or CostCo scratch your negatives, then a DSLR isn't cost effective. Shoot an average of more than a roll a week, though, using slide film, and take the film to a local pro or semi-pro lab, and the costs mount.
