I've saved a huge amount of money shooting digital, but i've been frugal in regard to computer equipment. My dual 1.25 Mac G4 is perfectly adequate for processing the 16-bit 144 meg digital images that my RAW conversions yield. I've had it for quite a few years. I bought it at least a couple of years before I started shooting digital, perhaps seven years ago. It labored a bit more processing 4800 dpi scans from MF 6x7, but I was getting by with those as well.
Last week I shot 120 frames of web pics for a bowling alley and 600 frames for a model portfolio. I probably would hae chosen to shoot at least the model portfolio on MF when I was still shooting film. I probably would have settled for about 120 to 200 frames. That might not have been enough, as the biggest problem I encountered was in getting nice expressions. I needed all 600 frames. (I don't know if that was my fault or the models, but I needed every frame I shot to get twenty selects that I'm happy with.) I would have spent at least fifty dollars on film alone and more on processing. Just for recreational shooting, I was averaging at least a roll a day when I shot film. That adds up in a hurry. I've purchased three DA lenses since I switched over to digital, but I'm sure I would have purchased at least that many lenses had I continued with film. For me, the cost savings have been very substantial. Paul -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Adam Maas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > William Robb wrote: > > > > > I'm pretty sure I would still be on my second computer (I'm up to #5 now), > > had it not been for digital photography and it's ever increasing vacuuming > > up of resources, so for me I can add around 7K for that, plus another 2K > > for > > a laptop for onsite use. > > However, I like toys, so I don't begrudge that, but I seem to be spending a > > lot more time in front of my computer working on digital imaging than I > > spent in the darkroom producing silver prints, and am producing fewer > > pictures of lower quality than I did when I was shooting medium and large > > format film. > > The tendency to shoot more has some drawbacks. When I was shooting film, I > > might have shot 10 rolls of 120 film on a portrait session, now I'll shoot > > 4-6 times that amount of digital frames, and have to sort through that many > > pictures, at 4-6x more time. > > My keeper % was way higher with film, approaching 100% with 4x5, 20-25% > > with > > 120 film. I'm finding my keeper % with digital is around 5%, and I'm having > > to fish through a lot of images to find them. > > > > William Robb > > > > > > Ironically, it's film that has been driving my computer upgrades lately. > Digital > requires much less storage, RAM or processing power than manipulating > high-res > scans. My MF scans are easily in the 150MB range, and even 35mm is ~60MB. > That's > a big difference from 10-20MB RAWs. > > LF is even worse. Opening a single 4x5 scan brings my system to its knees. I > actually have to downsize it to save a JPEG, otherwise PS runs out of RAM on > a > 2GB system. And I'm only scanning at 1200dpi (Scanning Fuji pack film prints). > > -Adam > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
