Have Zeiss lost the plot again

[grumpoid]

Hi folks,

Film will NOT die for a long, long time. The emerging markets; i.e China & India and then whichever is next, will see to that. Currently plenty of film is being made in eastern europe and that will continue for decades yet. Just because the so-called civilised nations are digital lemmings (nice phrase Marc!)does not mean the rest of the world is also.

For those who do want to use Zeiss on digital bodies, I would have thought the most sensible way would be the new ZF lenses on Nikon DSLR's, rather than the messing around with adapters option. I believe the D200 is rather good, so they say.

cheers from Grumpy....

 

[jsmisc]

I am in another forum which at present is full of posts arguing about dire predictions by some members of the end of film production within a couple of years! I sure hope not and as somebody said to me, since 127 size cameras have not been available for 30+ years and film is still available for them, this prophecy should be wrong. However, it is based on the fact that the only real commercial demand is now for digital and that film production requires large environmentally unsound factories and large work forces which will not be cost effective due to lack of mass demand. Let's hope it is completely wrong.
I was out with my FX3 today and my CZ 100 f3.5 and just loved the simplicity of it all. Nobody took any notice of me snapping in the city centre in the showers on Agfa Scala which sadly is defunct. I have to have it in for processing before the end of next month or it probably cannot be processed due to lack of chemicals.
I think that is right - just use both formats, film and digital and not worry about it. I have no doubt that I shall fairly soon buy a decent digital camera of some variety and who knows, may become a convert!
P.S. anyone seen the article about CDR's possibly losing data after a few years!

 

[albert4321]

Nowadays decent digital cameras (P&S & dSLR) are affordable with very good result. I think anyone that has not tried digital photography should get on board. The learning curve and challenge are different, and it is fun to explore.

I have not shot films for the longest time ever since I got my dSLRs until one of my client requested me to shoot films for their wedding last year. And I forgot how much fun to shoot my C645 with NPC160. And my client commented how crisp and nice the prints are. Films have their own charm.

I hate to bring this up again but as I mentioned before, with the ND and N Zeiss lens and ACR, I got images remind me of Kodakchorme, which Canon glasses would never produce even with the 85L. Don’t know if it is because of CCD vs CMOS sensors. I have never try C-Y Zeiss lens on the Canon, but I just love to shot with the ND + N Zeiss lenses regardless it’s slow AF and poor battery performance. Certainly Canon is still my main work horse. My pt is that it is very sad to see Contax dies.


There are a lot of talks regarding to CD-R shell life. I personally has no issue with the CD-R I made 3 or 5 yrs ago. And no one that I know of has any problem if you use good practice, such as don’t use sharpie to write on it, good storage env, etc. One should note that CD-R or DVD-R are not meant by archival for century. As an instructor mentioned in one of the workshop I attended, any electronic medium today is good enough until the next technology available. It means that you will have to convert your floppies to CD-R at some pt, then CD-R to DVD-R, then DVD-R to DVD-blueRay, VHS tapes to whatever. It is pain in the butt, but that’s the way it is, or sooner or later you won’t have the hardware to read them anyway. Now you can get a DVD recorder/player for your TV for $70. Technology wise it is working for the consumers. BTW, take the opportunity to catalog your images alone the way.

 

[fotografz]

Yes John, not all CD-ROMs are created equal. Some of the earlier ones were prone to de-laminating. For this reason I now only use e-Film Archival Gold CD-ROMs and DVDs from Delkin. (these are readily available from Light Impressions).

Steve, my fear about emerging markets like China is that they will adopt the new technologies and skip mass market film use altogether. Just like phone service. They just jumped to cell technology and skipped the land-line method.

It would be interesting to see if Nikon has improved their higher ISO performance with the D200.

I must admit to shooting a great percentage of my color work with Canon digital these days. The ability to alter color temperature, ISO settings, and shoot at very high ISOs is quite an advantage.

The exposure latitude is still less than color film, but by shooting RAW and developing proper work flow techniques, that disadvantage has all but disappeared except in truly challenging lighting conditions.

What I worry about is B&W film. But I can buy a large amount and freeze it, then process it myself : -)

 

[wang]

There are a few options to get B&W prints, which is better to get the best end result ?

1. Shoot with colour film, scan it and convert to B&W with photoshop.

2. Shoot with B&W film, scan it and print it.

3. Shoot with B&W fim, print it with conventional technique.

I suspect the first two options are the same, am I right or wrong ?

The processing of B&W film is a lot more expensive than colour film, this is true at least in my place. It could be cheaper if you are doing it yourself.

 

[jsmisc]

I read that the dyes in CD or DVD R's can degrade and that the burner can "under expose" the image on to the disk which causes it to degrade sooner than it should. I have no idea about the techicalities but it sounds a matter for concern. I do tend to use fairly cheap disks so probably I should go for more expensive ones.
My preference at the moment is to store almost everything on separate hard drives. It is very convenient.
If the same thing applies with Blue Ray when it comes out with huge storage capacity, it will be a risk to store lots on one disk if it might also suffer from potential loss of data which might be no fault of the disk itself but due to a fault in the burner which is unknown to the user.

 

[jsmisc]

I have just searched for and found e-Film Archival Gold at Warehouse Express. From a quick look the CD's seem to be about £1 each and DVD's a bit less than £2. I may well get some and use them for special projects. Thanks Marc.

 

[alan]

>I have had a fair amount of trouble opening gold CDs after periods of 6 >months to 3 years. All have been carefully stored in the dark and at 20 deg >C. Sometimes they seem too reflective to read. In the past, I used Kodak >gold and silver/gold discs which seemed OK. More recently I used Hi-Space >Archival Gold discs. Sometimes it can take many attempts over days or >weeks to open them or I can sometimes open them on a friend's computer. I >have now totally lost confidence in this method of storage and I use >external hard drives. I feel that a drive like Lacie is much more reliable >and at £100 or so for 250 gb, the storage price is similar to that of a >downmarket CD. Moreover, it is more compact and editable. I know well >that hard drives fail - it is a question of when, and not if. However, >they normally run for a long time in computers with constant use, so they >should last at least 10 times longer with only occasional use. Possibly, >my thinking is not valid, but it seems that this is the best solution.

Alan

 

[gunteach]

> You know, this is one thing that bothers me about digital, and perhaps I am worrying about nothing, but you know, I have never had a negative or transparency that failed to "read" or was in any way dependent on a hard drive or CD for storage stability. Yes, I've misplaced one or two of my negs, but that could happen with CD's as well.

My staff laughs at me because I still use a paper and pen day planner system, while they have all gone to PDA's. My Daytimer suits my needs perfectly even though it is not the latest technology. Of course, all of my staff have lost data on their devices due to physical shock or electronic glitches, and I have never once had the ink fall off any of my paper pages!

Tongue in cheek here, but score one for film!

Cheers,

Tom >

 

[jsmisc]

Tom, you are not alone... I think it is far easier to write apontments on something physical with a pen(cil) than to manipulate a data bank device. I use a diary. You don't have to open it (well, maybe you do if it is shut) or switch it on either. I even use a pencil so that I can rub out if needed.

Allan, thanks for those comments: more food for thought.
John