Photography Thailand Forum

[bkkdave]

Film: The Real Raw: An interesting view from Ken Rockwell on Raw vs JPG:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/real-raw.htm

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm

[David Salmanowitz]

Let me be as polite as possible--I disagree! If I discussed it at more length Mr. Rockwell might be much shorter in size when I finished.

[bkkdave]

Well he does give in depth 'hard data' reasons for his conclusions.... and the thing about film comment were revealing.

Anyone can disagree with anything... but in the end it all boils down to an opinion.

[Paul Whitehead]

I thought it was quite tongue in cheek, I suspect even KR does not believe himself and its just to stir up controversy (and probably traffic to his site)

[Marc Schultz]

I have never been a big fan of KR. Very overzealous and full of hype most of the time. There are so many sources for quality technical info on the internet and I don't consider his site one of them. Compared to a site like Luminous Landscape for example, they are worlds apart.

[Karim]

As I understand this articles dated by 2008 and he is mentioning Nikon D200 which is very noisy (within more than 200 ISO range).
Now is 2010 and  a lot of changes happened in quality and  in handling RAW files.
I wasn't big fun of RAW back than. Now with new Lightroom  3.0 and ACDSee PRO on my computer  -RAW is my preferable choice

[Khun Hans]

Well known article of KR.

[hoangcong]

Ken Rockwell have some good thing to teach but you have to take what he say with a grain of salt

[Hawaiiman]

You may not like what he says, but technically there is no refuting his statements of fact. When cd's came out, I thought they were  better than lp's. Later I bought an rpm5 and a $300 mc cartridge and learned analog is better than a cd for many of the same reasons KR gives about film v RAW. Just because one dislikes the facts, or finds them inconvenient, that doesn't change anything. Digital is convenient, fast, and can produce award winning work in the hands of an artist. I have no doubt Picasso could produce fine art with latex paint and a 6" brush and roller. Give a house painter fine sable brushes and a pallet of oils, and he probably won't produce any gallery pieces.

[Gregg Spradling]

I wouldn't confuse KR's opinions and facts, they are both two different entities.

[Hawaiiman]

I apologize, I'm new here. I didn't realize supporting any statement by KR (who I find presumptuous and pompous) or stating that film carries more information per frame than digital was heresy. I'll try to be more careful in future.

[Michael Luthi]

i am trying to scan my old film negatives and find that i get much better results from my D300 than from the film... no doubt though that the medium format film still holds more info...
but then i think the article is almost a parody on the whole thing

[Hawaiiman]

I believe you do. Once you info goes thru the digital gate, everything changes. I bet if you compared scanned D300 stuff to film stuff done with an enlarger (hopefully by someone that takes care) your results would reverse.

[Adzz]

I scanned thru the article.. Ken still loves film, I don't miss it at all.
My take is:
Yes film is lovely , but it does not last forever as Ken says ,especially in hot and humid Thailand.
You still have to print it or scan it... so you have lost 20% or more in quality at that point anyway.
If you just want to look thru a loop all day at old trannies, thats a bit sad!
If your that hung up on quality vs "the image you created" thats also sad....
Film has a nostalgic value to me and thats all.
I say SHOOT RAW on any sensor with the best glass you can afford, and wait for everything digital to just get better.
 

[Hawaiiman]

The problem is: I'm starting over from scratch with a minuscule budget (3 figures ) and want to shoot medium format architectural, have a 35mm for fast shooting and people stuff, and a backup pocket camera. That simply can't be done with digital. Just a body of a d7000 busts the budget. So...a nice n90s with 35-80, a very nice 645 1000s with 50mm 2.8 and an adapter to use the Arsenal lenses I have left around. Then a canon 9000f and an mp287, and I'm goin' with change to spare, including a 12mp pocket camera. As time goes on, planning to add some more af lenses for the n90s, a shift lens for the 645, and eventually I may get brave and get a d7000 body, but that's WAY off in the future. Got a new house to build first. Could be tempted by a used enlarger at some point, maybe. I'm 3 hours east of Khon Kaen so services are far and expensive.