From 35mm to digital

[guitardan]

So i've aquired the old Nikon D70, all seems good so far, but...

In the past year using film i've managed to understand a bit about aperture, shutter speed, ISO of the film, a little bit of focal length, and of course, composition.

Now I've got white balance, focus mode, hue, saturation, histograms, RGB mode, noise, resolution, and on and on and on.

Jeeze!!! I'm pleased I kept one Olympus Trip for when all I want is a photo! :wacko:

[colinb]

mmmmmmmmm

you forgot ...

RAW or Jpeg :rolleyes:

[Barbara]

Did you see this post of Fuji's

It is not an advert for Canon as it first appears

[Guest DaveW]

If you slap your digital on auto everything mode it will behave just like a point and shoot camera, far simpler than a manual film camera. The only thing you then have to worry about then is composition, but they are working on that too with face recognition etc!

Actually auto white balance relieves you of the chore of using correction filters on a film camera when the lighting changes, or you uses a tungsten rather than a daylight film.

Focus can be set to manual or central area and then behaves just like a film camera.

Noise simply parallels the grain on film and is a very similar effect on the image. The higher ISO film the more pronounced the grain, the higher ISO set in digital the more grainy or noisy the image is.

Resolution is exactly the same, low ISO films have better resolution than faster higher ISO films and a low ISO setting on a digital camera produces a better quality image than a higher ISO setting.

Saturation gives you a choice of how vivid you want the colours, though I would not stray too far away from normal unless you want the images to look more like cartoons. With film the makers of the emulsion usually set it's saturation characteristics, so if you wanted less or more saturated results you chose different films.

Histograms are simply an extra aid to exposure, which you can take or leave if the meter is producing the results you want.

The monitor screen the same, it's simply an extra check over whether you obtained what you saw in the viewfinder when you took the shot.

What else extra have we got over a film camera? Oh yes the exposure compensation dial. This was achieved in a film camera in the past by just setting the ISO/film speed dial to a film speed above or below the rated speed of the film in the camera. With digital of course altering the ISO dial is equivalent to changing the film in the camera, so moving it a notch or so is the equivalent to changing the film to a faster or slower one, so that dial can no longer be used to fool the meter as to the speed of the film in the camera. Therefore another indepentent dial was needed to bias the meter to theoretically over or underexpose the set digital ISO = film speed rating.

I think in the end you will find you don't need to keep fiddling with all the settings for your type of photography since many are simply "overkill" for the average photographer and once set are never changed. However as you have come up through the ranks of conventional photography where you had to set and understand how aperture and shutter speeds etc worked you will find you are better equipped to understand digital than those just entering it from an auto only point and shoot camera.

I used a 35mm fully manual film camera for 35 years without any automation on it whatsoever except a coupled light meter and have found digital much easier. The big plus is you can see the image instantly and rectify it there and then wihout having to wait to get the film developed and then the opportunity for correction is gone.

As to RGB v. CMYK mode, that really only concerns posting images on the Web or for printed materials like magazines, so you would have had to use the correct one even if you had digitised your existing slides for the Web. Many just stick to RGB all the time.

RAW or JPEG that is simply a matter of whether you want the camera to manipulate the image for you by producing in camera JPEG's, just like a point or shoot camera, or use RAW and manipulate them yourself in post processing? However for Web posting you still have to convert them into JPEG's after manipulation, but at the final stage.

DaveW

Edited November 11, 2012 by DaveW