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Archive 2013 · How far have we progressed in Digital?

  
 
papageno
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


Got a D-100 sitting on a shelf and a D-300 that I use.

Many of you spend time and effort comparing new models specs and in some cases results.

I'm thinking the other way today.

How far have we come from the D100---and how far from the D300. Compared to your current best body, how much better is you ultimate print quality? Ultimate high ISO performance? Focusing?

Pixel for pixel, how much improvement?

How much is camera and how much is PS or Gimp or Paint pro?

Edited on Feb 10, 2013 at 02:21 AM · View previous versions



Feb 10, 2013 at 12:19 AM
lxdesign
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


I started with a D100, and comparing my D800 to my D100... There is a lot of improvements in sensor technology.


Feb 10, 2013 at 12:46 AM
saelee
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


It depends on what I am shooting, if I am shooting a wedding or a HS sport events, the latest and greatest camera have a big advantage over the older model. There is a big difference with AF and shooting at high ISO.

But if I am shooting in a studio, it is hard to tell the difference in print quality between my D700 and my D40.

I am not saying you can't get good pictures from an old camera, but it would stupid to say that there isn't much advancement.



Feb 10, 2013 at 02:02 AM
innovis
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


I'd say for the span within a decade...Nikon has augmented their progression beyond what we'd expected.

Heck, when the D3s came out and I purchased it...I couldn't believe how much better over the D3 it was. The D800 lived up to the hype as well; they're only moving forward and faster.


iNNo



Feb 10, 2013 at 02:31 AM
James R
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


How do you measure "much?" How about much further in the past ten years than in the history of photography.

I started with a D100 and taken many images that I really like, even today. However, it doesn't compare with the D4, which I use today. Most D100 images would benefit from the D4's capabilities, particularly dynamic range, lower base ISO, and improved AF, and on and on.



Feb 10, 2013 at 03:03 AM
ja_joyce
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


I too started with a D100, and a D1h and now I have a D3. In some aspects like high ISO there has been massive improvement. But in decent light at base ISO the images I made ~10 years ago still look great. And in some ways we've actually gone backwards: my D1h sync'd (at full power) up to 1/500th, and had a max shutter speed of 1/16,000 and those are features I miss sometimes. I know others feel differently but I'm not particularly impressed by massive numbers of pixels. I don't feel limited by 12 MP and Nikon or whomever isn't going to sell me another camera based on having higher resolution.





Feb 10, 2013 at 10:21 AM
ja_joyce
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


James R wrote:
..
Most D100 images would benefit from the D4's capabilities, particularly dynamic range, lower base ISO, and improved AF, and on and on.


Yes, but comparing any "consumer" model to a "pro" model is a bit of apples to oranges isn't it? Most D100 images would have benefited from e.g. a D1X's capabilities at the time too.



Feb 10, 2013 at 10:34 AM
moosehead222
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


I started (1998 I think that was the year) with a Sony ... Floppy Disk ... $1,000.
The glass was Zeiss amazing optical zoom range.. Still have it for historical sentimental reasons.



Feb 10, 2013 at 10:48 AM
Mescalamba
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


How far we progressed?

If you by "progress" mean that bad things happen faster, then we really did moved forward.

I dont think there is any real progress towards better image quality from film, rather opposite. Only thing that improved is probably noise, resolution (compared to appropriate film size). DR is iffy, but sure its bit more flexibile than slide film.

But overall quality and impact of photos? Meh.



Feb 10, 2013 at 10:59 AM
pburke
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


After shooting the "pro" Nikon D1 12 years ago in a pro environment, I gave up on digital once I got out of that job. It was only good for fast turnaround, but the images were garbage compared to a good film scan. I didn't own a digital camera between 2000 and 2009 because of that experience.

However, in 2009 I realized things had changed and bought a refurbished D40, and yes, it killed the D1 in all aspects. I was converted to digital. Since then it's been incremental changes for me from D40 to D90 to D7000 to D600, each better than the one before, but even the difference from D40 to D600 is less than the dramatic increase in quality between D1 and D40, mostly in color spectrum and dynamic range. D1 images from 2000 still look like video frame grabs to me, and they were the main reason I didn't touch digital cameras again until about 2009.

D1 in 2000:
http://champcar.com/gallery/gallery2000/10toronto/DSC_3226.JPG

film in 2000
http://champcar.com/gallery/gallery2000/13midohio/stunning_detail.jpg

I'm sure today, the shot a the bottom could be repeated with a) less gear, and b) way more keepers, as this is 100asa hand held, no AF (because it wasn't good enough), no lens correction plugins, and most notably, colors would look correct like they did on film. This particular car was impossible to record on digital back then, just like any other close to out of gamut colors, which were quite common in that type of shooting I did.



Today we have tools to get things like white balance correct, we can even correct lens flaws in camera to some extent.

I definitely don't miss film any longer, especially not the cost of the unexposed media and pro lab processing, so I am trading that cost for more frequent camera body upgrades than I would have considered in the film era. Digital has arrived at a level where any future improvements will only be incremental. The dramatic gains made in the first years of this century won't repeat.





Feb 10, 2013 at 11:06 AM
tryan56
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


I remember 10-12 years ago , having a computer that had a 4GB hard drive. I was shooting with an N80 and an F100 and spending ungodly amounts of money on film and processing/printing. I bought one of those little silver Minolta digicams, I think it was 1.3 MP. Just for the novelty of it.

When I ordered my first DSLR, a D100 it was such a fun new toy. People used to ask "what kind of film does that take?" I think I paid over $100 for a 256mb card. I think the pinnacle of my
technical life in those days was when I was at a Pirate game, with my D100, and talking to one of my friends on a cell phone that was the size of a Vietnam war-era walkie talkie.

It's amazing how far all the technology has come in a dozen years. And equally amazing, on a tangent note, how far the Pirates have NOT evolved.



Feb 10, 2013 at 11:34 AM
pburke
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


tryan56 wrote:
I think I paid over $100 for a 256mb card.


we had a "sponsor" to get those cards cheaper - wearing the "Delkin Devices" polo shirts at race tracks (and maybe on TV) got us a few free 256mb cards in 2000, which I think were worth well over $250 each

I still have a hard drive I bought in 1992 - 512MB SCSI drive. It cost me $1200 back then. When I bought my D600, Adorama threw in a 32GB flash card, which would be 64 of those hard drives, for free...




Feb 10, 2013 at 11:44 AM
lxdesign
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


My Amiga in the early 90's was top notch with a 50mb hard-drive..... and I remember creating images using a high res security camera with Digiview. Now that was digital photography in its infancy.



Feb 10, 2013 at 12:24 PM
tryan56
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


Wow, come to think of it, it might have been a 128 mb card that I paid ~ $125 for.


Feb 10, 2013 at 12:24 PM
Ripolini
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


papageno wrote:
How much is camera and how much is PS or Gimp or Paint pro?

It's the photographer.



Feb 10, 2013 at 01:16 PM
egd5
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


And we all walked to school uphill in the snow in our tennis shoes..... :-)


Feb 10, 2013 at 03:40 PM
moosehead222
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


I started (1998 I think that was the year) with a Sony ... Floppy Disk ... $1,000.
The glass was Zeiss amazing optical zoom range.. Still have it for historical sentimental reasons.



Feb 10, 2013 at 06:39 PM
brewercm
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


egd5 wrote:
And we all walked to school uphill in the snow in our tennis shoes..... :-)


You had shoes?



Feb 10, 2013 at 07:27 PM
runamuck
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


I helped a friend do a term paper. We used a computer with two 5 1/4 inch floppy drives. Hard drives were just coming out in XT's. We didn't eve have scanners yet, let alone digital cameras.

When I put a 20 MB hard drive in my XT I wondered what I would ever do to fill it? That drive cost 375 bucks. It had all the RAM Bill Gates said a computer would ever need--1 MB.

A friend had a Sony Mavica(?) that used a 3 1/2 inch floppy. You pressed the shutter and it took a second or two to finally take a picture.




Feb 10, 2013 at 08:54 PM
Lance B
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · How far have we progressed in Digital?


I started in photography in 1980 with a Pentax ME Super and 50mm f1.7 lens, firstly taking neg film then progressed to slides using Kodachrome 64.

In 2004, I purchased a Pentax *ist D as I could use Pentax's legacy lenses that I had. I got the bug for photography again and went heavily into the Pentax system, purchasing their finest lenses etc and updating each camera as a new model came out.

In 2010, I sold my Pentax gear and changed to a Nikon D700 and 16-35 f4, 24-70 f2.8, 70-200 f2.8 as Nikon has a professional system available, where Pentax did not. After that, I purchased the a D7000 as well and 105 f.28 VR micro, 14-24 f2.8, 300 f2.8 VRII, 500 f4, all the TC's, then the 35 f1.4G and 85 f1.4G. Now I have the D800E and I couldn't be happier.

Every digital camera that I had from the first Pentax DSLR was an incremental advancement on the previous generation, some a little more than others. The FF D700 was a large leap from the Pentax APS C cameras in overall function, ie speed of AF, IQ, build quality etc, but for me I think the D800E is a giant leap forward in the camera department.

If we look at the number of digital photos taken over the years and then look at the cost of the digital cameras we have purchased, then I think we can mostly say that compared to film, the cost per shot is still much less for digital. Let's say we purchased a D700 2 years ago, then in 2012 purhaced the D800. That is 2 years of shooting with a $3,000 camera that I can now sell for about $1200, maybe more. I took 14,000 shots on that D700 for a cost of $1800 - difference between cost price and selling price. Before printing, that's about 13 cents each!! The D7000 was $1600 and I took about 11,000 shots (from memory), and when I got the D800 I sold the D7000 for $1,000 so a cost/shot of 5 cents a shot!!

Film would have cost me about $5.00+ for a 36 roll of film, for slides even more. That's at least 20 cents each before printing and more for slides (which don't need printing, obviously).

I know that we wouldn't have taken anywhere near as many shots on film as we do on digital, but this is actually a good thing as I have learnt so much more through the immediacy of digital than I ever did with film. So, the cost of digital offsets an educational aspect as well. Added to that, the results I get from digital are lightyears better than my results from film and this is partly due to the fact that I have learnt so much more than I ever could from film and mostly due to the fact that I think digital's results are much better. Mostly this is due to the better equipment from digital as it is it's very critical nature that digital allows us this luxury, think pixel peeping.

I don't miss film one bit.

These are costs based in Australia.



Feb 10, 2013 at 09:29 PM
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