Lance B Offline Upload & Sell: On
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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.
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