Digital BW, The Print

C J Morgan writes:
>> On my last holiday, for example, if I wasn't shooting digital
>> but instead shooting film, and if I shot the same amount of
>> frame, the total cost of just film and film processing would
>> have come to over $2000.

Anthony G. Atkielski wrote:
> But would you have shot the same number of frames?

Well, if past experience is anything to go on, I have no doubt
that if I were shooting film instead of digital on my last holiday,
the number of shots I made would have been substantially less,
800 shots instead of 6000. And that would have been because
in the back of my mind, I would always be thinking that each
time I pressed the shutter release, I could hear a little cash
register going off. 

And so with that in mind, my shooting would have been much 
more conservative. As I said, just the cost of film and film
processing would have slowed me down (unless I quickly
wanted to go into the poor house).

********  

> And how many keepers would you have had, in each case?

In each case, on average, I perhaps say that I came home
with one in fifty shots that I was happy with. 

Oh sure, I'd perhaps say there was one in five that I'd regard
as a "keeper". So if I took 800 shots (like when I was shooting
with film) I'd regard about 160 of those as "keepers. And if
I shoot 6000 (like when I was shooting with digital) then I'd
roughly regard about 1200 of those as "keepers".

But if we're talking about images I'd be happy with, then in
each case that ratio would otherwise become 1:50.

So when I was shooting film and came home with 800 frames
shot, that one in 50 means that I came home with perhaps
16 shots that I was happy with.

So now if I go on a two week holiday and shoot 6000 frames
and still find myself happy with one in 50 shots that I make,
then I'm coming home with 120 shots that I'm satisfied with.
And that to me is a heck of a lot better then when I was
just coming home 16 shots I was happy with.

So shooting digital has not made the number of keepers
or images I'm happy with go up by any percentage. Whether
I'm shooting film or digital, I still come home keeping and
wanting to print 20% of the images I shot (i.e. one out
of every 5). And in terms of what I'm happy with, I'm finding
my ratio is still one in fifty, regardless of whether I'm
shooting film or digital. 

But because there's no more film or film processing costs
to consider, I find that I'm being more gung-ho when
I'm shooting on holidays. And so, as I said, instead of
coming home with 800 frames shot, I'm coming home
with 6000 frames shot. But in as much as I'm happy
with one in fifty in either case, the bottom line is that
when I shoot film, I come home with 16 images I'm
happy with and when I shoot digital, I come home
with 120 images I'm happy with. 

So absolutely, at least for me, I find not dealing with
film and film processing costs are very much having
me shoot more and come home with more "keepers."

CJ



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