then and now – film vs. digital

Next week we,re heading out for a little road trip.  We ride down to NYC meeting  friend then we head to Skyline Drive and on to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We will be attending the Horse Smokeout, meeting up with friend and fellow motorcycle photographer Art Biker.

View Smokeout road trip in a larger map

This trip is similar to one I did a long time ago.  I was looking for some photos of that trip and realized I was still shooting film back then. It seems like a lifetime ago that film was a plausible media.  I used to shoot Kodak EVP with my Nikon F4.  I’d buy a brick of film and do a few test strips to dial in my optimal exposure.  Once I knew how that emulsion lot would fare I’d dial in my settings; usually shooting the iso 100 film at 80 and pushing 1/3 a stop in development for snappy contrast.  When I was on the road I’d either hold on to all my film until I returned then spend a few days running to the lab checking test strips now and then and running all my film in batches. If I had deadlines or was on the road for a long time I’d have to fed-ex my film back home and have an assistant run it.  I also remember a time when I had to have film overnighted to me because I ran out.

The other major detriment of shooting film at a professional level is  when the light changes your film needs to change.  So then you need to carry another speed of film to compensate for the different lighting condition. Sometimes I’d like to shoot Fuji Velvia outside (but never in the studio) and lets not forget those specialty films you’d keep in the bag for the rare black and white shots or cross processing maybe even some infrared.

That brings me to camera formats.  I’d always have a medium format camera and all the associated film for portraiture AND my 35mm.  Thankfully I never had a fetish for shotting the 4×5 or 8×10 outside the studio.

Skyline Drive

When looking for the above photo of Skyline Drive in VA I looked in a flip book of scanned film that I have. I don’t know why but only a few images from that ride was scanned, the rest are sitting in books of slidepages in a tub with thousands of other images that probably will never again see the light of day.

I’m looking forward to this ride on a variety of levels.  With the ease and quality of shooting digital there are no bags of film, multiple cameras, trips to the lab or waiting to see what you captured.  When the light changes, you adjust your white balance and iso and keep shooting.  I’ve done plenty of trips shooting digital. In fact the last time I shot any film was around 2003 when I made the shift to digital only. But this is the first time I am going to retrace my steps with digital equipment.

Back in the day, a portion of the art of being a professional photographer was mastering your film and being confident in what you shot before you see it (except for the polaroids you’d shoot prior to film).   It was easy to seperate a pro from an amaeture simply by looking at their photos. These days with high quality consumer digital cameras having such a low price point it’s difficult to take a bad picture. The availabilty of knowledge is abundant and the line between pro and amateure is blurring.  I’m interested to see how my next batch of photos compares to my old ones and to other shooters who have captured the beauty of Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

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