Switching From Film to Digital

[lexcell]

I have taken the liberty to start a new thread from some of the comments posted in the Photographing Planes thread.

"90VOLTS"
i have mostly taken pictures of military jets, both at work (back in the day) and now at airshows. i use a 35mm canon eos rebel with a 70-300 telephoto lens and a 1.5 tele convertor.

the good thing is that the autofocus did not work well at all through the convertor so it got me used to manually focusing - and quickly. and with that much zoom you can get in very close on the plane without all the background sky. of course F18s and the like are a much smaller target so it may be harder to get a tight pic on an airliner. but this set up will also allow you to be further from the terminal and the curious eyes.

i am thinking of going to a canon eos digital. has anyone had any experience with going from 35mm to digital in the same camera line? wondered if it was practically the same shooting or if there were differences to be expected.

and nice pics. enjoyed them.

"Mom to 4"
Joe & 90volts:

Good idea joe about the different thread, but I will just throw my 2 cents in here, as I don't know when I will be back on.

I made the move from my 35 mm to a nice olympus point and shoot a couple of years ago and then jumped to my Rebel. I love it. The biggest thing I had to contend with in making the move to my digital rebel, was the issue of white balance. Once I figured that out I was in good shape. You see I take a ton of nighttime football pictures and I started noticing the pink cast on the pictures (white balance issue) I am always amazed at the difference in white balance from place to place. The other day when I took my white balance photo for shooting at an indoor basketball game at a college, my test picture was blue. At Madison Square Garden it was yellow, and football games outdoors at night was red. So, for me everything else was easy. But, white balance was even easy to figure out when I came on the forum and posted a question.

When you get your digital, don't be afraid to post a question on the forum. You will be amazed at the vast amount of knowledge here!!!

Good luck!!
__________________
Colleen

Colleen's Creations

www.colleensgallery.smugmug.com


"NickLewis"
Quote:
Originally Posted by 90volts
i am thinking of going to a canon eos digital. has anyone had any experience with going from 35mm to digital in the same camera line? wondered if it was practically the same shooting or if there were differences to be expected.

I agree - start a new thread - you'll attract more comment with a relevant thread title. Not just from us aviation anoraks.......

In the meantime, I went from using an EOS-3 & EOS-500 to a EOS20D. They are very similar in general operation, apart obviously from the aspects which are unique to the digital medium.

If you're already using a film EOS and are happy with its handling and general design philosophy, then personally I think you need a very good reason for switching brands. Particularly if you have a significant investment in lenses. All your film EF lenses will fit your EOS DSLR (although the reverse is not necessarily true). I'd need a lot of convincing that a Nikon or Olympus body offered sufficient advantages so as to justify a brand switch. (I'd feel the same the other way around - I'm not being brand partisan.)

The most noticeable change in leaving film was that the viewfinder isn't as good.... (I don't think that's a Canon-specific issue, it's to do with sensor sizes and viewfinder magnifications. But I've never really bottomed out the cause in my own mind.)

Nick

P.S. Joe - I didn't realise this thread was still active - I like the new images you've posted......

[lexcell]

The most important thing to remember when making the switch to digital is...It's still photography!!! Apertures, shutter speeds, exposure, composition, etc are still the same. Focal length may be different due to the sensor size but, it's easy enough to get around that.

As Colleen mentions, white balance can be something of a challenge but, it's fairly easy to overcome. Begin with the pre-set white balances in the camera, then begin tweaking them to get closer to the white balance you desire. If you need critical accuracy, then use something like the ExpoDisc to set a custom white balance for the existing lighting conditions.

Also, use the rear lcd as feedback but, don't depend on it for exposure accuracy. Instead, use the highlight warning or learn to read a histogram for exposure information. While you may have to make adjustments to get it right, you have that instant feedback to do it on the spot. How great is that!! No more waiting for your film to come back from the lab to discover that you goofed something up and either have to re-shoot or that you cannot re-shoot and the moment is gone. You can do your re-shoot on the spot!

So, get out there and shoot, shoot, shoot, learn and have fun!

[ljameso1]

If you use the same lenses on a digital slr, I think the 1st thing you'll notice is that everything seems a lot closer. This is because dslr's have a smaller sensor that will capture the center part of the lens. The difference from a film rebel to a digital rebel is the equivalent of adding a 1.6 teleconverter. Which means you could get as close with your zoom and still use autofocus as you wouldn't necessarily need the doubler. The drawback is this also applies to wide angle lenses, but there are now wider lenses to make up for that. There are dslrs with a 35mm size sensors but they are rather pricey. I stayed with canon when I made the switch just so I wouldn't have to invest in new lenses. Another cool thing not mentioned yet is that you can change the film speed from shot-shot.

[Not4wood]

If your first starting out and converting over to digital, you miight find yourself scratching your head because of one problem I can see that was mentioned in ljameso1 post.

The lens on a film SLR will focus the image on the film. On the new Digital SLR's that focus plane or where the sensor is compared to where the Film Plane used to be has been moved. So some of your older lenses will not focus the image on the new Digital SLR. This doesn't go for all the older lenses, some of the older lenses are actually very good and are now being hunted for the DSLR since there cheaper.

[NickLewis]

Mark,

Are you sure about this? I wasn't aware of any difficulty fitting film-EOS lenses onto a digital EOS camera. They both use the EF mount. (You can't necessarily go the other way: if you are using a EF-S lens on your digital camera, it won't fit an EF mount because of the EF-S's shorter back focus.)

There is a problem fitting old-style Canon FD lenses to an EOS mount because the flange to focal plane distance is 42mm not 44mm, so a true adaptor requires optical elements, but this isn't a digital issue as such, and the OP has an EOS rebel anyway.

Nick

[ljameso1]

Nick, All EOS lenses will work on canon digital bodies. It's just the older lenses you mentioned that won't fit. What I was talking about is actually something referred to commonly as the crop factor caused by sensors being smaller in dimension than 35mm film. You should be good to go with your EOS zoom.

[Not4wood]

Also, as far as I've heard. Most of the older Nikon Lenses will work, with todays DX camera's, I'll just loose some of the higher functioning technology like auto-focus and on some even auto-exposure. I think thats mostly for the very older lenses but I'm not sure.

But there is a difference, and I have seen that on paper the Nikon line has people running around trying to get some of the older lens for use on the new digital cameras. But on some other brands, I think it might have been Pentax, where the older lens fit and besides the barrel effect on the edges because the lens might not cover the size of the sensor properly the focusing problem comes into play as well.

[Not4wood]

Now as far as shooting mindset for the conversion to digital. Its just actually doing something your not sure of and new. I found that I started to rationalize and make excuses. The biggest excuse I have heard and it does come up all the time is:
"I hear of people complaining that there are no prints, nothing, no paper pictures to hold in your hand". Matter of fact, I heard this from one young lady yesterday afternoon. I told her that was mostly a myth, and only if people were lazy to not getting around to printing something does that happen. I find my self printing more now, then when I had film developed for the last couple of vacations and special events. I was getting the shots put on Cd's over at CVS.

Now, on the first Saturday after my return I have been known to be spending time at the Kiosk over at Kinkos printing the CD that I burned with the shots that I had chosen from the last vacation/events. After that I am mostly editing the shots if I or anybody wants anything larger then 4x6, and those I will probably print myself. Much larger prints like 11x14 I will use an Online Photo Printer.

[Not4wood]

The two most interesting things when converting to Digital from Film is Changing the ISO settings for the sensor and the ever problematic White Balance.

If you go too sensitive and raise up your ISO settings too far, depending on which brand camera and model your using you get Noise or grain like effects in your image.

As far as White Balance goes, don't go spending too much thought and loosing site of what Photography is. White Balance automatically set by the camera is very good. Using or shooting in RAW, gives you an opportunity to double check and correct any mistakes in the White Balance before you really edit your shot during the conversion from Camera to Elements.