32 replies to this topic

[wetpixel]

Just to be mischievous, and I don't believe the following is true, but its a fun theory (not based on any fact).
It is fun to hypothesize that Charles Hood, who has a similar role to JB  but at the UK's other big diving mag, wrote a glowing review of the D100, concluding that he would be trading in his F100 for a D100 for magazine work. So, maybe there is a swipe at the photo quality in the other mag.

I went on a trip with Charles Hood, and I don't think he even brought his film camera. He was raving about the D100 the entire time.

[bobjarman]

I just read the article, along with the comments posted.

It is a shame they didn't post a point/countepoint type of article. A lot of what he said is true.....at least for the moment, sadly it was skewed in such a negative tone that anyone who shoots digital is bound to go ballistic.

I have many friends who shoot full time pro wildlife/nature stuff. I would estimate that over 85% of them are still using film. Maybe not exclusively, but primarily. Reasons; "I simply cannot get the resolution I need yet", and more importantly "My customers want film". For some reason, many agencies are still requesting 40-120mb fles uninterploated.

With todays technology, these ideas may be outdated, but they still exist in the marketplace and until the marketplace has universally accepted digital camera produced images, I don't blame him for wanting to shoot film.....its a wider audience.

As many of you know, I shoot purely digital on land, and purely film underwater (on those rare occurances when I get to dive). I shoot film for one main reason..dependable dedicated TTL flash. Yes I know fuji has ttl, but for those of us invested in Canon gear, until canon releases its ETTLl technology, or until someone successfully backwards engineers a working ettl strobe sysem, I will shoot film. The day that changes, I will probably switch bck to digital again.

I agree that digital handles shadow recovery TONS better than film, but highlights are still an issue with digital, I struggle with it on land constantly. Its a trade-off, but one I would get used to if we ever get a really dedicated flash system. And yes, I do shoot manual strobes on occasion, but I love TTL, I have a much better chance of shooting a correct exposure with TTL on one shot with a skittish animal than manual......I simply dont dive enough to really master manual flash, and many subjects I shoot don't seem to want to hang around for a second or third try.

Please belive me when I say this is not digital bashing. I am a huge dgital fan, shoot exclusively digital on land, and truly can't wait for the day when I can buy a reasonably priced canon digital set up that will handle the strobes properly. I will be the first in line to buy it.

My 2 cents.....worth about what you paid for it!

[ehanauer]

Loss of TTL capability is a tradeoff in digital. But where chrome film has a latitude of a half stop, digital images have a latitude of two and a half stops on the underexposure side. Even photographers who grew up on TTL should be able to estimate exposure within 2 1/2 stops. Often that can be compensated simply by moving closer.

IMHO, the advantage of instant feedback outweighs the lack of TTL.

[Alex_Mustard]

I have a D100 and shoot with very reliable TTL. House a land gun. It works and its easy.

Anyway the reason for the repeat post is to apologise for my poorly worded post - typing quickly so as not to get caught by my boss!

What I should say is "lots of big cheeses have won there in the past - so it carries a lot of kudos"!

Just trying to encourage the community to get our work out there and change attitudes. :-)

[bobjarman]

Even photographers who grew up on TTL should be able to estimate exposure within 2 1/2 stops. Often that can be compensated simply by moving closer.

Well, apparently not me! I could get close, but I could never get a decent shot without some blown out highlights on the frst try, which is often all I get.

On the latitude issues, I agree with your statement. that said, how do you combat the noise issue when you start purposly underexposing images to save the highlights? I still have trouble with this with topside shooting. If I try to get a bird in flight, when I try to increase exposure on the bird, the blue sky will invariably start showing some wild noise effects. Do you not have this problem with a blue background shot?

I am still a neo when it comes to photoshop........

and imho, the instant feedback doesn't outweigh the lack of TTL......yet. (different strokes for different folks!)

[Alex_Mustard]

just a couple of DTTL trials. First one pool test:



Shot from the same distance just changing aperture - DTTL works to produce correct exposure over 7 stops

And even when the fishy is swimming (and not made of plastic) it still works:



Dunno much about Canons but it can't be that tough to house a Canon land flash that will TTL with Canon Digitals?

Alex

[craig]

Ha ha ha. Not smiling so much with that thing sucking on your forehead, eh?

[bobjarman]

I have never tried housing a 550EX, so I cannot comment on them other than I am not sure it is powerful/wide enough.

I believe Eric has, so he could probably coment better than me.

Trust me guys, I am not knocking digi underwater, ......just relaying how I feel about it on a personal, for my use only basis at the moment. I have seen a lot of the shots you all are taking and am totally impressed.....

I will get there, someday

[Kasey]

Bob -
I think I speak for all of us diginuts in saying that your comments are totally reasonable. We all realize, perhaps even better than our film brethren, the drawbacks of digital.

I still find it amazing that only Fuji has figured out (or chosen to utilize) how to manage TTL strobes.

Kasey

[craig]

Bob -
I think I speak for all of us diginuts in saying that your comments are totally reasonable.  We all realize, perhaps even better than our film brethren, the drawbacks of digital.

I still find it amazing that only Fuji has figured out (or chosen to utilize) how to manage TTL strobes.

Kasey

...and Fuji is also trying to improve dynamic range. I second the rest.

[bobjarman]

Thanks Kasey,

I thnk in canon's case the problems is compounded by the fact the the Canon digital cameras do not offer TTL as an option, only ETTL.

Which I often think is an acronym for "Encrypted Thru The Lens" flash system that no one will ever figure out without paying a $50,000.000 royalty to our company."

[Alex_Mustard]

Does Nikon's DTTL stand for Dodgy TTL?

I have to say that when I first went digital I was very worried about the lack of TTL. I have shot and continue to shoot every flash lit picture I do on 35mm with TTL. My medium format Hasselblad is completely manual and I use manual flash with that, but I would use TTL if I could.

So I hope that demostrates my TTL-phyllic tendencies!

For digital I use DTTL (which is fine) for macro lenses and 28-70mm. I would struggle to get one chance behaviour shots without it. But housed land guns will not cover wide angle.
So when I started with digital I was very concerned about not having TTL for wide angle. But now having used manual for wide angle with a digital camera I prefer it - and I really never expected I'd say that. I still shoot TTL wide angle on film - without exception. But digital has instant image review and you can quickly get exposures correct - and once correct since you shoot most subjects from the same distance they only need minor (if any) fine tuning between subjects.

Manual flash with two guns (with variable power settings) lets me get really even light on wide angle subjects. My guns are often set at 2 stops different power levels for the best result - a result a pair of guns on TTL cannot achieve (because they will give out the same amount of light). I'd also add that even if someone came up with an instant fix for my D100 to allow me to shoot TTL wide angle, I'd stick with manual.

Bob, I would really recommend trying digital wide angle with manual guns. Even in the pool. It shocked me and if you read through the Wetpixel site, many 35mm shooters have been shocked by the fact they prefer manual guns for wide angle.

The main problem for digital wide angle is that there are no lenses wide enough. The Fisheye is a lovely lens on digital, but until there is a full frame UW digital or a DX fisheye, the lack of a 180? lens is digital's main short coming for wide angle. And a major reason I did more dives with my F100 (35mm Nikon) than with my D100 (digital) on my last trip (but before I'm disowned by Wetpixel I downloaded more shots from the digital)!

Alex java script:emoticon(':)')

[bobjarman]

If ya got about 25K you could buy and house a 1ds.......

Although it seems to have its own problems underwater based on what I have read it these forums.