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I find it an interesting exercise to contrast and compare the difference between the kits I would take on a weekend photo trip from the film days and today. We think about how much less expensive photographing with digital equipment is than film equipment, and it may be, once you acquire all of the gear necessary to shoot digital. Film was and is expensive compared to buying a few memory cards, but we weren't so prolific shooters back then. Now, "pixels are free" as I like to say, and most of us make many more images than we thoughtfully did when shooting film. Today, we can take as many images as we wish at almost not additional cost. There is no penalty for taking 2000 images over a weekend versus 200. Doing so when shooting film, was very costly. Hence, our more thoughtful and planned shooting behavior.
To see the difference between then and now in gear I would take on a weekend outing, I brought out some of my old Nikon film gear to contrast against my current Nikon digital gear. I set each up as though I would be taking a weekend photo trip just to see the difference. Back in the film days, I mainly used prime lenses to make my images, but today, primarily use zoom lenses. (Zoom lenses were not nearly as good then) Now, what I don't have in the following images are tripods. I didn't think it necessary to include a tripod in the pictures. Additionally, I would normally take a backup body, but I did not include that either. It evens out either way.
Here is what I normally would take with me if I were going for more than a one day outing to photograph.
Nikon D800E (& a D700 backup body) Polarizing Filter
Nikon 16-35 F/4 Six Stop ND Filter
Nikon 24-120 F/4 Electronic remote release
Nikon 70-200 F/2.8 R strap
Nikon TC14E II Domke F3 bag
Two spare batteries Two 500gb USB 3.0-powered hard drives
Battery Charger 15" Laptop loaded with LR and CS6
Passport Colorchecker Laptop bag with cords/accessories
Lexar USB 3.0 card reader and cord
Memory Card Wallet with about 10 memory cards, both CF and SD
Here is typical of what I would take when I used small SLRs, a few primes and shot film.
Nikon FE2 (& a FM2 backup body) About 6 or so rolls of 36 exp. film (216 exp.)
Nikon 20mm F/2.8 Leather camera strap
Nikon 24mm F/2.8 Domke Bag
Nikon 35mm F/2.0
Nikon 50mm F/1.4
Nikon 80-200mm F/4.5 (or a 180mm F/2.8 or 200mm F/4 but I no longer own those two lenses)
I might have taken a polarizer, but most of the time not; I shoot different subjects today.
That is about it. Cost difference? Well, when you factor in the cost of a laptop, two USB hard drives, Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom, as well as the laptop bag and the associated accessories, it was a lot less expensive getting in to film photography rather than digital photography.
If you didn't change equipment in either example for a long, long time, the digital would start to catch up to the film in savings as the cost of film over a long period of time would equialize the costs of the additional equipment necessary for digital photography. But that would be quite a while. I don't know how long that would be since it depends upon how much one shoots and gets his or her film processed.
So, the penalty for digital photography is bulk, weight and up front cost. The cost of film photography hits you on the back end in long term film and processing costs.
I guess, if you wanted to get into photography and had little money, no suitable computer or editing software, shooting film would be the way to go since the upfront costs are so much less. If you fall in love with photography and plan to practice the craft for many, many years, digital would pay off in the long run.
All that being said, I produce images that are so much better with digital gear than I could with film. As I said in the past, I was never really satisfied with the results from 35mm film photography so I graduated up to medium format, which was more expensive in both equipment and film costs. But, to me, easily worth it.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis Mook
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