Digital or SLR?
 

I sold my first painting recently, and I promised myself I would buy a digital camera...BUT I have researched for weeks, I like one I can afford, but now concerned I am looking at it the wrong way.

I had a wonderful SLR stolen years ago, loved photography all my life, and missed it immensely (I love the manual challenge).

However, with digital cameras seeming the way to go, I first decided to get one of them, but now it seems that a SLR has more to offer in my price range than a digital. I was going to purchase a mid-range digital, but now I think I can get a great SLR for half the price of a mid-range digital, more options, more accurate manual settings, bigger lenses for zoom, etc. and I could buy a low-range digital for my "instant" situations. (both a SLR and a simple digital for the price of a mid-range digital).

What do you think about this? I can't afford a SLR digital, but I want a really good camera capable of taking impressive reference photo's, but I also would love a digital for taking immediate pictures without processing a film etc.. I am feeling confused about what I should do, and need advice.

You might need one of each. (I know you don't want to hear that.)

I love my digital camera (a Minolta with 3.4 megapixels) for shooting portrait reference photos. It gives me sufficient detail and tonal range to easily paint from and -- this is the most important factor for me -- I can tell right away if I have the reference shots I need or not. I don't have to wait for film to be processed to find that I need to schedule a reshoot with the client.

However, I would like to get a good film-based SLR to take better photos of my paintings. To get the kind of resolution I need to get really sharp 8 x 10 prints for my portfolio I'd need a much higher megapixel digital camera ($$$) or shoot on film with a good lens.

Generally speaking, we are in a technological overlap. That period of time, which your research has revealed, when there are good reasons to hang on to film and good reasons to jump to digital. At least we have arrived at the point where it is merely a matter of money and not technical capability, this is a good thing. This means that we are nearing the end of the overlap.

Personally, I have decided that the digital I buy will be at least a 5-6 mega pixel SLR. However the price I am willing to pay is probably 18-24 months out.

It can be very aggravating dealing with film but I never really thought about it until I understood the benefits of digital. So, what I did was take that little gaget they used in the movie "Men in Black" (now available at Radio Shack, don't go less than 5-6 mega pixels) and wiped my memory clean of all digital references with an 18 month recall option.

Michele:

I use my 3.34MP digital for shooting paintings all the time and have no problems getting 8x10 or larger that are wonderful.

I am wondering if you have the ability on your camera to shoot a TIF file rather than a JPG. When you shoot your paintings, this can make all the difference in the world as to crispness as TIF is uncompressed and JPGs are always compressed some (even when they are at 100%). That JPG compression causes very minute blurring.

I shoot my pics of my paintings with my camera set on TIF. They come out of the camera at 2048x1536 pixels which is 21x28 inches. I typically pull them into Photoshop and change the DPI to 300, size them down to what I need for my portfolio and print them on good quality photo paper.

Check your camera and see if you can shoot a TIF.

When I first got the camera I tested TIF vs JPEG quality by photographing real objects. There wasn't any appreciable difference. They all looked quite crisp.

The fuzziness only shows up when I shoot my paintings. I will try photographing them in TIF and see how it looks. Thanks for the suggestion!

Desicions decisions....
 

Thanks for they comments, I really appreciate it. I am still unsure what to do, but I feel I am getting closer to a decision. Mike, you are so correct with the overlap theory...and sadly a 5-6 mg digital is out of bounds financially for me until a later date.

The 4 MG digital I was about to purchase I feared that perhaps I would be semi-pleased with it's preformance, and I want to be fully pleased. I am concerned about the shutter-lag, not so much for my art needs, but for capturing moments when they happen.

As Michele mentioned...I am considering buying a SLR plus a simple digital ( not to break the bank...) to assist me in my needs, that way I get the best of both worlds. In a few years, then I might be able to purchase a 5 - 6 MG digital that will produce impressive results. And who knows what they will come up with in a few more years in relation to quality of the product.

I noticed great quality SLR cameras at really resonable prices when I was looking at digitals, which means for my money I will get a great camera, just have to stick with the traditional ways with film for awhile. And when I think about it, film has been there for us for years, so it isn't all bad. And with a low-range ( $$) digital, I can have the advantage of instant results etc. when I need them. Michael's comments of TIF files, and 3 plus MG to be taken into consideration. I really do think I can get both these for the same price one 4mg digital was going to cost me. I just have to wear the cost of film developing etc. for the SLR.

Lisa,

Check out Morgan Weistling's post. The gap is closing in price and quality between digital and SLR. If I were you, I'd sit tight until the cameras described by Weistling come into your price point. The way technology goes, that's not too far in the future. Just look at the price-drop over the past two years for CD burners, DVD players, other basic digital cameras.

Lisa, I got a Canon G2 digital camera (4 megapixels) in October and still haven't really gotten past the automatic setting stage because I haven't used it much.

My workhorse optical system is Nikon. I have a 5005 and an N60 body with several different lenses, but I keep my 70-210mm lens on almost all the time and it's my lens of choice for portrait photography because you can maintain more of a distance from the subject and it's easier to get natural-looking expressions that way.

Digital cameras still have a shutter-lag problem, in that there's more time that elapses between pressing the shutter and actually taking the photo than there is in an SLR. Since expressions are important to me that's a major drawback. But I know lots of people who love their digitals and use them constantly. If you're not accustomed to an SLR it would probably be easier for you to make that adjustment.

Not that this gives you any assistance in making a decision, but at least it's something more to think about.

Lisa,

I am also in the debating stages of purchasing a digital camera. This may be a little off topic, but something to consider when paying the large difference say between a 3 Mpixel or a 5 Mpixel camera is the following. The following calculations below assume a 16" x 12" image in Photoshop.

A 3.15 Mpixel camera, producing a max. resolution of 2048 x 1536, will yield a 128 dpi image.

A 3.87 Mpixel camera, producing a max. resolution of 2272 x 1704, will yield a 142 dpi image.

A 4.92 Mpixel camera, producing a max. resolution of 2560 x 1920, will yield a 160 dpi image.

Looking at the dpi, there's not a huge difference in resolution between say a 4 Mpixel camera and a 5 Mpixel camera. You can do the calculations for any size image you're used to working with, but the increase in dpi is misleadingly small compared to the increase in price as you increase the Mpixels.

Holly

Thanks Mari I did check out the attached post you mentioned, helpful, and also made my decision more "confusing". There are so many things to consider.

Leslie, thanks for your info, it does help in my decision, all the info and advice I can get right now is helping.

The shutterlag is a concern to me for the exact reasons you mentioned, missing that special moment. I have to purchase within a budget, and that is a really big part of my decision (as much as I would love to go wild) A G2 here is out of my budget, not by much but it is. Holly that's interesting about the dpi results...and I am realizing that I could get a 3MG digital plus a new SLR with 28-90 & 100-300 lens for the cost of one 4MG digital camera. I am not frightened of the traditional optical methods, and am swaying on the fact that having both kinds gives me more options. That doesn't mean that I am not looking forward to oneday investing in a very nice digital that could do all of the above, I think that day is a few years away though.

I have been wishing for a digital for a long time, and am nervous that I make the right decision. I am suprised that I am leaning towards the way I am, but I guess that is why I have researched and asked advice, so I don't finish up being disappointed. I really apreciate everyones comments, especially from the ART side of this debate. Thanks everyone. ;)

I'm glad to see this discussion today because I recently came to the conclusion that I need both my SLR and my digital.

Michele,

I agree with you - the digital camera is terrific for reference shots. It's also good for taking photos of work in progress, which I've gotten in the habit of doing. Somehow, shrinking the image helps me to see problems in a painting early on (well, that's the goal, anyway) before they get entrenched.

As you also mentioned, my problem is with taking digital photos of my paintings. I am just not happy with the color and I am low on the Photoshop learning curve. (I've upgraded my primitive printer and this has helped a bit.) Focus also looks fuzzy when I shoot my paintings (why is this? Michele, I'm glad I'm not the only one with this problem). Michael, if it's JPEG compression, then why are the resource photos so crisp?

I also sense that the zooms on a SLR and a digital camera are not comparable - sometimes subjects are "fisheyed" on a digital when they wouldn't be at the same shooting range on a SLR - at least that is what seems to be happening to me.

I admit, I need more practice with the digital.

Oh - and let's not forget - artists need SLRs to take slides.

Michael,

I have a Minolta 5 megapixel and I get
enormous JPEG files: typical is 2560 by 1920 pixels, or 35 by 26 inches. Do I really need to shoot TIFs? Stupid question: how do I adjust DPI in Photoshop? I thought I had to go through my printer photo printing software for that.

The computer guy who periodically shows up to rescue my computer claims that Photoshop automatically compresses images when you adjust photos in any manner. Can he be right about this? My printer came with its own photo printing program which seems to produce much better photos that Photoshop does.


Holly, Lisa, Leslie, Mike and Mari,

Thanks for this information, it is very helpful to me. Please keep posting with any new thoughts.

Best regards,
Linda

There's some discussion in this nearby thread about getting slides made from your digital images.

Steven,

Thank you for pointing out the post, which I hadn't seen. It's just dawned on me that I can probably upload a digital image to one of our local pro film shops and they can convert it to slide format. I'll try that and see how it works out.

Best regards,
Linda

May I recommend www.slides.com

Have used them repeatedly and get really good slides inexpensively and fast.

Linda and Michael,

I did some camera tests today and setting my camera to TIFF instead of JPEG didn't improve the image quality at all - bummer!

The images are still grainy and fuzzy when I photograph my paintings. Can't seem to get over that problem.

Linda, I know what you mean about how convenient it is to use a digital camera to photograph paintings in progress. Sometimes I see errors just by looking at the LCD display.

Michele:

Well, I am sorry that things are not working out as you would like with this camera.

One thing I have noticed is that my larger paintings do not photograph as crisply as my smaller ones. That may be something to consider and try out. Also, do you have a background up behind the painting? If not, then that mass of visual information can mess up the autofocus sometimes. Also, where are you shooting the paintings - indoors, outdoors and how are you lighting them?

I am wondering if it is just your camera, or if your standards for portfolio prints are higher than my own. Do you have a high-speed connection? If so, then I could send you one of my portfolio TIFs and you could print it out and compare. Let me know. :)

I'm no digital guy but it sounds like a to close focus problem. My Nikon film camera is auto focus and I rely on it almost exclusively. When the lens senses the subject is in focus I get an indication in my view finder. If I get closer than the lens is built to handle I can't get that positive indication. Do you have a similar indication of "in focus"?

Maybe if you back off a bit, say 8 feet instead of 4, take the photo and then bring it into photo shop and crop it down, then see if you get the fuzzy look.

Maybe you're just not in focus and it's not communicating this as well as it should.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

Here's my procedure: I use a tripod and the self-timer to eliminate camera shake. I photograph my paintings indoors next to a north-facing window in the brightest part of the day. (That's not saying much in terms of light for Seattle at this time of year!)

I do have an "in-focus" indicator (a beep and a light) and I always make sure it's focused before shooting. I shoot from across the room and zoom in to crop the image, and crop again in Photoshop.

My most recent painting, a 48 x 36" canvas, is softer edged than anything else I've done so the camera has to try hard to find something to focus on. (I do occasionally use the edge of the canvas to focus to, so maybe it's sometimes focusing on the wall instead.)

I guess I'd describe the problem more as graininess than fuzziness. I'll post an image of the actual pixels my camera captures (not scaled, and with no change in dpi.)

Michael, I do have a high speed connection. Maybe you could send me one of your files for comparison. Or we could compare printouts in Scottsdale at Bill's class.

Here's a cropped section of the painting, showing the actual pixels captured by my camera in the least-compressed jpeg setting. I also saved it in photoshop, in order to post it here, using the least-compressed jpeg setting.

As I mentioned, it's a very soft edged painting. This is only a small section of the canvas. It's a 48 x 36" painting of three kids, three quarter view. This face is about 7" inches high, photograped from about 8 feet away, somewhat zoomed in to eliminate the bowing I'd get if I shot wide-angle.

Here's another one, photographed in the same way, using a much more crisp-edged painting. The edges on this painting are nowhere near this soft.

And for comparison, a shot taken in pretty much the same way (maybe less zoomed in) of something real.

When I get closer to photograph details of my paintings I don't seem to have the fuzziness problem.

I didn't photograph this as close-in as it seems. I filled the viewfinder with the one head, shown earlier. I zoomed in all the way and walked in to about three feet from the painting. All these examples are just a small subsection of the overall shot so you can see the detail.

(By the way, this was painted on the rough canvas I used to use before I discovered Claessen's!)

Seems like my full-painting shots are much fuzzier than shots of real people or painting shots taken close up.

Any suggestions?

Michele,

It does appear to be a "focus" issue, as Mike has suggested. This is something I cannot do on my digital camera, but on my SLR you can lock the focus, recompose the shot, then take the picture. I'm wondering if this is a feature on the next-generation 5+ megapixel cameras described by Morgan Weistling in the "Considering Buying a Digital Camera" thread. It should definitely be an option on an auto-focus camera; you could set up a color bar or a grey card, focus on that "absolute" edge, recompose and shoot.

I'm curious because I use the same setup you've described, and have the same focus issues.

Here is an actual pixel detail from one of my portfolio pics. I shot the painting with my 3.34 Olympus - what you see is 300 pixels per inch in a JPG saved at 95%:

And another, same setup except this painting is smaller in size than the other. You will notice that it is slightly sharper:

It's so hard to compare your photos to mine, Michael, because of the unknown differences in the edge sharpness of the paintings.

How far from the paintings were you when you took these shots?

Yours do seem to be less grainy, also, than the one I posted that shows the problem I'm having. (The shot showing the painting with the whole head of the boy.)

Mari, I like your idea of focusing on the edge of a grey card first. (If I tape it off to the side of the painting I won't have to let go of the shutter to remove the card before pressing the shutter the rest of the way.)

Or maybe I'll just see if my camera will let me do manual focus. I used to do that all the time on my film cameras but I don't know if my digital has that capability.

Michele,

I'm no expert, but the blurriness you show looks more like what I get when I have a little movement than when I am out of focus. When I have movement, one characteristic I see is at the edge between a dark and a light value, I get a line of pixels lighter than either region. It is possible you have a little residual vibration affecting your camera?

I use the Best Shot Selector function, take a bunch of pictures, and throw away the 90% that are less sharp.

Michele:

I was about 6 feet shooting on a tripod with the remote for my camera, so it was very still. You are right, it is hard to compare without seeing both originals and then both pictures.

I will try to ZIP up a one of my portfolio TIFs today and send it to you.

Please post any "eureka" moments in your research, Michelle and Michael. I'm trying to decipher the same issues in my digital reproduction attempts, and I'm thinking that the only way for me to make it happen is to be able to manually lock the camera's "autofocus".

In fact, I'm dying to post some recent paintings (had a great growth spurt in Peggy Baumgaertner's Sarasota workshop) from life sessions, but can't get an accurate reproduction to post.

Camera-shake is not the issue; like Michelle, I also set up the camera on a tripod, hang the painting on an outdoor fence in full sun, and use the camera's "auto-timer" feature (it doesn't accept a cable-release).

I'll shoot some 35mm slides and prints tomorrow for comparison's-sake.

Clarification
 

Michele and Michael,

You posted the details. Can you now post the entire image (you would have to reduce the file size) so we can see what percentage of the entire image that the detail is?

If you want to see a detail of a painting I shot usinga 4x5 camera and then scanning it on a linocolor scanner, as well as the full painting you can go to another string at http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...0&pagenumber=1

To the best of my knowledge (very spotty when it comes to digital cameras) one would need about a 12 megapixel ccd to get this kind of accuracy. Those babies go for $5000+.

Michele:

I tried to send you an image, but even Zipped up the file size is too large for my gateway requirements. Sorry. :(

Marvin: Here are the whole painting images

And:

Further clarification
 

Michael,

Were the details you posted part of the entire digital file of your painting or were they separate close-ups? The ones I had linked to on my previous post were details from the whole file.

Your paintings are showing great improvement, BTW. Congratulations.

The shots I showed were just cut out of the original pics I took of the painting and were not close ups or separate shots at all.

Thanks for your compliments on my work. :)

Maybe it just comes down to the difference in the edge sharpness of the actual paintings. (Duh!)

I've posted an overall shot of one of my sharper-edged paintings and then an "actual pixels" image cut out of the original overall photo (not a close-up photo).

I still see a bit more graininess in my darks compared to the one Michael posted, but the edges of the leaf closeup photo are a lot sharper than on the painting of the boy (as they are on the actual canvases).

This canvas is 30 x 40".

And here are the actual pixels from the original shot:

What I think is happening is that my camera is having an easier time focusing on the sharp-edged high contrast shapes in the leaf painting than in the softer edged, lower contrast shapes of my portraits.

Perhaps it is giving me an "in focus" signal when it's just doing its best guess.

Next time I'll try using a card taped to the side of the painting to use for setting the focus.

Perhaps it's also to do with overall light levels. When I photographed the leaf painting it was a bright day. That may account for the less grainy appearance than what I see in some of my portrait photos.

So many variables!

I do agree with you, Marvin, on the benefits of shooting 4 x 5's. I take my paintings downtown and have a professional color lab shoot 4 x 5 transparencies of all my paintings.

It's just that then I don't have a clean high res digital file in order to print 8 x 10's for my portfolio. I'm stuck with what I can get with my own digital camera. Doing a very high res digital scan at that color lab is much more expensive and so far I've avoided doing that for all but my favorite pieces.

The search for the perfect solution goes on...

As I think through what you are saying my initial thoughts are that the lens of the camera only focuses at a specific distance from the lens to the subject. Once that distance is determined it then falls on the film or pixels for interpretation.

I think your theory about soft edges has merit, especially when these edges (or transitions) relate to certain colors. I have always thought that film saw reds more easily (or differently) than the colors around it.

For example when a cheek turn very gradually from light to shadow, film seems to interprete this more harshly, accentuating the reds and thus creating a more harsh transition than how my eyes view the same painted surface.

When I view this painting in person it looks very different to my eyes. Very frustrating.

Will your ink-jet photos last???
 

I own both a SLR and a digital camera. I love having both of them as I use my digital camera a lot when designing webpages and find it too convenient in taking quick snapshots on vacations and such. But I am still leary about the long term effects in printing my photos from my digial camera onto photo paper. There is no concrete proof in stating that these digitally produced photographs from my hewlett packard printer will be staying around for 100 plus years. Oh yes, the printing companies will state that there ink is archival and will last for 100 plus years but nobody really knows for certain. I have worked at a print shop for many years and know a lot about archival ink myself. Also, don't let water get near those ink-jet photos!

I am knee deep into geneaology and own tons of old black and white photographs taken in the 1800's. Not only are these old photos clear but not a hint of yellowing or degrading in them.

Also, we save our images to CD's. They have done studies on how long CD-ROMs will last for - I have seen the average at 10 years. No one knows for sure to say the least. So in the future, will we be able to ever look at those precious pics from our CD's again and pass them on to generation to generation?

Even if studies has shown that my photos printed on photo paper will last 30 years, I want to have concrete evidence to make sure that any of my precious photos such graduations, births, parties, anniversaries, etc are all taken on my SLR camera and not my digital. There is no gaurantee at all in stating that our beautiful, precious pictures will stay around for years to come. I know, my myself, I want to be able to pass down as many photos about my family and friends to my children. It has already been said that the older black and white photographs will outlast the coloured photographs of our time but what about those ink-jet printed photos?

I am too stuck into the new technology and love my digital camera. Oh how convenient it is to erase the photo we don't want and having a filmless camera. I use it all the time (maybe even too much).

Film is the cheapest I have seen it in years and that is probably due to the fact for the popular market of the digital cameras. Thank you digital camera!!

Use a flashlight
 

I have honed this down to a science and spent countless hours working out the little problems that you have discussed here.

One little tip, if possible with your camera, focus manually when shooting artwork.

Unfortunately, most point and shoot digitals don't let you look thru the lens and focus like my D100. While you are nailing the focus down, shine a flashlight at the center spot that the camera is on to see the paint ridges with little highlights that will allow you something to focus on if your painting is not giving you enough contrast to focus on. Also, manually set your depth of field to about f8, if possible, to give you a little buffer zone for error. Then bracket like crazy. Keep notes on what is working.

When I would shoot with my Nikon 990, I would have the problems you are having now. Also, check to make sure no stray light is hitting your lens. Sometimes you can not notice the lights are glazing over your lens and ruining your contrast. I block out my lights around my camera with large black foamcore boards attached to light stands. My shots improved right away with that one.

In digital SLRs, the lens is everything. The sharpness of your shots can vary dramatically depending on the quality of the glass. With the little point and shoot digitals, you are stuck with what you have. The farther you get back from the painting, the more you will see the limitations of those little lenses. The glass is just not the priority of the camera makers in that product line. Everyone is enamored with mega pixels and forget that a 5 megapixel point and shoot is going to give you this same sharpness problem. I have a 60mm Nikon flat field lens I use just for shooting artwork. It gives amazing sharpness and no distortions.

I have a 28mm-70mm Nikon lensefor figurative shots that can shoot in the dark it's so fast. What's nice, is that my lens collection will follow me to whatever new digital body they come out with(in SLR). Right before I bought my first digital, I bought a Nikon F100 film camera for the "real" photos I would be needing. On a whim, I bought the 990, for fun shots, and ended up never touching the F100 again. It was a waste of my money. I recommend to anyone wondering if they should put any money into a film camera at this point to really reconsider. Sell things to raise the money, do bake sales, take in laundry, try out for American Idol. Do whatever you can to raise the money for a digital SLR.

You won't be sorry.
Morgan