Nikon press release re: film

[Mike McCarty]

It does appear that the days of film are numbered. The following is a recent press release from Nikon:

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Following the success of our digital line-up over the last seven years, which has resulted in more than 95% of Nikon

[Michele Rushworth]

Interesting article, though not surprising, I guess. Digital is SO much easier to use than film. I think what is surprising is how fast digital has almost completely supplanted film. For the last hundred years film was all we had, and then within 5 years.... gone!

[Steven Sweeney]

The available technology would have been the stuff of -- even beyond -- pure science fiction when many of us reading this Forum were in high school or maybe even in college.

My dad always had a darkroom. That red light on the ceiling was a childhood mystery. Fact was, the darkroom (which he could never afford to keep up to spec) doubled as our 50's and early 60's bomb shelter -- you know, the safe place to be when the big one exploded over your city.

My kids inherited their grandparents' (both sides) darkroom equipment, all of which has long since made it to flea markets and landfills. It always seemed like trying to pick up satellite radio on very expensive and risky crystal sets, so we just gave up.

And yet, I much prefer an old letterpress print production to anything a computer can put out -- a letterpress printer knows about the tactile "kiss," the measure of pressure of type against paper -- but I'm going to bet that old Ansel Adams would have had a good time with digitals and Photoshop. He knew very well how to "photoshop" an image in the darkroom, and the myth to the contrary has caused a lot of frustration for would-be shutterbugs.

The days of shooting a 36-image roll -- or eight, on vacation -- and hoping against hope that there would be a few keepers when the prints came back weeks later from wherever they came back from are over, for better or worse. I have a whole lot of film photos that I wouldn't trade for gold, but within a year of acquiring digital, I was completely Borg'ed into submission. Resistance was futile.

On the other hand, I started with Macs and stuck with them, and look -- new Macs can now run all the Windows/PC programs, assuming the users want to take a step back in time and performance. The good wins out, with patience.

Nothing very classic or romantic about this on-a-budget dial-up connection, though.

And the beat goes on.

[Nanci France]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me if they have the Nikon D200? I just ordered it and sold my Fuji S2 pro 6.1 megapixel and I am hoping it does well for portraits.

Thanks,

Nanci

[Mike McCarty]

Nanci:

I can't imagine the Nikon D200 10mp SLR being anything other than fabulous for portraits.

You can go to www.dpreview.com, and under their "Buying guide," "side by side" comparison section you can do a detailed comparison between this camera and your Fuji, or any other camera.

Best of luck.

[Nanci France]

Mike,

Thanks for the info!!!! I look forward to reading the comparisons.

Best,

Nanci