If you have a digital camera and nothing else you can: (1) look at pictures on the little screen of the camera, or (2) take the camera to a lab and get prints. To do anything else, you need other things, such as a computer (or a DVD player and TV set).

If you have a film camera, you can (1) take it to a lab and get prints. To do anything else, you need more, just as with a digital camera.

Film cameras are extremely inexpensive; digital cameras range from inexpensive to horribly expensive. At equivalent price, film provides better quality. The best quality from film requires extra care. Film requires spending a few dollars for every 36 photos or so. However, prints and CDs will cost more than film does, whether you use film or digital. The most expensive prints are those you print yourself with a printer (and they are not the <i>best</i> prints, merely the most expensive).

Anyone reading this thread and trying to make a decision, please validate the comments you read before you decide. Anthony, to pretend you know about digital cameras after you admitted on your website that you stopped using one when the digital was a CoolPix - 1998 technology... Really.

BTW - Is there a source for your wild assertion&quot; And Kodak once estimated that about 80% of all digital photos at least will be lost, because most people never back up their digital storage media.&quot; Amazing.

Less than a year ago, I was probably the most anti-digital person on the planet (even more than Anthony), but bought the CoolPix 5900 for my trip to Italy. A very nice and user friendly camera.

My biggest problem was, after nearly 30 years of using SLR's, was framing the picture in the little screen. So recently I bought the Nikon D50 digital SLR. This is a sweet camera and, for me at least, shooting in SLR mode is so much more comfortable. And the telephoto lens I bought for it works on my film SLR.

There is only one area that I agree with Anthony that using film is better. That is when doing black&amp;white photography. Digital b&amp;w just comes off, to me at least, as clinical &amp; sterile looking.

Go to www.pbase.com/trsw there is a gallery shot with Tri-X film. Plus the Diablo and Sunset galleries were shot with D50.

Tom

I have found that this thread illustrates why someone might hesitate to ask for advice on this board. The OP asked originally what was best _for her_; it has now turned into a harangue over what is best in general - digital or film - with most of the posts assuming the inherent superiority of digital because (a) the posters like it better; (b) digital's market share is obviously much larger now than film. But until film has gone the way of Beta, neither reason indicates that digital is just better than film. Yes, digital cameras offer features that film cameras don't, but as AGA points out, digital also has some problems, including storage (I've read several articles that indicate the changing technology may make the storage of digital photos a problem, unless some more permanent solution is devised - microfilm being one of the more likely!) and cost (a decent film camera is much cheaper than a decent digital camera; my own film camera cost $30, and the difference between that and the $100 for a cheap digital camera [a figure from other posts] means a lot to me, at least). Lots of posts say, just suck it up and spend the time learning how to use the digital camera, but as someone who has had the same issues that the OP had, I say, I don't want to waste even an hour learning the latest technology, when what I used before continues to work just fine _for me_. But maybe I'm just a Luddite.

Actually, you don't need any ancillary equipment with a digital camera. Nowadays, self-service printing stations are ubiquitous - and at places like Walgreen's, studio-quality 4x6 prints are 19&cent; a pop.

You slide your memory into the slot, enlarge, crop, rotate, redeye correct, color balance, whatever.

If that's too much standing at a machine to suit you, you can upload files to a web site like Costco's and do the same manipulations.

But I still think a low-end film camera is a better choice for technophobes or those who would stress about &quot;misplacing&quot; a $300 investment while traveling.

I love these threads - people get so passionate about photography.

However, regardless of which side one comes down on, the reality is that digital is here to stay. Maybe it is because digital is better, or maybe it is marketing hype, but even if the latter, marketing hype works. Ergo, the day is coming - maybe not today or even tomorrow, but coming - when film will be less and less available at an ordinary store worldwide. (Don't believe me? Just try buying a typewriter ribbon these days!)

So sooner or later you are going to have to bite the bullet and start climbing that learning curve. I note Robes' comment about fear of loss, but an expensive camera that stays in the closet out of fear is as good as lost.

Meanwhile, the learning curve can be a shallow grade. Just set all the settings (or have someone do it for you) to 'auto' and use it like a PandS and let a photo shop help you with the rest when you get home. Just make sure you have a big memory card so you have room for all your pix so you can do this. Bon voyage.

&quot;But until film has gone the way of Beta...&quot;

The irony of that premise is overwhelming. Betamax was defeated in the marketplace by an inferior technology.

Time will tell whether digital is better than film - if only because of the uncertainties surrounding the archiving for an indefinite future of digital files.

Imagine taking out a CD to re-live your wedding on the occasion of your fiftieth anniversary, and finding that the bits are gone.

Bits are gone

Print pictures you like. Keep the rest. Back them up if photos are important to your family.

Many companies are facing this issue today. They have archival tapes that were made with 1960s and '70s technology, and the equipment needed to read them is worn out and can't be replaced.

Sure, you can make prints. Simply choose ink that you can guarantee will be stable over decades and decades. Which you can't.

Epson inks are archival. The storage problem is circumvented by always transferring your data/photos to the next new technical medium--tape to CD to DVD. When our family first thought about this you could also potentially keep a computer that would read it, but transfer is easier. And the next thing for safety is to make 2--one in the safe deposit box and one wherever else. And the next thing in our house is an external hard drive for photos.
And the pictures you have printed at Costco or wherever are as longlived as yours on film. What is your next &quot;problem&quot;.

No one knows how long sublimating archival inks will last, because their history only spans a few years.

And not one person in a hundred is going to go to the trouble of copying all of their tapes, CDs, DVDs, and whatever comes along next every time the hardware is upgraded. I have about a thousand so far. The dye layer on both of your copies (the one in the vault and the one in your garage) will deteriorate at the same rate.

&quot;Transfer is easier&quot; depends on what you think your time is worth. I live in the <i>real</i> world.

For the safety deposit box, I was referring to CD/DVD. I could care less what you or my neighbor do. A thousand what? CDs? DVDs? If so, you need to disengage the motor drive.
The photos you get from a CD printed at Costco will last as long as film since it is film.

Um, the &quot;dye layer&quot; is the middle layer on a CD or DVD sandwich. It's where the laser burns the pits that represent the 1s of the binary-coded information. It's also the part that degrades over time - some CDs recorded since 2000 are unreadable today.

Costco's printer uses plain paper with ink sprayed on it, not photographic emulsion. They are not developed, so the image just &quot;sits&quot; on top of the paper.

I happen to love, love, <b><i> love</i></b> photography...

I feel that for more traditional prints that perhaps point and shoot is still preferred? Not too sure, would love to hear views on that.

I think for the amateur photographer, who possibly has a high percentage of photo errors (ahem, like myself) then a digital camera is a God-send!

Point-and-shoot refers to the simplicity of the cameras, which exist in both film and digital.

I think a basic film camera is more manageable for a tyro and less error-prone than a digital. The ability to see the picture you just took on a 3½&quot; screen is not, to me, a decisive advantage.

Robespierre---To me, a digital camera helped immensely...but then again, I got a lower-end camera so maybe the features are just simpler to understand?

If I had taken a regular camera or a disposable camera, I would have shuddered at the money wasted on horrible photos after getting them developed.

Case in point---I was taking a photo of WhiteChapel church at night and thankfully, I was able to see what needed more light, what setting to choose, etc. to produce a non-blurry picture.

But again, I take a lot of bad pics, so maybe that is why digital is best for me. :)

To say that Medium Format film can produce results that are &quot;10 times better than digital&quot; is like saying someone can make a cell phone 10 times smaller than the one you already have. Kind of irrelevant if the phone is already as small as it needs to be, right?

I can get nice 16x24 prints from my old 3.3MP Canon D30 images. Are they in the same league with Medium Format shots? Not a chance - anyone would notice the superiority of a print from Medium Format film. But that's kind of beside the point. The pictures are still good, they look nice, they are even economically viable (because I sell them).

I now shoot with a 12.8MP Canon 5D. Medium Format still superior? Yes, but the gap is much smaller than before - and in fact I'll go out on a limb and say my camera provides excellent quality for almost every artistic and economic need, that the superiority of Medium Format just isn't worth the extra cost in most cases. And digital has far more added benefits that more than make up for the modestly superior quality of Medium Format prints.

Another way to put it: if you choosing between two pictures, one medium format and one from a high resolution digital camera, if both are nice pictures you will choose between them not based on the print quality but on the artistic merits: the clouds in the sky, the facial expression, the colors in the rainbow, etc. If the digital image is better, it will be chosen over the medium format image in almost every case. And to me, that makes medium format not worth the modest improvement it brings you, given the higher costs of working with medium format.

Andrew