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Fim is dead!!!!
Ok how about I just jump right in and stick my neck out.
Film for astrophotography is about 95% dead....
There are some extreme cases of people using film for wide format imaging, but even then I dont see the point with SBIGS current crop of massive chip
Digital is now rivaling film for resolution. an 8mb Canon 350D with 6.4 Mircon pixels will produce as good if not better res than film.
BUT the real benefit of digital is the factthat there is no reciprocity failure like in film. The repsonse is linear. ie iso 800 = ISO 800 over the whole exposure. No need to account for the fact that after x minutes your IS800 film will only really be ISO 200.
The fact that Tech pan film is also now very hard to find and expensive is also a nail in the coffin for film.
What are the pros of digital then:
- Zero processing cost
- No reciprocity failure
- Rivals film resolution with 4 x sensitivity
- Immediate feedback when focusing and composing images
- Short exposures and stacking can be used. less to go wrong in short exposure
- Software can be used to automate exposure capture as well as focus camera accurately
- Anyone with a PC can process images. Ie have there own digital darkroom. dont need developing skills and access to a darkroom to process digital images
- costs are falling every month and technology is improving all the time. Film technology seems to have stagnated. (Kodak recently closed its melbourne operation. reason stated was Digital sales were outselling film 50 - 1)
- Digital images are stamped in the EXIF header with info about trhe exposure. eg exposure time, ISO setting, f ratio etc... this is a great learning tool to see what exposures worked well and why.....
What are the cons:
ummm none ?
Ok so I am biased. I just cant think of one good reason to use film so I see the debate as a foregone conclusion.... All the old pros like Michael Covington (author of : Astrophotography for the Amateur) and Robert Reed (Author of Widefield Astrophotography) have now converted to Digital themselves.
so i say RIP film
Regards
Chris Venter
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