filmscanners: Digital Shortcomings

[RogerMillerPhoto@aol.com]

So, are you planning on using a digital camera for your glamour photography?  
Ouch!  I can't see how you'd be happy with the results compared to what wet 
processing in a commercial lab can do for you.  Resolution is lousy and you 
can't get the look and feel from it that wet film and paper will give.  
That's very important when shooting people because everyone knows what good 
skin tone looks like and, in my opinion, no digital process (even via 
filmscanning) can match the quality and appeal of wet chemistry slides or 
prints, especially with skin tones.  (Others may disagree with me, but that's 
my story and I'm sticking to it.)  Digital has its place if you need speed 
(news photographers) or want to do compositing in Photoshop, and filmscanning 
is far superior to a digital camera if you can afford the extra step, but 
digital in any form ought to be the choice of last resort, in my opinion.

If, on the other hand, you want to use a digital camera for proofing instead 
of Polaroid film, then you may be on to something.  Polaroid film is awful 
stuff for proofing (sorry Mr. Hemingway), so digital should be able to 
compete with it very well.  

So far as using your infrared strobe with the Nikon camera, if the camera has 
a hot shoe or a PC connector (depending on what your IR strobe uses), then 
you should be able to use the IR strobe on the camera with no problem.  Hot 
shoes used to have a single contact right in the center, and the newer hot 
shoes for dedicated strobes simply added some extra contacts around that 
center contract.  So any old non-dedicated strobe should still work since it 
uses only the center contact, but it would operate without some of the 
automatic features of the dedicated strobes.  That assumes that the voltage 
on the contacts of the non-dedicated strobe don't exceed the rating of the 
camera.  And that's an issue since a lot of newer cameras can't handle more 
that 12 volts or so and most older strobes, and most current studio strobes, 
place over 100 volts on the strobe contacts.  So, if you fry some electronics 
because of what I told you, remember that I told you not to use a digital 
camera in the first place!

In a message dated 6/20/2001 10:01:43 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
stuart@shaws2000.fsnet.co.uk writes:


> I am presently considering the purchase of a digital camera . I do some 
> glamour stuff and use studio lghts  utiliising  an infr-red trigger . i had 
> been looking st a Nikon Coolpix 995 brochure and it only mentions the use 
> of a Speedlight ,both built in and separate . What I was wondering is if 
> anyone has one of these  cameras or its predecessor and knows if normal 
> external flash units can be used . I appreciate nikon trying to promote its 
> own products but If only Speedlights can be used then it looks like Nikon 
> are going to lose a sale .
> regards
> Stuart