Do you feel like you're the last person on your block that still uses film? Do you get embarrassed when your friends ask you to email them a picture? Are you on a first name basis with the hour-photo clerk? Maybe it's time to make the leap to digital.
It can be a tough decision, especially if you are a bit attached to your film camera. Use these questions to help you decide:
- Do you find your pictures aren't turning out the way you had hoped? If that's often the case, you might benefit from a digital camera's LCD screen, which immediately shows your photo right on the camera. If you've made a mistake, you won't have to wait until the film has developed and the photo opportunity is gone to discover the problem. Additionally, even when you make a mistake, you can often correct it easily when you download the images to your camera with any of a variety of photo editing software programs.
- Are you spending a fortune on processing? If you shoot a lot of pictures, those processing costs can really skyrocket. This was one major factor that pushed me over to digital. Since I shoot many, many pictures, I was constantly handing $50 or $80 over to the hour-photo shop. With digital, you will still have expenses to make prints (photo paper, ink, perhaps buying a photo quality printer), but in the long run you save cash. For one thing, you can just print the photos you like best. Or you can share images by e-mail and save all the printing costs.
- Are you a technophobe? This won't keep you from going digital, but it should give you pause. There is no point buying a camera that scares the you-know-what out of you, because it will sit gathering dust. But don't be so quick to give in to your fears. Many of the lower-priced digital cameras are very easy to use, and even feel much like a traditional 35mm camera. But you should tread with care. Perhaps you could borrow a friend's digital and experiment with it to get more comfortable. Or just regularly visit the digital camera section of stores and handle the cameras. You can overcome that phobia!
- Do you have friends or family you e-mail often? Especially if people live far away, a digital will help you share images in the blink of a second, instead of waiting for prints and then for the mail to deliver them.
- Are you emotionally ready? No matter what the answer is to the above questions, if you have a longterm love affair with film, you may not be ready to switch completely. You can always get a lower-end digital, while still using your film camera. You can use both, and then decide which one is best.
Even if you aren't ready, you don't have to switch to experience some of the advantages of digital. Get your film images put onto a CD, which most places do for about $5 to 7. This will allow you to easily edit them images and share them. Perhaps once you get used to digitizing your images, you will be ready to switch to the other side.
