Beyond the Digital Crossroads

As an update to my post of April 22, 2011, entitled Digital Crossroads, I have taken the plunge and replaced my beloved Minolta X-370. It was not an easy decision.

In the end, it wasn't the processing that got me, as I had complained in my previous blog post. No, I had looked around the city and found a couple of places that processed the film, colour and black-and-white. It was the quality of the film itself. I had not taken into account supply chains in the whole process.

You see, with so many people switching to digital in such a short time, the 'normal' ways of purchasing film won't work. From the time that film was brought into the mainstream using universal cartridges, through to the invention of digital film, it was relatively easy to get properly stored and "fresh" film. There was little loss of quality because it didn't sit on the shelves a long time.

Now, however, there are so few people buying film, that in all but the most specialized shops, film is not stored properly, and sits on the shelves for so long that it expires. I can't tell you how many times this year I have been disappointed by grainy, washed out photos that otherwise would have been great. Perhaps if we lived in a major center, like Toronto, Ottawa, or Montreal, we'd be able to pick up 'fresh' film. After nearly a year of thinking on the issue, though, and trying different retailers for our film purchases, we broke down and bought a DSLR. We're hoping to be able to also find old Canon EF and EF-S lenses in thrift or pawn shops.

Canon Rebel T2i.

We love this camera. We're very much looking forward to experimenting with lenses and settings to see how artistic we can get. The first thing I noticed was that in taking pictures in the dark, as long as we use the tripod or otherwise stabilize the base, it takes near pitch black clear photos, which is something I could only accomplish with a super long shutter, or with high-sensitivity film in the Minolta.

The Rebel? Point and click.

Our backyard a few nights ago.

I'm not a camera geek. I still have to have some of the finer points explained to me, but what I hope to do is take good photos that I can use in other projects, put on the wall, or use to stretch my skills. I think the Canon will do that nicely, without doing everything for me.


My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake

And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
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