Most professional photographers in USA prefer the film!?

Recently I read an article about an investigation of Kodak in America (the article is in Greek language from the site technews.gr), which shows that most professional photographers in USA (more than 75%) continue to use film instead of digital cameras! Specifically the article states:

"More than 2/3 (68%) of professional photographers prefer the film results than the digital technology, for a variety of reasons, such as:

- The film manages to captures more information on medium and large format film (48%),

- With film you can develop a personal photographic style (48%),

- Film capture more shadows and details (45%),

- Broad use of the film (42%) and,

- You can archive/store easier films (38%). ¨

Although I prefer the film (and particularly the black and white), before reading this article (which I would like to believe that it is telling the truth) I believed that most professional photographers mainly use digital cameras.

I would like also to have a digital full frame digital camera, but the good cameras are expensive. For example, the full-frame body camera of Canon EOS 5D is costing today 2060€ and the full-frame Nikon D3 is costing today 4650 €. (I want to have a digital camera as a second camera for taking color photographs.)

Note "full frame" are considered the sensors of digital cameras, which have the same size 36 x 24 mm of the 35mm film . If you mount a 50mm lens on a full frame digital camera body you have exactly the same view angle with a 50mm lens mounted on a film camera. If you mount a 50mm lens on an non-full frame digital camera (most digital cameras aren't full frame) you have a view angle of 70-80mm (depending on the size of the sensor).

In the article I read, that some photographers prefer black and white film Tri-X from Kodak. This film is an old technology b&w film with hard grain. This hard grain (=low resolution) for some photographers is not a disadvantage but and advance because of the artistic look.

The following photograph is enlarged version of photograph from a previous post (the film that was used was Ilford HP5/400ASA which is also old technology and hard grain, similar to Tri-X from Kodak):

If you look carefully, in the image you can see the grain of the film which is randomly distributed over the film surface. This effect some photographers consider it as a advantage. So, when you enlarge a film you can see the grain. From the other hand, if you try to enlarge a digital photograph you see just the pixels. The original image that the above image cropped from is:

Searching "film vs digital" in google, you can find several articles which compare film and digital cameras. Nowadays the prices of good digital machines are high and it is worth of buying a used film SLR camera - especially if you use black and white film where you can develop the film and have control to all the chemical photographic process. For example, a good used body of film camera such as the Nikon FM2 costs about 300-350 €. You can also find used a very good lens for this body, such as a Nikkor 50mm/1.4 lens in the price of 200€. The new Nikon D3 costs today around 4650€ (after 2 year it will have half prices -- an used it will cost even more cheap). So with 500 € as a whole have a good analog machine, which may have much better quality (or perhaps the same quality) with the new Nikon D3, which is costing today 4650 € (which in 2 years will cost half the current price -- and used body will cost even more less).
Link: Kodak: Most photographers prefer film (article 9th July 2007).

15-Oct-2007: Flea market close to metro Petrovsko-Razumovskaya, Moscow, Russia.

All photos are from the flea market located next to metro Petrovsko Razumovskaya in Moscow. The first 4 photos are probably more interesting. In the following "digital contact sheet" of the film you can see all the photographs from where the above 6 were selected:

14-Oct-2007: Center of Moscow, Russia.

22-Sep-2007: Stencil (Jopy) and a video-blog commercial on a wall, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The link that you see in the center of the photograph is http://youtube.com/BeJTube (BejTube Chanell from youtube).

A few minutes ago, before uploading this photograph, I checked the above link by curiosity. It is a video-blog from two American girls. The period that I shot this photograph (22-Sep-2007) they were traveling to Europe and I suppose they were sticking these stickers with their logo wherever they were going.

Looking to their channel I see they don't have many visits. In their videos they try a lot to become popular. In example, in the video they try to dance sexy, they shake their bodies etc etc. ;-). Look the following video:

Shall I start also sticking stickers about my blog when I travel, in order to increase the numbers of visitors of this blog? ;-)

7-Oct-2007 and 24-Jun-2007: Portraits of Eleni.

21-Sep-2007: Traveling by train from Den Haag - (via) Leiden - Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

I made the above photographs on 21 of September 2007, when I was traveling from Den Haag (via) Leiden to Amsterdam. The first 2 photographs are probably the most interesting, shot from the "1st floor" of the Dutch train. In the third photograph is interesting the figure of the woman between the two wagons. In the following color photograph we can see the interesting colors of the Dutch trains (yellow and blue).

15-Oct-2007: проект о.г.и. (proekt ogi) bar, Moscow, Russia.

This is an interesting bar that I visited in Moscow a few days ago. This bar is "проект о.г.и. (proekt ogi) " in Moscow. It is an underground bar, concert place and a book/CD shop.

In the above image we see the graffiti on the pavement outside, in the street indicating the way to the "проект о.г.и. ". Notice the symbol of the book in the graffiti. In the next photos we will see the bookshop inside that bar:

It is a very beautiful bookshop as you see. Also the people working there were very kind when I asked them to suggest me to buy some CDs of Russian music. Generally speaking the Russian read a lot of books. Inside the metro you can observe many people reading.

The decoration of the bar is simple and the atmosphere there is nice. Unfortunately the day that I visited this bar was not scheduled a live concert but I found the following live concert in that bar from youtube.com:

This is a live of the "Afro-Russian afrobeat orchestra "Compatriotes""! ;-)

17-Oct-2007: Visit at the house/museum of Vladimir Lenin, Moscow, Russia.

In this post we will see some photographs from the house in Moscow/Russia that Vladimir Lenin have lived. In the first photo we see the grave / mausoleum of Lenin in Red Square in Moscow (behind you can see Kremlin).

The Lenin's house / museum is located a few Kms outside Moscow. Here you see the entrance of the museum. 99% of the signs in Mosocw are in Cyrillic alphabet ;-).

Here we see external view of the house/museum of Lenin. In the next photographs we can see some rooms of the interior of the house. Notice that the house has wonderful view at the forest.

The decoration comparing to the nowadays aesthetics may look kitsch. Notice the details on the paintings, furniture of the rooms.

It is very interesting the Lenin's car. Look the technology used on the wheels ;-).

Very interesting is the electrical board installation of the house ;-)!

Something that I didn't like to the museum is that they charge 100 rubles (=3euros) if you want to have the permission to make photographs inside the house. I suppose that Lenin wouldn't like his house to be used as "a capitalistic product". I didn't pay the photographic fee and the people in the museum finally didn't forbid us to make photographs.

The following video is from the movie of Theo Aggelopoulos: "Ulysse's Gaze". We see the scene of the transportation of the statue of Lenin with a boat in Dunarea river, Romania:

13..17-Oct-2007: Sherstone youth hostel, Moscow, Russia. Travel tips.

In this post I will write to write some practical details of my recent visit in Moscow. Moscow is one of the most expensive cities (like London). Prices are overestimated and you can pay really a lot of money for an average quality room.

A budget option is to stay in a hostel, and the above photographs are from the Sherstone hostel where I have stayed during my short visit in Moscow. The price for a person in a 4 persons dormitory is 27€ (without a breakfast). I have to mention that Sherstone Hostel (also most hostels in Moscow) are not real hostels but rooms within a big hotel managed by the hostel owner.

These photographs are interesting to see the soviet Hotel's aesthetics (look the decoration of the room, the curtains etc).
Some of my roommates in the hostel was Lewis (UK / first photo) and Jamal (Malaysia / second photo). We had interesting discussions about travel destinations. Jamal proposed to visit Uzbekistan (before Moscow he was traveling there, and he said that it is safe for visiting as a tourist) and Lewis told me about his trip, a few years ago, in Balkan countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece).

Even Moscow has really expensive restaurants, cafes everyday I had a breakfast in the following kiosk close by the hostel (at Petrovsko market).
The people from the kiosk like me ;-), and every morning they were smiling to me ;-).. The above breakfast (2 pieces of pies + coffee) cost around 40 Rubles (around 1,1€).

13..17-Oct-2007: from Moscow with love: ggia's personal photos.

The above photograph is from Kremlin, in Moscow (night shot with a simple digital camera, the white spots is because it was snowing).

In the rest of this post you will see personal photographs (shot by a cheap digital camera) that they are not interesting artistically speaking. You can see how I look like (for the people that they don't know me personally).. ;-).

In the above photo you see the grave of the pioneer (in montage) Russian film director Sergei Einsenstein.

All these people are people that I meet on the street and I took pictures of them in black & white film (we will see some photos of them in the next posts). All the photos are from the street market next to the metro station Petrovsko (in Moscow) with an exception of the last photograph that is from the house of Lenin (outside Moscow).In the first photo you can see Lewis (UK) and in the second Jamal (Malaysia), they were my room mates in the hostel that I have stayed in Moscow. I will write more practical details about this hostel in a post the upcoming days.