Originally Posted by
ShannonM
And that's what I like about it. The inefficiency of the thing. The sheer manual-ness of it. I think that it's a separate thing now, almost its own sub-form.
It also scratches my "acquire neat things" itch in a way that digital hasn't, so far. (I have my dad's EOS Rebel XT in storage, and I liked using it enough to eventually upgrade the body, but it's very much not the same thing, at least for me.)
--Shannon
For me the camera body has always just been the box. The magic happens with the lens. Going with digital bodies also really freed me up and let me experiment more. I no longer was held back but just the sheer cost of buying and developing film. I was also able to pretty much retire my medium format gear for most work. I started playing with the telephoto lenses on a DSLR and then "chopping" a scene up into individual pieces. Then you merge them in photoshop and get one amazingly detailed huge file. Like one print I have in the house that is 3' x 5' and that's only 1/2 the size of the actual file. I combined 20+ shots using the Mamiya 200/2.8 on the Canon 5D to create the image. The detail and size is amazing. The total file is over 1/2 a GB. At full size you can easily see Elk in a meadow far away that the naked eye could never see. Now this won't work in all conditions but on a calm day with consistent lighting this technique is a blast. Could never get anything like that with film