Switching to Digital
I consider myself a serious 35mm amateur photographer. Christine and I lugged a whole bunch of Nikon gear to Africa and shot nearly 80 roles of slide film. I had always preferred film or slide photography because I could reproduce my favorite photos, frame them or give them to relatives. My early digital camera didn’t have the color saturation and variations in tone that could be produced with the chemical development process used for film.
A couple of months ago, I purchased the Nikon D100 digital camera. This is an SLR camera that basically is a digital version of Nikon’s F100 camera but with a plastic body instead of metal. The D100 takes amazing pictures and I’m very happy with it’s color reproduction for everyday pictures. I will continue to use my Nikon F100 for portraits, special events, and some travel photography. For everything else, I’m switching to digital. It was just too much of a pain to scan in negatives and slides to display them on my web site. By shooting digital, I can post the photos directly to my web site.
I didn’t feel like I could switch primarily to digital until I could find a reasonably priced photo printer that produced near photo lab quality results. I purchased the Epson 2200 photo printer and I’m completely happy with the results. If I print on Epson premium glossy photo paper and look at the print from a distance (framed photo distance) I cannot tell it from a photo lab print. With the Epson 2200, I’m able to make enlargements and copies of my digital photos for framing and for giving to relatives. Each print costs more than a photo lab equivalent but I find that I print only the photos that I want to give away. Most of my digital photos end up hosted on my web site. My web site is now the primary tool for me to communicate and share photos with family and friends.
Epson 2200
The best feature about the Epson 2200 is the roll paper and cutter option. Using the Windows XP printer wizard (I had to configure everything first), Christine can select a digital image from a file share and print a 4×5 photo using the wizard. A roll of 4″ paper is feed through the printer and the printer automatically cuts the photo to size.
The inks and color matching software in the Epson 2200 are much improved. From B&H Photo: “By using Epson’s seven-color UltraChrome inks, the Stylus Photo 2200 is able to print images at fast speeds with a larger color gamut than the previous generation. These unique pigment-based archival inks reproduce the color range, density and saturation of dye-based inks more than ever before, making this printer the best in its class with its photo and color quality, and superior fade-resistance.” When using Epson paper, prints are expected to last 80 years or more.
I’m a happy digital photographer.
