I'm wanting to see if others have had the same reservations about going digital as I do. As much as I can see the many advantages when it comes to producing high quality prints, the most pleasurable end product of photography for me is a color slide projected onto a screen to give me a brilliant 6' x 4' image. I don't see how I'm going to achieve anything like this with digital. I would think the nearest I'd get would be to transfer my images to CD as jpg files, then view on a high resolution 42" plasma or LCD panel. But this is still not going to give me anything like the same quality I currently get from slides and a simple $500 projection outfit, is it? This is the main thing thats holding me back at present. Anyone care to tell me where I'm wrong, or how to get past this perceived hurdle. All thoughts and opinions much appreciated.

Norm: I would turn this around: even if there is a project option for digital capture that approaches what you already have - so what? What you have works and works smashingly, so why change it? The driving forces behind the migration to digital capture seem to me to be centered upon the print and the web/e-mail as the primary vehicles of image display.

The main liability I can see to what you're doing is that the availability of emulsions and processing is going to continue to erode. If you have a favourite emulsion, I'd stock pile it. Now that most professionals have switched from slides to digital, I can see the possibility of slide emulsions being withdrawn more quickly than print emulsions, which are still used by millions of snapshooters worldwide. But until the final slide emulsion bites the dust - why switch?

Incidentally, my guess is that the majority of non-professionals that have switched from slide shooting to digital were strongly motivated to do so by the tedium and compromises associated with scanning technology used to convert from film to digital. Your predilection for projection smartly by-passes this particular boondoggle.

Why not go digital?

I've been shooting digital for a few years now and love it. Other than the obvious convenience and instant feedback the opportunities to share my photos never seem to end.

I purchased a Microsoft Media Center PC (MCE2005) which is connected to my 50" DLP rear projection TV. I download jpg's (I shoot Raw) from my photoshop PC (dedicated to photography use) onto the MCE2005. I also have my music collection on the MCE2005 as well.

MCE2005 provides nice transitions between photos by gently fading one out and another in. In addition it also provides for some motion effect to the photos by zooming in / out, panning left / right, etc. on the photo while it's being displayed. This gives it such a nice viewing pleasure as the photos are not just thrown up on the screen although sometimes the crop of the photo when MCE2005 does this isn't exactly what I would have done but next time around it does a differnt transition.

With the photos displaying I can also have some background music on. I can have friends / family over and share with them some of my photography without pulling out a portfolio and sitting down with them. They can look up at the TV when we are visiting and take in the photos at any time. It adds such a nice atmosphere to visiting friends / family.

Kelly

It depends on your vision of the future. How much longer can you find the raw materials, equipment and even spare parts to sustain your interests? It's clear that the manufacturers are moving away from you, and at some point you simply might not be able to find what you need, much less achieve your current standards for quality and performance using equipment and raw materials that are no longer supported.

In your shoes I would at least begin researching the digital alternatives against the day your current methods are inaccessible and you are forced to use the new eqiupment to meet your standards. A transition will be a lot more informed if you at least know the equipment and understand the processes for achieving a brilliant projected image using digital technology. If current digital equipment and methods don't stand up to your needs, then by all means you should not sacrifice your standards simply to join the digital groupies. But how much longer will you have the choice?

Norm: based on what you've said, I'll guess that you don't have to sell photos to support yourself. In this context, that's ideal because it means that you needn't worry about pleasing anyone but yourself. The best advice I can offer is to do the reseach. IF you can come up with a set of digital tools that give you what you need to enjoy your work, go for it. In the future, film and its associated supplies and equipment will only get harder to obtain and digital tools will only improve. As others have mentioned, digital has some inherent capabilities (such as instantaneous feedback) that make it easier to progress artistically.

That said, if you can't find and afford a setup that you find satisfying, I wouldn't change what you're doing. All other factors aside, you have to be happy with the end product. Film is not going to vanish overnight.