Shutterbugsailer Loc: Staten Island NY (AKA Cincinnati by the Sea)

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It isn't your kids that say "you can't take it with you!"[/quote]

rickdickey

3 reasons to change anything
Its broken, your skill level requires better ? Bigger? Or ?, and finally you have excess money.
By the way stop comparing digital scans of film to digital images. Once you digitize the film negative you lose information. Compare the print from the wet darkroom with that from your printer. Your digital photo process is based on the printer, not what you see on the monitor. Talk apples to apples.
Rick

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Not if they want to inherit they don't!

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Please reread my comment back on page 1. http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-473855-1.html#7953916
Darkroom was totally irrelevant to my Kodachrome experience. Prints are totally irrelevant to my experience. I did compare apples-to-apples ... I compared slide image on projector screen to scanned image on computer screen.

In my screen-based world, digital is giving me the sharpest images I have ever captured, even when using the same lens on both cameras.

Kuzano

Millenials are basing their retirements much more on what they inherit. Studies on what Millenials are NOT contributing to the economy are revealing a segment of society that is not buying anything. Back from getting a degree, under-employed, if at all.

Mom & dad paying housing, transportation, food & communication.

Pretty sad. I don't see many of them here. They're simply not buying at all!

Shootist Loc: Wyoming

Personally I only consider upgrading cameras and lenses if I have tried everything to get my existing camera and PP to produce a photo that meets my expectations. Usually this process takes me about a year (Admittedly it takes this long to save up for the upgrade). I recently upgraded from a crop sensor to full frame sensor to get better dynamic range for landscapes and low light/night photography. I tried everything I could to get what I wanted with a crop sensor camera but almost always came away with a photo I felt should have been better. The upgrade has more than paid me back in more satisfying images. Will I upgrade in the future? Likely not because I feel I am close to where technical improvement will likely produce very little overall visual improvement. This is my take but each person should pursue their own goals and try to meet their own expectations.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

There are studies and also anecdotal reports that challenge that assumption. I have a close friend whose millennial son earns as much as I do, and a daughter who is establishing her own business and working extremely hard. These blanket statements don't always help. They are both paying their own way, and are bright lights for the future.

Let's not be too quick to judge.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

It's also called GAS, the joy of camera manufacturers and giant bank-account-sucking-sound for photographers.
Don't be fooled. Save your money, and take great photos with what you have. >Alan

rickdickey

Obviously you don't think a projector screen (4x5 feet) compares to a computer monitor (17 or 27 inch). I said apples to apples, print to print. If you are satisfied with what you get, great. Personally, when I want really large prints (3' x 6') I go with film, especially with black and white.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

In fact, 30% of college graduates live with their parents. A shocking number to be sure, but that leaves 70% contributing more substantially to the economy. I personally know many millennials who are hard-working successful adults. >Alan

MidnightManiac

That's a great statement. Over many decades I've purchased a few. Jumped into the digital camera market with the original Digital Rebel, that camera was a work horse and gave me many great exposures. Than it was time to upgrade to something newer and greater. Purchased a 5D Mark 1. Great camera, easy to use, great results. Liked it so much I purchased a 5DII, big let down to me sent it back in a few weeks. The 5dIII came out and I said not this time, I'm waiting. Crop frame, full frame where do I do from here. Purchased a 7D MarkII. Love the 10 FPS for sports this camera shoots (do a bunch of sports) great with both full and crop frame lenses. Oh also have a T5I, use it for vacations with a 55-250MM lens and get great results, camera and lens is light weight and easy to fly with. End result my favorite is the 12 year old 5D1. Are our cameras not good enough? If you want the latest and greatest in the Canon world get the 5DIV. I can tell you this if my 5D 1 takes a crap and is not repairable I will hunt for another of the same model. All depends on your needs (and wants)....

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

I think our cameras are good enough until we find there are images we can't capture as we saw them in our vision. Then it's time to figure out why, what causes us to miss them and fix that.

chrisg-optical Loc: New York, NY

Hmmm, yes my understanding from many sources circa 2005 that said when digital photography reaches 16 MP it would be equivalent to 35mm film (no reference to Kodachrome 25/64). 140 mp is a bit much but it may be true for Kodachrome 25 which was probably the highest resolution film technology of it's day. Maybe we were too hasty after all and should bring back film :)

Anyway, I saw this posting on another forum (not my analysis) but this seems more in line with any comparison of 35mm film to digital. It is still apples to oranges IMO... https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/30745/what-is-the-equivalent-resolution-of-a-35mm-film

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A "35mm" frame is 36x24mm in size. Look at the resolution spec for some films and lenses. Some films were rated at nearly 200 lines/mm, but some much less. There was a tradeoff between sensitivity and grain size. That added noise and lowered spacial resolution of more sensitive films. Lenses also cover a range. Let's say roughly 50 lines/mm would be "good", and 100 lines/mm astonishingly superb. Of course that's only at the optimum f-stop and camera mounted and held very still.

You said top equipment, so let's see what 75 lines/mm comes out to as a starting point. A "line" is actually one complete light-dark cycle, so you have to allow for at least 2 pixels per line width. So the 75 lines/mm becomes 150 pixels/mm, which means a full 35mm frame would have 5400 x 3600 pixels = 19.4 Mpix.

However before you run off and declare that the answer, look at all the judgement calls that went into ultimately getting that number, and that film resolution and digital resolution are in some ways a apples to puppy dog comparison. Film not only has some maximum resolution, but also grain. This is effectively noise added to the image. Pixels have some noise on them too, but this noise is random and occurs on the pixel grid pattern.

Film and lens resolution is a "soft" thing. Neither reproduces frequencies up to the limit perfectly fine, then suddenly mushes everything to the average after that. The contrast falls off with frequency, so the resolution spec is some arbitrary point along that curve. Usually the -3dB point is used. In contrast, what one pixel does is pretty much independent of its neighbors. The resolution is fixed and finite due to the pixel pitch, but that also introduces aliasing which is something completely foreign to the analog film process.

Before I switched to a digital camera, I used to scan negatives at about 9 Mpix. That wasn't a deliberate choice, just happened to be the limit of my scanner. However, at that resolution the grain was clearly evident. I now get effectively 12.1 Mpix from the same image area with my digital camera. I can tell you that subjectively the pictures from the digital camera look better than the scanned negatives. The pixel-level noise is much lower, mostly because the grain noise is gone. The digital sensor is also significantly more sensitive such that 9 Mpix would be a joke with "high speed" film to match the sensor.

The digital sensor also has more dynamic range. The camera has a 14 bit A/D internally. Of course you don't get 16k useable levels from every pixel, but you do get a lot more than with film. This opens up a lot more options when post processing. Not only could many of those things not be done with optical processes, but the original dynamic range captured on film simply wasn't there. I usually used color negative film because it had better dynamic range than slide film, but that was still well below what a good sensor can do today.

Powerstroke2010

Interestingly, I haven't seen, I bought a new upgrade because my shutter actuations where becoming excessive! :)

Bart1

It's not neccessarly the camera that needs to be updated; the shooter needs to be continually updating their skills and 'vision'. Read the 'Soul of the Camera' and see what i am agreeing with if anybody has any doubts about my point. I have four cameras, all film-one TLR 120 format, all Minoltas (execpting the YashicaMat 124-G) 20-something years old or older. I can take kick-ass photos in my more inspired moments and thus bear walking proof it is the Artist/Visual Poet on the back or top-end of the camera. People have gotten too wrapped up in the technology/over-used digital editing and have forgotten it is moreso the metaphysics of the brain of the shooter that makes or breaks a great picture. The camera/accessory companies have made it look like this is all you need and that is not so. Pictures are coming out Too perfect, sterile, and soulless and the organic/analog beauty of the barely or non-edited picture/file is too underappreciated. <Especially since some shooters might rely on Photo-shop to beef up a weak photo instead of trashing said picture and shooting a Strong picture in the first place-less to fix or adjust>