> It's kind of different though when you can take photos 'free' rather > than with film where you'd like take way less. Depends on what you're > doing with those shots though. I figure most new digital photogs like > take thousands of test shots after getting their cameras, so it's > tough to compare to what they actually might have taken with film. Jim It also depends I bet on what sort of photography people are in to. "Monkeys and typewriters" Firing away blindly does not create great art. Of the "Masters of Photography" it would not surprise me if some of them had not reached 5000 frames in a lifetime. What is remembered are the best of the bunch. If you go out to take a landscape, the light might only be right for a few minutes: if you capture it right then the other 1000 low res frames are irrelavent. Does taking more shots get you better pictures? It depends. For wildlife you always take more than you need because some won't work: birds can have moved / blinked while the shutter is closed. For journalism you might not always know what shots will be valuable till later. For weddings ... well, it's questionable. I'm left wondering if it is better to take less to a plan than just fire away. Perhaps someone has access to the stats (yawn - google ;) but IME most camera owners spend *far* less on film than they ever do on equipment. It's psychologically easier to spend a grand on a new toy than it is for the couple of dollars a week for batteries. For someone who *needs* to take tens of thousands of shots per year (let alone having the time to review them) the balance is obvious. But for someone who already owns a perfectly good slr, with disposable media available capable of storing 36 ultra-high res images for 4 dollars. 200 films a year (that's actually high usage) ... under a thousand dollars including processing and no need to "upgrade". But keeping up with the digital revolution: within three years to have bought a D30 (now a toy), D60 (now a toy) and taken out a mortgage for the latest ... Keeping up with other side of the digital revolution ... new hardware + software, printers etc etc ... Film used to be a cheap low tech solution to an expensive high tech problem ;o)
