Brett Underberg Davis

Moore's Law applies to anything digital, so this situation is certainly likely to persist, at least until technology hits a wall and Moore's Law is repealed. And it's clear to me that there are many ways in which film can only be emulated, not replaced, by digital. On the other hand, the labor costs that surround film processing keep the costs high, mostly due to the added complexity of physical processing and all the other things that go into handling and manipulating film. And I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir in saying that. I find it somewhat sad that this tends to turn into a debate, and the reasons why are too many to treat fairly, considering how little time I have for this. It's not all that remarkable that digital is gaining influence, when the innovations people can do with digital are so widely accessible and low in cost, other than the plentiful time needed to explore and experiment. And my sense is that at some level most film projects at this point tend to be a hybrid of film and digital, with each "side" having strengths the other might envy. For the kinds of things I've tried to do, with little or no hope they would produce revenue, I could not have afforded to attempt them using film alone, unless I were even more foolhardy than I clearly am. I am left with the general impression, though, that aside from the camera I bought several years ago as a self-teaching tool, any future projects aspiring to commercially-acceptable quality may well involve leased equipment, but as I understand it, that's something that hasn't really changed over time. At least not as much as some of the cheerleaders might have predicted.

I probably shouldn't try to read Jean's mind here, but I was thinking Jean might have been referring to the difference between a typical (or at least relatively cheap) CF card's capacity, and the likely size of files. Again, I haven't done all my research so I might be mistaken here, but for stills I tend to stick to a CF card no larger than 4GB (and I shoot RAW 100% of the time) -- that works out to 100-150 stills per card on my vanilla 5D, I imagine the 5D MkII RAW files are considerably larger, depending on lighting and exposure. (Also, double-checking my facts, I see that the CF card relies on a somewhat antique format that limits individual video captures to no more than 4GB anyway, limiting the usefulness of relying on cards larger than 4GB capacity). I'm sure you're right that compared to many of the truly pro-level digital cameras out there shooting in 4K, the 5D MkII files are comparatively tiny. But those cameras are also used in connection with much more massive storage media, or at least that's been my impression as an observer. I find it hard to imagine that a much more than 15 or 20 minutes of 1080p video would fit a 4GB file, unless the native bit rate is pathetic, and while there are larger cards, and other alternatives for storage (if you can tether the camera to the necessary hardware) it does strike me as a workflow fraught with interruptions, delays and potential for catastrophic failure. Granted, many of these limitations are similar to those that people used to live with routinely, and still do in some cases, when shooting to film.

I'm curious if you could expand on what you mean by "easy to break"? Is that literal (mechanical) or are you being figurative here? I'm aware of some of the defects, but for context, at this point I'm one of those who, due to family obligations, decided to "invest" in an XL H1 as a sort of poor substitute for film school. I'd been considering getting a 5D MkII body in large part because I already have a collection of both bad and good EF lenses, but I've been concerned about how much the workflow, at least as far as I've figured it out without hands-on experience, seems to resemble that used before sync sound entered moviemaking in (from bad memory) the 30s or 40s. What sort of breakage are we talking about here?