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2003 was a year of enormous change for us. We decided early in the year that technology was moving so fast it was innevitable that we would be capturing images digitally eventually. Rather than hang on to the "old technology" we decided to get in early and so for most of the year we shot digitally using the Fuji S2 Pro. It was a rollercoaster ride, although we have never regretted the move. In fact it seems inconceivable in 2007 that we would still use film. When they learnt about our decision, Practical Photography magazine asked us to write a series of articles about our experiences. This ran for most of the year in PP and we actually wrote the articles and shot the pictures in real time each month. Sometimes this meant that we contradicted ourselves in later articles and occasionally said things which we later regretted! However, the complete set of articles are reproduced here in largely the same format as they were originally published in PP. Sometimes the writing is a bit cheesy but that's what a monthly photo magazine needs to sell. We hope that you find them interesting and useful. We are about to write a new article with our current thoughts on digital to be published on these pages in the near future

Part 2 - Digital or divorce

La Sagrada Familia
La Sagrada Familia
Has a camera has ever been cited as the 'at fault' party in a divorce? For the first time on a photo trip we've come to blows because we currently only have one Fuji S2 Pro body. Yes the S2 is that good. We need that second body before anything gets broken irretrievably. We've certainly joined the digital revolution, reluctantly at first but now wholeheartedly. Aside from the stunning quality and the instant feedback the biggest revelation is the shear flexibility

Until now, our standard kit has been Nikon F100 bodies with 20-35 f2.8, 28-70 f2.8 and 80-200 f2.8 lenses. With filters, batteries, film and a tripod this gets pretty weighty, but the fast lenses are necessary with ISO50 film. Hopefully, with the S2 and the new DX Nikon lenses, we will only be carrying 12-24 f4 and 24-120 f3.5/5.6VR - this will give a similar magnification range to the old kit without the weight. Not only have we put the local E6 lab out of business we can also ditch the physio!

Big (and deep) pockets are required for those digital 'extras' such as microdrives and batteries but the camera's variable ISO settings mean that taking the tripod everywhere is not always vital. Of course, for planned 30 second night shots you still need it, but low light pics can be taken on the S2 just by twiddling the ISO dial up to 200, 400 or even 800 (the pics are quite'noisy' at 1600). This is also great for those sneaky, 'you can't use a tripod here sir/madam', shots.


We went to Barcelona last weekend and the weather was fine but not great for photography. The sky was not the requisite deep blue, there were no fluffy white clouds, just a haze with no clean light. However it wasn't a total loss, as the flexibility of the S2 allowed us to experiment more then ever before with lighting and details. Fantastic, the unusual angles and shapes of Gaudi's Barcelona were captured and microdrives were spinning! We have carried on shooting Velvia with our remaining F100 but it feels more and more antiquated.

The only minor problem we have come across in the last 8 weeks is the battery usage. The S2 takes two different kinds of battery, AA's and CR123 lithiums. Frankly it's a bit of a dogs dinner! We have found that the AA's last around 200 pics and the lithium's about 600 (shooting RAW). We do use re-chargeable 2000mAh AA's but you always have to carry 2 spare sets as well as at least 2 spare CR123's. Part of reason for our high battery usage is the incessant reviewing of the pictures - we just can't resist it and overall it really improves the quality of the results.

Hopefully by next month the second S2 body will have arrived and the bruises will be fading. Either that or the divorce papers will be filed!

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