Two pros share views on digital and film

"Should I stick with 35mm film or should I get a digital camera and go totally digital?" seems to be the big photography question these days. Personally, I like shooting with both types of cameras -- film for stock- and book photography, and digital for magazine- and newspaper work. For my fun shots, I use a one-time-use camera and a 3-megapixel camera.

To shed some light on the film vs. digital question, I asked two of today's top photographers, former United Nations photographer John Isaac and travel photographer Bob Krist, what they shoot. Here's what they had to say:

John Isaac (www.johnisaac.com) -- "During my career as a photojournalist for the United Nations, I worked only with 35-mm film. In the early days, I only shot Kodachrome slide film. But I eventually switched to color negative film because it has a wider exposure latitude. I never once thought that I would one day switch completely to digital, which is what I shot for the "A Day in the Life of Africa" book in Chad, Africa.

"I like to work with digital cameras for several reasons. First, I like the idea of not having to carry around rolls and rolls of several kinds of films, for daylight and indoor shooting, rated at different ISOs. What's more, because the camera has a built-in zoom lens, I don't have to lug around several lenses. And my 5-megapixel camera, an Olympus E20N, gives me an image that I find is equal to that of film. If I need a very large print, I 'up-size' the picture using a program called Genuine Fractals.

"For me, digital is where it is at. And I'm glad to be totally digital."

Bob Krist (www.bobkrist.com) -- "First, I'd like to say that I am not anti-digital. I have a small digital camera that I use on occasion and I'm very happy with the results. But, in most cases, shooting digitally creates more problems than it solves.

"For me, the digital workflow is tedious and time-consuming. On a travel assignment, I shoot up to 20 rolls of 36-exposure film a day with my Nikon F100 cameras -- that's more than 700 photographs. At the end of my day, I toss the film in a bag and go have a nice dinner. If I were shooting digitally, I'd be up half the night burning CDs and backing up the images on a laptop. I've already put in 12-15 hour days shooting, I don't want to add hours of digital lab work to those days.

"I don't enjoy editing pictures on a computer screen. I can edit 60 rolls of film faster than I can 50 digital images. Why? A slide is a finished work, but a scan always needs to be tweaked, sharpened, and 'cleaned up'.

"Finally, shooting slides, Kodak's Elite Chrome Extra Color for landscapes and Elite Chrome for people pictures, allows me to have my cake and eat it too. My Nikon 4000 film scanner makes beautiful files of my favorite slides. I can print them, manipulate them, and do all the digital magic I want. And best of all, I've still got that precious analog original that I can actually hold in my sweaty little hand."

Rick Sammon is the author of 21 photography, nature and conservation books.