I shoot slide film on a Nikon F5. Why? There are still advantages to chemicals and film with regard to color gamut and ultimate resolution. A comparison can be found at Ken Rockwell’s website for detailed image comparisons. The F5 itself may be older, but its equivalence with regard to a 1005 segment, RGB color exposure meter are only now emerging on consumer grade digital cameras.

I shoot my digital work on a Nikon D70 – soon to be replaced by the D200 which allow AIS F-mount lens to be used. This will allow digital bodies to make use of older 500mm Mirror lenses, telescope mounts, etc. Digital SLRs also allow a photographer to maintain the level of control over a picture they previously had using film SLRs. Plus the savings in not having to replace an entire line of lenses is worthy of consideration.

On 35mm film:
I had a good 35mm camera when I was stationed in Germany, and being there and not being rushed through "touristy" holes and being able to immerse into the culture was probably a once in a lifetime experience. A lot of my film went bad before I got it developed—I know—nobody to blame but myself for waiting to develop it…

On disposable cameras:
When I deployed to Iraq, I was afraid of taking any good camera equipment for various reasons, mainly environmental, so I took a bunch of disposable cameras and again…once in a lifetime experience (even if I go back, this was the invasion), but very disappointing photo quality and lost photos.

On "My Mind":
My grandmother took thousands of photos and put them on 35mm slides over the years, but again, this is not a format conducive to sharing with anyone unless they buy a slide projector. I’ve undertaken a massive campaign to scan them on a high resolution flatbed scanner and restore them. This brings me to the "My Mind" option. My grandmother had a stroke last April and died shortly after. Now I am in a real quandry to figure out who the hell and what the hell are the subjects matter of all those photos without her.

On Professional SLRs, Cell Phone Cameras, and Digital Cameras:
Finally, for about the past year I’ve had access to a good quality digital camera and I’ve captured a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise because of film costs, and because I happened to have the camera with me. Cell phone cameras generally suck, but the thing they have going for them is that you always have them with you, so you can nail pictures that otherwise would remain in your mind because it took too long for you to go fetch the camera. I also read that last bit of advice in Macworld magazine a while back, where pro photographers shared their insights with the magazine. I think it was this article.
Having a small camera that can take good pictures along with you at all times can be a much better idea than the monster with the telephoto lens and all the bells and whistles sometimes. Cell phone cameras take such crappy quality photos though that it falls back into the same problem with disposable cameras.

I prefer the Canon GL2 for video — it takes still pictures as well, but they look awful. For the modest price, though, the video it shoots is surprisingly clean. Unfortunately, unlike it’s more-expensive brother, the XL2, the lens is not swappable, but the one it comes with is quite good.

It seems that OmniNerds overwhelmingly use digital.

1. Prints – do you make them yourself or have them printed from a professional printer?

2. Storage – do you keep them on your hard disk or burn them to CD/DVD?

3. "Extra" Images – with the power digital affords to shoot away and keep only what you want, do you actually delete the excess pictures?

1. I have mine printed professionally once I decide to get hardcopy. It took awhile to find a legitimate print service in my area. Several services in my area to include Wal Mart and Target featured terrible printers that pixelated my images and rendered gradients with visible color bands. It turned out a "Mom & Pop" sort of photo store had a super high quality printer that made the images stand out equavalent to their film counterparts.

2. No CDs or DVDs. Just copies in triplicate across various hard drives.

3. I delete my extra images. Or at least crop segments of them down and keep digital samples in a "stock" folder for using with later digital manipulations.