Shooting A Tabletop

Quite some time ago we shifted to digital cameras, and our photographers were not happy. We decided to check whether they would consider moving back to film cameras again by making them use both film and digital cameras to shoot a product. The results...

The good old film camera
To shoot a tabletop (product on a table in a studio) using a film camera, I needed to buy a film roll and batteries. I bought a 35 mm film roll for Rs 110 and a pair of pencil batteries for Rs 20. This task took nearly 20 minutes. The fact that it's Monsoon  meant that I got drenched while heading to buy them.
Time taken 20 min

Shooting the product with the film camera took me around 10 minutes. Though it took another 3 hours to dry my clothes using the tiny hand dryer in the WC... but that's another story!
Time taken 10 minutes

After the shoot was done, I had to go back to the photo studio (and got wet all over again) to give the film for processing. Waiting for the film to develop took me another hour and a half. The developing charges for the film amounted to Rs 120. And let's not even get into dry cleaning bills!
Time taken 1 hour 30 minutes

Total Time Taken:  2 hours
Total Cost: Rs 250

The new age digital camera
Shooting with a digital camera was easy! The camera already had a memory card. Thank God for small mercies! Still, I had to buy four heavy-duty cells that cost Rs 90. This task took me around 20 minutes, and the rain meant that I had thanked God a little too soon!
Time taken 20 min

Shooting the product with the digital camera took around 10 minutes. The only difference here was that I could see the images I had clicked on the spot in the LCD display of the camera. This helped me gauge whether the image was suitable or not. It still took a good amount of time to dry my clothes again!
Time taken 10 minutes

There was no need for any processing. I simply had to connect the camera to a PC using the USB cable, and the images were ready for me to view. Time taken: barely five minutes. And this time I stayed as dry as the Sahara in the summer!
Time taken 5 minutes

There was no need for any processing. I simply had to connect the camera to a PC using the USB cable, and the images were ready for me to view. Time taken: barely five minutes. And this time I stayed as dry as the Sahara in the summer!
Time taken 5 minutes

Total Time Taken: 35 minutes
Total Cost: Rs 90

And The Winner Is...
Just to get a couple of pictures of a single product using the film camera, I had to use an entire film roll. On the other hand, shooting with the digital camera saved me a lot of time, money and effort. While a film camera offers better resolutions for print media, although in this case both the pictures had a good image quality. The ease of use, ability to preview images immediately and the speedy output, makes the digital camera a better option. Of course, it's also obvious that a digital camera reduces my interaction with crabby old Mother Nature-two thumbs up for that!

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