What died in here??

This was written as a response to some discussion going on the Ikan blog:

Tape is dead. Film is dead.

He said. "Lets put the This is dead, That is dead to bed."

Technology never dies it just becomes irrelevant, too expensive or unsupported. The horse drawn carriage never died, it became less convenient and reliable than the auto mobile. There was a time period during the transition from where the bodies of cars were built by the same guys that made carriages. Remember Sony's digital 8mm format. It was a temporary transitional tape format that existed just to bridge the gap until Sony could build new factories to produce DV tape mechanisms. The phenomenon of 35mm adapters were a bridge technology. When the HD cameras became affordable for the indie filmmaker they for the first time in video format had technology decent enough for capturing cinema quality images. The drawback was the lens sensor combination. #%mm adpaters were a fix for that problem.... a permanent solution is on its way. Is the new technology a viable alternative yet ... I say so. Having shot with a RedRock for commercials and an indie feature, I can say coming from a video back ground the process was a PITA. A lot of the PITA goes away with a DSLR. Is the final image perfect with a DSLR ... NO …  but neither was the 35mm adapter route. The light loss was a real drag, the back focus was a constant source of hassle. The size of the package was an abomination, it cost a lot more than you would think, and monitoring became an issue.... Was it worth it?? Most of the time yes.  The 35mm adapter route sure made some pretty pictures. The DOF effect was nicein many instances, but shallow DOF somewhere became the end all be all effect somewhere along the way. The softness and grain the ground glass did add some really nice unvideo like characteristics ti the image. But it was still a PITA to shoot with and I think it could really get in the way of the filmmaking process.  Is the digital SLR route easy and fail proof … NO. It IS cheaper, lighter, and faster,  the big thing is: it’s the future.  The versions we see now are the first generation of the technology. The big guys never listened to us when we asked for the technology 5 or 6 years ago, that and the core technologies were not ready. The next few generations will improve in all of the areas that lack.  Funny thing is they will too be obsolete in 5 years.