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Exactly, best thing is to learn the more complicated old fashioned way, where you need to take polaroids to make sure the lighting/exposure is correct in the first place,as well as how is the subject framed for publication, is her pussy going to be where any staples might go etc etc etc.
Lots of things to take care of

Well, this sort of arguement would never have happened in my day. Bring back national service! Two years in the army would stop these porno moaners. Ah, I remember when girls had hair on there fannies blah, blah, blah....There were no tatoos during the war you know...we lived on powdered egg. I remember when it was all trees round here. Ben Dover used to be in charge of the air raid sirens (he was only 60 years old back in 1943).

Oh dear, such bitter replies! Jeff - I hope you've not been put off this forum by some of these replies. JJ, as usual, brought sanity back to the discussion (mine's a pint, btw, jj!)
Regarding the use of film/digital, I don't believe its' a matter of fashion as to what you choose, it's the results isn't it? Film, or rather slide film, will always give a more 'practical' result as the photo is the result of a chemical reaction, not a digital capture. You must have seen digital enlargements where 'staircase diagonals' and loss of definition are immediately obvious. I agree that for some uses, ie. John Masons' site, digital is so much more useable, but only in as far as they are viewed on screen, not as an A5 centrespread. Then there is the thorny subject of longevity. Despite manufacturers claims, there must by doubt as top the stability of the storage method of digital over a period of, say 25 years. I have photos that are older than that, and the negs. are still stable and printable. People may not want to reprint (digital) photos of models taken 20 - 25 years ago, in 25 years' time, but my point is that the storage life of digital photos may be shorter than we are led to believe by manufacturers who are, in most cases, just producing another consumer product.
I am not a Luddite, but stick to slides for any work you want published.

Which raises a point I've mentioned before and am still unsure about: what is the 'shelf-life' of VHS stock?
Should I hastily be converting all my "babies" to DVD? Christ, what a job......

.....but then DVD is digital, isn't it, jj? Like all storage media which is liable to degrade, the key to preventing this is, of course, suitable storage conditions. VHS, being a magnetic storage medium should, rather obviously, be stored nowhere near sources of magnetic fields - this includes large speaker cabinets (are there such things, still?). Tape libraries, such as those kept by TV studios, are in dark air con. rooms with humidity control etc. Leaving cassettes lying around in bright sunlight on window sills will not do them any favours, needless to say!
As far as longevity goes in the correct conditions, I do not really know the answer to this. I do know that extensive tape (and film) libraries are constantly monitored for signs of excess degrading, and then new copies made. Does anybody else know?

Jeff, I think David Spenser, has answered your question, and I agree with everything he said.
I think that digital will be used by everybody in publishing in the next few years, but at the moment the time is not quite right.

John

Someone mentioned 6.1megapixel cameras? Still not enough. At my previous publishing company (I'm currently in legal action against them, but that's enough about that), we ran *extensive* tests on all manner of digital camera right up to the Kodak efforts based on Nikon bodies which cost around 35,000 UK pounds.

We compared their output with the best we could get even from Mamya bodies and were not able to come up with results good enough for a full A3 bleed, which is what we'd need for a good centrespread.

Digital photography will only *really* take off when the quality makes that last leap and publishers suddenly realise how much money they can save on repro costs. It's all interlinked with printers going 'straight to plate', too. Most top glamour snappers could save around 20,000 a year by switching from film to digital. The fact that the likes of VLT, John Graham, Colby and the rest haven't should speak volumes about the ability of the format at the present time. These guys are in the business to make money, not get laid, and you can bet that the minute there looks like it'll save them money, they'll do it.

Some publishers are using it because it can already save them money, even if the end result isn't quite as good as film. A lot of advertising companies won't touch it, because they still don't *get* it. There are stories about ad snappers losing massive contracts because the results they see on their machines differ totally to the results when published (it's that RGB setting thing again). The camera manufacturers haven't really spent enough time liaising with everyone concerned, from snappers to designers, printers and publishers. Nikon have tried, but it still took my old company several months to crack the RGB thing.

My advice is, stick with film if you want to sell to adult mags. If you can light for film, you'll have no trouble with digital!