Attitudes to digital

It is ironic that a good all-manual film camera doesn’t cost that much. Something like a Pentax k-1000, a perfect student camera which is built like a tank and allows full SLR control. Camera companies made all their money with higher end models loaded with features. A SLR body and good glass was really all you really needed – the rest was bells and whistles. No one could tell a film image shot on a “student†camera from one done by a pro. I have a very talented friend who still shoots her K-1000 and does just fine vs others with decades of experience and high end $$$ film cameras.

Not all barriers are broken down with the move to digital. The standard level playing field format of a 35 mm transparency is gone. Even at the pixel level there isn't a standard - they too are not all the same.

Cost wise, digital is the completely the opposite of film cameras, the “idiot proof†cameras are much cheaper. I guess they have to make a chip anyway and the programming is cheap. Allowing us full control doesn’t seem to be. For simple manual SLR control on a digital camera so YOU can make the decisions you have to pay the price. And although the line is often blurry, it is easier than with film to tell an image from a 8+ MP dSRL from a 3 MP point and shoot. No more standard format and level playing field. . . I *love* digital, but one thing I don't like on the principal of it is that gear matters more than it used to.

Editors know. Some are asking for lossless files (RAW, TIFF, etc). However, if you capture the lockness monster on your cell phone or 110 film camera you still might have a cover shot! For the rest of us. . .

I think digital cameras and photoshop have completely reinvented the mechanics or photography, and for the better. The ease and control we now have is amazing. the ability to review and adjust, as you go make it much easyer to get a technically correct shot. To then tune it up in ps wonderful. As an older guy, with film, i remember that uncertainty, and hope untill you saw your slides. The important thing is the creativity, the imagination, composition, those sre the most important things. Now we ooh, and ah at gobie eyeballs, and snapshots which are pleasing, but composition, and creativity, are what make me excited about what i see. thats the art of photography, not the mechanics

A great image is a great image however it is captured.

There was a time when scans from transparencies done on my Nikon 4000ED were not good enough and editors wanted only to work from the originals. Thanks to the lowering of standards brought about by the digital revolution, these scans now sit comfortably side-by-side with pictures captured digitally.

There is no doubt in my mind that one can get better quality on film (and a drum scanner with a good operator). As to format, as they say in the world of boxing, a good biggun will always beat a good little'un!

That said, it seems that digital photographs are good enough for most uses. The downside is that almost anyone can use a digital camera and the opportunity to earn big money is therefore gone. I am still basking in the remnants of the £2million I earned from being a photographer during the '80s. Those days are gone but I still have my memories!

The reasons that "old school" folks use for not accepting digital photography are gradually being addresses either through improved technology or through better understanding of how best to use what is available. The film folks I travel with are pretty much down to: "If it can't take a decent sunball, I'm not switching." Now that the resolution argument is basically moot (when comparing to 35mm, at least), I think that the camera manufacturers should really focus on addressing the issue of dynamic range and take a break, for the moment, on simply concentrating on increasing pixel count.

And, is it really fair to say that the digital resolution has actually resulted in a lowering of standards? Not sure I understand what that means . . .

I think that the camera manufacturers should really focus on addressing the issue of dynamic range and take a break, for the moment, on simply concentrating on increasing pixel count.

I agree Mike. Fuji tried this with the S3 but the market doesn't seem to think 6 megpixels is enough and the shortcomings of the camera body are not worth the increased DR.

It would be nice to see a D200 body with a 10 or 12 megapixel Fuji sensor.

Cheers

James

It would be nice to see a D200 body with a 10 or 12 megapixel Fuji sensor.

Sounds an awful lot like the D2X to me... Only sensor out there that looks as good as the S3, IMHO.

BTW, early stages of digital production always seem to "lower the standard", so to speak. I still blame Avid for doing this to the broadcast video industry. Eventually the technology catches up, but for a while, the low cost and ease of delivery seem to rule, causing "producers" to accept a reduction of quality. In the broadcast industry, technology has caught up, and we are back to delivering the quality we used to (or better). I think the same applies to photography. Digital has "caught up" with what was possible in the past only with 35mm film.

I think one of the problem areas is the webgallery. First people post 100s of images from a trip. The skill in editing is lost. And the viewer gets flooded with a load of decent shots and only a few stunners.

The other problem is that is the main output media for many digi snappers are galleries on the web. And there you can get away with heavy cropping and over processing because the images look fine. But then when someone wants to print the great images they see on your website, the pix don't stand up.

The advantage of a slide was that it was a slide. If it was good it was good because the photographer got the exposure and framing right in camera. Just because some has a great picture on their website, it doesn't mean anymore that it can be printed big looking great.

Of course if you get it right on digital then big prints can look stunning.

Alex

Some digital sunbursts:

Some film sunbursts:

Or are those the other way round?

Alex

I am sure the perceived digital sunburst problem stems from lack of proper exposure control!

I have to agree that digital lower the standards, maybe not in the photographic sections in the magazines but sure in general u/w articles like trip reports and so.

This days I can see again and again frames that looks very amateurish and quit bad only because the writer (that can be great writer) have a simple P&S camera and could take some shots to add to the article. In the past since the u/w cameras where no so widespread the editors probably needed to buy images for those articles from more professionals photographers and the results where far better.

Digital sunbursts are a problem due to the sensor's linear capture characteristics! Film is far from linear and handles the extreme overexposure differently.

I'd like to think that 10MPixel+ dSLRs yield better results than 35mm ever did - no, not think, they do! Image standards may drop initially, as did design layout when DTP came out at first, but as DTP discovered, you still need a designer, and this will finally carry through to digital photography - you still need a good photographer. Unless of course the final arbiter is cheapness......