Do You Suffer From Digititis?

[bwcolor]

I discovered why my six year old makes great images. She just points her camera at everything and repeatedly presses the shutter release until the batteries are out, or the memory card filled. Upon my transition back to film, I was shocked to find that I had adopted the same shooting strategy as my six year old. Of, course, film is the cure for digititis.

I need to fight the compulsion to press the shutter on whatever digital camera that I use. I take my lack of shooting discipline as a sign of a devolving and not evolving skills. Do you consider yourself improving as a photographer because you end up with wonderful images, even when you have adopted my daughter's shooting strategy?

 

[back alley]

i find this line of questioning just plain insulting.

just because a 6 year old has a heavy finger and her father copies her...does not mean that everyone who shoots digital does that.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Well, if Digital is the disease and Film is the cure- this is a film versus digital debate.

I started using digital long before it was wide-spread. Long before near-infinite storage was available, and when batteries could last about the same as a roll of film.

I suggest you try a Kodak DCS200ci. That will cure you. You get 50 shots before having to dump the internal hard drive to your computer. So think of it as a Digital Camera that required being reloaded in a Darkroom.

 

[LKeithR]

i find this line of questioning just plain insulting.

More to the point, I think it's immaterial. Just because someone shoots a higher volume of images with digital doesn't mean they are losing their touch or focus. Whatever you shoot, it's your gear and it's up to you to decide how to use it.

I use digital almost exclusively and I do take a lot more pictures with it than I ever did with film but I am by no means a machine-gunner. Digital is different; it's easier and much more convenient than film so why shouldn't we take more pictures? When I think back to my film days I know there were times when I didn't take a shot because I didn't want to waste film but I'd be willing to bet that I missed more than a few good images because I held off.

But in the end, be it film or digital, printed or on screen, all anybody else ever sees is my keepers and how I captured those images is not their business...

 

[bwcolor]

i find this line of questioning just plain insulting.

just because a 6 year old has a heavy finger and her father copies her...does not mean that everyone who shoots digital does that.

I'm not suggesting that your skills are the same as my daughter's skill set. I'm not suggesting that everyone that shoots digital is without shooting discipline. I'm not suggesting that people can't shoot how they wish to shoot. I am suggesting that some may have fallen into this tendency to press the shutter. After all, that is what happened to me and I don't consider this, for me, to have been a good thing.

What I'm saying is that I was shocked at my lack of shooting discipline when I returned to film and I'm basically asking if people find shooting discipline to be an important goal in their photography skill set?

OH.. and lastly.. this is not a digital vs. film thread. After all, one can practice shooting discipline by going out with a 2-4GB memory card vs. 8-16GB. The film part was related to how I realized that I had lost discipline.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

This is clearly a film vs digital discussion.

Both film and Digital techniques are being discussed, and how using one has affected shooting style over the other.

If this had been an "I put a 750 exposure back on my Nikon F2, put on an MD-2 Motor drive, and handed it to my 6-year old and she kept the shutter release down until she exhausted the roll, and I notice I did the same thing when I loaded a roll of 36 into it but left the MD-2 on", then it would have been a bulk expossure back vs roll of film discussion. But the OP compared shooting film with digital.

Film vs Digital discussion will continue to be moved to this forum.