Has digital made photography too easy?

My two cents ... digital made it easier to get some shot easily but the huge amount of photos produced using the new technology has set a new level pole. Sticking out of the mass has become more difficult.
 
I sit in front of a computer all day and design, for me, analog photography is an outlet which I can have control of the craft physically.. The most digital work I do is "gradient" black and white at the end of a B&W scan and touch up dust.. to me that is easy.
 
'you push the button, we do the rest'...

i'm 62 and my mother used to take great family snapshots with an instamatic and a polaroid...

photography is as easy or as hard as you want it to be...digital or film...auto everything or manual...
 
maddoc said:
...the huge amount of photos produced using the new technology has set a new level pole...
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+1 to this. Digital certainly makes it easier to see way more lousy photographs.

I find color photography to be vastly easier today than it was 15 years ago. I can have a top drawer color "lab" here in my studio with basically zero headaches or maintenance. At the volumes I work that was just impossible before digital. Living outside a city meant sending film off somewhere, or driving for two hours to a color lab. Getting proofs back a week later, making any notes needed and waiting another week for a print. Now, I can shoot something and have a proof print in hand in minutes. That's easier, and cheaper.
 
kshapero said:
Digital photography, for me, is not really a problem; it's all the automation that usually comes with it. Take all the dozens of auto-focus settings on my Nikon D7000. Ridiculous. Yes this definitely takes away the pleasure. I would think that shooting an M-9 would be a real pleasure.
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IMO thats why the M digis are so popular. Digital without the damned gimmicks.
 
Digital sure has made it too easy. It seems everyone with $500 to buy a DSLR has taken up being a "professional" photographer as either a side job for those who are terrible at it or means of career change for those who actually have a knack for it. An easy way to live the dream and be your own boss.

Digital isn't entirely without its difficulties. In the beginning the early photographers were also chemists. Because you needed to know chemistry to be a photographer. The technical portion of photography is still there today however now it's computers and electronics you need to understand instead of chemistry.
 
I don't know about 'too easy' but it's probably made me a better photographer. Admittedly, that is not much of an advancement for me. :) Trying something and seeing the results quickly has helped - as opposed to taking a few days to get the results back and in the interim forgetting what the test actually was.
 
Mais Oui, Mais Non...
Its really not that hard in getting a fairly Good shot anymore

I suppose the real 'Talent' lies in Finding the shot & Framing it
and possibly Post processing (if needed)
 
The OP's 'then' and 'now' equation is, of course part and parcel of the incredibly boring film vs. digital debate. No thanks. Let's make some pictures! Cheers, P
 
kshapero said:
Digital photography, for me, is not really a problem; it's all the automation that usually comes with it. Take all the dozens of auto-focus settings on my Nikon D7000. Ridiculous. Yes this definitely takes away the pleasure. I would think that shooting an M-9 would be a real pleasure.
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I feel something similar about all the 'features' that manufacturers keep adding to camera bodies in order to make the newest models desirable. But its also true that all these cameras can be simplified (refined in my opinion) to a great degree by turning off everything that takes a decision-making process away from the photographer. For example, my D7000 is set up as a manual focus, spot meter body with auto ISO turned off. And I use manual focus lenses on it. In this set-up, the camera feels somewhat like an older F-style film Nikon.

I'll also admit that when the situation calls for it, its nice to know I can turn the all the automatic features ON and blast away. Normally this occurs at family get-togethers when I have a cocktail in one hand, the camera in the other, and I don't want to think about metering or focusing at all. :p
 
The cameras and software these days invite tinkering. There are tons of possible settings and an equal amounts of information constantly pouring forth from screens and finders. But is it really _simpler_ to work with all this information and controls compared to using a mechanical camera with a meter and knobs for shutter speed, aperture and focus, provided that you have experience with the basics? I don't think simpler is the right word. More reassuring (you get instant feedback) and flexible - but not simpler.

There are genres where the ability to fine-tune each and every setting is very useful - e.g. macrophotography, difficult studio setups, architecture... But for general human-scale documentary stuff it's superfluous and distracting, IMO. And this goes for both the shooting experience and editing/post-processing. Too easy to get caught in the numbers, histograms and pixel peeping - and miss the peak emotion or best composition.
 
Obviously it has made it easier to take an image, not that it has made the 'seeing' part of photography any easier, instant review has made the whole process instantaneous and the barrier to producing technically high quality output is way lower.
That is a good thing!
Progress like TTL metering made getting better exposures easier, auto focus made for less out of focus images etc.
Digital is just a progression in the evolution of photography.

It has given many people a huge amount of control over their images, decent colour printing was something that was beyond all but the most serious amateur, and even many professionals would balk at having to make contrast or un-sharp masks–all now incredibly easy and with a level of control outside of what a handful of people could do before the advent of digital.

So yes it has become easier, just as 1HR minilabs boosted the use of colour negative, all those improvements just like digital are a good thing.
 
Certainly it has become easier. But is it as personally satisfying? It is broader than just digital. The Nikon F6 or Canon 1V are sophisticated, computer controlled film cameras. Has the increasing sophistication of cameras made any difference in your personal satisfaction with photography?
 
Another thing that affects the pleasure we derive from photography is how we first view our work. With digital, you tend to get a rundown of your mistakes first: you can zoom to 400% in a second and see that you've missed focus a bit, then there's the clipped highlight blinking red, and oh dear, is that sensor dust? Raw files can look especially dreary before you've applied any adjustments.

With a contact sheet or small proof prints, you see the potential first and the minor defects are hidden until you examine the negative closer or make a larger print. This gives you a better chance to bond with your work, which apparently some people are in dire need of.
 
Using a grain focusing device to focus the enlarger gave me a real understanding of how badly slow, handheld shutter speeds and wide open apertures destroyed sharpness in photos. Kind of the same experience as viewing digital files at 400 percent.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
Certainly it has become easier. But is it as personally satisfying? It is broader than just digital. The Nikon F6 or Canon 1V are sophisticated, computer controlled film cameras. Has the increasing sophistication of cameras made any difference in your personal satisfaction with photography?
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Personal satisfaction is harder to quantify, I find huge amount of satisfaction in printing my images, but then i always did even in the days of film.
One thing I think is important to me is when I use film I find it more hands on less rushed and certainly less transient.
That's because I like the hands on feeling of printmaking, its more labour intensive and harder to achieve excellent results and that for me makes those results have a higher value.
 
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