In my opinion Nick has borrowed my Lonely RFF Member Living Up There In The Hills, i,e, those like me who have to pay film in full cash and therefore have less budget to invest. But let us not forget there are, or there were at the time, successfully world touring paid photographers, who got their film for free, and a generous budget for processing, paid by their editors.
I know it from the time I was processing their films in Jerusalem at a time that BW film processing started to become highly expensive and no one was ready to put up a quality processing service in Jerusalem, despite the fact that from time to time those dandys of Photography were leaving in my darkroom over thousand dollars in processing only.
And you may know that simple local newspaper folks two decades ago, they also enjoyed from free film and free processing.
And quite interesting was to look at the negatives of my overseas folks, because they all have it in common: first they grabbed with accuracy what they felt it is the decisive moment, the right angle, the right subject, etc, etc. And then they machine gunned it with half a roll !!!!
Of course I was curious in observing if there was any difference between frame and frame since they don't used to change so much the angle of view. The only default difference being the time between frame and frame. And there were differences, which having the budget you would not like to miss.
Think. What could be the "keepers" of a National Photography guy ? 1 per thousand shots ? perhaps less. Less "keepers".
So when we start the comparizon, lets' put both mediums on a starting equal footing, becuase we are, in my opinion, up to something here.
If I can imagine now any of those guys with free budgets, (one or two of them left me dozens of unused rolls of film), how many "keepers" they had then and they have now, I would say that their ratio continues to be the same. But they have went digital - do you have any idea why ?
I would tell my opinion about why: time first of all. Time includes the fact that the Digital Camera is a more developed camera than the Film AF SLR Camera, who in turn is a more developed instrument than our beloved Rangefinder Camera, nonstanding the fact that Rebbie Cartier Bresson preached about the sin of the SLR camera saying it is a machine gun, not a camera. Fantastic an Anarquist!
Time is versatility, expressing itself in your ability to watch at the final image immidately after clicking and all the other features there is no need to repeat here.
Now you can always bring me as an example those hunky banky chapachula wedding photographers who machine gun a wedding like Rambo in the Jungle. Kindly don't - show some pitty for those who honestly deserve it.
Because the argument about "keepers" is a self defensive and confusing lie from the corners of film users, who turn their backs on technological development. I am not saying that each film user is a retarded mind, no and no. But some of them lack the wisdom to reckognize evolution (and this happens in all fields, not just in our photographic church) without fear. The unlogical fear of feeling obsolete.
Many lack the wisdom to say "fine, I do accept that the digital camera is a superior camera, but I myself prefer film or film cameras because x,y, z"
And the photographic church, be it said in its favour, is quite tolerant in every direction. It also accepts the mith that a digital camera must ensure a better result just because it is advanced Technology, without analysing and evaluating.
I myself have repeated it over and over that in my humble opinion the end result of film after high class manual printing will always win over any of those new printers. And I am specially gratefull to have had the luck that an acquintance showed me her paid big enlarged color manual printed prints (you imagine the price) and I was astonished, nothing less.
Because evolution, in every field, is always full of contradictions and complexities. There is always two steps forwards and one backwards and the opposite too. And it is precisely because of the contradictory way of evolution that we find those pleasure niches for manufacturing again folding film cameras, rangefinder film cameras and the soups of rangefinder and digitals. Evolution is mutlifacetic, there is a place for everyone.
But the superiority of the Digital Camera over the film camera is not to be ignored, just because we can make better prints at our home darkroom than those we can do from a digital file. This concept is a dead end I wish for my enemies only.
Because if you cannot machine gun images only due to your budget and time, but otherwise you would, then your problem is not the medium but your apprioach. You can use a Digital Camera to machine gun images, without any reason and then you have waisted your time.
But you can take advantage of the "free budget" Digital Camera to shoot more, free of time/budget constrains and improve more and more - how otherwise are you supposed to improve if not by the mounting experience ?
Why do you fail to grasp that the capability to gather more experience provided by the "free budget" Digital Camera is a step forwards ?
Why you ignore this superiority bringing to absurd example those hunky banky chapachula wedding photographers who machine gun a wedding like Rambo in the Jungle ?
What I am saying also implies the contrary from what my good friend Nick is saying. I say that unless you belong to the free budget free time strata, you are more likely to get much more "keepers" with Digital. Because for all its problems, the Digital Camera is a superior camera.
Cheers,
Ruben
