My DSLR takes great photos but....

[FrankS]

Yes, but the nature/capabilities of a camera can encourage you to use it in a particular way. I'm thinking motor drive and AE, and lots of digital exposures since there is no film to buy. Can't force you of course, but can encourage you to, as the OP suggested.

 

[Krosya]

I too agree with you guys - I was a long time Canon, first FD, later EOS user. When digital came around I finally switched to that too, used it for about 2 years and sold it ALL. And came to - first Bessa-R and later Leica M. Reason - while I did like immediate feedback of a digital, no or very little processing costs, etc, I just found myself NOT enjoying photography. While most of my results were good (for me), I was missing something. And while I agree that most digiatal cameras can be operated in manual mode, and you don't have to take a zillion photos, there was always a temptation to do so for me. I mean, I always thought - I can fit them all on a card, doesn't cost me anything and if I shoot more - I may get lucky - law of probabilities. Well, after a while that approach was in part what killed joy of it in me. I didn't feel that satisfyed once I looked at photos. Plus the bulk of a serious EOS system was a bit too much at times. So I took an RF route. I like it a lot, but I missed my EOS at times for some applications. So, I went back and got me a FILM EOS SLR, one I used to have years ago and liked to most - EOS 630. So, for macro and telephoto I have EOS, for everything else - Leica. All film. Well, I do have a small Casio digital, but that for ebay mostly. Even as a portable P&S I use Olympus XA or Stylus.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Now try developing yourself. You'll feel even better about keepers.

The more interesting part is fixing oneself. The path to enlightenment is long and tortuous. Don't try developing yourselves at home, kids. 😉

 

[PetarDima]

I have a Canon 30D. The photographs it takes are nice and sharp, but for me, it's not only about the output I get from a camera; it's also about the process involved in getting a great shot. For some reason, my 30D encourages me to take a lot of photos, without thinking too much about what I'm doing. I'll take over 500+ photos in a day, only to find that I only have maybe 5-10 that are keepers. With those 5-10 shots, I'll run them through Lightroom, save them as TIFF's and have them printed. Then I'm left with some nice looking prints. I can do all this in a couple hours. There's a problem though. I'll hold these prints in my hand, but they don't feel like something of my creation. They seem very impersonal to me. There was something missing in the process......So I thought about what it was like when I first started to learn about photography. I used a Nikon FM10. Fully manual SLR. With a manual camera, I had to set the aperture, shutter speed and focus all by myself. I missed those times, when photography was more rewarding. There was no instant-gratification. I had to wait at least a few hours to see my prints. When I had a good shot, it was such a wonderful feeling because I actually felt like I made the photograph. When I had a bad shot, I could think about what went wrong and take full responsibility with such a bad photo. I loved my Nikon, but I always had my eyes set on a Leica. I never had the money to buy one, until now. . . . .So I took the plunge.And bought a Leica MP with 50 1.4 'Lux. I could't be happier!!!!Great build quality and smooth operation. Photography has become fun for me again! It's become a part of me, instead of being a seperate entity. My camera didn't create my photos, I DID damn it! SO, I got my first black and white roll back yesterday. Out of the 20 photos I took, guess how many were keepers? ALL 20!!!One shot, one kill on all 20 photographs of different subjects. So how come I can get 20/20 with a film camera and only 10/500 on a DSLR?My MP forces me to really think about what I'm going to shoot. How I want it composed. What setting I want to use. I've only got 24 frames and I want each of them to count.But this isn't only about forcing one to think about a photograph. It's about the act of making your own decisions. It's about sound of the winding lever. It's about the thunk of the shutter. It's about the twisting of the shutter dial. The setting of the aperture.It's about the FOCUS..FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!!!!Basically, it's about the PROCESS. For me, the prints are not what I strive for as the end result. Sure I want to have great photos. We all do. But the PROCESS of taking, making, creating a photo is just as important as the end print result. Sorry for getting so spiritual on you guys,,but my MP really opened my eyes. I SEE THE LIGHT!

Another Happy Man ...
to sell everything else
and wonder
with old Leica
in heart
😛

 

[pmu]

There is one point that is not often noticed or said... I feel that there are some small reasons why you "have to" shoot more frames with digital than film.

With good manual film camera the results depend 100% how you, the photographer, use those tools. If you miss the focus or have wrong settings, you are the one to blame, not your equipment. If you know how to expose and develop your film you can just wait for the moment and take the shot -- very simple. It all depends on you how the image will look like.

But with digital capture... very very very often the situation is totally different. You "have to" shoot 10 or 20 times more frames because you have to rely on your cameras capabilities... If your camera isn't the top-of-the-line model you so often need to struggle for example with autofocus -- "is it in focus??! Maybe I'll focus again just in case and take few frames more."-- autofocus is not working properly, the colors are totally wrong - need to tweak wb-setting just in case, the "highlights are blinking" all the time and you need to bracket / shoot with different setting to get a shot that is technically OK -- correctly focused and correct exposure etc... And after a series of shots you see that "oh boy, even if I metered just 10 seconds ago some of those shots seems to be little overexposed, maybe I'll take few more shots with different settings". And if you have to focus manually...oh boy, you better bracket focusing as well and shoot a lot of frames if you want to make sure you get the shot (all this because of the small and dimm viewfinder). And during the shooting you are constantly worried if you messed up or not...not messed up because of your own actions, but because of how your camera works. I have tons of photos that are ruined because of a little overexposure or AF not working properly. I have tons of photos where I blame only the equipment. With my M6 this happens never, If I miss the shot I can blame only myself.

That is how I feel all the time at work when I shoot digitally at work. Have done this for about one year now -- I really do not trust the camera at all (30D canon) and when I purchased Nikon D200 for my personal work I discovered that the situation was the same all the time -- had to shoot 10 times more frames than with film but the amount of good photos did not increase...only a lot more those "delete" ones.

Of course these are just my personal views/experiences. I respect those who have the ability to shoot with digital same as with film - I surely can't.

 

[tedwhite]

PMU:

One of the attributes I like best about the Pentax istDS is that it has an actual pentaprism, therefore a very bright viewfinder.

Ted

 

[ZorkiKat]

Think before you push the shutter just like with film. The problem will go away.

JUST REMEMBER THE SHUTTER HAS A FINITE LIFE.

Doing this is not as free as you think.

The shutter in my 300D died yesterday. It went without warning, from OK to dead. The rest of the camera was functioning, even controlling the shutter time, but the blades weren't opening anymore. The last frame still showed a perfectly exposed shot, but the next was totally black.

 

[Kin Lau]

I shot one roll of Fujichrome Provia 100, 36 exposures. Subsequently we became friends, and I asked him how many pics he had taken that day. Something like 400, he said. Then he added that only a very few were worth keeping, and that he deleted the rest. I guess that's the machine-gun approach.

Later I returned to the same spot, using this time a Pentax DSLR with the same lens ($20 adapter) that was now a 450mm equivalent. Again, he was there, and virtually the same thing happened. He took hundreds, I took maybe 30.

Perhaps that's the difference between someone who has spent a lifetime with film and someone who started out with digital (he did).

Ted

Welcome to the world of birding photography, where _one_ good frame out of 36 is considered pretty good, and that's regardless of film or digital. You have a subject that you can't really get close to, that's fairly unpredictable and can move twice as fast or even 10x faster than you and that "decisive moment" occurs in about 1/1000th of a second and sometimes several times in a space of a second.

It's not digital vs film, it's just the way the game is played. It's hard to think of any other kind of photography that's further removed from the world of RF photography & street photography. Most RFFr's have very little idea of what it takes to do bird photography.

 

[maitrestanley]

If this 'conversion' rate keeps up we are going to get the reputation of being a strange religious cult rather than a forum ... before you know it we'll all be shaving our heads and chanting "film, film, film!". 😱

Keith! Are you telling me you HAVEN'T been shaving your head and chanting 'film film film'?

BANISHED!!! ARE you from the halls fo the RFFSecretSociety! BANISHED!!!

😀

 

[maitrestanley]

You've pretty much described the new generation of shooter. Shoot digital, shoot a bunch of frames without any thought, take them to photoshop, see if there are any that can be saved with photoshop and rework one or two frames untill you have something you like.

A year ago i was talking to Kim Weston, the granson of Edward Weston. He teaches seminars and was talking aobut the same thing. Fill a memory card, run in and download and see if any one frame can be salvaged in photoshop.

This isn't phototgraphy!

Digital doesn't have to be that way. I shoot all formats, digital included, with the same care that i do my 8x10 camera. It doesn't make any difference if it's 35mm or 8x10, it takes the same care in composition, exposure and mentally processing what goes into makeing a great image. It's not a perchance or random process. There's no substitute for getting everything right before the release is presses. No a photoshop work will make it better than an image well planned and executed.

I completely agree. I must say that when I started photography, I briefly worked with film (maybe half a year) before converting to digital. I went pure digital for several years, maching-gun snapping away.

Now, severyal years later, I'm back to film and I must admit that it's hard to shake off the old digital habits. A manual camera is really helping though.

 

[x-ray]

I don't have any problem with digital and use it in the commercial business 5 days a week. To me digital capture is just like having another emuslion to shoot but one that I can use to create my own personal emulsion look. You might say, my personal style and look. To produce excellent images it takes the same care that film does. Using digitally I try things that I would not have done if shooting film simply because of the insatnt feedback. I think in the right hands it lends itself to very creative photography.

I think I previously posted these thought on auto functions a few weeks back. I compared auto on a camera to the autopilot when I'm flying. It took a number of years shooting auto from time to time to get comfortable with allowing the camera to focus and set exposure. Functions that I had always done myself were taken over by an automated system. Flying was the same issue, it took some time before I could relax and allow the autopilot to fly the plane. In both the camera and the plane you still have to be allert to what the system is doing. With auto in both you can't go to sleep. You are in controll of the camera or the craft and you make the final decisions. I see auto in the plane as a menans of relieving some of the work load and allowing me to concentrate on navigation changes and other vital parts of the journey. At no time do I forget about what the autopilot and aircraft are doing. the same is true of auto functions in a camera. The person who uses them properly is always in controll of the camera. The auto functions relieve some of the technical load of exposure and focus so i can concentrate on other aspects of creativity, the creative journey. Both still require the input of the person in command, the pilot or the photographer. Neither system can effectively work without this input.

 

[40oz]

I went out with friends while on vacation a few weeks ago. They all brought their small digital cameras, and took tons (60-70) of shots over the course of the night, whereas I took maybe 30. We had a good time a few days later reviewing all the shots, laughing at all the shots that just didn't work, because everyone was blurred. Exposure was fine, but as expected, the shooter almost always moved the camera before the shutter closed.

After I developed my films, it was clear that very few of my shots had any motion blur. The main reason some shots failed were under-exposure or bad focus. But in the end, far more of my shots came out, even though I shot far fewer frames.

I'd say the reason I had more successful shots was I took my time with each shot, and didn't bother when the lighting was too low or the results were questionable. I was always conscious I only had a limited number of shots, and was careful to use them sparingly. Conversely, when you can take 50 shots or more without worry, it seems a person tends to put less care into each one.

 

[darrylasher]

Great discussion everyone! I do agree that "pretending" you are shooting film when shooting digital does work to a degree. But I just naturally take more time when shooting film. I have found it's a matter of choosing the right tool for the right task.

For example, on a recent trip to New Orleans, I decided to embark on the project seen here: http://darrylasher.com/hipshot/index.html
I don't think I would have even tried this on film, since the odds of getting "good" pictures by this method is relatively low. I like the images as part of the project, but I won't frame and display any of them. Regardless, it was fun to do, and I think gives the vibe of Bourbon Street.

On the other hand, I used film for this: http://jpgmag.com/photos/83395
and this: http://jpgmag.com/photos/83387
(Sorry, not a Leica!) Using film, and a tripod, and knowing I would not see immediate results, and the fact that I made a special trip to the locations pretty much ensured I was going to be more careful and take more time before pushing the shutter release.

One thing is for sure, in my mind: film is far from dead.

 

[Kin Lau]

As the saying goes, "it's not the camera, it's the photographer". That goes for film or digital, p&s or RF or SLR or large-format view-camera.

 

[Magus]

Post deleted by posters request

 

[MelanieC]

There's something to be said for being able to take a zillion shots.

For most of my life I hardly took any photos at all because I didn't want to waste film. I didn't start enjoying taking pictures until I got my first digital camera. My photos from that era aren't great, but it's the first part of my adult life that's well documented because I felt free to shoot away. If it hadn't been for that Nikon Coolpix 950 I probably never would have picked up my father's cameras last year.

It's not impossible to learn from the "just shoot away" approach either. I went to the Tour of California Prologue in San Francisco with my Nikon D70s and two lenses. I have no idea how to take action photos and had never taken photos of cycling before. Altogether I took about 150-200 photos, trying various techniques to get a shot that I thought was not too horrible. Most of them were crap, and the ones that weren't are not going to win any cycling photography awards, don't get me wrong, but by comparing the ones that worked and the ones that didn't I got some idea about what I might try next time. Without the freedom and sheer volume I would not learn the same lesson. If I'd only brought my M3 or my OM I probably would have gotten zilch.

Digital SLRs are great for what they're good at. I don't see what's wrong with taking a lot of photos. It doesn't necessarily mean your brain is turned off.

 

[ray_g]

Congratulations!

However, someone needs to emphasize that while the point has been made about the temptation to mindlessly shoot hundreds of frames with digital, I think the converse should also be stressed - the sort of "one shot wonders" that naos described are just not realistic. Shooting with film does not mean taking one shot per subject. That is just too optimistic.

 

[mfunnell]

I think Melanie makes an excellent point about using digital for learning or polishing photographic techniques. I'll also note, carrying on from her using a dSLR for cycling shots, that digital and SLRs are a great combination for shooting sport, in general.

I shot an Aussie Rules football grand final last year for one of the participating clubs. The game was played in horrible conditions (ever seen underwater football?) and so I had really bad light. That meant constant ISO adjustment to keep shutter speeds up and taking lots of photos to make sure I had usable images of key parts of play, the full run of team members doing action-packed things etc. where many frames were going to be spoiled by camera shake (despite a monopod and stabilised lens) and motion blur. When you have to get the shots its nice to be able to fire off a whole lot of them, especially when you know conditions are against you. Digital is just ideal for that, and I probably wouldn't have produced many decent shots if shooting film as I'm unlikely to have carried sufficient film of high enough ISO. (It ended up that nobody was especially interested in my pics - "our" team lost in its first loss of the year, by one point in the final seconds.)

...Mike

 

[x-ray]

I think that digital and film complement each other just as a RF and SLR's are complementaty to each other. There's no shame in shooting digital and no shame in using automation if thought goes into the process of making images.

In my work I shoot 98% digital. I use all functions and it's not uncommon to see me shoot program mode. Even though I shoot in program sometimes I often over ride the system. I love the mechanics of photography but never hesitate to use the auto features when appropriate. Each shot is planned and executed whether work or play.

 

[maitrestanley]

Personally, I don't even think 'film vs digital' can be compared fairly. People do because the end result is similar but they are still different mediums. Likewise, you wouldn't compare oil paint with film either. It just wouldn't make sense. Each medium has its purpose and neither is generally 'better than the other.' One medium will be great at one thing and other great for another.

In this age, the digital format has taken over 35mm film format when it comes to journalism. It's simply more practical due to its instantaneous results and ease and speed of sending photos back to editors for publications. However, if say one was going to an area in central China that's 200 miles from any developed city to document migrating herds of ... goats or whatever ... a digital format just wouldn't work due to electrical and power constraints.