bmattock
Veteran
If you read this - please reserve your judgement until the end, there's a point to this and it isn't to make anyone angry:
***
Some caustic die-hards insist that the digital camera isn't a camera; it is, they say, a cult. It is true that a lot of fanatical nonsense has been perpetrated in the name of 'digital' photography, but anything capable of arousing such ardent, almost passionate partisanship (and opposition) must have something.
The digital camera has plenty.
Generally, the digital camera is an offspring of the manufacturing industry, for it was designed to make use of the relatively inexpensive and good CMOS sensor created for professional manufacturing work. On this basis, design proceeded. As the work went on, other advantages began to appear. In a compact little camera, a memory card capable of holding hundreds of images, each 6 to 12 megabytes in size, could be loaded. By using a small, short-focus lens, depth of field at any aperture was excellent. Even with fast lenses, lenses rated at f/2 or thereabouts, depth of field remained excellent.
So the digital camera with the relatively fast lens appeared. And because its early converts used it primarily in news work, and obtained remarkable, unposed pictures of celebrities, it became known as a 'candid' camera. And that "tag" nearly proved fatal to the digital camera, for people soon grew disgusted with the vulgarity, the lack of good taste which flourished in the name of digital photography.
The digital camera was rescued from the doom toward which it was headed by the discovery, on the part of serious workers, that it had many really useful and important possibilities. Given precision camera construction and intelligent post-shot processing work, digital photography had a lot to offer. The digital camera could be fitted with accessory lenses for wide-angle or telephoto shots, thereby giving its operator an immense optical change of pace and control. It could be used for serious portraiture as well as news; it could cover sports easily and compactly; it could be used under otherwise "impossible" conditions.
***
...BEFORE YOU EXPLODE WITH RAGE...
If you have read this far, you're probably wondering what the heck this is all about.
It's not a joke, but a jest of a sort. This treatise was written not by me, but by Thomas H. Miller and Wyatt Brummitt, for the book "This is Photography," which was published in 1945 by Garden City Publishing Co., Inc. Of course it did not refer to digital cameras - where I have written 'digital', please insert the word 'miniature' in its place. Where I said 'CMOS' or 'memory chip', please substitute 'film' and 'roll of film' - 'manufacturing' was actually 'motion picture' and so on like that. Photoshop becomes the darkroom. I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. It didn't change the tone of the debate, just the terms used to substitute film for digital. A sort of a 'Mad-Lib' for those of you who remember them. I did this to illustrate a point.
In 1945, WWII was just about to end or had just ended for many nations. Amateur and professional photographers were returning to looking forward to having access to supplies that had been restricted or unavailable, like flash bulbs, film, and of course, new cameras and technology advances. The so-called 'miniature' camera (35mm rangefinders) was all the rage - and the 'old-timers' who insisted that it was just a toy, a passing fad, a joke, were raising heck about it. This was a response to those who still felt that a 35mm camera was not a 'serious' camera, and certainly was not to be used by a 'serious' photographer.
You might note the irony - except for the words 'digital' and 'miniature', the arguments are largely the same. It's not good enough, it's a fad, it takes control away from the photographer, it 'doesn't look good' and so on. Yes, even the recently-heard "Digital is too flat and has no dimensionality for me" was used back then (only regarding 35mm film, of course). None of this is new!
History will note how things ended up.
A word to the wise; history has a tendency to repeat itself.
It can also be said that MF is still alive and kicking - but the debate over whether 35mm is a 'toy' or a 'cult' or a reasonable replacement for MOST (not all) of the things MF does is long over. Extract from this what logical prediction for the future that you wish.
And that's it for my April Fool's special. I went out and shot both digital and 35mm film today. Enjoyed both of them. Didn't want to choose - didn't have to.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
***
Some caustic die-hards insist that the digital camera isn't a camera; it is, they say, a cult. It is true that a lot of fanatical nonsense has been perpetrated in the name of 'digital' photography, but anything capable of arousing such ardent, almost passionate partisanship (and opposition) must have something.
The digital camera has plenty.
Generally, the digital camera is an offspring of the manufacturing industry, for it was designed to make use of the relatively inexpensive and good CMOS sensor created for professional manufacturing work. On this basis, design proceeded. As the work went on, other advantages began to appear. In a compact little camera, a memory card capable of holding hundreds of images, each 6 to 12 megabytes in size, could be loaded. By using a small, short-focus lens, depth of field at any aperture was excellent. Even with fast lenses, lenses rated at f/2 or thereabouts, depth of field remained excellent.
So the digital camera with the relatively fast lens appeared. And because its early converts used it primarily in news work, and obtained remarkable, unposed pictures of celebrities, it became known as a 'candid' camera. And that "tag" nearly proved fatal to the digital camera, for people soon grew disgusted with the vulgarity, the lack of good taste which flourished in the name of digital photography.
The digital camera was rescued from the doom toward which it was headed by the discovery, on the part of serious workers, that it had many really useful and important possibilities. Given precision camera construction and intelligent post-shot processing work, digital photography had a lot to offer. The digital camera could be fitted with accessory lenses for wide-angle or telephoto shots, thereby giving its operator an immense optical change of pace and control. It could be used for serious portraiture as well as news; it could cover sports easily and compactly; it could be used under otherwise "impossible" conditions.
***
...BEFORE YOU EXPLODE WITH RAGE...
If you have read this far, you're probably wondering what the heck this is all about.
It's not a joke, but a jest of a sort. This treatise was written not by me, but by Thomas H. Miller and Wyatt Brummitt, for the book "This is Photography," which was published in 1945 by Garden City Publishing Co., Inc. Of course it did not refer to digital cameras - where I have written 'digital', please insert the word 'miniature' in its place. Where I said 'CMOS' or 'memory chip', please substitute 'film' and 'roll of film' - 'manufacturing' was actually 'motion picture' and so on like that. Photoshop becomes the darkroom. I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. It didn't change the tone of the debate, just the terms used to substitute film for digital. A sort of a 'Mad-Lib' for those of you who remember them. I did this to illustrate a point.
In 1945, WWII was just about to end or had just ended for many nations. Amateur and professional photographers were returning to looking forward to having access to supplies that had been restricted or unavailable, like flash bulbs, film, and of course, new cameras and technology advances. The so-called 'miniature' camera (35mm rangefinders) was all the rage - and the 'old-timers' who insisted that it was just a toy, a passing fad, a joke, were raising heck about it. This was a response to those who still felt that a 35mm camera was not a 'serious' camera, and certainly was not to be used by a 'serious' photographer.
You might note the irony - except for the words 'digital' and 'miniature', the arguments are largely the same. It's not good enough, it's a fad, it takes control away from the photographer, it 'doesn't look good' and so on. Yes, even the recently-heard "Digital is too flat and has no dimensionality for me" was used back then (only regarding 35mm film, of course). None of this is new!
History will note how things ended up.
A word to the wise; history has a tendency to repeat itself.
It can also be said that MF is still alive and kicking - but the debate over whether 35mm is a 'toy' or a 'cult' or a reasonable replacement for MOST (not all) of the things MF does is long over. Extract from this what logical prediction for the future that you wish.
And that's it for my April Fool's special. I went out and shot both digital and 35mm film today. Enjoyed both of them. Didn't want to choose - didn't have to.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
