What if digital cameras hadn't been invented...

Kind of a trade off, digital is certainly better for learning and testing with quick reviews but solid darkroom printing does make you a better photographer as well, at least you have to edit harshly so you're not wasting your time printing the mediocre stuff.

The other thing is that by the late 1990s film was pretty fantastic. Look at how ISOs had been able to climb... when the Leica was introduced average film speed was equivalent to what, ISO 10? So I would hope that over the last twenty years we'd have fine grained ISO 800 film for everyday use.

I'd be quite happy with a Leica M provided they had faster shutter speeds, which I do not know if those would be feasible? (thinking not, you'd probably have to have a vertical shutter like a Nikon FM or F3?)

And I'd probably use larger formats to differentiate my work, I used to think shooting 4x5 handheld was cool but the reality was that a good medium format rangefinder like the Fuji 6x9 was usually the better choice. Just a few years ago I spent a Summer with a Fuji and the excellent ISO 3200 BW film and got great results.

I bet we'd have really wonderful Contax T5s and T6s, Ricoh GRs with functional LCDs, and Konica Hexars would be repairable.
 
I think what is interesting is the fact that people are realizing how easily and convincingly digital images and video can be manipulated. We are already seeing this with things like crime scene photos. How easy would it be to add or erase a detail? At least with film, you would actually have to manipulate the scene itself - but the negative cannot be easily altered to change details. I read some articles years ago that some people were clamoring to a return to film for certain criminal justice purposes to decrease potential for manipulation.
 
davidde1000 said:
I think what is interesting is the fact that people are realizing how easily and convincingly digital images and video can be manipulated. We are already seeing this with things like crime scene photos. How easy would it be to add or erase a detail? At least with film, you would actually have to manipulate the scene itself - but the negative cannot be easily altered to change details. I read some articles years ago that some people were clamoring to a return to film for certain criminal justice purposes to decrease potential for manipulation.
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Film has been manipulated since day one. Either way, manipulation of any kind of photo leaves breadcrumbs that trained personnel would certainly identify. Hundreds of photos are taken at crime scenes. Who is going to alter all those?
 
A world with silicon based computers, but without digital imaging is unthinkable. So no film cameras with digital electronics, no internet ... either.
 
benlees said:
Film has been manipulated since day one. Either way, manipulation of any kind of photo leaves breadcrumbs that trained personnel would certainly identify. Hundreds of photos are taken at crime scenes. Who is going to alter all those?
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Who'd need to? Wouldn't manipulating the prints a judge sees be sufficient?
Anyway, leaving things out of pictures, loosing pictures, swapping pictures out and so on are the much easier manipulations.
 
I would not put it past people to alter certain key digital photos to prove a disputed point. And trained digital forensics people are used practically never in an average criminal case. And we know that law enforcement has on occasion "planted" actual evidence to help secure a conviction. Why would we think that manipulating digital photos is something that would never happen or something that would be immediately caught if it did happen? The potential problem will only get worse as digital technology gets better.

benlees said:
Film has been manipulated since day one. Either way, manipulation of any kind of photo leaves breadcrumbs that trained personnel would certainly identify. Hundreds of photos are taken at crime scenes. Who is going to alter all those?
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I’ve always preferred film cameras, metal, mechanical, manual cameras, as objects of desire.
Never really developed any talent for taking good photographs, have had a few in the last five decades that have pleased me. (Perhaps only me.)
So, today my total number of digital cameras number three since 2007. (Not including cell phones.)
Of those three only 1 survives.
But I still have my OM-1, purchased used in February 1974.
If digital disappeared tomorrow I’d miss it as a pretty keen meter for my film cameras. (And used, less expensive than several popular full featured meters.)

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Kodak would still be part of the Dow, maybe??

And I wouldn't have been able to sample some neat film gear, because it would've all been too expensive to hop from system to system.
 
I would not have lost all the Kodak stock I owned because Kodak would not have declared bankruptcy.
I would still be using the Nikon F2 and F4 SLR film cameras that I still own and use.
I would still be using the Leica M6 rangefinder film camera that I still own and use.
I would still be using the RB67 SLR medium format film cameras that I still own and use.
I would still be using the 4x5 inch Calumet large format view camera that I still own and use.
I would be shooting color slide, color print, and b&w film like I used to instead of just black & white like I do now.
I would still be developing my own color slide and b&w film like I used to instead of just black & white like I do now.
I would still be doing my own darkroom printing.
I would have replaced the medium format enlarger that I still own with a large format enlarger.
I would still be shooting for a newspaper.
My current photography business would be making money. My last profitable year was three years ago.
I would not be here in isolation reminiscing about the good old days.
 
It's so hard to say, but I'd be fine. My Nikkormat and F2 would suit me fine. Having sold off all most all my RF I would have to pick up a Nikon S2 or S3.

With all the changes of life over the past 20 years or so I'm pretty sure I would still not have a Dark Room. So, I'd be shooting 'Chrome and have a better working slide projector. I really like access to pictures from the cloud rather than them being stored in the basement in bins.

I'd like to think we would have a good B&W Slide film or make a machine to turn Tri-X into slides.

While it is super easy to have a good camera in my phone, I'm ok with going back to a small carry everywhere camera. My father's old IIIc would work well, perhaps pickup a Nikkor for her.

B2 (;->
 
I'd probably be still using the film cameras I had around 2004 which was a Canon A-1, Nikkormat FTn and Nikon F-4. I wouldn't have all the film cameras or lenses I've rescued from Charity Shops.


Ronnie
 
retinax said:
A world with silicon based computers, but without digital imaging is unthinkable. So no film cameras with digital electronics, no internet ... either.
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David Hughes "just suppose that digital cameras hadn't been invented and the internet had still to come.
 
You'd still be able to run down to the local camera store and buy film and chemicals when you ran out. That sure was convenient...

I miss the magazines. You'd only see the good stuff usually because those editors acted as gatekeepers, and in a way, star makers. With the wild west of the internet, crap abounds and the good stuff is hard to find... On top of the images, people have opinions now that they think are fact. Magazines mostly published facts back in the day and the facts were in depth. On the internet, things only scratch the surface so to speak.

The real loss though was some of the manufacturers. Choice has gone way down. Agfa for example was on the verge of fast color films that had the grain of slow color films. That got shot out the window when they folded. Of course films would have improved a lot by now too. There might be a real 3200 speed film by now. And don't get me started on all the paper manufacturers going belly up.

I doubt I'd be using anything different though camera wise. I have continued to shoot film all these years along with digital on the side. Nothing really changed for me except things are much more labor intensive now putting everything through the computer then doing the darkroom stuff. Scanning film for cataloging eats up a lot of time. So does organizing digital images too...
 
it's hard for me to imagine a world without digital cameras...but, if i were still shooting film it would be medium format with a full mamiya 6 kit...or whatever it may have morphed into.
 
If digital photography were not invented some things would change but some things would not. As I grew up in the film era and film was not cheap I always tended to shoot carefully and try not to waste frames. I still do with digital - it's an ingrained habit. So nothing would change in that regard.

But I have no hesitation say that I am a better photographer as a result of digital imaging. As a film photographer I did not have facilities to develop and print my own images. So I was limited in what I could - to the results I got in camera. Not so with digital.

For me, digital photogrpahy is where it is at. Simply because it gives me more choices.
 
Shooting Kodachrome 64 in my M4. Projecting those beautiful slides on a wall filling screen instead of a dinky computer screen.
 
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