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

David Hughes

David Hughes

David Hughes
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It's simple, just suppose that digital cameras hadn't been invented and the internet had still to come.

Would you be a photographer?

What camera would you be using and so on...

FWIW, I used three cameras in the 90's; the Leica CL and 2 lenses, the Pentax ME and three or four lenses and the Olympus XA2. Obviously all film and I used a mixture of slide and print film; always Agfa or Fuji.

In the intervening years to now I might have dropped the Leica, Pentax and Olympus and gone over to a Leica R SLR and a Konica A4 but that's just based on camera in the collection I've regretted getting rid of.

I started collecting in the 80's when I realised a trade in was a lot, lot cheaper than a repair and so would now have a more modest collection of cameras as it was digital that flooded the charity shops with film cameras no one wanted...

What's your 2d worth?


Regards, David
 
Well, my last film camera was a Nikon F5, and I suspect I would probably be on a Nikon F7 by now, assuming my serious neck problems caused by the weight of all these advanced things and immense zooms were still treatable with opiates...

It is fascinating to me quite how much a rupture my return to film was. My last digital camera was the excellent Nikon D700 with numerous zooms, yet I switched to a Rolleicord then added a Leica M3. OK, part of the mad collection of things I then bought was some making up for what I couldn't afford as a boy looking at the cameras in Amateur Photographer. I would never even then have got into R cameras as the reviewers were so sniffy, yet here I am now going further down that route. I'd also only ever shot colour, never developed or printed any of my own stuff, yet here I am developing away, mainly shooting black and white and praying for the darkroom I use to re-open.

Hopefully though I'd be shooting some wonderful films that didn't exist at that time...

Nice counter-factual question David!
 
Interesting question. I think I’d still photograph, but it would be a lot harder due to the need for a darkroom. Maybe I’d use slide film only and get my prints done by someone else. I think I’d use a Contax G2, Leica CM, Pentax MX, and a Mamiya 6. Of course, I can only choose from cameras that existed...imagine the ones that would have existed if film was still #1.
 
That's an interesting scenario. In 2008 I took photography as a teenager, but not wanting to shell $600+ for a DSLR kit, I unearthed dad's uncool Nikon F401.

I really liked Kodak Ultramax's results for the family gathering that I began photography with.

The interesting part of the scenario is how I'd have progressed without internet more than the if/not I'd be in photography. If anything, I'd be into it even more, because without internet videocalls with the part of family that live away would not be possible and there would be more value of photography as a document.

Probably I'd not gotten my OM-1 to learn manually, nor wanted to "progress" to Medium format so quickly. Plausible to assume that prices would not have dropped, and the hype for some models would not be fueled by social media. Probably C41 based, some slide as I loved seeing my dad's Agfachromes. Kodachrome may still be here, but I shot it due to the motivation that photo communities talked about online. Oh, but photo magazines...

As John talks darkroom access, I waited 10 years to get a community darkroom to do B&W and this is with internet. :D
 
More than likely I would be using Nikons and shooting Tri-X. I wouldn't be shooting nearly as much or nearly as often because it would require processing and printing which would be limited due to health constraints. Or perhaps I would have given up photography completely. Neither alternative is very attractive to me.
 
That's a fascinating moot, David Hughes. I was very happy in the early 2000's with film photography. 2-hour photoshops gave me all the speed I needed for prints and they were cheap cheap cheap towards the end. I suppose these shops would still be around, probably in even greater abundance. Film cameras would still be developed, and super-capable point-and-shoots would be ubiquitous. Glorious.
My camera collection would be very much smaller, I imagine, and I'd have stuck with my Olympus OM system, unless I'd got seduced by autofocus. Leica would probably be out of the question, cost wise. I'm sure I'd be very happy though. And no pressure or opportunity to share my pictures beyond family and friends. Photos in the mail, slide nights, wonderful.
 
If digital [imaging] hadn’t been invented...

Would film be cheaper than it is today, allowing for inflation?

As it is, film costs are heading towards unaffordable for me to use in quantity. I now only use the medium for special events.
 
In the "film era", I was 100% color slides; first Kodachrome and then later Fuji E-6. If digital cameras had never happened, i'd probably still be shooting slides.... Assuming of course the infrastructure of labs remained like it was in the 1990s (by about 2004 I'd grown increasingly frustrated by slow and indifferent service from the remaining labs, and that was well before the low point in availability).


A decade into DSLR photography, I decided to learn a new skill - B&W shooting and development. Would I have wound up there if I was still shooting color slides exclusively? Probably not.
 
Alternate histories are always interesting. If digital photography did not exist and “the internet was still to come”, I am sure I would never have been a victim of GAS, that’s about the only thing I am sure of, as I never was before. It’s the constant barrage of internet voices, combined with the bottoming out of prices on film cameras due to the abandonment of that media that have made GAS so easy to fall prey to. And enjoy. A monthly subscription to Popular photography was never this “stimulating”.

The loss of the nearby, easily accessed processing labs has been, in some ways, the best thing that ever happened to my photography, as it forced me to start developing at home, something I had not done since the mid 1960’s. I never really understood how limited and hamstrung my photographic results had been by labs using one size fits all developer/film combinations. Lab results, no matter how good the lab, were always tepid. So, in that way, plus the new affordability of film equipment, it has made my film photography better, and, as a consequence, my digital photography as well.
I’m sure I’d still be a photographer of sorts without the digital revolution, since I have had a camera in my hand since I was 8, but would still be dropping off film at the lab, getting what I get in return, accepting that, and not knowing better was possible, and buying a new middle of the road camera every 10 years instead of another excellent one every 10 days.
 
I started in a camera club that only used B&W and made big prints. I have used B&W mostly Tri X since 1958 and still do. I waited until Nikon D7000 before trying digital but still only use it for colour, except for a Fuji XT1 that I had converted to IR as film IR was beyond me.
Computers came along when I was too old so it has been a struggle to learn Lightroom.
I am sure there are easier ways to do things with it than the workarounds I use.
Fortunately I have a son and son in law who can help me.
I have been using this lock down time to go through old photos as well as those of my parents. Wonderful to be able to spend time doing this.
Cheers
Philip
 
The photography bug bit me in the mid 1950’s. Only used black and white film because I could process it at home. Used medium format, my Mom’s Kodak Brownie, and made contact prints. Color was too expensive. Then, in the late 1960’s I finally had an enlarger and other utensils needed for a darkroom. I even did some color work back then. Still have the Unicolor drum that I used.

When digital came around, knocking on my door, it really helped me as I was in the photography business back then. I started out letting the camera convert the RAW files to jpeg but when I kept the RAW files to process on my iMac a new world opened up for me. I was basically self taught with photoshop. Once I figured out that the two primary tools with photoshop are layers and blending did the creativity really begin. I did take a week long class with my coach and Eddie Tapp and it was really a fun adventure.

My business really took off when the internet and digital arrived! It was a great time but now I get to sit on the side lines and watch.
 
I would still work at television, but repair giant cameras and tape recorders.
I would own only one, EOS camera and take paid portraits as side job, because even lousy portraits would still sell well.
I would learn how to print in color under enlarger, instead of bw only. My wife will asks me not to make color prints, because colors would be awful.
Huss will have film scanner.
And Apple will be filing for bankruptcy.
Instagram would not exist and average age on Yahoo message boards would be 18 instead of 80.
 
Absolutely not!

I only got interested in photography because of digital.

I used a film camera from time to time in the film era but never got on with it. Too slow - perhaps weeks or months till I saw a picture, let alone instant feedback like with digital. I want my pictures NOW!

And no control. I'd get pictures back from the lab, and they'd be unrecognisable! I now know that labs crop edges and auto-adjust exposure (which I was unaware of)! Digital gives me total control.

I'd buy a film camera every few years, take some photos, hate the waiting, hate the look when I got them. Then I'd give up and sell or donate my camera!

Give me digital every time!
 
I definitely would. But without digital, the huge drop in film gear prices from 2005 to 2017 wouldn't have happened so I would be using a K1000 instead of Mamiya 7! Same goes with darkroom stuff...
 
Don’t even want to think about it, David!

Working, I had the luxury of a fully equipped darkroom. I have no space at home for such luxuries. When I left darkroom and photography work I did clear a space in a room at home and temporarily set up a small Durst enlarger for myself but it was such a lot of faffing about I hated it and gave up.

Computerisation has been a lifeline, which enabled me to continue to use my film cameras. I get a lab to develop my films and scan the negs, then I do the image processing with Photoshop and print on a photo printer at home.

Digital came along around the time I could afford a decent digital camera. If digital hadn’t happened probably I would have sold my film gear except for maybe one camera, and severely curtailed my film use except for holidays or important occasions etc.
 
I would not be the photographer I am today without digital. I might have been better. Maybe. I know I would not have taken as many pictures as I have. I might have spent more time taking those pictures.
I would probably still be using my FE, and for sure would have been using my grannies M3 a lot more than I have.
As it is, the internet and digital have let me combine two of the things I find I really like. Using a computer and a camera, and not necessarily in that order.
 
I`d go back to shooting slide film.
What on ?
Don`t really know ,back in the seventies it was a Chinon .
Probably a Pentax or maybe an M body .
 
I'm not anti-digital - it has its place - but I ever really invested much into digital photography and enjoy my analog vintage cameras very much... ...along with analog music reproduction and analog watches.
 
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