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

Hm. My first thought was, we would all be so much better off with only film, but I would be hard-pressed to defend this statement, so I'll say no more about it.

Like many others here, I've never really given up film, and still shoot a lot of it, so I've not missed anything. Digital mostly for color and film for black-and-white.

One aspect of analog photography I definitely do not miss, is the darkroom. I endured the tyranny of film and paper processing for five decades until scanning freed me from that double whammy tedium, but at the same time imposed an entirely not version of said tedium for me - hours spent at the computer, post-processing. So one downer exchanged for another.

My preferred technique nowadays is to replicate the wonderful exaggerated colors of 1940s and 1950s Kodachrome and Ektachrome. In the color work of those days, everything just sparkled. Complexions looked like everyone had high blood pressure, but oh my, the beautiful landscapes, architectural and interior design work, all of which, to my mind, have never been surpassed.

Like another poster has written, I've tended to carry over my film shooting techniques to my digital work. I try to shoot carefully and intelligently and make the best of a few very select images. I delete many photographs I regard as 'thirds' but most of my 'seconds' are saved in archival folders on portable hard disks - and, sadly, will most probably never be used or even looked at again. In 12 years of digi-shooting, I've not yet filled a 1 TB portable hard disk. I try to 'minimalize' as much as I can.

For all this praise, something in my heart died, sort of, when Kodak did something to the glorious old-time colors of its original Kodachrome and Ektachrome in the '80s, long before they ended the former and (temporarily shelved) the latter. I also miss Panatomic-X which produced the best black-and-white negative quality I've ever had, unsurpassed in my work to this day. I've not yet tried the new Ektachrome but I will some day when I can find the film here in Australia, and get it at a reasonable price, if such is possible now.

Scanning and post-processing work are two different matters and I've tried to make peace with these necessities of our modern day photography. For me, enlarging was a much more fun if slower way to make prints, but I didn't have the patience for much dodging or burning, straight prints were always my forte.

These days I tend to shoot more digital, for convenience and the superb Nikon color quality, than film, but I often make the effort to even up the score towards the analog side, especially with B&W 120 film in my Rolleis.

I would miss the beautiful tones and colors from my Nikon D800.

Time passes, everything changes. I try to go with the flow. So far, good.

As for those two scourges of the late 20th century, brainless internet and the mobile phone, don't get me started...
 
David Hughes said:
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.. ....

What's your 2d worth? ...
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My initial thought to this was "God only knows" - but the fact is I'd most likely still have all of my silver chrome Leica lenses (I sold them all off when I got out of Leica after my M8 disaster - I have since come back) and I'd still be shooting a film M (probably an M7).

I am sure of a few things:
* The Leica MP wouldn't be over $5k;
* Leica R cameras and lenses would still be being produced; and
* We'd still have (and be able to process) Kodachrome!
 
This is a really good question. Digital photography showed me instant feedback and with it, the ability to progress quickly for learning exposure and composition. But I'd had a bit of interest in photography as a kid, and had begun to document trips with disposable cameras in the late 90s, so I was moving in that direction at the time. Would I still be a photographer in digital had not been invented? Yes.

What would I use now? I still have Dad's Pentax ME and Minolta SR-T Super, and later I got the Contax T3, Fuji Natura Black, and Zeiss Ikon. Film gave me such a thrill (even compared with digital and DSLR's) that I would have moved to a Leica M7 sooner or later, perhaps consolidated with the Zeiss Ikon and Contax T3, or upgraded to what could have been Pentax's high end SLR body.

The 2000s were a changing of the guard from film to digital. Zeiss made the Ikon rangefinder and a slew of RF lenses, Leica was back in the saddle with the M7, and you could still buy pro Canons and Nikons. Minolta was acquired by Sony, Kyocera ceased trading as Contax, but Fuji released cameras like the Natura and Klasse. These cameras show where film could have gone.
 
I guess I'd be happily using my Contax G7 by now with the best film I could find, which would be plentiful and cheap. This is a better world than the one we have! :)
 
jsrockit said:
Hmmm...would Kodachrome still have survived?
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I have no doubts it would have both survived and been improved, though this is an alternate reality we are talking about, so who knows.

It was too good and too different to die, outside of the advent of digital. Fujifilm hurt it and reduced its market dominance, Ektachrome even hurt it in some quarters, but nobody in 1990 had any thoughts that Kodachrome was going to ever disappear. Kodachrome’s unequaled and unapproached long term stability was no secret at the time. To many people that mattered as much as the color palette and sharpness. But, then things changed, people became fascinated by ones and zeros, and it went the way of all things, just much sooner than expected.
 
I love mechanical film cameras that do not have AF. I was very much against AF and digital cameras. Times change.
 
I used mainly Fujichrome 50 and 100 until Velvia was there. When traveling, I used a Rolleiflex 2.8D, a Graflex XLW, and a Fuji GL690.
 
I have to say that I wouldn't be able to do any way near the level of documentation that I currently do with digital photography. For me, photography is more visual diary than artistic expression, apart from work. Perhaps I'd make a habit of shooting something representative of the day or noteworthy when I'm at home, and somewhat more when going out.

It would make me appreciate and choose my images more carefully. Traveling interstate or internationally would need a dozen or more rolls, and I'd make notes about what happened each day.
 
raid said:
...I was very much against AF and digital cameras. Times change.
Click to expand...

So was I… vehemently, opinionated so. With no direct experience, I instantly took against auto-focus: self-focussing lenses to me seemed to be an anathema and madness of the first order: Photographic sacrilege! Who would need such a thing? Boy, how wrong can one be!

I never, ever thought I would take to it or need it but almost on first handling I embraced Fujifilm’s auto-focus with open arms, and it has been a revelation ever since and a saving grace as my eyesight has deteriorated, enabling me to continue to enjoy taking photos.

Without digital and computerisation, this would never have happened in the way it has today.
 
I started on film at about age 12 and bought my first Canon SLR at 21. I have never owned a digital camera, outside the one in my phone, so the main effects would have been me having continue to maintain a darkroom instead of a hybrid workflow. Not having got into Nikon AF cameras as the price fall was what enabled me to purchase first a Nikon F90x for £35 with a lens and I followed it with an F5 in pristine condition for a paltry £160 and an F100 for £120. My photography would have suffered as a result, as sharing and talking about pictures on the net has been invaluable for me. In my experience, people with whom we have an online connection only are more likely to be honest if they don't like an aspect of your work.

Also meant to say, I wouldn't have a collection of Olympus P&S cameras if digital hadn't initially driven the price down.
 
It would be a lot harder to build a collection of cameras because film gear would be much more expensive.
 
David Hughes said:
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...
<SNIP>

What's your 2d worth?

Regards, David
Click to expand...

Turns out it’s not that simple, and people want to talk about something else entirely.

Okay, am being a bit of a nag, I realize, but this original question was really very interesting, and not the usual. What it didn’t ask concerns a topic that has been done to death, and that’s a comparison of film vs. digital, which at this point is a lot less interesting, probably to everybody. People have already planted their flags in one camp or another long ago, everyone gets that.
Since it is here assumed that neither digital cameras nor the internet, nor anything else digital exists, it seems weird to be talking about digital photography in the thread, since it doesn’t exist. As noted, done to death elsewhere.

The interesting answers would seem to be the ones to the actual original question, a question which seems to be bypassed in favor of answering “do you prefer film or digital” which at this point just requires a knee jerk reaction for most people.
I am only posting this because I’d be interested in seeing those answers, as those would be quite different from the normal film vs. digital mental rut.

For example, for those people who came of age after the advent of digital and began with digital, would you be a photographer if living in, and always having lived in, another reality where film photography is all there was?

There have been some responses that almost hinted that the responders would not be photographers if film photography was all there was, which I find to be astounding, personally, and maybe I misread those. Maybe I don’t understand the nature of the drive to photograph things, maybe it does differ from person to person. Maybe people only do it if it’s easy, maybe people only do it if the results look a certain, limited way. I don’t know, but those are the kinds of things that would be revealed if people answer the actual, original question David posed.

Need to stress I am not chiding anyone for veering off onto the usual film vs. digital opinions, just wondering what people’s answers are to the actual original question, as some of what I have heard here, almost along the lines of “wouldn’t be a photographer” have surprised me a bit.
Since there is no internet, either send your responses by letter, or call on the phone. Land line.
 
I've just sent you my reaction by courier, who will leave SE Asia on horseback within the next three months, or so. You should receive it by 2024, the latest.
 
Film vs Digital is lame. Film and Digital is smart :).
In 2005 internet was accessible and RFF was on-line with predominately film pictures.
By 2007 I was able to switch from film to digital for real. For family pictures and goofing around. I learned about exposure with digital. And because of it by 2012 I was able to use film much better and much more comparing to film only, no digital.
 
Thank you everyone; it's been very interesting reading all your comments. Please keep them coming.

Regards, David

PS I miss Agfa film and wonder what would have replaced the excellent but unusable (film not made) APS Contax Tix; which I forgot to mention but it is (or rather was) an excellent pocket camera.
 
If there had never been digital imaging, I'd never have had the job I had at NASA doing digital imaging in the 1980s and my life would have been so vastly different that it is quite difficult to imagine what I'd have been doing in the late 1990s-early 2000s when digital cameras became accessible with consumer pricing.

However, I'd been doing photography since the middle 1960s when consumer accessible, quality digital cameras came into existence in the early 2000s, and I'm pretty darn sure that I'd still be doing photography. By the time digital cameras came out, I'd already started, been successful at, and closed three different photography businesses. I had medium format, 35mm, subminiature, and Polaroid cameras all the way along: I can't imagine that would have been any different.

Digital capture added a better medium for some kinds of work and different kinds of capabilities and advantages to work with compared to film capture. It adds much more ability to be opportunistic in the picture taking workflow at lower cost, and more opportunities to work different renderings successfully in post-capture workflow. The increased dynamic range and malleability of digital capture poses capabilities that never existed before in film based photography. The rise of modern pigment-based inks and inexpensive, high quality printing machines has radically improved what a photographer can output at home*in prints with less space and financial resources to work with.

I've been deeply involved with and used a lot of these improvements to photography, but that doesn't mean I've ever been totally dependent upon them. Much would have remained the same, in other words, as what I'd already been doing for 40 years, and what I continue to do today.

G

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Oh yes: the Contax Tix! A lovely little camera. But APS film format itself would likely have never existed were it not for the upcoming digital world, it was one of Kodak's visions for how the integration of automated control systems into film processing machinery would result in smaller, easier to carry, consumer cameras and more picture taking... allowing Kodak to sell more film at higher profits. History didn't go exactly the way they had foreseen, eh?
 
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