Why doesn't digital capture capture me?

I keep trying to take photos with digitals and get the same satisfaction as my film shots, but I am not there. Digital serves a purpose for me here and there, but for personal taste and enjoyment, it's like two different thing altogether.

Who knows, maybe it will change at one point, but I am an analog guy. Still have all my vinyl as well...

It is what it is.
 
FrankS said:
When acrylic paint was invented, not all painters switched away from oil paint. One is not better than another. Pros and cons for each medium. Some painters prefer oil, some prefer to work with acrylic. Same with film and digital. Just different.

On a painting forum, the oil paint guys should still be allowed to have threads about why they prefer and stuck with oil paints and didn't make the switch to the new acrylic paints.
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Dear Frank,

Alkyds!

Oils and acrylic are hopelessly outdated. It's just that so many painters are hidebound reactionaries who can't handle new media.

Then of course there are airbrushes. Why tie bristles to a twig?

Cheers,

R.
 
If scientists could figure out how F-vs-D threads turn into energy or food, 2/3 of planetary problems would be just eliminated 😀

People like things with moving parts inside. Even in windowing user interfaces for computers and smartphones they made moving elements because otherwise that things wouldn't work at full strength. Money hasn't moving parts but it moves itself, so it also counts. Think why most of digital camera users are chimping - simply because that is almost only way to complete gestalt and motoric reaction is in help here. During birth child moves to reach world. Infant sucks breast and milk flows. In love act there also are movements. Everything is movement. Sun moves, ocean moves, rivers move. Movement inside digital cameras just isn't sufficient. Like Prius is too quit. Progress provides means to make world better, technically, but world doesn't need to be perfect. World needs cycles and movements.
 
A very well respected television producer recently said that with every advancement in technology, there is a geometric decrease in quality!

How many of us believed that Digital camera + Photoshop = Better Picture? I did. I know that every yahoo who just bought a Digital Rebel xSi or a D5000 and a copy of Photoshop Elements now thinks that they are the next Ansel Adams.
 
coelacanth said:
In 10-20 years, we'll be saying "Those 3D Holo-Cams just don't capture me. Good old 2D DSLR with local strage card is the real camera. You can't replace traditional RAW developing! It's just that finding those SD cards and batteries are next to impossible nowadays..." 😀
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Holo? So late-20th-century, man...

back alley said:
i think the answer lies in therapy...
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No, no, Joe, all this film stuff is therapy. Of course, one man's therapy...

I actually use, and like, Olympus' C-8080; other than the dog-slow buffer when shooting RAW, it's one of the few digital cameras I've come close to actually liking. But it's when I pick up any of my film burners that the stuff that irritates me about digital cameras–namely the cameras themselves, not the results–becomes plain and clear: the interface of nearly every digital camera I've used, including high-end dSLRs, simply bites. That will change in time. But meanwhile, there are pictures to be taken. 🙂


- Barrett
 
Ok, we're getting a bit off track. The question isn't whether you ARE more comfortable and creative with film instead of digital, but WHY should this be so?
 
Back Alley - my apologies for insulting your obvious superior intelligence with my pedestrian comment. I will refrain from engaging in any future dialogs that you might believe to be the "dumbest thing i heard today...and maybe even yesterday1".

I stand scolded.
 
If it wasn't for the technology, we'd still be scrounging for grubs and picking fruit. Even chimps and a few birds use tools. Technology is what we humans do. The real question is not about tools or quality, it's what we do with the tools.
 
Maybe the question is: is more technology always better, or is there an optimum level after which it gets in the way instead of being helpful?

For me and my photography, it is definitely the latter. I don't need or want the greatest possible amount of technology/automation in my cameras.
 
Different strokes for different folks, as always. Some prefer results, others ways of getting the results. Some prefer convenience, others prefer tactility. Some prefer to tread familiar paths, others prefer to stick to the cutting edge.

Talking about "technology" as a homogeneous thing that can be called good or bad is not particularly applicable anywhere.
 
mfogiel said:
If I liked shooting colour, I would be surely using digital cameras. But I am only shooting B&W.
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I'm in the other boat. I shoot more colour than black and white and really enjoy running C-41 and E6 films through my cameras. My digital is a Canon S90 - a great, go everywhere camera. I have not printed a single image shot on it though, whereas I've made tons of prints from C-41 and B&W negs in the last year.
 
FrankS said:
Maybe the question is: is more technology always better, or is there an optimum level after which it gets in the way instead of being helpful?

For me and my photography, it is definitely the latter. I don't need or want the greatest possible amount of technology/automation in my cameras.
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Depends, again, I'd say, on what use is made of the technology. A screwdriver, for example, is a pretty useful tool. The bit of added technology that created powered screwdrivers seems to me unquestionably a good thing. Adding a voice-actuated on-off toggle, while probably easy to do, would be pointless.

I don't like a bunch of automation in my cameras, either. But, when I do use an automated camera, I almost always put it in full automatic mode and shoot away. Why? First, because I'm lazy and think automation ought to make my life easier. Second, because using full automatic mode lets me skip right around all that digital clutter.I have a hard enough time remembering about aperture and shutter speed and such. I don't need to worry about landscape mode or portrait mode or whatever.
 
wgerrard said:
Depends, again, I'd say, on what use is made of the technology. A screwdriver, for example, is a pretty useful tool. The bit of added technology that created powered screwdrivers seems to me unquestionably a good thing. Adding a voice-actuated on-off toggle, while probably easy to do, would be pointless.

I don't like a bunch of automation in my cameras, either. But, when I do use an automated camera, I almost always put it in full automatic mode and shoot away. Why? First, because I'm lazy and think automation ought to make my life easier. Second, because using full automatic mode lets me skip right around all that digital clutter.I have a hard enough time remembering about aperture and shutter speed and such. I don't need to worry about landscape mode or portrait mode or whatever.
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Photography is my hobby. I enjoy the process/journey, not just the final image/destination. (If I were a pro photographer I would not have the luxury of that choice. It would have to be all about the final image.) I do photography because I enjoy the doing of it. Then there is still the developing and the printing. I love photography! I don't want it to be easy. I want to have to give it some effort.
 
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No. In fact I found digital image making to be deeply liberating.

The ability to make images at virtually no cost per unit captured allows me to take more images and thus be more experimental. This is something I never felt free to do with film, always conscious that every time I pressed the shutter button it was going to cost me close to $1.00 Australian.

The ability to post process (I never had the luxury of a dark room) likewise liberated me in that I could be much more experimental in my image making. But then again I enjoy the process of post processing as I see it as an important and interesting part of the creative process. I realize some do not.

As much as I enjoyed shooting film, I could never go back to it as my primary mode of image making. I just find it too constraining. Like you I am over 50 and have shot photographs for many years.
 
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