I have him beat by one year with working with Digital cameras. But he did not build his own.
> Similarly, not many pressure plates on digital cameras. And the point is?
How many have you taken apart? The ones that I've taken apart had pressure plates to keep the CCD at the proper distance and in the plane of focus.
All the guy is saying is that with film, you had to mentally account for more variables to get useable results. Feedback time is too long for realtime correction. With Digital, you have the CCD which provides a near-realtime feedback loop. Often, it is timely enough to allow you to make corrections. Kind of like Polaroid.
> Similarly, not many pressure plates on digital cameras. And the point is?
How many have you taken apart? The ones that I've taken apart had pressure plates to keep the CCD at the proper distance and in the plane of focus.
All the guy is saying is that with film, you had to mentally account for more variables to get useable results. Feedback time is too long for realtime correction. With Digital, you have the CCD which provides a near-realtime feedback loop. Often, it is timely enough to allow you to make corrections. Kind of like Polaroid.
climbing_vine
Well-known
Hey, I didn't say other people didn't go there too. But at least those were in the context of an argument, not grenade lobs.
He wants to make great photographs, but was concerned that he was becoming lazy...which would lessen the chance of making great photographs.
After all, he wants to make 'something meaningful that will stand the test of time.' If this isn't possible with digital, why is he just modifying his approach, instead of just going back to film?
After all, he wants to make 'something meaningful that will stand the test of time.' If this isn't possible with digital, why is he just modifying his approach, instead of just going back to film?
Maybe I'll lend him my Kodak DCS200ir. Ir requires much more work than any film camera that I own. It has an LCD. Indicates what percentage of the internal Hard Drive is full. The Meter is not sensitive to Infrared, but the CCD is. So you have to mentally compute the EV correction and get it within 1/2 stop. And if you want all the pixels, write your own Raw procesor. I wrote mine in FORTRAN.
climbing_vine
Well-known
Naa, no need to lock it.
Just read the last paragraph again...he loves his digital cameras. He's using them more in manual mode, and limiting his use of the LCD. But he's not going back to a completely mechanical world.
Sounds like pro-digital to me!
I can see that perspective but I disagree strongly. He isn't pro-digital if he's going to forego one of the primary (if not THE primary) differentiators of digital in terms of the user experience.
It's "now that digital files are great, I'm going to gladly use my digital cameras. But I'll use them like 60 year old film technology because I blame the features of the device for my laziness".
Which is perfectly fine (and in fact is a compromise I sometimes make myself) but it's definitely anti-digital. All that's happened is the "anti-" has moved into the user experience realm now that the image quality has truly arrived.
I mean, if I took the engine out of my car and hitched it to a team of horses, that'd make me pretty anti-automobile... no?
FrankS
Registered User
A critical point may be this: Is the author making pronouncements that all must follow, or is he speaking of his own experience/opinion? If it is the latter, there is no argument here. It is his truth/reality.
climbing_vine
Well-known
The key being that he's modifying his approach by treating his digital camera like a film camera. Doesn't that sum it up?
climbing_vine
Well-known
Good question Frank. I was trying to figure this out. He switches back and forth between the two in his phrasing. I think it's probably too sloppy to say definitely one way or the other, though I tend to think that if a person isn't consistently saying "I" they really mean "you all".
The same arguments were made when the first auto everything film cameras came out.
This isn't anti-digital, it's more of 'I'm going to use a more thoughtful approach to my photography, more like I used back in the days of manual cameras and film.'
And yes, he's just describing his own viewpoint, he's not issuing a King's Directive.
This isn't anti-digital, it's more of 'I'm going to use a more thoughtful approach to my photography, more like I used back in the days of manual cameras and film.'
And yes, he's just describing his own viewpoint, he's not issuing a King's Directive.
climbing_vine
Well-known
You're right that it's a similar sort of reactionary framework. But he ends up pinning all the blame, explicitly, on the LCD--when instant feedback can be, probably, the most powerful tool for continued learning and reflection that has ever been seen in photography. It is the killer app of digital photography (aside from the efficiency aspects that make it ubiquitous on the commercial side). I would argue that foregoing the LCD in toto isn't a return to thoughtfulness, it's a turning away from thoughtfulness (ie, how to incorporate a powerful new tool into your learning) and towards the old, safe, comfortable, and unthinking.
climbing_vine
Well-known
Ding ding ding! We have a winner.
Which means he's now anti-digital. He likes the incidental affects of digital (less risk of data loss, etc) but is disabling the thing that makes it qualitatively, not just quantitatively, different (instant feedback).
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
Brian: Not to me. The confusion arises from his wording, "digital was making me lazy". To me what he meant was that shooting digitally made it easier, more likely, for him to be lazy. Example: A Ferrari makes it a lot easier to speed than an old Pinto, but the driver is still causing the speeding, not the Ferrari.
To refer back to the Zen component: An experienced Zen meditator could theoretically at least, meditate under any setting. So why should he/she follow the tradition of meditating facing a plain, blank wall?
To refer back to the Zen component: An experienced Zen meditator could theoretically at least, meditate under any setting. So why should he/she follow the tradition of meditating facing a plain, blank wall?
As I posted yesterday: 'anti LCD.'
But I disagree that limiting the use of LCD is necessarily 'unthinking' any more than not having an LCD on a film camera would be so.
FrankS
Registered User
I don't know, but I think that all the praying between exposing film and develping the negs is good for the soul.
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
Brian: You're over-thinking this. (I think. )
Very un-Zen.
)Very un-Zen.
bmattock
Veteran
I said I did not attack fellow RFF members in this thread. Is he an RFF member?
bmattock
Veteran
Whilst all this was going on yesterday, I went out to take photographs. It is, after all, what I like to do.
Not the world's greatest photo, but I took it with my new Pentax K200D, an Auto Sears 50mm f/1.7 manual focus k-mount lens, a Vivitar macro-focusing 2x teleconverter, and a Sigma EF-500 flash set to manual output. Manual focusing, manual control, and I used the LCD screen for feedback to make sure I was in the zone for exposure. I shot in JPG, but if the lighting had been wonkier, I might have gone for RAW.
I got all the 'advantages' of film, in that I was in full control of the camera (meaning, blame shortcomings on me, not the kit), and I used some of the positive aspects of digital (setting ISO and internal sharpness, contrast, etc as I liked it and relying on LCD for histogram feedback advice).
Somebody explain to me how I was absolutely unable to use a digital SLR camera in manual mode. Because that's what the author was saying - dSLRs make us lazy, and one cannot produce great photos with a dSLR. Funny how I - a lesser photographer than him - was able to surmount these incredible difficulties.
Oh, and the other commonly-heard argument - that I had to scroll through menus and so on - hah. I set the rotating knob on the camera to "M" and then used the thumbwheel to select my shutter speed, which showed up on top of the camera. I set the f-stop on the lens itself. I set the flash to manual with a switch on the flash. The only electronic button I pressed was for the LCD to chimp my shot afterwards. How terrible - lost in the menus, eh?
Not the world's greatest photo, but I took it with my new Pentax K200D, an Auto Sears 50mm f/1.7 manual focus k-mount lens, a Vivitar macro-focusing 2x teleconverter, and a Sigma EF-500 flash set to manual output. Manual focusing, manual control, and I used the LCD screen for feedback to make sure I was in the zone for exposure. I shot in JPG, but if the lighting had been wonkier, I might have gone for RAW.
I got all the 'advantages' of film, in that I was in full control of the camera (meaning, blame shortcomings on me, not the kit), and I used some of the positive aspects of digital (setting ISO and internal sharpness, contrast, etc as I liked it and relying on LCD for histogram feedback advice).
Somebody explain to me how I was absolutely unable to use a digital SLR camera in manual mode. Because that's what the author was saying - dSLRs make us lazy, and one cannot produce great photos with a dSLR. Funny how I - a lesser photographer than him - was able to surmount these incredible difficulties.
Oh, and the other commonly-heard argument - that I had to scroll through menus and so on - hah. I set the rotating knob on the camera to "M" and then used the thumbwheel to select my shutter speed, which showed up on top of the camera. I set the f-stop on the lens itself. I set the flash to manual with a switch on the flash. The only electronic button I pressed was for the LCD to chimp my shot afterwards. How terrible - lost in the menus, eh?
back alley
IMAGES
i like taking pictures...nice shot bill.
Tuolumne
Veteran
Bill,
Calm down. Just because one person or a few or a handful do something, doesn't make a generalization about people not doing that thing false. If it did, then only mathematical statements could be made with a generalization.
/T
Calm down. Just because one person or a few or a handful do something, doesn't make a generalization about people not doing that thing false. If it did, then only mathematical statements could be made with a generalization.
/T