foodpoison
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Haha this question sounds suspiciously like an essay title I was given as an assignment at uni... 
Digital Photography??
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If they are not being discounted in the shops then I'd expect that they are making slightly fewer per month than they can sell. Which, for a manufacturer of £4000+ camera bodies, I suspect is a good thing.
I agree with that - but if I were a manufacturer looking for a 'new' market and had the production capacity, the design skills (and the will to exploit my customers) now I might well look at adding to my product line with a product that tapped into buyers fantasies with something that is retro in style, yet had corporate 'history', linked to modern ideas (4:3's perhaps?) and encouraged buyers into an entirely new line.
Canon and Nikon (et al) could keep churning out dSLR after dSLR with minute 'improvements' and short production cycles and this is easy for them as they can use the same production lines (I have a feeling that they may well still be using the 'old' F series chassis to screw the electronics into) but I suspect as you do that time will make these updates longer and longer apart - but they need to keep bringing in a profit. These people don't make cameras out of love - they make them to make money for their shareholders. So a 'new' line that they can get customers to buy into has to be foremost in their plans. I suspect the easy money from compacts is going - as they are going to be largely 'replaced' (at least in the consumers mind) by camera phones.
Can't really argue with any of that, except the current D-series chassis is now quite a lot different from the old F5 chassis which the D1 was based upon...
had the Nikon peeps down to one of our Army-Phot seminars when the D2x was being rolled out and they went to great pains to point out the amount of work that had gone into the chassis-development... special alloys to combine light weight and maximum strength and corrosion resistance.
I think the only drawback now is if you chuck one in a bonfire, it'll burn like a target indication flare over Berlin in 1944...
had the Nikon peeps down to one of our Army-Phot seminars when the D2x was being rolled out and they went to great pains to point out the amount of work that had gone into the chassis-development... special alloys to combine light weight and maximum strength and corrosion resistance.
I think the only drawback now is if you chuck one in a bonfire, it'll burn like a target indication flare over Berlin in 1944...
AndyJohnson
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Rebbecca many have discouraged in this thread but don't worry,just do what you dream and you will successed
Hi,
My first post, and it's a biggie. Apologies, no idea I could spew forth so much opinionated rubbish on photography. Anyway, here goes...
Digital is a manufacturer's wet dream come true. They get to sell you a new camera every 18 months once you get sucked into the "upgrade" cycle. Sorry, but spending £thousands on a camera that was obsolete even before it came to market doesn't make sense, and I resent being treated like a mug. I mean, it's so blatant the way the maufacturers drip feed and manipulate the market. ABC releases an 18mp body, XYZ responds with a 19mp body - rinse and repeat, trouser big profits.
The technology of film cameras was nailed decades ago. Ok, new emulsions appeared from time to time, but generally speaking most snappers would pick one or two types of film and dev and stick with them. In comparison to the traditional darkroom, digital is a pretty soulless business - it certainly lacks the "magic" of the darkroom.
Digital is also fragmented, with a number of different sensor standards. How do we know that the sub-35mm sized sensors will still be around in 10 years? Surely the move is inexorably towards full-frame sensors in the long run? Don't be surprised if the sub-35mm formats all "do a betamax".
I could buy a 50 year old film camera off fleabay capable of producing images of a resolution far exceeding a "state of the art" dSLR. Whither your £5000 pro dSLR in five years? Landfill...
Having owned a Rollei TLR and done a lot of MF, I find it simply impossible to credit that a ~20mp digital can get anywhere near the quality of a MF neg/slide. I've had 6x6 slides scanned professionally once or twice and got back a CD containing a 200-300Mb tiff, and even then you're probably losing information in the scan.
So, digital can take hundreds of images on a card, yet you only get 10/12 on a roll of 120. So what? I'd rather have 5-6 exceptional images from a day's effort than 400 images that have had little or no thought or vision before pulling the trigger, most of which will simply get deleted, or languish on a hard drive until the next crash/wipe/re-install. The "scattergun" approach is a major problem with digital. Taking hundreds of frames in the hope that, purely by random, you'll have one or two worth actually printing? I don't think so.
I think digital has seriously cheapened and devalued the whole process of photography. For example, a mate of mine has recently started selling prints of his digital efforts. Some of the comments from punters are very telling, for example "I can take that on my phone" and "You've just printed that off the internet" are typical (as is the inevitable camera bore who wants to discuss the minutiae of the various AF modes of model XYZ mark 3 firmware upgrade 1.71 - seriously, these guys need to get laid/a life). The fact that his images have no detail in either the highlights or shadows seems to go unremarked...
It seems to me that many snappers (film and digital) would greatly improve if they spent a little less time fiddling with all the gadgety crud that modern SLRs seem to be encrusted with, and a little more time studying the basics, instead of relying on a computer program to do it all for you, or believing the vast quantities of manure and hype generated by the manufacturers and endlessly recycled by the media.
You can get a good idea of the level of bovine excrement sprayed all over digital in the number of magazines now catering to it. Most seem to be 10 pages of actual content, lost inside 70 pages of adverts - for three of four quid.
99% of the so-called features of a modern SLR are marketing contrivances, pure and simple. Also, if you must use AF, learn how to use it properly. I see more out-of-focus images nowadays than ever I saw pre-AF (depressingly regularly on stuff people are trying to sell), purely because the user has allowed the camera to decide what it should focus on. The camera is a moron - treat it as such.
No, digital is far too expensive, the technology is far too fluid and uncertain and the quality is questionable - in my opinion, for the kind of photography that interests me.
I'm strictly an amateur hobbyist, not a professional - ie., I don't make a living from photography, never have and never will. For certain types of pro work, digital is a godsend. No arguments here. I'm also not really interested in cameras per se. The business of making images I like (repeat: what I like) - that does interest me. Cameras are a boring and necessary evil in the process of making images.
So, having decided that digital, certainly for now, is a non-starter for me, what am I going to buy? Well, probably a secondhand MF. Or a 5x4". Always fancied one of those.
Paul
My first post, and it's a biggie. Apologies, no idea I could spew forth so much opinionated rubbish on photography. Anyway, here goes...
Digital is a manufacturer's wet dream come true. They get to sell you a new camera every 18 months once you get sucked into the "upgrade" cycle. Sorry, but spending £thousands on a camera that was obsolete even before it came to market doesn't make sense, and I resent being treated like a mug. I mean, it's so blatant the way the maufacturers drip feed and manipulate the market. ABC releases an 18mp body, XYZ responds with a 19mp body - rinse and repeat, trouser big profits.
The technology of film cameras was nailed decades ago. Ok, new emulsions appeared from time to time, but generally speaking most snappers would pick one or two types of film and dev and stick with them. In comparison to the traditional darkroom, digital is a pretty soulless business - it certainly lacks the "magic" of the darkroom.
Digital is also fragmented, with a number of different sensor standards. How do we know that the sub-35mm sized sensors will still be around in 10 years? Surely the move is inexorably towards full-frame sensors in the long run? Don't be surprised if the sub-35mm formats all "do a betamax".
I could buy a 50 year old film camera off fleabay capable of producing images of a resolution far exceeding a "state of the art" dSLR. Whither your £5000 pro dSLR in five years? Landfill...
Having owned a Rollei TLR and done a lot of MF, I find it simply impossible to credit that a ~20mp digital can get anywhere near the quality of a MF neg/slide. I've had 6x6 slides scanned professionally once or twice and got back a CD containing a 200-300Mb tiff, and even then you're probably losing information in the scan.
So, digital can take hundreds of images on a card, yet you only get 10/12 on a roll of 120. So what? I'd rather have 5-6 exceptional images from a day's effort than 400 images that have had little or no thought or vision before pulling the trigger, most of which will simply get deleted, or languish on a hard drive until the next crash/wipe/re-install. The "scattergun" approach is a major problem with digital. Taking hundreds of frames in the hope that, purely by random, you'll have one or two worth actually printing? I don't think so.
I think digital has seriously cheapened and devalued the whole process of photography. For example, a mate of mine has recently started selling prints of his digital efforts. Some of the comments from punters are very telling, for example "I can take that on my phone" and "You've just printed that off the internet" are typical (as is the inevitable camera bore who wants to discuss the minutiae of the various AF modes of model XYZ mark 3 firmware upgrade 1.71 - seriously, these guys need to get laid/a life). The fact that his images have no detail in either the highlights or shadows seems to go unremarked...
It seems to me that many snappers (film and digital) would greatly improve if they spent a little less time fiddling with all the gadgety crud that modern SLRs seem to be encrusted with, and a little more time studying the basics, instead of relying on a computer program to do it all for you, or believing the vast quantities of manure and hype generated by the manufacturers and endlessly recycled by the media.
You can get a good idea of the level of bovine excrement sprayed all over digital in the number of magazines now catering to it. Most seem to be 10 pages of actual content, lost inside 70 pages of adverts - for three of four quid.
99% of the so-called features of a modern SLR are marketing contrivances, pure and simple. Also, if you must use AF, learn how to use it properly. I see more out-of-focus images nowadays than ever I saw pre-AF (depressingly regularly on stuff people are trying to sell), purely because the user has allowed the camera to decide what it should focus on. The camera is a moron - treat it as such.
No, digital is far too expensive, the technology is far too fluid and uncertain and the quality is questionable - in my opinion, for the kind of photography that interests me.
I'm strictly an amateur hobbyist, not a professional - ie., I don't make a living from photography, never have and never will. For certain types of pro work, digital is a godsend. No arguments here. I'm also not really interested in cameras per se. The business of making images I like (repeat: what I like) - that does interest me. Cameras are a boring and necessary evil in the process of making images.
So, having decided that digital, certainly for now, is a non-starter for me, what am I going to buy? Well, probably a secondhand MF. Or a 5x4". Always fancied one of those.
Paul
It can and does - trust me. I have a D3, a D3x and several film cameras including medium-format.
From the D3x I can easily and consistently get images better than 120 film emulsions from the 1990's which was the last time I used such equipment (Hasselblad 500-series and Pentax 6x7) in anger.
A scanned 6x6 producing a 300mb Tiff is great, but at the end of the day you still just have a hi-res image of perfectly-rendered grain-clumps.
A lower-res digital image resolves far more detail than any film once did or ever will.
I still shoot film by the way, recently having bought some replacement cameras that I'd used to own - it's...more fun, somehow...
It also helps me differentiate between work and play images...
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Until I realised I could afford a D700 so no longer needed to shoot film to get the wide angles I wanted.
Digital. I love the immediacy of it. I can have an A3 print within 5 minutes of shooting if I want to.
The one thing I used to really love about film (when I had access to a decent darkroom and did all my own B&W D&P) was seeing an image appear from a blank sheet of paper. Watching a print slide out of the rollers isn't quite the same but there's the added attraction of the final image being in full colour rather than just B&W.
Would I go back to film?
Maybe, if I really HAD to sell up all my digital kit. I would sell a lot of other stuff first though AND rent out my body for some deviant practices involving the opposite sex (hell, for enough money, who knows WHAT depths they would plumb?!)
To be completely honest, I could even give up photography. This may sound like blasphemy but I'm purely an amateur - I don't need to take photos to put bread on the table. Giving it up would obviouisly leave a big hole in my life but I'm sure there are other things I could find to spend time and money on, although I refuse to even think about golf.
Thank you. That's the word I was grasping for: fun. Digital is no fun, compared to the messy business of trad printing.
What grain on MF? I have 20x16" TMax 100 prints from 10 or 12 years ago with no discernible grain, shot on a 40+ year old Rollei.
Anyway, grain is good, imho. When I've tinkered with photoshop, turning colour to mono, I always add some grain. (Not as much as TMax rated at 6400...)
Did you ever try the dilute dev process outlined in Adams' "The Negative"? Very dilute dev solution, very little agitation, rate the film at 20 ASA and expose generously for the shadows. Absolutlely remarkable results in extending the latitude of the film, and utterly impossible with digital.
Paul
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digital is cutting edge and can be transmitted electronically
fulfilling some of the purpose of taking images...to use
the flip side is it is relatively easy to process by oneself without touching chems and fixers and having to press prints to keep them flat..
i wouldnt go back to wet process...my holiday snaps are fine just as they are
a seagul at each end of my film
fulfilling some of the purpose of taking images...to use
the flip side is it is relatively easy to process by oneself without touching chems and fixers and having to press prints to keep them flat..
i wouldnt go back to wet process...my holiday snaps are fine just as they are
a seagul at each end of my film
foodpoison
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I'm a kid of the 90s.
Wonder what that has to do with digital?
I have no patience and very short concentration span.
I love shooting film but there are rolls of film I've got sitting around, exposed, that I a) forgot to take for processing or b) couldn't afford to take to processing, then when I could, see a), followed by b).
Catch my drift?
Wonder what that has to do with digital?
I have no patience and very short concentration span.
I love shooting film but there are rolls of film I've got sitting around, exposed, that I a) forgot to take for processing or b) couldn't afford to take to processing, then when I could, see a), followed by b).
Catch my drift?
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That sounded like a question from someone in education 
I came to photography after the advent of digital. I had film cameras before then but just to take snaps and the only 35mm camera I ever had was an underwater camera. I would have liked to have been into photography before but the cost of film and processing seemed very high. I bought a digital camera and was then able to practice (a bit plus point with digital ie try everything and don't worry about the cost as there isn't one). After owning a digital for a few years I bought my first film camera, an F80 and then a couple more and have now just built a darkroom and bought the equipment.
Digital has allowed amateurs to take very good quality pictures and see the results quickly. It has allowed people to put 10 years practice into 6 months for no cost.
I came to photography after the advent of digital. I had film cameras before then but just to take snaps and the only 35mm camera I ever had was an underwater camera. I would have liked to have been into photography before but the cost of film and processing seemed very high. I bought a digital camera and was then able to practice (a bit plus point with digital ie try everything and don't worry about the cost as there isn't one). After owning a digital for a few years I bought my first film camera, an F80 and then a couple more and have now just built a darkroom and bought the equipment.
Digital has allowed amateurs to take very good quality pictures and see the results quickly. It has allowed people to put 10 years practice into 6 months for no cost.
OK...I'll play.
I have two sides to this and both are from a pro standpoint.
Firstly, as an editorial/sports tog it's fantastic having digital. I can have images round the world less than a minute after the action happened. With sport this is especially true. I spoke to one of the "old hands" at my agency about it and he regaled me of stories of knocking on front doors near football grounds, offering the family £10 and setting up a portable darkroom to process films. Then having motorcycle couriers taking the negs to offices in London from anywhere in the country just to get the sunday papers deadline.
Certainly it's a lot different now. They really are around the world minutes/seconds afterwards. The World Cup this year will be the quickest. If you're sad like me, you can watch the final and count the seconds between the winning goal going in and the photos appearing on the wires.
However, in my other job...as an architectural tog, I rely heavily on being able to use film...MF allows me to utilise better dynamic range and colour reproduction to get wonderful images...which are then scanned and sent to clients (usually trade press). Given that there's a much longer deadline I'm able to use the best of both worlds.
My clients have been much more impressed with my 100MP scanned negs/slides and they have the detail to be used on double page spreads. I'm sure I could get the same from a 1Ds III or 5D II but i'd lose some of the enjoyment I get from thinking about exposure, reciprocity failure, being tied to one ISO speed for a shoot (think about how often we just change it on digital to suit our needs)
Digital has definitely changed things...it has made a lot of money for Canon and Nikon from amateurs. Just look at the kit of some people on here who are doing this for fun! It's tens of thousands of pounds...the idea that it creates a shorter lifecycle for products is a slight misnomer in my opinion though. For professionals on a staff job, with a pool of equipment, then there is a continual upgrade cycle. For those of us who rely on our earnings to buy new kit and pay rent/bills with...we make do with what we have. None of my current kit was bought new. Everything I own is secondhand...and mostly a good few years old (the oldest is my 17-35L which is over 10yrs old I think)...my second body is a 1D mkII...which does the job, even though it's 5yrs + old.
Just my opinions though, feel free to disagree!
I have two sides to this and both are from a pro standpoint.
Firstly, as an editorial/sports tog it's fantastic having digital. I can have images round the world less than a minute after the action happened. With sport this is especially true. I spoke to one of the "old hands" at my agency about it and he regaled me of stories of knocking on front doors near football grounds, offering the family £10 and setting up a portable darkroom to process films. Then having motorcycle couriers taking the negs to offices in London from anywhere in the country just to get the sunday papers deadline.
Certainly it's a lot different now. They really are around the world minutes/seconds afterwards. The World Cup this year will be the quickest. If you're sad like me, you can watch the final and count the seconds between the winning goal going in and the photos appearing on the wires.
However, in my other job...as an architectural tog, I rely heavily on being able to use film...MF allows me to utilise better dynamic range and colour reproduction to get wonderful images...which are then scanned and sent to clients (usually trade press). Given that there's a much longer deadline I'm able to use the best of both worlds.
My clients have been much more impressed with my 100MP scanned negs/slides and they have the detail to be used on double page spreads. I'm sure I could get the same from a 1Ds III or 5D II but i'd lose some of the enjoyment I get from thinking about exposure, reciprocity failure, being tied to one ISO speed for a shoot (think about how often we just change it on digital to suit our needs)
Digital has definitely changed things...it has made a lot of money for Canon and Nikon from amateurs. Just look at the kit of some people on here who are doing this for fun! It's tens of thousands of pounds...the idea that it creates a shorter lifecycle for products is a slight misnomer in my opinion though. For professionals on a staff job, with a pool of equipment, then there is a continual upgrade cycle. For those of us who rely on our earnings to buy new kit and pay rent/bills with...we make do with what we have. None of my current kit was bought new. Everything I own is secondhand...and mostly a good few years old (the oldest is my 17-35L which is over 10yrs old I think)...my second body is a 1D mkII...which does the job, even though it's 5yrs + old.
Just my opinions though, feel free to disagree!
desantnik
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I'll tell you what has changed photography.... its something digital but not necessarily the cameras.... its the internet.
Digital cameras without the internet are nothing revolutionary. The power of digital photography is for your work to be seen/bought by a global audience.
You are no longer "the photographer from Smallsville" and getting a nice little earner because you are the only photographer for 10,000 locals - you are competing on a global stage.
So no, film or digital - makes no difference, the internet makes the difference.
Digital cameras without the internet are nothing revolutionary. The power of digital photography is for your work to be seen/bought by a global audience.
You are no longer "the photographer from Smallsville" and getting a nice little earner because you are the only photographer for 10,000 locals - you are competing on a global stage.
So no, film or digital - makes no difference, the internet makes the difference.
Hey that's very true...and a little profound. Even without digital we'd still be scanning negs and sending off on the wires. The internet has brought us live, up to the minute entertainment and news. It could be argued that the rise of the internet has prompted the rise of digital photography? And with the rise of the internet, the importance of 24hr on the spot news...think back to 7/7. The news channels were running ragged on that, and it was updated by mobile technology...guys in the tunnels escaping with their mobiles (and cameras). Even when the pro shots came in and showed some immense skill, compassion and insight...it was too late, the on-the-spot cameraphone stuff had satisfied the appetite of the news-watching public.
Has mobile technology forced the changes in digital photography!?
This raises the question of who you take pictures for: yourself or an audience?
Pre-internet/digital, I was perfectly happy to take pictures primarily for my own satisfaction, images that a small number of family or friends might see.
Paul
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I think the popularity of this forum shows that a high percentage of hobby photographers want to share their work either for critical viewing or to let their friends/family see them via their own web browsers.
I doubt there are many who have never uploaded a photo to the internet in some way shape or form - even if its to send granny in Australia pictures of the kids at christmas...
I doubt there are many who have never uploaded a photo to the internet in some way shape or form - even if its to send granny in Australia pictures of the kids at christmas...
OP
xxxRebeccaxxx
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Quite - that's why on studio shoots we used polaroids to check everything before committing to film...
You still need confirmation of some sort on expensive shoots...everything else is a calculated gamble based on prior experience and a fervent hope your kit doesn't fail or the processor doesn't muck up your images...
mastertrinity
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i agree with a lot of the comments here already, while digital has revolutionised photography (and remember the effects on computers having to be faster to cope with the image files so computer technology gets better) the biggest thing that puts me off with digital is that anyone thinks they can be <insert famous photography here> which isnt the same with film.
film meant you had to shoot exactly right and there was no looking back, when you shot your images, the took time to get developed but when you opened that packet of snaps and saw what you had created it amazed you!
and although there were consumer film cameras the technology was so carp that they never really took a good image, it was the photographer themselves and not the camera.
film meant you had to shoot exactly right and there was no looking back, when you shot your images, the took time to get developed but when you opened that packet of snaps and saw what you had created it amazed you!
and although there were consumer film cameras the technology was so carp that they never really took a good image, it was the photographer themselves and not the camera.
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This is what it should be about, the photographer not the kit or the medium the pictures are taken on
Ideally, yes, but since we don't live in an ideal world it makes sense to give ourselves any and every advantage technology allows us...
I could make do with a prosumer DSLR...just...but life's a lot easier with the kit I do use...
I could make do with a prosumer DSLR...just...but life's a lot easier with the kit I do use...
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oh yeah no doubt fully agree there, if you have the tech then use it
it's when people try and compare an old film SLR to a modern DSLR, asking why one is better than the other, or what do you prefer? thats when the can of worms opens up :bonk:
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I find that the can of worms is opened up when one suggests that digital technology, or technology in general, is responsible for damaging the art.
It's a monotonous debate which attracts all manner of disproportionate and irrelevant claim.
You'll choose which medium based on your needs and requirements.
As far as enjoyment is concerned, there's always a winner.
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digital has openned up photography to the masses and allowed the transfer of memories across the globe in seconds. Pics of my sons can be emailed to AUS for no cost.
Digital has also allowed joe blogs to shoot pictures that they would normally have to pay someone for which is great for both supplier and consumer since the professional has to adjust his game and produce images that a consumer can't. It has also provided greater choice of professional to choose from. Digital has benifited both consumer and professional for the best IMHO.
Digital has also allowed joe blogs to shoot pictures that they would normally have to pay someone for which is great for both supplier and consumer since the professional has to adjust his game and produce images that a consumer can't. It has also provided greater choice of professional to choose from. Digital has benifited both consumer and professional for the best IMHO.