Beginner here. Please let me know what you think

[cameraclicker]

I shot slide film for a long time.  My film cameras are manual everything because most of them predate the microprocessor.  Canon introduced EOS in 1987.  That extended the ease of photography Kodak was working on with cameras like the Brownie, which was introduced in 1900.  The history of the camera is full of examples of someone introducing a new model that will permit anyone to mindlessly take a photo and have it effortlessly processed to produce a reasonable print.  As a child I had a friend down the street who took the cartridge out of his Instamatic and stored it separately in a desk drawer between taking photos!  I doubt many photos turned out and he had no idea why, until I noticed a cartridge and wanted to know why it was out of the camera.  Just because something is more convenient does not mean people will bother to read the manual and understand what it says, so the manufacturers make some products harder and harder to get bad results from, with a minimum of care and attention to detail by the user.   I digress…. My point is that it is not film or digital, it is automation.  You can get newer film bodies that have all the same controls as digital bodies, put in the film, the body figures out the ISO rating and sets itself up, then choose the green square, point and shoot.  My wife had one of those.  Green square was actually the only choice for her model.  Now she has a Canon G11 which is much more complicated but can be driven fully automatic through fully manual, just like a dSLR.  It’s her second digital, the first was a Nikon CoolPIX 2300 which was an earlier generation and I got her the upgrade to Canon because I wanted to work with raw files.  She takes mostly office events, usually in some dark restaurant, so she pushes up against the limits of the G11 regularly.   It is a much better option than any film camera.  She can shoot at ISO 800.  She can have edited photos the same night.  I can see what the camera was told to do and can discuss how a photo could have been better or why a photo came out as it did.  She doesn’t practice enough, but she doesn’t care that much, it is just a tool to take the office crowd and me.  Any time we are together and she wants a photo, she directs me to take it.  Sometimes however, she will bring her camera when I go out to shoot and she will take some excellent photos.

The EXIF data is stripped by some web pages and Photoshop’s Save for Web removes it too, but it is still available to whoever holds the original file, and on other forums it is frequently presented.  If it’s not there and I think I need it, I ask for it and usually get it.  At the same time, I know enough about Photoshop to be able to take a photo with pretty odd settings and bring it back to looking reasonable with software.  Anyone looking at it and trying to gather useful information from EXIF would be mislead.

Composition has nothing to do with having digital or film.  I borrowed an EOS film body that worked with my lenses and shot a roll of film, shooting exactly the same things a moment later with a digital body.  The lens was bolted to a tripod so composition was identical.  Detail was better in the digital images, however.

The local camera stores all used to have large refrigerator cases full of film, now you can have your choice of half a dozen options from a bar fridge, but you can choose from three dozen digital cards.  Have I shot my last roll of film?  Possibly.  I have taken the meter batteries out of my film cameras so they won’t leak and wreck them.  Digital is more convenient, gives better resolution, instant feedback when desired, and offers complete control.  What’s not to like?  Even travelling… I take a notebook with me, and a stack of blank DVD’s to burn as I go.  I come back with a set of files on my computer and a set of DVD’s.  If visiting, I can have edited prints done locally, to leave with the people we were visiting.  All the way around, it’s better than dealing with film.

 

That you like film and find magic in it is wonderful.  I’ve had enough of film so digital has more magic for me.  I still think that anyone who wants to learn will get better, faster feedback from digital and will be inclined to shoot more because the cost is in the hardware instead ongoing with each frame shot.

[Thom]

I understand what you’re saying. But, I can’t help but think what the images that are in display on this site would be, if they’ve actually studied the process (digital or film). I wasn’t even allowed to shoot a frame until I could draw it on paper! Talk about taking it back to the basics. Thanks for the discussion.

Thom

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