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Photojournalistas.com |
| Jan-Feb, 2006 |
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Slow Progression:
My Slow Transition From Film Cameras To Digital Cameras...And Why It's Taking So Long. By Lee K. Marriner |
Over the past couple of years I’ve read countless stories in magazines and newspapers, along with commentary on blogs and websites, touting the wonders of digital photography. In short, they say that digital is here and it’s great and wonderful and there is nothing better. Nearly all of these articles gleefully proclaim that film is dead, a relic of days when photography took effort. They insinuate that anyone with a brain between their ears has already gone digital and thrown their film cameras in the nearest trash can. There is no sense selling that film camera because anyone that is smart wants digital, and selling it to those dumb people that might want to use film would be taking advantage of the less intelligent, or dare I say mentally challenged. When I read these stories and comments, I try to read between the lines and think about what the motives might be to draw such a premature conclusion. For the traditional photo magazines, advertising dollars from all of the newest digital cameras could certainly be a reason for pushing digital with such relish. It seems like every time I come out of the bathroom I find that Nikon, Canon or someone else has come out with a new professional digital advanced prosumer model. Remember when a pro film body had a shelf life of six to ten years? Lately it seems more like six to ten months for a pro digital body. I have taken no side in the digital vs. film arguments. Digital has certainly played a major part in the work that I’ve done over the past couple of years, but I still use film for projects that produce what I feel is some of my best work. Rather than choosing a side by picking either digital or film as a format of choice and ignoring the other, I’ve chosen to use both formats based upon what works best for the shoot that I’m doing. Each format still has strengths that the other one doesn’t have. A couple of yeas ago I started using digital SLR cameras for my daily deadline work. I chose to use Nikon D100 bodies for this work. I have nothing against Canon (I don’t get into the Nikon vs. Canon battles either), it’s just that I already had a considerable amount of Nikon gear and had been very happy with it. I could have shelled out a bunch more money for a slightly more advanced model, but the D100, although lacking in some areas, was sufficient for what I was buying it for. If the top line pro model digital cameras, like the D2x (I’m picking on Nikon because that is what I’m familiar with), had a longer shelf life, I wouldn’t mind paying $5000.00 for a new one. OK, I would mind, but at least if it stayed top of the line for more than a year or two I could feel like it was a reasonable investment. Who really thinks that in two years the D2x will still be Nikon’s top digital? When $5000.00 cameras are going to be obsolete every couple of years, I start shopping for quality bargains like the D100. I suspect that after the D200 has been on the streets for a couple months and prices on it go to where they’ll be for awhile I’ll pick up a couple of those. I can buy roughly three D200 bodies, based on the current estimated price, for the price of one D2x. So what are strengths that I feel that digital has over film? The photo work that I count upon for part of my income every month is deadline work for wire services, newspapers and magazines of all types. Most of these clients want their photos within few hours, if not minutes from when the photos were taken. Film required having a place set up for processing negatives so that they could be quickly scanned, or knowing a place where they could be processed quickly if it wasn’t too late in the evening. Digital can be ready to go in the time that takes to download the photos from the card to the computer and then adjust the crop, tones and color after editing through the pictures. Sometimes this end of it can be done so fast that it takes longer to write the photo caption. It is also nice knowing that I can check my work as I shoot. First I look at the photo on the LCD screen on the back of the camera, then check histogram to make sure that the levels are acceptable. Using and knowing how to read the histogram is important because what you see is not always what you get when the image on the LCD alone is used as a guide. The histogram will tell you if the image’s highlights are blown out or if you shadows are too dense. It’s an excellent tool that doesn’t get discussed enough. There are a number of other things that I like about digital cameras. I wish that I could use them for everything that I do because it does away with most of the problems that are associated with film. I can change the ISO (film speed) settings of a digital camera by merely turning a switch: With film I’d either have to use the rest of the roll, or waste part of a roll by pulling it from the camera before I used all of it. I can also shoot more than thirty-six frames before have change cards. Film requires rewinding and changing rolls every thirty-six frames. I used to, and still do, hate exposing the insides of my camera to the elements while changing film in the middle of a snowstorm or downpour. There is also no processing of the negatives or slides; which saves time, eliminates worries about scratches on the film surface and the possibility that the lab poorly processes the film. I’ve noticed that more labs seen to be pushing the chemicals a little further than they should. This shows on the negatives and slides, and is no doubt done to make up for business lost to digital. |
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