Is Digital Dead......

[Freeman]

......... or destine to die.
Will the success of digital photography be it's downfall?

[D. Bryant]

......... or destine to die.
Will the success of digital photography be it's downfall?

Pass that blunt over .....

[Mark Sawyer]

Hey, don't bogart it...

[Frank Bagbey]

As someone who deals with it everyday, the digiheads are shooting 3000 photos, standing at Walmart for hours trying to decide what to save and/or print. They can't tell in the field what is good or bad. Uneducated wedding photogs are shooting 3000 pics and putting them on cd, handing them to the bride, and then beating it out of the wedding. Good luck bride. No backup equipment, no real experience, no insurance, no contract, just wish and hope. Digiheads are shooting Thanksgiving pics, then deleting them Christmas time because they have no plan to save or organize pics. Lots of digiheads are losing all they shoot because their cards go bad. Oops, forgot they were still working when they got unplugged! Lots of soccer moms are giving up digitial and going back to film, since they cannot get pics of volleyball, wresting, football, or cheerleaders, with their 1500 dollar digitial cameras, but somehow that Fuji Readyflash 1000 disposable camera for 6.95 takes great pics, even for the yearbooks. And gosh they get negatives and prints, too! Maybe even a cd if they want! And hey, that old film camera we have can be totally overhauled for 89-109 dollars but they want 279 dollars on up to fix our digitial slr. What? Kodak shot themselves in both feet at the same time and are now dying?

[Greg Lockrey]

....shouldn't this be smoked in the lounge.

[Freeman]

I am at the beginning of my career and I have the opportunity to take a full time contract position shooting architecture. The pay sucks, the hours are long, and the sacrifices are huge. Just trying to figure out what for. I know what I want it's just a question of wether or not it will be an option when I am ready.

[Jim collum]

sigh...

and some of us digiheads have shot film for 25 + years, and continue to shoot digital just as we did film.... calculating proper exposure, understanding light and composition...

it's only camera.. a tool..

a bad photographer is a bad photographer whether they use film or digital.... as is a good one.

this seems silly not to already be in the Lounge



As someone who deals with it everyday, the digiheads are shooting 3000 photos, standing at Walmart for hours trying to decide what to save and/or print. They can't tell in the field what is good or bad. Uneducated wedding photogs are shooting 3000 pics and putting them on cd, handing them to the bride, and then beating it out of the wedding. Good luck bride. No backup equipment, no real experience, no insurance, no contract, just wish and hope. Digiheads are shooting Thanksgiving pics, then deleting them Christmas time because they have no plan to save or organize pics. Lots of digiheads are losing all they shoot because their cards go bad. Oops, forgot they were still working when they got unplugged! Lots of soccer moms are giving up digitial and going back to film, since they cannot get pics of volleyball, wresting, football, or cheerleaders, with their 1500 dollar digitial cameras, but somehow that Fuji Readyflash 1000 disposable camera for 6.95 takes great pics, even for the yearbooks. And gosh they get negatives and prints, too! Maybe even a cd if they want! And hey, that old film camera we have can be totally overhauled for 89-109 dollars but they want 279 dollars on up to fix our digitial slr. What? Kodak shot themselves in both feet at the same time and are now dying?

[Daniel_Buck]

it's only camera.. a tool..

a bad photographer is a bad photographer whether they use film or digital.... as is a good one.

this seems silly not to already be in the Lounge

couldn't agree with you more, on all 3 points :)

[Gary L. Quay]

I strongly suspect that folks who take snapshots will continue to shoot digitally, and the technology for sorting and storing will improve over time. I also strongly suspect that pros will shoot both, depending on their needs. Although, I shoot only film because at this time my work is strictly for galleries, cafes and the like. Just like vinyl LPs, film will eventually see a resurgence among a segment of the population who will consider it a more pure form of the art. Hopefully, there will be enough film manufacturing companies that will survive that long.

--Gary

[cyrus]

The rapid obsolescence of digital gear is a problem. You can now get a point-and-shoot that has the same resolution of the more expensive "top of the line" slr you bought just 6 mos ago. And soon, you wont shoot stills in digital since picture frames can display moving images.

[eddie]

eerrr? what is digital?.......

[Joanna Carter]

eerrr? what is digital?.......
Sumfing yer presses wiv yer finger :D

[Marko]

As someone who deals with it everyday, the digiheads are shooting 3000 photos, standing at Walmart for hours trying to decide what to save and/or print. They can't tell in the field what is good or bad. Uneducated wedding photogs are shooting 3000 pics and putting them on cd, handing them to the bride, and then beating it out of the wedding. Good luck bride. No backup equipment, no real experience, no insurance, no contract, just wish and hope. Digiheads are shooting Thanksgiving pics, then deleting them Christmas time because they have no plan to save or organize pics. Lots of digiheads are losing all they shoot because their cards go bad. Oops, forgot they were still working when they got unplugged! Lots of soccer moms are giving up digitial and going back to film, since they cannot get pics of volleyball, wresting, football, or cheerleaders, with their 1500 dollar digitial cameras, but somehow that Fuji Readyflash 1000 disposable camera for 6.95 takes great pics, even for the yearbooks. And gosh they get negatives and prints, too! Maybe even a cd if they want! And hey, that old film camera we have can be totally overhauled for 89-109 dollars but they want 279 dollars on up to fix our digitial slr. What? Kodak shot themselves in both feet at the same time and are now dying?

Breathe, Frank! It's important to stop and breathe once in a while. ;)

Isn't this the same high-brow "argument" that was made against happy-snappy... err... instamatic cameras when Kodak originally introduced them?

You are talking about the same crowd that used to buy the same Fuji Readyflash or Kodak Instamatic (or whatever the marketing fad of the day was back then) off the supermarket shelves for the equivalent of $4-5 along with the prepaid mailer to send them for processing. That's the same crowd that used to roll up their processed films, rubber-band them as tightly as they could and toss them into the drawer, never to take them out again.

Digiheads? Indeed, why is this nonsense not in The Lounge?

[Marko]

......... or destine to die.
Will the success of digital photography be it's downfall?

It is indeed destined to die and it is its own success that will eventually kill it.

Just like automobiles. They have been so successful and there are so many of them now that they can't possibly survive for much longer and once they die, the buggy cart will come back with a vengeance and we will all enjoy the relaxed ride and clean air once again. And pretend not to notice the characteristic smell of that horse byproduct that replaced the car exhaust...

:D

[stehei]

I didn't know that a dead horse can be beaten dead for the 40th time!
;)

s

[Brian Ellis]

As someone who deals with it everyday, the digiheads are shooting 3000 photos, standing at Walmart for hours trying to decide what to save and/or print. They can't tell in the field what is good or bad. Uneducated wedding photogs are shooting 3000 pics and putting them on cd, handing them to the bride, and then beating it out of the wedding. Good luck bride. No backup equipment, no real experience, no insurance, no contract, just wish and hope. Digiheads are shooting Thanksgiving pics, then deleting them Christmas time because they have no plan to save or organize pics. Lots of digiheads are losing all they shoot because their cards go bad. Oops, forgot they were still working when they got unplugged! Lots of soccer moms are giving up digitial and going back to film, since they cannot get pics of volleyball, wresting, football, or cheerleaders, with their 1500 dollar digitial cameras, but somehow that Fuji Readyflash 1000 disposable camera for 6.95 takes great pics, even for the yearbooks. And gosh they get negatives and prints, too! Maybe even a cd if they want! And hey, that old film camera we have can be totally overhauled for 89-109 dollars but they want 279 dollars on up to fix our digitial slr. What? Kodak shot themselves in both feet at the same time and are now dying?

Yep, you nailed it. That's exactly how I work. I just couldn't believe it - as soon as I held a digital camera in my hands for the first time everything I knew about photography just went poof! Disappeared just like that. I forgot the zone system, forgot depth of field, didn't know what "metering" meant, couldn't figure out why apertures got bigger when the numbers got smaller, couldn't even remember what ISO means or what purpose it was supposed to serve. But that's o.k., none of that stuff I learned in 30 years of film photography is the least bit useful now that I'm a digihead.

[Brian Ellis]

The rapid obsolescence of digital gear is a problem. You can now get a point-and-shoot that has the same resolution of the more expensive "top of the line" slr you bought just 6 mos ago. And soon, you wont shoot stills in digital since picture frames can display moving images.

I don't understand. Why does that make the top of the line slr obsolete? Can't I continue to use it if it suits my purposes? In the old days new 35mm cameras were brought on the market all the time with the same or even better features as older, more expensive 35mm cameras. But I didn't discard my older Nikons just because newer ones had some of the same features for less money. So why would I do that with a digital camera?

[Brian Ellis]

I didn't know that a dead horse can be beaten dead for the 40th time!
;)

s

Oh it can, it can. As long as people post inanities about the horse one can continue beating it forever.

[Freeman]

This is not a digital vs film thread. If you have reduced it to that then it only demonstrates your narrow mindedness. It might be in the wrong place or on the wrong forum but there are several professionals on this forum whose opinions I respect and perhaps I should have just asked them directly.

Stehei, my apologies to the poor horse you are riding on.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who know they don't know everything and those who think they do. I know I don't know everything, what about you?

The question is vague and I apologize.

The success of digital photography on the consumer level is it's instant feedback and lower per image cost. Previously in professional photography the main barrier to entry was the learning curve and the cost of materials. Digital photography has broken down the barriers. What does that mean for professional digital photography? If the the technology progresses to a point where all images are HDR, will professional photographers still need to know how to light a scene? If video capture quality becomes "good enough" to extract single frames for print use, will a good eye and composition skills really matter? I have the opportunity to take a job that will have me shooting hotels 5 days a week. I want to look at it as a stepping stone, but taking the job means making great sacrifices. I am just trying to determine if I should continue down the path. Wether or not the sacrifices are worth the experience and the contacts. It's definitely not worth the money. Recently, I bid a job to do aerial photography from a rented helicopter. I bid what I thought was low, $1100. The advertising agency ended up getting it shot for $150 with a helicopter. I couldn't find a helicopter for less then $650. This is just one example of many. Is it a race to the bottom for professional photography. Will the advances in the technology continue to deteriorate the fees of professional photographers? Does this happen at higher levels of the business? Will it always be that way? Will it get better or worse? Newspaper photogs are scrambling for work, magazines are cutting budgets or won't pay at all. Builders, architects, and interior designers are tightening budgets. Everyone seems to think good enough is good enough. Supply and demand seems to be shifting. How far does it go?

It makes sense to shoot digital if you are a professional but are we embracing a technology that will eventually do away with us?

Of course no one can see the future.

[z_photo]

seems the answer was also given albeit perhaps vaguely. talent will (hopefully) always find a market.

[Merg Ross]

I see several points that have not been addressed in Freeman's remarks. It seems shallow to lead this into a digi versus film debate. There is a great tendancy on the part of some to always do so. Film and digital will co-exist for a very long time. How do I know that is true? I have special powers.

Now, to address a couple of points, speaking as a freelancer in architectural photography for a number of years. What I found, no matter how much I qouted as a rate, there was always someone who would do it for less. In fact, that is how I started out in my career, doing it for less. There was a well thought of architectural photographer in the area at the time, Morley Baer. His day rate was three times what I was charging, so I was able to get assignments from some of the firms with smaller budgets. Eventually more work came my way, my fees increased, and the rest is history. It was, of course, important that the work produced be of high quality.

At least that used to be the case, quality mattered. This is another point I believe Freeman mentioned. Take a look at some of the architectural work, and work in general, that currently appears in magazines. There are exceptions to what I will say, but there is an abundace of work published today that would never have made it past the art director years ago. Why the lowered standard? Certainly not because it is digital capture rather than film. There just seems to be, in my opinion, less emphasis on the quality of published work.

[Gordon Moat]

Maybe the topic should have been Is Photography Dead . . .

It is all too easy to pick out the bad aspects of professional photography. In a way it has drifted more like the music industry, in that the low ground and high ground have still grown, but the middle ground is becoming scarce. Unfortunately, for most photojournalists, it has been a race to the bottom (financially); and definitely the quality of the images suffers at the lower pay levels, good photojournalists may not stick with the industry without reasonable and realistic pay levels.

The barriers to entry into the profession are more than overcoming technological issues. Realistically, that was the perceived barrier with film, and somehow that little 1/2 MP LCD on the back of a D-SLR is supposed to change that . . . ridiculous.

These things lead to questions like: How do you know you got the shot right when you don't have an LCD to quickly show you the results? Maybe under unusual lighting conditions it would help a bit, like in product photography, but one who would be chimping every shot is not someone I think should be a professional photographer. There is a level of confidence, knowledge, and experience that dictates when that shutter button is pressed. That action is later followed by editing to select the best from a shoot. Those two things are skills that have little to nothing to do with technology.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[Brian Bullen]

Freeman, all the opinions on this forum are just that OPINIONS. No one here can predict the future.
Sometimes we have to make sacrifices to get where we want to go and sometimes the sacrifices are too great. Then we take a different path. The choice is up to you, whatever you choose, make the most of it.

[Nathan Potter]

Merg has touched on an interesting point about quality. Advertisers buy photographs to reach people that will buy their products. They know what the public will respond to in more detail than we can imagine. Turns out that the public responds to content and images by association with wealth, sex, personalities, etc. The quality of the image is much less important presently, but there was a period in history (perhaps 50s', 60s', and 70s') when the image quality was one of the major factors in product recognition. Then advertisers got much more sophisticated and started connecting to the publics psyche.

Gradually enter a digital age where function and ease of use is much more important than image quality and the public becomes less attuned to image quality. This is currently exemplified by crappy images on cell phones we see proliferating everywhere. Its' recently manifested in the movie theatre which now shows images in 2 megapixel HD rather than 10 to 20 megapixel glorious film.

Here I'm talking the mainstream public which is what drives the consumer engine in an unbridled capitalistic system. Great for technological development but less good for all of us marginalized in niche image activities.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[stehei]

[QUOTE=Freeman;384838]This is not a digital vs film thread. If you have reduced it to that then it only demonstrates your narrow mindedness. It might be in the wrong place or on the wrong forum but there are several professionals on this forum whose opinions I respect and perhaps I should have just asked them directly.

Stehei, my apologies to the poor horse you are riding on.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who know they don't know everything and those who think they do. I know I don't know everything, what about you?

The question is vague and I apologize.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hi Freeman. Your question was vague, and the explanation of what your question for me is a matter that also has been discussed extensively. By the way, no need to get annoyed by what was meant as a little joke. But let me give you my 2 cents.

As a professional portrait photographer I have to deal with people, which is, for me, far more complex than with gear, be it digital or chemical.

Outstanding photography, on whatever medium will be regognised as such, and will have a standing on its own. There will always be a need for people with an outstanding view, even though the techology changes. Digital is just another branch on a tree that will continue to grow. Did digital change the market? Absolutely. Just as the wet-plate to dry plate transformation, the introduction of roll-film, the leica 35mm, the motordrive, the petzval etc etc.

On the top-level, digital or chemical is not the question, its vision, and a connection with people through images. Does that mean technique doesn't matter? of course is matters, and you have to work flawlessly (I wish I had the skill to work perfect). But in the end, in the top-leage, the camera is just a tool.

BTW, this thread should be moved to the lounge/technique!

regards

stefan

[Maris Rusis]

Digital as a picture making medium is not dead.

It is only at the beginning of what I expect is a very long history of excellence. Paintings, drawings, etchings, and engravings have had hundreds of years of critical acclaim. Digital picture making is fundamentally the same thing just done with updated technology.

What will die is the perception that digital picture making is photography.

I believe scholarly thought, maybe over the next hundred years or so, will cotton on to why everything in the visual arts that looks like a photograph is not necessarily a photograph. Consider the following:

Photography and electrically powered picture making are so deeply unlike in how they operate that it is an intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional swindle that the one word "photography" is used for both. Maybe it is because appearances are beguiling and the end products of the two methods can bear a passing resemblance one to another.

At the most basic level, to get a picture, any picture in any medium, the first step is always light hitting a light sensitive surface. For a million years that light sensor was an organic 160 Megapixel (more or less) multi-element device with lens, variable aperture, and focussing capability. It is, of course, the human eye. The modern digital camera is a remarkable mechanisation of what the eye has always done and it works the same way: an image is captured, divided into electrical pixel values, signals are sent up a cable (optic nerve equivalent) and filed in memory (brain equivalent).

Having the description of a picture in a memory (brain or SD card) is well short of actually having a picture to show. In pre-electronic days this production step was done by having a hand push a pencil or paint. Now it can be done by having a pixel push ink (ink-jet) or a pixel push electrons (monitor).

Contrast this with using light to generate picture forming marks in a light sensitive surface. Here we have no "sensor", just the picture surface itself. And we have no "data", no "signal", no "memory", no "computer", no "mental/data processing", and no "monitor". A photograph made by "light-writing" exists only as hard-copy and even the "copy" part is a misnomer for what is really a single original made by a single event.

Another point of difference lies in the source of power for various systems of picture making. Human beings when they look, see, paint, and draw are powered by biochemical energy that comes from food or in the case of artists, beer, pizza, and cigarettes. Digital picture fabrication is powered by an external source of electricity. If there's no electricity, there's no digital pictures. Light generated photographs are self-powered by the impact of a physical sample of subject matter (photons!) into a light sensitive surface. No external power sources are needed. Remember photography was invented in and works perfectly in a world without electricity.

Only photography uses the direct impact of an actual physical sample of real subject matter to occasion a picture. All non-photographic ways of picture fabrication use an image file made up of a description of an image (plus anything else, real or imaginary, the artist wants to include) to control a mark-making device (hand or printer) that draws the picture. "Physical sample" and "description" are fundamentally different things. It is like the difference between "evidence" and "testimony".

There seems to be a trend, uncritical or uncaring, to declare any picture originating from any camera-work a photograph. This includes such diverse species as a press print, ink-jet print, or a monitor display. And it doesn't seem to matter how far downstream the picture is in the chain of production. If there is a camera at the front end then everything down from there is a photograph.

Advancing critical opinion will eventually get over this infatuation with cameras and re-affirm what lies at the heart of photography itself. And it is definitely not cameras.

The central principle is that light... “photos” makes marks... “graphos”. All the works of Louis Daguerre, W.H. Fox Talbot, Margaret Cameron, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, plus all the other greats fit this criterion. None are excluded. And as far as I can see the principle is decisive. There are no ambiguities.

Just think, in a hundred years time people will be able to go into a gallery, point at a picture and ask “Is this the thing that was struck by light that caused the marks that make the picture?” If the answer is yes then that picture goes with the billions of things that lie in photographic history. If no, then it may go into the even bigger pile of paintings, drawings, ink-jets, monitor images, and other fabrications.

As for digital technology, its gadgetry may be temporarily novel but its ethos is comfortingly traditional. The grand mainstream of Western Art has plenty of room for digital in all its forms and there is much future glory to be won.

[Marko]

This is not a digital vs film thread. If you have reduced it to that then it only demonstrates your narrow mindedness. It might be in the wrong place or on the wrong forum but there are several professionals on this forum whose opinions I respect and perhaps I should have just asked them directly.

Judging by the fact that virtually all of us except Merg misunderstood the real question, could it be the title of the thread that demonstrates certain level of narrow mindedness too?

Please excuse me if I remain unconvinced, but if you really did not mean digital vs. film, why mention the d-word at all?


Recently, I bid a job to do aerial photography from a rented helicopter. I bid what I thought was low, $1100. The advertising agency ended up getting it shot for $150 with a helicopter. I couldn't find a helicopter for less then $650. This is just one example of many. Is it a race to the bottom for professional photography. Will the advances in the technology continue to deteriorate the fees of professional photographers? Does this happen at higher levels of the business? Will it always be that way? Will it get better or worse? Newspaper photogs are scrambling for work, magazines are cutting budgets or won't pay at all. Builders, architects, and interior designers are tightening budgets. Everyone seems to think good enough is good enough. Supply and demand seems to be shifting. How far does it go?

Like Merg and Gordon pointed out, it is more a question of reducing the quality to the lowest common denominator, which in this revenue-driven culture is getting lower and lower itself every year.

Being in the web development business myself, believe me when I say that I have seen this same pattern unfold before. Actually, being involved with computers and technology from the very beginning of personal computing, I have seen it happen several times before the turn came to photography.

Historically speaking, every new technology brought about a wave of hacks and dilettantes who either truly believed technology could magically and effortlessly make them competent or who simply tried to profit on general ignorance and sell some snake oil. But the fact remains that the tools do not substitute for the craft, never could, never will.

The trends are going to stabilize after the technology transition completes and the hacks fall by the wayside, as they did in some of the professions that have undergone the same transition or photography is going to vanish like some others did.

Whichever way it goes, it will not happen because of digital but because of the way people perceive the value of photography itself, regardless of the technology used.