Mysterious Digital Dependence

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

"Digital processes cannot be true photography" is a defensive luddite position.

Jesus Paul, would you give it a rest? I dont think John intended this thread as one more thread about ink jet vs classic processes.

Digital processed cannot be true photography is an opinion, not a posture. I would have thought that the fact that many of us "Luddites" are using a computer to access this forum would have made it evident to you we are not against digital progress. I would like to think we are just selective in the uses we give it. Where is better we do, where is not we dont.

[Oren Grad]

I however, like many on this list, photograph only for my own pleasure; because I enjoy the process, just as many enjoy woodworking, or painting, or fishing, or playing sports (in this respect there's nothing unusual about valuing the process over the result). And while I might eventually get into digital capture photography, I resent the feeling of having my hand forced.

I, too, will regret very much if film goes away entirely. I don't think it will happen anytime soon, at least with B&W film which is what I really care about, but it's certainly possible.

But there are two sides to every coin. A massive shift of the market to a new technology tells you that there are many people who are happy to be free from being "forced" to use an older technology that they find less satisfactory, for whatever reason.

The "glass half full" view says that photographers who are hard-core devotees of traditional materials have benefited over the years from a generous cross-subsidy implicit in the volume sales of traditional emulsions to users who bought them because they didn't have much alternative, not because they especially appreciated their subtleties or enjoyed the particular discipline of using them.

Now those users are free to take their patronage elsewhere, and we have to pay full freight if we want to keep traditional products alive. That's unfortunate for us, and time will tell whether we can afford to keep them alive. But I don't see that there's any particular injustice here.

[paulr]

"would you give it a rest? I dont think John intended this thread as one more thread about ink jet vs classic processes."

Hey man, I didn't hijack this thread. I'm doing my best to beat back the hijackers. It's very tiresome when every mention of a pixel brings the wolves to the door.

"I would like to think we are just selective in the uses we give it. Where is better we do, where is not we dont."

If that were the case, no one would be arguing. Everyone would be happily using whatever process they like. But as it is, certain people seem to need to attack the legitemacy of newer processes, and to do so every chance they get. Never mind that it's almost always people with little or no serious experience with the processes they're attacking. That's where the word "luddite" comes in. I like it. It sounds like the name of a barbaric tribe, one that storms into your village with clubs at regular intervals to steal babies.

[Melchi M. Michel]

Oren,

I didn't mean to imply that there was any injustice being perpetrated by the market (though that means very little; I doubt that a hurricane victim would feel any better when told that the hurricane that razed his house had no moral aim). Rather, just as marketing gurus and digital advocates lobby casual users (rather successfully) to cast off their antiquated film feeders and pick up the latest product, I think it is completely appropriate for admirers of traditional methods to try to recruit or retain users by occasionally writing posts extolling the virtues of these older methods. Further, I think they should be allowed to do so without having the epithet of "Luddite" hurled at them in response.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Well Paul, from my POV you are one of the highjackers too.....

[Mike Chini]

Dave-

Sorry for the delay in response...

Talk of the uselessness of digital equipment is not nonsense. I work with numerous pros, some have whom have been shooting digitally for quite some time. Most of their equipment from just 2 years ago is 100% useless to them right now. Some of it is no longer supported; some of it has broken and other equipment never worked all that well in the first place but it was purchased to satisfy certain clients. My main point however is that the durability is not there. CF cards fail constantly. RAW file support down the road is a huge question mark. CCD's also fail along with the complicated electrical components surrounding them. I simply do not feel confident that my spending $5K for a Nikon D2X will be worth it in the long run. I'm sure this will all change in the near future but I still think that most corporations' emphasis now is on image quality, speed and file size and as with any new technology, people are quick to upgrade on a regular basis. Instead of overhead going down (since the advent of digital) it has gone WAY up - constant software upgrades, hard drive storage and backup, memory cards, new lenses, batteries, chargers, printers, ink, heck even electricity, high speed internet etc. Most of the pros I know and work with have very deep 5-figure investments in digital right now with no end in sight. Just 3 or 4 years ago, their overhead was a fraction of that. Sorry for the rant...anyways, I'm sure you can still go out with your D30 and take a picture. But odds are that camera won't outlast my Toyo AX and you should consider yourself lucky if it's functioning well a few years from now.

[Oren Grad]

Rather, just as marketing gurus and digital advocates lobby casual users (rather successfully) to cast off their antiquated film feeders and pick up the latest product, I think it is completely appropriate for admirers of traditional methods to try to recruit or retain users by occasionally writing posts extolling the virtues of these older methods. Further, I think they should be allowed to do so without having the epithet of "Luddite" hurled at them in response.

Melchi -

I agree entirely.

[David Luttmann]

Mike,

I agree. Talk of usefulness is not a waste. However, people who go on about formats vanishing in a couple of years, JPG being not readable by any computer in 20 years, etc, etc, is pure garbage.

But for Rich, the tables can be turned as well. Shall I ask him where to get film for a disc camera, 126, 127, super 8, 110. All those formats and many more have fallen by the wayside. It's not like have different digital formats is something new. For him to go on and on about digital formats vanishing is ridiculous as the same thing has happened with film. I don't hear him screaming about that. Funny isn't it.

Once again, I guess having a camera that is obsolete is OK if it's film, but not if it's digital. SOme people just have a fear ( or bias) for anything new.

[Brian C. Miller]

I come from the perspective of having four computers under my desk, one of which is a dual-processesor 64-bit PA-RISC workstation which weighs over 100#, and another uses liquid cooling. I started with computers when Commodore made the P.E.T. I am my landlord's ISP.

I expect that I shall come off as a luddite, though I am not anti-machine. Rather, I am pro-functionality and pro-cost effectiveness.

For many years digital cameras haven't been all that great, i.e. not as really useable as a camera as a camera is useable as a camera. They aren't that versatile. I recently borrowed a 5Mp Canon from a friend. Recent vintage, I think he bought it last year. To use this camera I had to go to the Canon website and download the 100+ page manual and drivers. Then I spent over an hour learning how to get it into macro mode and manual focus. (I never could tell if it was precisely in focus or not) I have never experienced such absolute frustration with any film camera.

I have played tech support for another fellow because he decided to use a digital camera with his handyman business. He isn't technically adept, and I had to really work with him so he could use his camera, and print out pictures to show his clients what he had done on the job. I really think he should have bought a decent P&S film camera and just stuck with it. One day, I joked to him, "You bought a digital orgasm and it was pixelated!" He agreed.

I'm not buying a high-end digital camera until I am convinced that I will benefit from it, i.e., that it provides better value that what I have with film and a scanner. With my Epson 3200, I get scans which are the same quality as the basic $50 drum scan I get from the pro lab. That's worth six drum scans. My Epson 2200 does a good job of printing, and 60 prints from it means its paid for itself. I develop color film in my Jobo, and it doesn't take that long, and I am happy with the result. And I bought the Jobo used once, half-price, with all of the accessories thrown in for free.

Therefore, there is no digital siren sweetly singing to me. I have a quality bar that a digital camera must cross. It has to have a certain level of functionality as a normal camera. I have no interest in buying something because someone else is fascinated by it.

Digital cameras have replaced 35mm cameras for many photographers. No digital camera will replace 35mm for me because my main use of 35mm is for Kodak HIE. When Kodak stops producing HIE then I'll chuck my 35mm cameras. I use HIE because it doesn't have an antihalation layer, and that quality of the material is significant to what I produce. While a digital camera will render an IR picture, it doesn't have the necessary bloom or response range I require.

While John Cook is satisfied with not using digital at all, I am satisfied to use it where it actually fits.

[paulr]

Brian, there's nothing remotely luddite-ish about what you wrote. You looked at your needs, examined what's available, and made a choice. That's far from making a blanket prejucicial decision, and it's also not a judgement you're imposing on other people.