In the early 2000’s, there was a lot of outright hostility toward digital photography from people who felt heavily invested in film technique. It’s a relief that that silliness has by now pretty much disappeared, and now film is simply another photographic medium that you can choose to adopt (or not).
@[email protected] Early digital cameras really weren’t very good, particularly on the affordable end of the spectrum. I think the swing happened in the mid-2000’s, when the megapixel wars got rolling and costs came down. These days, my smartphone blows away any (pocketable) camera I’ve ever owned, although I do occasionally miss my Yashica T4 Super. That was great for walking around street photography.
@dwallach@mattblaze I have yet to experience from a digital photographic system the joy and excitement of watching an image emerge from a sheet of photographic paper as it sits in the developer tray.
@karlauerbach@mattblaze I used to spend a lot of my time in the 80’s in darkrooms. While I have a soft spot in my heart for the sharp smell of stop bath, the ability for Photoshop to adjust an image in seconds what would take substantially longer in a darkroom? Priceless.
What the shift to digital from film did for me, both in terms of shooting and processing, was that it increased my willingness to experiment by lowering the cost (time and dollars). I really leveled up in my skills.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] I was always pretty awful at darkroom work—pictures that I knew were there never came out the way that I felt that they should. I eventually resorted to dealing with a high-quality commercial lab. With digital, I can try things, undo them, copy the original and try different combinations, and more. Plus, of course, the nature of my chosen subjects means that I have to take a lot of pictures, most of which will be worthless.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] One of the benefits of being in NYC during the film era was the ready availability of high quality commercial labs - often open 24hrs - that served the commercial photography, advertising , and publishing industries. Particularly for E6 transparencies, you could get dip&dunk processing in less than an hour at any time of day for a few bucks/roll. Basically no commercial photographers, and even few fine art photographers, bothered to maintain dark rooms.
In the early 2000’s, there was a lot of outright hostility toward digital photography from people who felt heavily invested in film technique. It’s a relief that that silliness has by now pretty much disappeared, and now film is simply another photographic medium that you can choose to adopt (or not).
@[email protected] my spouse was a film person until they got their first digital camera!
@[email protected] @[email protected] I don’t miss anything about film.
@[email protected] And now we can do neat mashups of photographic techniques https://petapixel.com/2020/04/01/how-to-make-cyanotype-prints-of-your-digital-photos-at-home/
@[email protected] Early digital cameras really weren’t very good, particularly on the affordable end of the spectrum. I think the swing happened in the mid-2000’s, when the megapixel wars got rolling and costs came down. These days, my smartphone blows away any (pocketable) camera I’ve ever owned, although I do occasionally miss my Yashica T4 Super. That was great for walking around street photography.
@[email protected] Early digital photography had lower resolution and more limited dynamic range. But so what? So does some film.
@dwallach @mattblaze I have yet to experience from a digital photographic system the joy and excitement of watching an image emerge from a sheet of photographic paper as it sits in the developer tray.
@karlauerbach @mattblaze I used to spend a lot of my time in the 80’s in darkrooms. While I have a soft spot in my heart for the sharp smell of stop bath, the ability for Photoshop to adjust an image in seconds what would take substantially longer in a darkroom? Priceless.
What the shift to digital from film did for me, both in terms of shooting and processing, was that it increased my willingness to experiment by lowering the cost (time and dollars). I really leveled up in my skills.
@dwallach @karlauerbach I think I genuinely miss about 20% of darkroom work, and say “good riddance” to the other 80%.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] I was always pretty awful at darkroom work—pictures that I knew were there never came out the way that I felt that they should. I eventually resorted to dealing with a high-quality commercial lab. With digital, I can try things, undo them, copy the original and try different combinations, and more. Plus, of course, the nature of my chosen subjects means that I have to take a lot of pictures, most of which will be worthless.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] One of the benefits of being in NYC during the film era was the ready availability of high quality commercial labs - often open 24hrs - that served the commercial photography, advertising , and publishing industries. Particularly for E6 transparencies, you could get dip&dunk processing in less than an hour at any time of day for a few bucks/roll. Basically no commercial photographers, and even few fine art photographers, bothered to maintain dark rooms.