why do people go crazy about DSLRs, or digital in general?

[m_.]

You know, one of the most wierd thing about my wedding last Saturday

was that some people left me a photo CD by the end of the party.

Asked one of them why he needed to run home and burn a CD for me on

the same night, he laughed and said I was way behind time. Then he

pulled out a small cigar box looking thing and showed me how he

burned the CD by inserting the CF card and with a one-push button.

The entire damn thing was powered by AA batteries.

 

But that's only part of the story here so don't get excited yet. I

developped slides and B&w, compared to the CDs from all different

kinds of cameras: Nikon D70, Canon D-Rebel and many others. Sorry I

have to say, film still blows these digital "junks" away. It's

true. If you put the digital prints next to (also digital) prints

from slide or b/w negatives, I don't see how anyone can argue they

are as good as the other. And if you put a digital print with a

darkroom prints from film, man, you are in for a lesson.

 

So why people are still crazy about all the digital photography and

you hear these days just about zillion times more for digital than

film? Okay, so they are not "better or worse, just different", but

shoot me, we are talking about photography still, aren't we? can

someone tell me again why digital stuff is so great? Oh yeah, don't

tell me again that they can hand me the CDs right after the party. I

am through with that one. :-)

 

So I am out searching for a M6 and 'lux 35/1.4.

 

BTW: haven't recovered my lost camera yet and the insurance company

won't pay for any lost due to my forgetfulness (yeah, they have a

better and a more legitimate term for the word but I don't remember

now). I am determined to get one before my trip in less than 3

weeks. My wife just surprised me by writing me a $2000 check for a

camera. And check this out, she actually wrote "Leica" above the

memo line, and she spelled it correctly. Reminds me an old Chinese

phrase: In turn of every bad thing happened, there is a good thing

remained.

[douglas_green1]

Don't lose her. You won't find many wives who'd write a check for a $2000 Leica.

[roger_michel]

shouldn't you be on a honeymoon or something??

[will_woodford1]

My wife bought me an M6TTL and a 50mm Summicron.

 

One day a box showed up from BH.....

[maury_cohen]

The crazy-ness has to do with technology, gadgets and immediacy. Digital technology allows the average person access to a modern miracle. I think men in particular are ph-ascinated by photographic technology in genereal and digital is the newest wave of that.

[scott_mcloughlin]

Awesome news on your soon-to-be-new Leica. Nice wedding present :-)

 

Why do folks like digital.

 

-1- Lots of people think digital images are better quality, just by virtue of being "digital". Kind of like "CD quality" in music 15 years or so ago.

 

-2- People are really swayed by good mass marketing. The marketeers have really built up "momentum" and that's hard for most folks to resist.

 

-3- Most people really think technology is neat. They aren't geeks, but the idea of technology makes them feel empowered. I write commercial software.

 

-4- A $1.2K D70 kit seems kind of cheap. A $1.2K used M6 seems kind of expensive. To most folks. Computerizing cameras has raised the perceived optimum price point for cameras in buyers' minds (lumped in with computers and monitors and other pricey consumer stuff). Marketeers really like this :-)

 

-5- Most users have never considered lens quality in their purchase of a film camera. They bough APS (panorama!), or some "3x Zoom" or something small and cute and metal (Original Elph). Glass and shutter speeds and flash power has never been major considerations in most consumers' camera purchases.

 

-6- Looking at the picture right away has the old polaroid appeal. I was a kid in the 70's and there are still shoe boxes of old really faded polaroids around. It was a big craze back then (pictures under the armpit, etc.)

 

So go figure. Until someone fills the archival need of families (right price point, offering, good marketing, etc.), there unfortunately won't be alot of negatives or prints around 40 years from now. It makes me sad.

 

Other than the archival issue (data backup is a big problem and big business in the traditional data processing world), I have nothing against digital.

 

But I'm shooting lots and lots of black and white these days, and filling shoe boxes with negatives (figuratively speaking).

 

Scott

[m_.]

>>roger michel , may 04, 2004; 02:48 p.m.

shouldn't you be on a honeymoon or something??

 

I am but officially it starts on 5/20 when we will be flying out.

[m_.]

>>Scott McLoughlin , may 04, 2004; 03:02 p.m.

Most people really think technology is neat. They aren't geeks, but the idea of technology makes them feel empowered. I write commercial software.

 

Scott: you might just hit the nail here. It seems to be the case.

[jbq]

Two words: "good enough" (for most people, that is, which implies that 5x7 is already a "big" print). And honestly a 6MPix DSLR with a kit lens blows out of the water any disposable camera loaded with Kodak Max 800.

 

The camera is no substitute for a good photographer, though, and a good photographer will manage to take good pictures with just about any camera.

[steve g]

I wouldn't trash digital so quick<br>

I learned 90% or more of all the technical aspects of photography by having a free summer a couple years ago(bad job market = fewer jobs for teens) and a digital camera with full manual controls (not dslr though). I read as much as I could online, then went outside, took pictures, came inside, downloaded, reviewed, revised, and tried again. I didn't have to drive to the lab, I didn't have to dev in my bathroom after dark, I didn't have to wait 1-24 hours. Shoot, download, review, try again. Plus the lower exposure latitude of small digital sensors made me more disciplined in exposure. I have become extremely good at determining exposure by eye, with the ability to shoot meterless indoors or out and this is a product of instant feedback. Instant feedback also helped me understand how to use a bounce flash properly, and now I can shoot sucessfully with it on my film cameras.

<br><br>

Now that being said, I quickly bought a lot of film gear once I had my training wheels off and had the tech part out of the way. I now have a certain love for vintage equipment and the average age of my cameras is probably double my age (I am 20).

<br><br>

And another nice thing about digital:<br>

when you want a lightmeter, a decent digital camera makes the best lightmeter possible. I enjoy night, on tripod photography, and on a walk with a friend this weekend, we used my digital to give us starting points for exposure. We of course accounted for reciprocacy failure, and the like, and bracketed some shots, but the digital gave an excellent starting point. I could have gone meterless, but its just that much more exact when I can use my digital as a lightmeter.

[dan_fromm2]

A while ago I had a discussion about photographing fishes in aquaria with a character who was a fine aquarist and a fervent advocate of digital cameras. He argued that with his digital machine he could make (no kidding) "a thousand shots in a weekend" at no cost but that doing the same on film would bankrupt him. Also, by selling each year's digital toy at the end of the year he could keep up with technology and not eat too much depreciation. He got a couple of keepers a weekend. Based on his pictures in a magazine I've also sold pictures to, I do better on KM than he does on digital. As far as I can tell, my annual outlays on film and processing are less than the depreciation he eats. But he does take many, many more shots than I do.

 

I asked him about his experience with film. It came out, with great reluctance and accusations of overly cruel treatment from bystanders, that he'd shot three rolls of color negative film when first starting out, hadn't like the results, and that was it for film.

 

It seems there's something about using a digital camera that eliminates the need to learn technique. The instant gratification digital gives eliminates the need to have faith that one's done the necessary well enough. And taking gazillions of shots of moving subjects eliminates the need to learn how to cope with them.

 

In other words, digital is for complete idiots. As a person who often feels like one, I feel its attraction. And when I look around me I see mainly complete idiots.

 

On the other hand, this March I ran into a fellow near Royal Palm who was shooting a wildflower with a very spiffy digital Canon rig. $$$$$$. I chatted with him. He'd grown up shooting film, knew what he was doing, felt that he got results with his digital rig that were as good as he'd have got with film AND liked knowing that he'd got a keeper or two before he left a site. A very serious person indeed. So people who choose to use digital equipment aren't all complete idiots who are ignorant of the technology they know they don't like.

 

Digital is just another technology for capturing, manipulating, and presenting images. If it meets your needs and situation better than film, good for you. If film makes better sense for you, equally good for you.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

[staticlag]

<i>"I am determined to get one before my trip in less than 3 weeks. My wife just surprised me by writing me a $2000 check for a camera. And check this out, she actually wrote "Leica" above the memo line, and she spelled it correctly. Reminds me an old Chinese phrase: In turn of every bad thing happened, there is a good thing remained."

</i>

<p>

damn, and I dont even have a girlfriend.

[m_.]

Daniel: But maybe you have the young age on your side? :-)

[patricks]

WenTong et al,

 

once for all, a DSLR like a D70 doesn't substitute a M-set-up, but rather compliments it. I can think of hundreds of applications where I would prefer a DSLR to a M. For the majority of my humble work, I think a DLSR is actually more effective/better, but for personal satisfaction and sheer user experience joy for doing available light/candid/environmental portraits, I still think a M set-up is fantastic.

 

It all depends on the indended usage of the output, many/most of the times, digital is simply easier/faster/more convenient/cheaper and sometimes even more fun...

 

cheers,

 

p.

[EricM]

Wentong, after the initial cost of a digital body, there is no cost. I know that�s not news to you. It�s also instant gratification. Faster is better for the masses. Right? It�s relentless shooting, trying things some people wouldn�t experiment with if it was costing a buck a shot with a film camera. I�m not pro digital. But a huge void that digital fills is the virtual world where a hard copy is never needed or printed. I understand that. But to shoot a wedding on anything other than film is just plain silly in my opinion.

[icuneko]

Wentong, Why be surprised that your wife--a woman--can spell Leica!

[m_.]

>>S. Linke , may 04, 2004; 03:29 p.m.

Wentong, Why be surprised that your wife--a woman--can spell Leica!

 

I was surprised not because she is a woman who can spell "Leica" but because I thought she never paid attention to what camera equipment I used. Well, I thought wrong.

[steve_chan5]

<i>I was surprised not because she is a woman who can spell "Leica" but because I thought she never paid attention to what camera equipment I used. Well, I thought wrong.</i>

<p>Well, many women know how to spell "Versace" and "Salvatore Ferragamo", so they have lots of practice with foreign names...

[paul_lee5]

I agree with the people who say that digital and film are just different and that there is a

place for both of them. I personally prefer film, but I don't deny that digital - being able to

shoot in RAW format, for example - innovates (revolutionizes?) the way people take

photos.

 

My only lament is that with most consumers (and money) going to digital, it's just going to

get more and more expensive to work with film. Film manufacturers will have much less

incentive to develop new film technologies. Film labs will be forced to close shop or raise

prices just to stay afloat. My frustration is that in a couple years, I might not have a choice

between shooting film or digital. I might be forced to shoot digital. While not the end of

the world, admittedly, it wouldn't be ideal. Having a choice is always better than not

having one.

[m_.]

Paul: I am with you but haven't noticed any price jump on film printing, at least not on the local level. Not yet, maybe?

[paul_lee5]

Wentong: Yes, you're right. Perhaps I'm being alarmist? :)

[max_fun]

I'm with Stephen Gomes. I, like many others, had to teach myself photography, so starting

out with a cheap digital camera really helped me to practice composition and most

importantly, it allowed me to enjoy photography. And it's precisely because I love

photography now that I've dabbled into Leica Ms.

 

Image quality of a picture, be it digital or film, depends a lot on the equipment. So if you

use Leica lenses, naturally you'll have an advantage with the photograph. If you use a

Leica/Zeiss lens on a digital body, the effect will be beautiful as well. Sometimes, digital

prints don't look as good as film prints because they had not been post-processed

properly, just as a photo printed from a bad minilab can look bad as well. However, since

digital post-processing is usually done by amateur-one-touch-printout hands, it's more

likely that a digital print out would look worse than a film print. If you give a digital image

to a professional to post-process and print, there's no question that the print out will be

gorgeous.

 

Of course, here's the greatest benefit of shooting digital: the digital dark-room. No more

chemicals, no more time consuming processing. Everything can be easily done digitally. Of

course, you can scan your film to be processed digitally, but that also takes time quite

some time to scan.

 

Another benefit of digital cameras is that since you can have smaller than 35mm sensors,

the size of the camera/lens can become much smaller. Image quality with smaller sensors

would suffer, but the convenience of the small setup might outweigh the loss. Would you

prefer having a 28-200mm coverage on your belt instead of a whole bag of lenses and

having to swap them around often?

[steve_chan5]

<i>Having a choice is always better than not having one.</i>

<p>Did you ever read the Scientific American article about satisficers vs. maximixers? (it was a topic of discussion a few weeks back here on the forum). For people who need to have <b>The Best</b> (for whatever definition of "best"), a plethora of choices actually leaves them less happy, because they obsess about "what could have been" and often have buyers remorse, and/or constantly trade-up when the next, newest and bestesy thing shows up.

<p>Perhaps that is part of the appeal of Leicas to some people - once someone has convinced themself that Leica is the ne plus ultra of traditional photography, they can feel safe and snug for a decade or so until Leica introduces their next model. People are not buying Leicas for photographic quality, so much as peace of mind.

[vic_.]

It's not just a Leica thing:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0083fw

[m_.]

>>Steve Chan , may 04, 2004; 04:32 p.m.

People are not buying Leicas for photographic quality, so much as peace of mind.

 

Hm...now, that's an interesting point of view.