Does Digital Mean Hit and Miss Photography?

[sean_reid]

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No, I don't think the capture medium has much to do with this at all, despite endless Internet discussions to the contrary. It was, is now and ever shall be <G> up to the photographer to determine what the picture will be.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[earleygallery]

Hmmm interesting.

 

I can only speak for myself but when using the digital camera I'll rattle off shots without any worry of cost or running out of film (being more selective if the battery or memory card start running low). With film I'm more selective and take more time perhaps.

 

I would tend to agree that the less resources one has available, the more careful one is as regards the use of those resources.

 

That's not to say shooting unlimited shots on digital is a bad thing. I recently shot a wedding reception with my LC5 (D1) and took lots more shots than I would have if using film. Maybe the keeper rate was lower but I was able to embrace the reportage style and most importantly the customers were happy!

 

It would be interesting to compare results of a photo shoot of a set subject between photographers using digital, 35mm, MF and Large format cameras. I do think that the equipment we use plays a significant part on the end results (I don't mean focal length or other technical aspects, rather the way in which it leads one to behave).

[rceres]

Seems like all my best shots where manual focus using film cameras. I've tried to go back, using my New F1-N instead of my 5D. While the act of taking the picture is much more satisfying, the wait for the results and the difficulty of doing what you want with them is very tireing. It's why I've started lurking here - perhaps I NEED the M-8..

[erl]

Seems like all my best shots where manual focus using film cameras. I've tried to go back, using my New F1-N instead of my 5D. While the act of taking the picture is much more satisfying, the wait for the results and the difficulty of doing what you want with them is very tireing. It's why I've started lurking here - perhaps I NEED the M-8..

 

Not really, at least not for me. Today I took my Hasselblad MF out for a shoot at about 3pm (local time). It's now 5:20pm (local time) and I have the processed results in front of me. I didn't need to chimp or check my results as I progressed through the shoot. I knew what I was doing and got precisely what I intended. No bracketing necessary.

 

Part of the excitement is finally viewing, after processing, the result as it conforms (mostly) to ones perceived vision. Some of the best thjings in life do take a little longer.

 

But don't let that deter you from buying the M8. It is great.

 

Cheers,

Erl

[Your Old Dog]

An interesting thread, but I would take a different approach regarding digital's role in improving quality photography.

 

Photography is a learned craft, in addition to being an art form. Digital gives instant feedback on the success or failure of your composition and exposure. In many cases you have the ability to chimp between shots and compare different compositions. Film made you wait days or weeks before getting any feedback to your technique. By that time you couldn't make any adjustments to improve the shot and often had little memory of the original scene to realize what could be done to improve it.

 

In addition, the very act of culling through your photos on the computer and being able to do side by side comparisons in programs like Light Room or Aperture gives us the ability to improve our critical eye.

 

I think digital can be an awsome tool in the self taught craft of photography. Allowing you to improve your artistic eye - composition, depth of field, etc., as well as your technical expertise with exposure, contrast, etc.

 

Ditto!! I still think to learn you have to make mistakes as you don't learn much when you get it right. Being able to view your mistakes quicker offers more ability to learn. I think we will see better photography in the future, that the old masters did as well as they did was to the credit of them personally and not their "superior" equipment! We have "superior equipment" and we should be able to do better if our passion was there to the same degree as the masters.

[NickR]

I remember asking the same kind of question back in the seventies except replacing the word digital with motordrive and 35mm.

[earleygallery]

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I remember asking the same kind of question back in the seventies except replacing the word digital with motordrive and 35mm.

 

There is a fundamental difference with digital though. It's not IMO a question of the rate of shooting, rather the throwaway aspect of digital images.

 

There isn't the cost factor to consider for one thing. Duff images get deleted instead of surviving ever more in neg form. Run out of film and you've run out of film. Run out of space on the memory cards and you just delete some of the weaker images to make more space. There's no sense of wastage in doing so either (I hate to waste film).

[stunsworth]

There is a fundamental difference with digital though. It's not IMO a question of the rate of shooting, rather the throwaway aspect of digital images.

 

There isn't the cost factor to consider for one thing. Duff images get deleted instead of surviving ever more in neg form

The thing is I don't delete that many images, only the ones which are so technically bad that I would never use them. The others I keep, becasue you never know when they may be of interest in the future :-)

[audidudi]

I think digital can be an awsome tool in the self taught craft of photography. Allowing you to improve your artistic eye - composition, depth of field, etc., as well as your technical expertise with exposure, contrast, etc.

 

This is exactly why I'm finally embracing digital capture versus shooting film and scanning it, as has been my practice for the past eight years.

 

My photographic weapon of choice is an 8x10 view camera shooting color transparencies. Every time I fire the shutter, it costs me ~$10 for film and processing, which adds up quickly, as I typically bring 12 sheets of film along with me on each outing. I have enough experience now that I no longer need to bracket my exposures, which helps to keep the cost down, but compositionally, I can still use some practice. As a result, 9 out of every 10 sheets of film I expose ultimately end up in the trashcan.

 

For me, digital capture is inexpensive practice for my real photography. For a fixed lump-sum (in my case, a Panasonic DMC-L1 and a few bucks for machine work to mount the body on my view camera and purchase two lenses of focal lengths appropriate to its small sensor size), I've purchased an unlimited amount of practice time. And if I manage to get lucky with a particular image, I can still print it large enough to be satisfying.

 

Of course, most of what I photograph is tripod-based and I work out of the trunk and rear seat of my car, so hauling an extra camera, etc. along with me isn't a hardship. And when once-in-a-lifetime opportunities present themselves, I can always haul out the "big gun" camera and expose a few sheets of film...

[Cruewell]

I am an amateur and my pictures have always been improvised and sometimes quite fast, and I am no composition genius, so Digital has helped me a lot because:

1.- I can shoot more pictures without worrying about cost.

2.- By shooting RAW, I can fix small exposure and similar problems due to lack of time to prepare the shot.

3.- Since I am no master, I need several pictures to get a decent one, and since I shoot more I get more "keepers".

 

With 35 mm. photography I could never afford to print colour in my own darkroom and limited myself pretty much to shooting slides when I wasn't working with B&W (95% of the time). Also I was quite limited in size given my lousy enlarger and never went much larger than A4. Digital has allowed me to work in colour at ease and I can print easily at home up to A3+ size. This may not sound like much for pros, bit it has certainly changed my photographic life for the better a lot.

 

But I do think Digital, by making photography easier and more affordable, has also allowed the occassional photographer to flood the planet with mediocre images. If you think I can include msyelf in this category, please don't post it here! I am a BFA in Film/Video, and since the likes of Youtube are around, I have never ever come close again to a film or video camera, but that's my personal prejudice, I guess.

 

 

 

[jaapv]

The thing is I don't delete that many images, only the ones which are so technically bad that I would never use them. The others I keep, becasue you never know when they may be of interest in the future :-)

 

Exactly what I do, but after five years of digital photography, it gets somewhat time-consuming to brows the folders....

But the reason I am glad with digital photography is twofold: It has revived my interest in photography by posing a new challenge, and even more importantly it has given me back the darkroom control over my colour images, which I lost when I gave up my wet darkroom due to lack of time. Only rarely did a lab manage to output exactly what I envisaged, and now I can prepare my files, upload them to a professional printing service, and if I did my PS and profiling right (or the profiler at the printing service of course), the resulting print is exacly what I want it to be.

[devils-advocate]

Hit and Run more than hit and miss, perhaps....

 

With film, I would never have bothered to take a camera while walking to work today, only partly because of the cost, but mostly because of the time and effort involved in taking film to be developed and picking it up again. Silly, perhaps, but the way brain works...

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[ddp]

I'll take it a step further - digital has dumbed down the medium. There, I said it. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. And I'll be the first to admit that due to the flexibility of shooting RAW and chimping - I know I can get away with certain things I couldn't on film.

 

While this is advantageous in certain respects, it also leads to a bit of laziness at times. I know that I get best results using studio strobes and metering, if time allows. The majority of my digital shooting is medical / corporate - and in spaces where I am not always able to set up lighting. So digital is a Godsend at times like that. But I know that when I am shooting film in an M, or SLR - I slow the process down a bit. No AF, and I compose better. Just like when I started shooting with a Hassy instead of a Nikon F4S.

 

I think digital has helped improved many photographers - but Cruewell nailed it - there are lots of mediocre images out there that I think people post just for the sake of saying "I just bought this {name your brand} for {name your price} - what a great camera. So much better than previous version. That extra megapixel is a real paradigm shift I tell ya."

 

Personally, I get a tremendous amount of pleasure of using a 41 year old M3 and the Kodalux meter my late father used on his Retina. Sometimes, I just want to tune out the digital noise of this day & age and go back to what got me started in photography in the first place. I'm hardly a Luddite - and anyone on this site who knows me knows my background. I have plenty of digital images on Flickr....it's just a perception I have from dumping CF cards for the last 7 years....

[Guest stnami]

there are lots of mediocre images out there.... and in shoe boxes..........................

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I think digital has helped improved many photographers

,, there are many photographers that have never used film and more so in the future

[leicaM8freak]

I am still in doubt about what my answer is going to be.

I have been in the biz for many years now and used nearly everything that was out there.

But never digital

The M8 is my first ever D camera for professional work.

(my wife uses a P&S Sony DSC F828 whit much pleasure)

 

My biggest love is using my Linhof Technorama 617..this camera makes you really think before you actualy push the release having only 4 shots to a roll...

 

In the couple of hours I was able to use the M8 before it returned to its home country, I used the same caution, I think it has become a part of my being as a photographer to be so selective.

 

So I do not see myself taking 100's of shots to try and get one decent enough to keep.

 

It is a fact that there is huge amount of newbie's on this forum and the balance of the visitors to LUF is far in favor for the digital part.

 

This might mean there are a lot of people just jumping into Leica because of the availablility of a Digital RF and/or Leica, which for some people still means status.

 

I presume there will indeed be users who continue using the M8 as they were used to using their DSLR/AF machines...shot shot shot shot shot okay, if we get lucky we could keep 1 out of 68.

 

My only reason for going digital is the huge demand in virtual and WEB based photographs as asked for by clients, and the economical aspect...good prolabs are hard to find nowadays and getting very deer.

 

Like in most things I strongly feel we are getting used to a lesser quality beacuse of the extensive use of computer as a medium to watch pictures/movies.

 

Personally I would not like to go there, but it is a sign of the times IMO.

 

Let me come back to you when I used my M8 more often after it returns from Solms.

 

In the meantime I am afraid this forum is going to be flooded soon (when the supply of M8's really gets going) with pictures posted just for posting sake, or to discus the " quality" of the camera output, instead of the quality of the picture.

 

Please remember that some of histories most impressive pics where full of flare,wrong Bokeh, dust and noise.

 

Nowadays its quality only seems to be dictated by the technical capacity of a camera

 

Just my thoughts....

[lars_bergquist]

My God, not again. This discussion has run at least four times before:

 

1870's: Does the Dry Plate Mean Hit-and-Miss Photography?

1890's: Does Roll Film Mean Hit-and-Miss Photography?

1930's: Does 35 mm Mean Hit-and-Miss Photography?

1970's: Does Motor Drive Mean Hit-and-Miss Photography?

 

And now: Does Digital ...

 

There is no hit-and-miss photo technology. There are only hit-and-miss photographers (though 'miss-and-miss' would perhaps be more appropriate).

 

The old man from the Age of the Wet Plate (well, nearly ...)

[Cruewell]

This is not in direct answer to this thread's topic, but I'd like to say I do believe the future of photography is definetely Digital (with capital "d"). Just thinking how much more I (pretty much the average Sunday photographer but with a larger budget) get out of time spent with a camera in my hands since I changed my old, dusty, light-leaking, B&W darkroom for a Mac, I am 100% certain about this.

 

Maybe film will still have enough followers to keep going, but the vast majority of photographers, pro and amateur alike, are going digital, and business is business, so the photo industry will focus primarily on digital equipment.

 

As an example, when I was at Film school, some 15 years ago, we used the old 16 mm. film cameras that had been used a couple of decades before to shoot t.v. newsreels. These same cameras had been expensive, profesional equipment back then. Now an extra 15 years have gone by since I left school and you won't even find a lab in Spain that will process 16 mm film! Blame that on video equipment. I don't say this with sadness, since the overall quality of images is way better now, but definetely with some nostalgia.

[jaapv]

Five years on digital now, over fifty on film. I don't think the capture medium has changed my style a lot. I still shoot sparingly as I like to consider the subject first and old habits die hard. But what digital does do is that I have the possibility of immediately seeing what I did and adapt the next shot, by changing my point of view, DOF etc, thus improving my photography. But mainly it has posed me a new challenge and renewed my interest plus, most importantly, it has given me back my darkroom and my control over my colour images.

[tom0511]

Actually I dont use glass filters for b&w but have learned much more how a filter influences the result. I only have to take one shot and can check out the influence of red, yelllow etc. filter later.

 

Also I am still motivated to really get the shot correct in the first step (specially exposure).

Digital has not changed this for me.

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[goldchen96]

Hi to all of you,

first post on this very nice and informative forum. Thank you all for nice reads, profound information and the pleasing atmosphere!

 

After having started using dslr and digital workflow around two years ago: despite all the positives discussed here a zillion of times, I deliberatly use M6 and b/w again for private work. It`s so much fun, I love the film look and enjoy the, in a way, more sensible approach to it also stated by some forum members in this thread. I do like digtal capture and have no problems with it, ´cause I very much appreciate the instant review possibility. My (film)-photography benefits a lot. I`m on a steep learning curve because of that. By the way, we still have the choice, haven`t we? To choose what suits our needs. At least for the next few years...

 

Have fun, make pictures.

LF, MF, Nikon Dslr, Leica M6

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