I hate when people assume.

Steven L said:

That's when I show them two pictures. One made with a fairly good digital SLR, printed on good quality paper with a decent printer. Second picture made with the analogue SLR, printed at the local 35mm print shop. That's when they know why.

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You have a print shop that still makes decent prints? They're becoming a rarity here. Most places now, if you drop off a roll of film and ask for prints, you get back some pretty crappy digital prints that weren't really worth paying for at all.

Worker 11811 said:

I don't think "eye" is as important as some people think.

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Wow, tell that to my editors at the New York Times, National Geographic Adventure and all the other clients I shoot for and they will laugh at you.

There is no substitute for raw talent my friend, some people have it, most don't. It can be developed to a point, after that, you are only going to get so good.

My take on it?

It's the same person who sees my D800 and says, "Wow, I bet you get really good pictures with that" that would chime in and say, "Wow, is that a film camera? stuck in the past huh..."

This person is one who is into cameras, not photography and there is a big difference. I always love to reply "I'm sorry, but it is just a camera, the photos don't happen until an actual person with a creative approach to seeing the world picks it up and uses it." Then I get the "So you don't think the camera matters much? or "So you still think film is better?" And then I say, no, that has nothing to do with if you are an actual photographer with talent or just one of millions of people who think they are just because they own a camera.

I often find when someone makes fun of or otherwise bashes a photographic medium it is because they lack talent or are intimidated by the notion you are not going along the same path as millions of other people. Real photographers never do this, they appreciate the final image, the personal story behind it, not the damn gear or what film you used...

PKM-25 said:

Wow, tell that to my editors at the New York Times, National Geographic Adventure and all the other clients I shoot for and they will laugh at you.

There is no substitute for raw talent my friend, some people have it, most don't. It can be developed to a point, after that, you are only going to get so good.

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Hmm, "raw talent" .... only going to get so "good" ....

Don't kid yourself, "my friend." "Raw talent" is about as meaningful as "good taste." And you usually don't hear about either except from the people who claim to have it.

I once had raw talent... but I burned it to charcoal with too high of an attitude setting. I settle for medium talent these days and am happy when it reaches medium well.

jglass said:

Don't kid yourself, "my friend." "Raw talent" is about as meaningful as "good taste." And you usually don't hear about either except from the people who claim to have it.

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Add to the list "common sense" which is not all that common.

PKM-25 said:

Wow, tell that to my editors at the New York Times, National Geographic Adventure and all the other clients I shoot for and they will laugh at you.

There is no substitute for raw talent my friend, some people have it, most don't. It can be developed to a point, after that, you are only going to get so good.

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I think I gave the wrong impression when I said that having a good eye isn't important.

The term "eye" is often used as a cliché meaning "somebody can see a good picture." I see that as separate from talent or technical ability.

Yes, you need to have an "eye" to be able to "see" a good photograph but it is the talent to be able to translate your vision into something the viewer can respond to and the technical ability to get that vision onto film and, ultimately, into a print which makes you a good photographer. "Eye" is only one third of the process.

Have you ever been walking on the beach, looking at a sunset when somebody says, "Wow, I wish I had a camera! That would make a great picture!" That person might have a good eye but that's not the half of it.

A good photographer might think, "That's nice but I want to get this jetty into the foreground to add depth and interest." He is also probably thinking something like, "I need to change my exposure by two stops and I need to consider developing a for a little less time and, maybe, I want to throw a filter over the lens, etc., etc."

It takes "eye" and talent and skill to be a good photographer. That's what I meant when I said that having a good eye isn't so important.

Moopheus said:

You have a print shop that still makes decent prints? They're becoming a rarity here. Most places now, if you drop off a roll of film and ask for prints, you get back some pretty crappy digital prints that weren't really worth paying for at all.

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I have two places I can bring my 35mm film. They send it to a central developing and printing factory. The stores don't have the actual developing machine. Actually, over here in Holland it's easier to have it developed and printed, than to do it yourself. Chemicals are hard to come by.

Worker 11811 said:

It takes "eye",talent and skill to be a good photographer

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amen!

When I was young I thought I had a good artistic eye, some raw talent, and reasonable intelligence. And I did. These things aided my ability to create decent images... images long gone after many years of losses.

While I still recognize these points I can't help but feel a bit of arrogance among us. As my body and mind deteriorate I truly wish those, with their "special gifts", would open their minds a bit.

Closed-mindedness and arrogance can be a very dangerous thing.....

Old-N-Feeble said:

I once had raw talent... but I burned it to charcoal with too high of an attitude setting. I settle for medium talent these days and am happy when it reaches medium well.

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You should draw with that charcoal

Darkroom317 said:

You should draw with that charcoal

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My charcoal is long gone.

I hate it when people think just because I tote around a Nikon F4 with a 50mm or a RZ67 that I'm some super rich photog from NYC. Then I tell them that I paid $350 for my RZ, then they see the results and they think I'm a liar.

I also hate it when my friend Cat thinks digital is sooooo much better then film because "ya know, you get all scratches and hairs on film" Oh the silly things blond girls say

Shootar401 said:

I hate it when people think just because I tote around a Nikon F4 with a 50mm or a RZ67 that I'm some super rich photog from NYC. Then I tell them that I paid $350 for my RZ, then they see the results and they think I'm a liar.

I also hate it when my friend Cat thinks digital is sooooo much better then film because "ya know, you get all scratches and hairs on film" Oh the silly things blond girls say

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You're hanging around with the wrong people.

Shootar401 said:

I also hate it when my friend Cat thinks digital is sooooo much better then film because "ya know, you get all scratches and hairs on film" Oh the silly things blond girls say

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Digicams get dust too! When they do, it's often worse than when a film camera gets dusty.
Last year, when I worked at the photo studio in the mall, they had to clean their digicams every day. Cleaning a digicam is very touchy work. If you scratch the sensor, the entire camera is trashed.

Even cameras that have "automatic sensor cleaning" and "dust removal" dust is still a problem.
Automatic sensor cleaning merely places a static electric charge across the sensor plane, causing the dust to be repelled from the surface. The dust doesn't go anywhere. It's still inside the camera, free to be attracted back to the sensor at any time. According to Murphy, usually the least convenient time.
Dust removal programs don't remove the dust. They just cancel it out the way that dust removal from a scanner works. The data is stored in memory and used to digitally remove dust from the picture before it is stored. The problem is that data is altered and there is no way to see what your image really looked like before the computer inside the camera did its magic. That's why most digicams with dust removal programs have a way to either turn it off or clear the memory.

Further, if dust, dirt or smudges get on the lens, there's nothing that ANY camera can do to compensate. The lens must be removed from the camera and manually cleaned. When you remove the lens from the camera, guess what? The inside of the camera is exposed to dust.

Dust is a problem for all photographers. Digitographers just handle it differently.

I do concede, however, that spotting a photograph digitally, using Photoshop, is a whole lot faster than doing it by hand with a spotting brush!