I'm going to be controversial with this post

Mainecoonmaniac · Jul 14, 2015

Has this happen to you? Have you ever looked at a photo that you're completely in love with? You find out it's a digital image, you then later don't hold the image with the same esteem? I want your spin on cognitive bias with photography.

Is a good shot is a good shot regardless how it's made? For disclosure, I prefer to shoot film, but I use a digital camera also.

With photography, I don't think there are any right or wrongs.

Trail Images · Jul 14, 2015

I'm a film only shooter. If I like the image I couldn't care about the media used. However, I do not like over the top excessive manipulation no matter what the original process was.
It's like seeing a movie made in the arctic with rows of palm trees lining the roadway, it don't work for me.

TheFlyingCamera · Jul 14, 2015

It would make a difference to me when buying a print, especially a black-and-white print, especially when it comes time to consider price, but quality trumps all. If faced with a great image made digitally and a not-as-good image made on film, in the end, knowing it was made with a particular medium doesn't make it any easier to look at every day.

ToddB · Jul 14, 2015

This is what's wonderful about film. If you take an awesome image with film camera, you have so much more option for final product. You have the option of printing it in your darkroom and scanning it for a digital images. The fight with myself as you touched on with digital your kind of limited with printing option and look. I know with my recent trip to Greece. I was shooting like crazy with 120 and 35mm and came away with a sense of satisfaction from what I yielded. Knowning that I can do both.. print in my darkroom and a scan for digital. I did shoot a few images with my point and digital too , however I don't keep as esteem as my film images as you mentioned. Great thread.

Todd

summicron1 · Jul 14, 2015

this debate is as old as art -- is a Degas as good as a Degas if it was done by someone who could fake Degas better than Degas could?

Mainecoonmaniac · Jul 14, 2015

That's not what my intent of this post

summicron1 said:
this debate is as old as art -- is a Degas as good as a Degas if it was done by someone who could fake Degas better than Degas could?

This thread is more along the lines of Marshall McLuhan's quote "The medium is the message".

Dead Link Removed

wiltw · Jul 14, 2015

Does anyone dislike a painting because it was acrylic rather than oil?!
Does anyone dislike a book because it was composed on a PC rather than on a typewriter?!
Does anyone dislike a piece of music because it was mastered digitally rather than on tape?!
Does anyone dislike a movie because it was filmed with a digital movie camera rather than in Technicolor on film?!

I would love to shoot film for a long time, but they discontinue all the emulsions I loved to use, and so I now also use a digital camera.

ToddB · Jul 14, 2015

I guess I'll enjoy it as long as it holds out. We have a stack of broken D3 in our equipment locker at work that are broken. They are completely worthless. At 5 grand a piece on the time purchase, a complete rip off for you get out of them. 5 to 7 years of use. that sucks!

Todd

gone · Jul 14, 2015

While I would agree that a good image is a good image, and who cares how it came to be, it is very, very seldom that I mistake a digital pic for a film pic, especially if it is in B&W. I have a digital camera too, and use it to take photos of my film cameras if I decide to sell them. I hate all things digital, and especially movies. My eyes can tell tight away if its a digitally made movie, and I won't look at it. It is pure dee uglee. No tonal range, narrow and blown highlights, quite often the bokeh and colour are abominable. Needless to say I don't watch many new movies! Which is fine, as the movies of today, except for a few independently made films, are just crap. Computer graphics and unrelenting violence are not my thing. And nothing digital will ever be as half as good as Technicolor.

I would say that the limitation of the media is the message. And the message is its fast, its cheap, and its good enough. Well, not for me it isn't. I have SOME standards. Not many, but some.

Old-N-Feeble · Jul 14, 2015

I don't bias... I only have one as... and I don't care what others think of it.

Nathan King · Jul 14, 2015

No, but I did lose interest in an image after I found out it was a composite.

Vonder · Jul 14, 2015

My own version of this has to do with a prejudice against digital B&W images. On social media I typically won't comment or "like" a digital B&W unless it really blows my socks off. I also won't like any photo regardless of origin if it has a watermark. There are far to many photographers in name only who feel compelled to digitally pee on their "work" to mark it, vainly hoping for recognition.

Ultimately my "likes" and my opinions don't mean Jack Squat (that's Diddly Squat to you folks down south) to anyone but me. An awesome image is an awesome image to the viewer who deems it awesome. In today's politically correct climate disliking ANYTHING is considered snobbery, whilst liking certain things gets you branded as a card-carrying member any of a number of unpleasant associations.

David Brown · Jul 14, 2015

Mainecoonmaniac said:
Have you ever looked at a photo that you're completely in love with? You find out it's a digital image, you then later don't hold the image with the same esteem?

Not any more. I've gotten over my "digital is bad" phase.

ToddB said:
We have a stack of broken D3 in our equipment locker at work that are broken. They are completely worthless. At 5 grand a piece on the time purchase, a complete rip off for you get out of them. 5 to 7 years of use. that sucks!

That does, indeed "suck". However, what has that got to do with one liking a photograph?

EdSawyer · Jul 14, 2015

I have yet to see a printed image where I couldn't tell if it was digital or analog upon close inspection. And if I can tell that it's digital, then yes, it's worth less in my eyes as a piece of art, craft, and investment. I always have to think "how much better would this have been if shot on film and optically printed?", and usually it's not a small difference in how much of a quality improvement it would be. Irrational? Perhaps.

moose10101 · Jul 14, 2015

Wolfeye said:
I also won't like any photo regardless of origin if it has a watermark. There are far to many photographers in name only who feel compelled to digitally pee on their "work" to mark it, vainly hoping for recognition.

I thought most people did that to discourage image theft, not for recognition, though I agree that some watermarks are over the top.

cliveh · Jul 14, 2015

The message is more important than the medium.

Sirius Glass · Jul 14, 2015

Mainecoonmaniac said:
Has this happen to you? Have you ever looked at a photo that you're completely in love with? You find out it's a digital image, you then later don't hold the image with the same esteem? I want your spin on cognitive bias with photography.

Is a good shot is a good shot regardless how it's made? For disclosure, I prefer to shoot film, but I use a digital camera also.

With photography, I don't think there are any right or wrongs.

Only if the reality was altered.

I only shoot film. I would not buy a digital photographs unless it was taken with the a remote sensor on a spacecraft.

Vonder · Jul 14, 2015

moose10101 said:
I thought most people did that to discourage image theft, not for recognition, though I agree that some watermarks are over the top.

Aye, but if you look around online you'll find innumerable variations on the "my image was stolen" theme even with a watermark. I tend to think of it as an amateurish theft deterrent mechanism that does little to actually help prevent it. It's equally amateurish as a marketing/branding/advertising ploy.

Again, just my opinion. What do I know?

michr · Jul 14, 2015

I don't see how it matters how the image was created. What makes it great is usually not the technical aspects of imagemaking but the visual presentation and the ideas behind the image. Technique can distract: sometimes I can look at an image created with film and printed optically and appreciate the craft that went into making it, but also there are times when I see an image and I see the halos from an amateur dodge/burn job, excessive noise, uneven development, for example, and the illusion falls apart. Likewise, for digital images, when i see the pixels, from a normal viewing distance, or look at super-saturated tone-mapping, I'm dissapointed.

Why should I care if the image was made with a Hasselblad, an enormous view camera, Leica, coffee can, or a Minox, or an iPhone, or the latest Canon dSLR, except in how it affects the presentation of the image?

The toolchain is significant only if there is no other way of producing the work. Otherwise, obsessing about it is fetishization.

Sirius Glass · Jul 14, 2015

Wolfeye said:
Aye, but if you look around online you'll find innumerable variations on the "my image was stolen" theme even with a watermark. I tend to think of it as an amateurish theft deterrent mechanism that does little to actually help prevent it. It's equally amateurish as a marketing/branding/advertising ploy.

Again, just my opinion. What do I know?

The watermark shows ownership. With it it easier to take legal actions for stolen photographs. I avoid the problem by NOT posting photographs on the internet.

Prof_Pixel · Jul 14, 2015

ToddB said:
I guess I'll enjoy it as long as it holds out. We have a stack of broken D3 in our equipment locker at work that are broken. They are completely worthless. At 5 grand a piece on the time purchase, a complete rip off for you get out of them. 5 to 7 years of use. that sucks!

That's pretty much the way ALL new products work. The first dcams from EK were roughly $20k for a 1.4 mpix camera. We all knew the price would drop rapidly.

You just have to decide at what price point the technology is attractive/affordable to you, and go with it.

For example, I remember when the first microwave ovens came out, with very limited feature, very large size and very high price; now you can get small microwave ovens for very low prices.

bvy · Jul 14, 2015

Depends what I like about it. If it's something about the colors or grain or exposure, then I could easily become "unimpressed" if I learn that it's a digital shot. If it's a candid bit of street photography or some astounding bit of photojournalism, then the capture device doesn't matter much to me.

ToddB · Jul 14, 2015

Originally Posted by ToddB (there was a url link here which no longer exists)
I guess I'll enjoy it as long as it holds out. We have a stack of broken D3 in our equipment locker at work that are broken. They are completely worthless. At 5 grand a piece on the time purchase, a complete rip off for you get out of them. 5 to 7 years of use. that sucks!

That's pretty much the way ALL new products work. The first dcams from EK were roughly $20k for a 1.4 mpix camera. We all knew the price would drop rapidly.

You just have to decide at what price point the technology is attractive/affordable to you, and go with it.

For example, I remember when the first microwave ovens came out, with very limited feature, very large size and very high price; now you can get small microwave ovens for very low prices.

I know my little mishap with my 35mm Leica lens.. If I would of had a DSLR and that would of happened. I know that damage would of been pretty serious. DAG is replacing Flange and goggle eye lens. Body came away with no damage.

Ko.Fe. · Jul 14, 2015

No, I'm going to be controversial.

The only digital pictures I'm with love are my family pictures. Right people at the right place in the right moment.
But I still personally prefer it on film and printed analog way.
The rest - giving no, you know what, how good the picture is.
If it is digital - zero value to me. I'm rarely looking at digital pictures on-line, I'm not interested in any magazine with digital pictures in it.
I will not go to exhibition even if it is prestige and free if it with dump of digital images only. Those at Magnum who went digital are zero to me.

How difficult it is to understand what digital and film are very different?

I have no idea why so many people are on the level of primitives - "I don't care on what this picture was taken with."
Maybe because I'm interested in arts and I always been selective on what I'm going to spend my time in art galleries and museums.
To me analog and digital is same in preference of oil vs pencil drawings, litho and watercolors. I'm only interested in the oil paintings, not even acryl as cheapos substitute.

Cheers, Ko.

ToddB · Jul 14, 2015

oil vs pencil drawings, litho and watercolors.

Okay.. image for a second that you got your Ipad out and started doodeling a water color painting with Art Rage. When your done.. you've created the best water color painting ever. You were on your game. Wait a second.. I just wasted my effort on a digital device. I should painted it on double weight water color paper. What was I thinking!!! I'll never have that experience again.. NOOOOOO! This is why I shoot anything of value with film. Especially pictures of my family, trips of a life time. The smoking hot images that I've got so far from trip are going to yield some nice pieces in the darkroom.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/85205838@N06/

If you want to take a look. Todd

I'm going to be controversial with this post

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