Tear down digital photography, right here, right now

[walter23]

I like digital photography just fine except that it can't give me in-camera 4x5 or 8x10 or 12x20 negatives, transparencies, or the fun of cranking up the music and printing with my enlarger in a dark red room.

The only thing I don't like about digital photography is the threat it poses to my analogue photography hobbies. I think that's the basis of the gutteral dislike of digital here; we've watched manufacturers and film/chems/papers drop like flies over the last decade or so.

(I also don't like the lazy habits it can engender, nor the lost highlight details, nor or the quality of noise (film grain is better looking), etc, but on the other hand I learned the fundamentals on digital and learned damned fast due to the instant feedback).

Oh, and I just noticed something Andy K wrote:

The continuing 'upgrades' and consumerism.

Agreed! One thing film has taught me (especially larger formats) is that this brand allegiance and proprietary lens/body mount systems and most of the bells and whistles of your average digital camera are complete bullshit. All you need is a sensor or film, a lens, a viewfinder, and the essential controls in some easy to reach place. Most of the menu items on your digital camera are just there to out-market the competition.

I narrowly avoided "upgrading" to the next big digital camera in the stream by getting interested in 4x5. I have an otherwise sane friends who own two or three digital SLR bodies (and not for professional backup purposes), all released within a year of each other. Blech.

 

[Joe VanCleave]

Product Design: Cameras as Tools

My gripe with photography technology predates the current fascination with electronic imaging. For years I was a consumer electronic technician, and saw the whole gamut of what the 'technology treadmill' would look like if brought forward to its logical conclusion: extremely short product life-cycles, fast depreciation in resale value, continued increase in product 'features' that didn't really make the product a more useful tool, etc.

When camera technology began to converge with consumer electronics, in the late 1980's time frame, that was when the stage was set for what we currently see in photography: cameras that are overgrown cousins of video, a fascination with a plethora of 'features', and the demise of a design philosophy that recognizes that, in order to truly be a 'tool', cameras must interface with the human body in an entirely intuitive manner.

A corollary of the technology treadmill of consumer electronics is that the consumer is non-educated, and must therefore be treated as such. The camera will make the decisions for the poor, hapless consumer. And most camera manufacturers who offer manual overrides to the all-embracing automation do so only grudgingly, making such manual controls embedded deep within software menus, or accessible via hard-to-find recessed buttons.

I appreciate the ergonomics of manual cameras from the past, not because I'm a luddite, but more because I'm a cheapskate, and a gadget fondler, too. I appreciate cameras that feel as if they were designed around the human animal, as if I were the one in control, making the decisions. Human-centric engineering, combined with a build technology that isn't obsolete the day after tomorrow.

And this has absolutely nothing to do with the technology of the image recording device inside the camera. If manufacturers come out with a nifty mechanical electronic imaging camera at an affordable price-point ("mechanical" meaning manual controls engineered to interface well with the human body), I'm game. I'm just not thrilled by the hundreds of clone-like electronic cameras, whose only differentiation in the marketplace is defined by the concept of pixel count, as if that really is the only attribute that matters to a photographer.

~Joe

 

[JanaM]

...

Because an image on the computer screen will never fill me with the sense of awe and magic I get every time I see a print come up in the developing tray.

(I do not hate digital. I prefer traditional.)

Dear Valerie,

very well said, indeed! I want to add:
Because an image on the computer screen will never fill me with the sense of awe and magic I get every time I see a brillant slide under my loupe or on my projection screen.
Slides are unique. There is nothing comparable in the digital world.

I am familiar with both digital imaging and film photography. I prefer film for lots of reasons. In short words: I get better quality at much lower costs.

For a much more detailed analysis and description of the characteristics, strenghts and advantages of film have a look at this:

http://www.warum-analog.aphog.de/ "Why analogue"

aphog is like apug, but for german speeking photographers. The "why analogue" pages are the best survey of film advantages I've seen so far on the internet. It has been made by a group of professional, semi-professionel and engaged amateur photographers.

It would be very nice to have a translation of these pages here on apug. But I fear my English is not good enuogh for that work. I have had contact with the writers of this survey. They would be happy to see their work here on apug in English. But their English is not perfect, too.
Perhaps we have some apuggers, which are perfect in both languages and can translate these pages.

Best regards,
Jana

 

[Davesw]

I do not like the archival uncertainty of digital storage I know my negatives and slides will last 100 years.
I don’t like my large investment in lenses changing focal length when I mount them on a digital camera.
I don’t like needing to be dependent on batteries to take a picture.
I am not as creative in front of a computer screen as I am in a dark room.
All that aside I do love digital for family snap shots and sharing pictures with others.

 

[removed account4]

hi david

nice thread you got going here

i am not really a d-- hater.
i use d-techology for work, more and more.

i don't mind sitting infront of a computer screen and "dealing"
mainly because i have to watch kids from time to time, and
a fume-filled shirt, running upstairs to "deal" is a lot harder than
walking over ( convenience ?)

i like how it has made image making more accessible to the general public
a real democratic force. yeah, i know most of what "the masses" makes
are just snapshots ( can you call it that with a sensor?? ) but just the same
it has given access to making images to people would not have had access before, and that is pretty good.

AND it has made traditional photography from snapshots to olde processes
more and more of an artform ---


BUT ...

i don't like how all the high and low values are compressed,
and all the mid-tones become the high and low values.


but i do mind having to buy network drives and peripheral storage devices
to hold all my digital images, and countless backups ... i have a tera-drive now
but i know eventually it will be clogged up with d-magery .. instead of
piles and piles of film and prints.

i don't like the hype about archival stuff. sure, pigment inks and paper
are as archival as 1000year old illuminated manuscripts, but we don't really know
what the "real deal" is, and archival storage on floppies/dvds/cds is a big pain,
and sometimes it don't work. i have files stored on floppy that are inaccessible,
and THAT is a real PITA.

all that said, i like how one can just shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and not have to buy buy buy buy ... but then again, i have stockpiles of film and paper, and i do that anyow


not much of a teardown ...
thnx
john

 

[David R Munson]

I would like to interject for a moment and thank all of you for keeping this civilized and on-point. This is precisely what I was hoping for. I won't pretend to agree with a lot of the things being said here, but that's not the point. The point is to try to better understand both sides of the argument, and your thoughtful responses are excellent. I'm sure others are being compelled to think more critically about some of these things as well.

 

[roteague]

I don't hate digital, but I find its value limited. What I hate is the zealot attitude a lot of digital proponents seem to have - they seem really threatened that I prefer to use film. Some digital proponents just don't know any better and automatically assume digital is better because it is newer - like the digi-carrying lady who told her husband she was going to stand next to the guy (me) with the "ancient" 4x5 camera (it is only 5 years old, and costs more than her Canon digital).

I have a Nikon D200, but it doesn't come close to matching the quality of the images I get with Velvia on my Nikon F6. This week, I shot 3 images with the D200 (test shots at that - because the camera, while new, is broken) and 4 rolls of film with the F6. I absolutely love the F6.

 

[jbj]

Hi Dave,

I mostly dislike digital photography for what it represents in modern society:

--consumerism and especially capitalism and all the negatives these encompass: waste, air water noise visual pollutions, planned obsolescence, exploitation of labor and resources, etc. Landfills overflowing with semiconductors, computers, cell phones and other "disposable" technology. It reminds me that most people don't give a shit about things as long as they are conveniently out of site and out of mind.

Capitalism involves many dubious practices like slashing good jobs of good people so that companies can (skirt environmental and labor laws) increase shareholder profits.

The idea that we should pay MORE for basically a disposable inferior item...how many folks use digital cameras from 5 years ago vs. film cameras...granted film technology must by its nature within the same capitalist/consumer society also create artificial demand for "new and improved" too, but one can still obtain film equipment that will reproduce faithfully a glass negative from long ago or a modern film emulsion strait from the factory. Both are wasteful but long term film is far less so.

I have reluctantly had three cellular phones in the last 6 years, meanwhile my old land line phone sits idly in a box and will still work years from now. I'm sure many digital photographers experience the same realization at some point.

--Marketing: The reminder that humans are vulnerable social animals and with a clever advertising campaign the worst ideas quickly spread like wild fire across our culture...."I'll throw away my perfectly fine 35 mm film camera and replace it with one that is orders of magnitude more expensive, requires more batteries, regular computer, software and printer upgrades and doesn't in the end produce the same level of quality, and then I'll do it again in two more years!" A glaring reminder that popular ideas are seldom well thought out and in people's best interest.

The idea that "new and improved" is often equated with happiness...which never materializes and then unhappiness and further futile purchase cycles result. Rinse, repeat. This idea seems to always trump craft, thoughtfulness, vision, and personality/meaning and individuality. Herd mentality.

 

[Uncle Goose]

Face it, those photographs are nothing more than 1 and 0's, if the HD goes dead or the CD/DVD fails to access than your done for the effort. Having a good negative is always nice to have in hand. Of course it could be destroyed too but the changes are smaller than with electronic gear. Also I don't like the design of all those camera's, too much plastic and they all look alike. Now, if somebody would design a digital back for a Meopta Flexaret than I would consider it to use it. But that ain't gonna happen anywhere soon.

Another thing is the mentality behind it, you know, the phrase "No problem, we can get that right in Photoshop". I can't stand people who think like that.

 

[Paul.]

After much deep thought I realy cannot explain why I prefer film over digital I just do.
I use a digi compact for work occasionaly and find it iritateing and a faf.
Possibly because I have a love of well engineerd things, steam engines, old vehcles,anolouge clocks etc. and only use clockwork cameras I am alergic to high tec hype.
I do not hate digital I just do not do it.

Regards Paul.

 

[Lee Shively]

I used to really hate digital. I mean HATE!!! it to the core.

That was dumb. Like most things dumb, it ended up biting me in the ass.

I got a yen to try digital photography because I had a yen to shoot color again after several years of nothing but black and white. I wasn't really interested in shooting color negatives or shooting slides and scanning them as I had done in the past. Digital seemed like a viable alternative.

So I had surgery a few months ago and was laid up in recovery with time to kill so I bought a digital SLR, Photoshop Elements and a stack of books on digital photography and Photoshop. With all that time available, I learned as much as I needed to know about it. I don't have any great need for a lot of frills in my picture-taking--I shoot pictures of whatever interests me and I don't do anything fancy. All this crap you see of green sunsets and composited pictures of three different skies, two different mountain ranges, five people who weren't there and a flying saucer from nowhere--that bores the hell out of me. So it was easy to learn how to do all I need to do with a digital camera to take simple, straightforward photographs and get them in the computer.

Then I discovered something. What the hell am I going to do with this stuff? With my black and white photos, I make prints in the darkroom, put them in frames and display them or show them/give them to friends and family. That's because I'm serious when I shoot black and white. With the digital camera, I'm doodling around, snap-shooting and accomplishing nothing worthwhile. I simply can't take this seriously.

I was recently talking to a former newspaper co-worker and fellow photographer. We were discussing the features of the current digital cameras and we agreed that, if these things were available to us in the 1970's and 1980's, our jobs would have been pretty easy. But making things easy isn't really a good thing. Making them better...now that's a good thing.

Basically, I don't hate it anymore but I still haven't warmed up to taking it seriously either. Like Robert, the only thing I hate about digital these days is the attitude of the rabidly digitally converted. They're worse in their proselytizing than any religious or political sect. I avoid such nonsense if possible.

 

[User Removed]

People worry about pouring fixer or toners down their drain because it will possibly hurt the enviroment. What they don't understand is all the "E-Waste" that just one person is producing is MUCH more worse.

Everyone should do some research on "Ewaste" and see what type of damage they are doing do this world. It's really quite sad.

Hi Dave,

I mostly dislike digital photography for what it represents in modern society:

--consumerism and especially capitalism and all the negatives these encompass: waste, air water noise visual pollutions, planned obsolescence, exploitation of labor and resources, etc. Landfills overflowing with semiconductors, computers, cell phones and other "disposable" technology. It reminds me that most people don't give a shit about things as long as they are conveniently out of site and out of mind.

Capitalism involves many dubious practices like slashing good jobs of good people so that companies can (skirt environmental and labor laws) increase shareholder profits.

The idea that we should pay MORE for basically a disposable inferior item...how many folks use digital cameras from 5 years ago vs. film cameras...granted film technology must by its nature within the same capitalist/consumer society also create artificial demand for "new and improved" too, but one can still obtain film equipment that will reproduce faithfully a glass negative from long ago or a modern film emulsion strait from the factory. Both are wasteful but long term film is far less so.

I have reluctantly had three cellular phones in the last 6 years, meanwhile my old land line phone sits idly in a box and will still work years from now. I'm sure many digital photographers experience the same realization at some point.

--Marketing: The reminder that humans are vulnerable social animals and with a clever advertising campaign the worst ideas quickly spread like wild fire across our culture...."I'll throw away my perfectly fine 35 mm film camera and replace it with one that is orders of magnitude more expensive, requires more batteries, regular computer, software and printer upgrades and doesn't in the end produce the same level of quality, and then I'll do it again in two more years!" A glaring reminder that popular ideas are seldom well thought out and in people's best interest.

The idea that "new and improved" is often equated with happiness...which never materializes and then unhappiness and further futile purchase cycles result. Rinse, repeat. This idea seems to always trump craft, thoughtfulness, vision, and personality/meaning and individuality. Herd mentality.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Yes- at least Pyrogallic acid is an organic compound that will naturally, rapidly break down. Gallium Arsenide is a heavy metal used in the making of computer chips, and is far more damaging to the environment. Not to mention the mercury, lead, germanium, chromium, and other nasties that go into silicon circuits. oh, and don't forget all the electricity needed to run said beasties - the generation of it comes from somewhere.

 

[Chan Tran]

I don't hate digital at all. It's great. Only one thing! Its popularity makes film hard to get.

 

[jbj]

People worry about pouring fixer or toners down their drain because it will possibly hurt the enviroment. What they don't understand is all the "E-Waste" that just one person is producing is MUCH more worse.

Everyone should do some research on "Ewaste" and see what type of damage they are doing do this world. It's really quite sad.

Yes! The waste resulting from manufacturing these is enormous and extremely toxic.

 

[jbj]

My previous post I forgot to mention another aspect that I don't like about digital photography and what it represents to me. I think it represents another misconception of currently practiced economic models in the west: the alienation of man by "machine"

Technology is supposed to give people more free time, and better quality of life. I would argue that instead it has complicated our lives and in many ways alienated us from each other.

The irony of my posting on an internet forum bitching about technology has not escaped me.

 

[Flotsam]

I just borrowed a digigizmo from a friend to do some simple home inventory pix that will only ever be viewed on my computer screen.

Just one man's experience but Man! does this thing eat batteries! It would practically be less expensive to shoot film, not to mention the environmental issues.

 

[dpurdy]

Ok I have sort of an esoteric answer. analog photography is at it's inception a study of an unexplainable miracle of light and reaction. the study of photography is to study natural physical reactions and you must study nature outside yourself to make progress. For a person who finds inspiration in energy and light and natural detail and the miracle of it all working together and being able to express it by combining personal vision with the laws of nature, as well as the love of hands on interaction with the natural materials, analog photography is an endless source.

Digital photography is built on the genius of man, the amazingly clever digitalization of life and the total human control through brain power combined with amazing tools. Digital photography is about man's mastery over nature and his thought that he can improve it and make it more miraculous than it naturally is. Digits let man break nature down to a math formula and bits that he can be the total controler of. Photography quits being the study of light as master and becomes the study of capturing light raw and taming it for human consumption. Domesticating it and teaching it tricks. Digital photography makes mankind the biggest miracle in life.

other than that I just don't want to spend a bunch of money on a constantly changing technology that can't touch the quality of what I already do.
DP

 

[DrPablo]

Ok, here's a new question that I'm interested in -- and you all need to answer this authentically:

How many of you dislike digital just because it's too damn popular, too accessible, or too 'establishment'? How many of you prefer film because it's a kick in the ass of the 'vogue' thing to do?

I'll freely admit that that's part of my psychology. Naturally I scored an INTP on my Myers-Briggs personality test, which is the rarest personality type, and from what I understand it's a sort of relentlessly driven 'mad professor' personality that craves being different. Interestingly my wife is also an INTP. I'm the type of person who is willing to root against the home team just because I'm sick of them.

So in all authenticity, part of the reason I dislike digital is quality; part of it is process; but part of it is it's just too popular and mainstream, too self-congratulatory and smug.


The post just above mine is interesting, though it seems just a trifle too metaphysical for a discussion of cameras. Aesthetics is one area that metaphysics can enter, but I'm not sure technical areas like camera choice are quite so amenable to that interpretation. Still, maybe in a visceral sense that really is what we all feel -- that digital photography is an outgrowth of the late 20th century computer revolution, whereas film photography extends back to the very beginning of industrial society.

 

[johnnywalker]

I would like to interject for a moment and thank all of you for keeping this civilized and on-point. This is precisely what I was hoping for.

You're lucky, considering the title of the post!

 

[eclarke]

I subscribe here and read every day so I don't have to be exposed to discussion about digital BS. Moderators, PLEASE just make this thread go away!!!..Evan Clarke

 

[SuzanneR]

I've not read all the responses, so apologies if I am making redundant points...I'm not sure the manufacturing process for film is without it's own environmental concerns, and modern film cameras such as the F6 or the F100 may well end up in the e-waste bin along with their "D" counterparts soon enough.

With that said, as a portrait photographer working in the children and family portrait arena... I can differentiate myself from all the soccer moms who bought a Canon Digital Rebel, and decided to become a photographer.

But more importantly... much more importantly... I don't care for how digital image capture renders skin tone. It looks plastic in b/w, and just kinda gray in color. If I ever decided to really tackle digital imaging, my first task would be to deal with that sallow, ugly skin tone.

I often hear photographers describe digital as "easier" than film, but that doesn't strike me as the best reason to use digital, nor does it strike me as true. Yes... it's perhaps more convenient, but I'd argue it really isn't any easier to get really stunning results.

Lastly, well... I just like using unusual cameras, and there's a sameness to just about every digital camera out there... though that was a trend that started with auto-focus back in the late 80's early 90's in film cameras, and is a problem for me with newer film 35mm cameras, too. Those damn focus points somehow force you to make predictable photographs.

 

[Andy K]

Evan, you don't need a moderator to click the 'Ignore thread' option.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

But more importantly... much more importantly... I don't care for how digital image capture renders skin tone. It looks plastic in b/w, and just kinda gray in color. If I ever decided to really tackle digital imaging, my first task would be to deal with that sallow, ugly skin tone.

Those skin tones looking plastic are actually quite likely the result of digiholics going and playing with photoshop to smooth the skin, typically overdoing the filter to blur the skin tones and make everyone look like a barbie. Look at a camera RAW file sometime BEFORE the digitographer has had a chance to whack away at it in photoshop. They can be startlingly realistic, which is what so many digitographers hate. Heck, most people hate it - if they didn't, Glamourshotz would never have become a shopping mall fixture.

 

[Maris]

OK, I've come in very late but, hey, I'm in Australia.

Yes, yes, tear down "digital photography". It simply isn't photography of any kind, it's a misnomer, a misrepresentation, a lie. Call it digital picture making and there is no problem. That's what I do even when talking among friends. Never concede the indefensible: digi-pix, phonygraphs, fauxtographs, whatever they are called, are not photographs and never will be.

One wonders where the "digital photograph" concept came from in the first place. Who didn't speak up against it at the beginning? I suspect it was camera makers and maybe inkjet printer/paper sellers being unwilling to tell their customers that their electronic pictures may look fine but they aren't photographs. In an orgy of pure venality the commercial attitude was (and is) we don't care what you call 'em, digipix, photographs, whatever, as long as we get your retail dollar.

Talk about selling photography down the drain! Even the big film companies, Kodak, Ilford, Fuji traffic in the malapropism "digital photograph". If there was ever an example of respectable companies selling their birthright for a mess of pottage (in the biblical sense!) these are them. And it did not have to happen. Imagine if Kodak (and the others) had promoted photography as a different, distinct, more costly, more valuable medium, superbly appropriate for images you really care about. Like the faces of your children, for example.

I think we can take photography back. The word, in its true sense, is almost lost but by standing up for it at all times rescue is still possible. And there is a gloriously successful precedent: champagne!

For over a hundred years (in Australia at least) any fizzy white wine could be legally labeled and sold as champagne. The French grumbled and moaned for years about this but did nothing and nothing changed. Then they got tough, started taking legal action and eventually reclaimed champagne as the sole, authentic and unique name for that premium fizzy wine made in Champagne, France. Now, in Australia at least, champagne is genuine, true to label, respected more, and an enhanced source of profit to its makers.

Photography is worth asserting and re-asserting; with a clenched fist salute if necessary. The mystery, magic, and majesty of what can be done with light and silver must never be trashed.