Wiki Author Disses Film Cameras...

It was necessary to specify where the original "wiki" article was. I did not bother searching for it as it was not specified where it was. Wikipedia is a particular species, "wiki" is an entire genus. Precision is never a sin.

polyglot said:

If you go back even a couple of decades, people had only two or three trusted sources of information (radio, TV, newspapers) and if you go back a century that becomes only one.

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Actually one was better than three. Newspaper brought, since their inception in XVIII century, a wealth of contradicting, contrasting information and people had to face a plurality of sources, and take a position.

When "public opinion" was formed through newspapers, free thinking flourished. We own to the newspaper age the "enlightment" age, the modern liberal democracy, and a great lot of independence movements all over Europe (among those, the Italian struggle for independence, Italy celebrates this year its 150th anniversary from the "official" unification date).

Radio had an opposite effect. Radio entered into every household, included the ignorant masses, which were the vast majority of population, and gave a "truth", a "trusted source of information", without any contradictory. It just fell from above. It was like the word of God. It was for an entire planet like the Gospel. Radio favoured the birth of dictatorships all over Europe (especially Fascist ones, and Nazism in particular, which were in a sense greatly favoured by the radio). In communist countries, the radio certainly favoured the "personality cult". One Stalin, or one Mao, could be depicted as the omnipotent saviour of the country, the Godsend against the (many) external and internal enemies (saboteurs, anarchists, capitalists, Jews, priests, speculators, bankers and various other forms of traitors and parasites, according to taste).

Radio allowed any government (whether present culture defines it as fascist or not) to enter any household without contradictory, to distribute guilts, to give excuses, to create myths, to cement that particular blind form of "patriotism" which make every dissent a menace to the national health and wealth.

Countries which think are democratic (such as the US) followed the same pattern. Just imagine the enormous power the weekly President's radio speach had over the general public, or the daily government-controlled radio news had on ignorant masses. Television did not certainly improve the situation by itself. Only, in recent years TV and radio space become more "pluralist" and so somehow recreated the situation of pre-radio years.

If we analyse the political evolution of every country in the radio days we see an enormous raise of fascism in all its forms. Not just in countries like Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, Spain (during "carlism" well before the Franco golpe) etc. where suddenly fascist regimes managed to gain, and especially preserve, power, but also in so-called democratic countries, where fascist attitudes become normal and widely accepted. Just to mention the US: thousands of blacks lynched without any form of state intervention, massive control of the state over the media, "Palmer raids" against Italian and anarchist before the war, concentration of US citizens of Japanese descent during the war, ridiculous Nuernberg process after the war, MacCarthysm after the war, are all signs of a "fascistised" society, a society where the radio, or government controlled TV, is the prevalent source of information.

Don't get carried away/

Wiki Author Disses Film Cameras...

He isn't an author just a sad individual who decided to edit two pages.

However the OP's right because unless you can see the history of the page editing it does come across as the author of the article was anti film cameras.

Ian

Diapositivo said:

When "public opinion" was formed through newspapers, free thinking flourished.
(snip)
Radio had an opposite effect. Radio entered into every household, included the ignorant masses, which were the vast majority of population, and gave a "truth", a "trusted source of information", without any contradictory.

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I think this is quite true but with a caveat. Newspapers (when there is plurality of ownership as mostly seen prior to the mid 19th century) provide an excellent medium for the literate to become aware of politics and issues but leave behind the illiterate. So we see a renaissance but what I suspect we don't see is that most of the population doesn't get to participate in that because they're too busy in the factories.

Bring on radio, which reduces all education-related barriers to mass communication and involves everyone, for better or (much more likely) worse. The quantity of information you can pack into an hour of radio is much smaller than you can put in a couple of newspaper articles and given the broader audience, it will be written to appeal to baser instincts and the lowest common denominator. And as you say, people respond to a cult of personality in voice where they would likely be repelled by the same words written.

What amazes me is that centuries after the enlightenment, after civil rights and "universal" suffrage, radio (in the USA) remains a hate-filled echo-chamber and holdout for those who would return to theocracy and/or fascism.

I'm actually curious about who the mystery anti-film editor is. Two edits on the same topic on a no-name account leads me to believe that he might have a stake in digital, but doesn't want to attach his name to it. Of course, I've seen way too many vanity pages and horribly biased rants posted as "fact" to really assume good faith anymore, so I could just be projecting my paranoia.

Also HAHA Evil bodies. They caused our fall from Kodak-loving grace.

In my seasoned, esteemed and entirely humble opinion...

Wiki SUCKS.

The smart photographers are here. Now, may the Wiki-ignoring continue.

I did not intend a discussion on WIKIs. I thought there was only one COSINA WIKI PAGE and it was on the WIKEPEDIA. But I stand corrected that the CAMERAPEDIA is also a WIKI which I had failed to recognize.

However, now that this thread had digressed, lets talk about the receeding tide of intellegence, education and scientific thought as laudable social values...

Does anyone else find it hard to take seriously the whole process of digital image capture? I do.

ic-racer said:

lets talk about the receeding tide of intellegence, education and scientific thought as laudable social values...

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tomalophicon said:

Does anyone else find it hard to take seriously the whole process of digital image capture? I do.

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Interesting juxtaposition of posts.

Both film and digital are fundamentally electronic imaging systems. They are just tools for expression.

tomalophicon said:

Does anyone else find it hard to take seriously the whole process of digital image capture? I do.

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i don't find it hard to take it seriously
and from what i understand most of the people in this world
making photographs don't either ...
is this going to become yet another digital v film rant thread ?

who cares which is superior, just shoot more film and print on more paper.

*YAWN*
:munch:

Jesper said:

I'm not even sure that I agree with the "most of these will be bought as collector's items rather than for actual use" part (and I most certainly don't agree with the "defunct" part).
Whenever I buy another camera I always do it with the intent of using it and not as a collectible. Maybe I don't use it very much but that doesn't mean that it is part of a collection.

How about the rest of you?
Don't you buy cameras with the intention of using them rather than something for your collection?

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I buy 'em yo use 'em. Ain't no collector here

tomalophicon said:

Does anyone else find it hard to take seriously the whole process of digital image capture? I do.

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I use both digital and film to what ever advantage I can find in their application.Both are tools.
but I can say that you probably won't find a digital that is bought today still in use 20 years from now.

tomalophicon said:

Does anyone else find it hard to take seriously the whole process of digital image capture? I do.

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Me too. Propaganda in the form of advertising has allowed manufacturers to avoid developing twin technologies simultaneously. Once a year I have a DSLR day where I research the state of play in the digital marketplace. Each time I do the message is how badly the previous model compares with the new version.

I recently bought a 12 mp Sony digital compact to replace a 5 mp Canon one. The Canon is easier to handle and the images look exactly the same quality, seven years of technological innovation for what? The way I see photographers using DSLRs is as logical as shooting movie film to grab a still frame. How do DSLR users find time to edit their best shots, I can spend days weighing up the merits of two similar prints?

Then there's storage. Film offers a hard copy in addition to any subsequent digital encryption. I could go on. It's not an anti-digital rant, it's an anti-marketing one.

Monito said:

Both film and digital are fundamentally electronic imaging systems.

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Really?


Steve.

Well... since all chemical reactions are mostly exchanges of electrons...

Lionel1972 said:

Well... since all chemical reactions are mostly exchanges of electrons...

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Then so is everything!


Steve.

Not everything. Gravity, nuclear reactions, and a few other non-electron based phenomenae escape that category.

One factor that makes me highly resistant to digital take up is the construction standards of the cameras and lenses. Few DSLRs under £1k are built to higher quality than a 90s P&S and nothing comes close to the lens build quality of an AI or pre-AI Nikkor that I've seen. Cameras with metal under chassis have a huge premium attached for what was once taken for granted (cameras made of metal last longer than all plastic ones) and there's no consumer standard digital medium format.

My guess is film photographers could miss digital from their diet for the next ten years and not go hungry. After that, who can say?

I'd settle for finding a dslr that can actually focus properly with manual lenses.
No, AF is not what it's claimed to be. And there are heaps of good MF lenses out there waiting for someone to build a proper dslr that can use them. As is, they are grossly uncalibrated for any manual work...

nsouto said:

I'd settle for finding a dslr that can actually focus properly with manual lenses.

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Some recent high-grade digital SLR have the possibility of focussing in live-view mode with a 10x enlargement (or maybe more). This is, frankly, a very interesting innovation as it allows an easier focusing in situations where critical focus is important and hard to obtain. It also allows a better visual control of Depth of Field than what can be obtained with the stop-down button.

It's a bit like having the accurate focusing with a loupe on the ground glass allowed by a LF camera in the small format. Actually it is better because of the real aperture used.

For me, it's horses for courses. I will go on using both film and digital. In the future I see a further investment in digital, and a further investment in analogue photography (darkroom for printing).

To this day I have yet to see an AF camera not get confused and hunt for focus under some conditions. If you are looking for a DSLR that can use manual lenses then look at Nikon.

Todays DSLRs are crazy with stereo audio recording and video recording, I want a still camera thats all, not the swiss army knife equivilant to imaging equipment.

fstop said:

but I can say that you probably won't find a digital that is bought today still in use 20 years from now.

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It's a revolutionary time. With telecommunications the pace of change is very rapid, so by direct analogy, it would be fair to say that you probably did not find in use in 1920 any photochemical system bought in 1870. A few cameras, yes. Wet plates & daguerrotypes, not so much.

Digital photography now is about the level of 1920, metaphorically. It's come a long way, but "you ain't seen nothin' yet".

All the same, a 12 to 24 MPixel digital camera bought today makes such very good photos by a good photographer, that some of them will undoubtedly still be in use 20 years from now.

All AutoFocus SLR lenses are manual focus lenses. Learn the location of the Off switch (AF-MF). Also, shift the AF function away from the shutter button and position it at the rear of the camera where you have separate control over it with your thumb.

Monito said:

Both film and digital are fundamentally electronic imaging systems.

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Steve Smith said:

Really?

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Really. In both systems, electrons are kicked out of atoms by photons, forming a latent image. Both systems require further processing for the latent image to be made visible.

Monito said:

All the same, a 12 to 24 MPixel digital camera bought today makes such very good photos by a good photographer, that some of them will undoubtedly still be in use 20 years from now.

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shutters are rated for "x-exposures" and in 20 years time
( mainly because most people use multi-exposure/auto winder type shooting )
all 100,000 exposures will be used up ... and it will cost as much as a new camera to repair the old shutter
( the same thing is true today )

no medium is perfect ...

just use what you want ...