Digital Imaging vs. Film

Is film dead? On many forums the debate currently rages. New entries into the photographic ring don’t understand the debate or why anyone would want to take pictures where you couldn’t immediately see the image or quickly and easily upload the photos to your computer and share them with the world. That’s a good question. As a photographer who originally learned on film I am intimately familiar with the incredible flexibility of digital photography compared to that of film.

Can a digital camera, even a $150 Canon rangefinder take the place of my once cutting edge Nikon F3. In a word, no. However it’s sheer ability to take easy pictures means it’s a valuable addition to any photographer’s tool kit. Oddly I have yet to meet any photographer who freely admits to using such a camera, as if there were some stigma attached to it. It’s no longer true that the image quality is unacceptable for all situations, and with a little experience and creativity the lowly $200 digital camera can’t be used by serious artists. In fact, I find the size, simplicity and wide angle macro to present certain photographic opportunities one would never see otherwise.

I decided to do some actual ‘work’ with my daughter’s Canon Powershot A540.
info about the A540

A summary of my findings:

• the form factor vs. an SLR is much better for odd angle and special effect type shooting. It’s very easy to get the camera and it’s little lens within inches from the subject buy using your arm as a stand-in boom. An SLR with it’s bulk and (save a couple models) needs to be glued to your eyeball.
• The nature of a rangefinder and the short focal length of the lens as well as the lack of a flapping flip up mirror lowers the usable shutterspeed by several stops. I have gotten very sharp images hand held with the Canon at 1/8 while at the widest zoom.
• In a public social setting a small rangefinder is very inconspicuous where an SLR would make the subject very nervous.
• The consumer digital camera has evolved quite substantially. The current crop of $200-$400 are capable of producing incredible images if you are willing to take control and think creatively.
• The small size and power consumption make for some pretty nice battery life.
• Shooting black and white allows for incredible low light stuff.

That’s all cool, but for professional photographers, can a $200 camera really be used for anything?

I think yes, but not for everything. A little tiny camera with a built in zoom and decent wide angle. Some can shoot RAW files. Some are even aimed at pro users. The Canon G9 for example is a camera after a photographer’s heart.

View example photographs here:
flickr.com gallery – Canon Powershot A540

More details when my test drive is complete.

Gmail is da bomb

I signed up to my first web-based email service a few months ago, that is, one that was actually going to use in my daily life.  I wanted something that wasn’t tied to my email server.  I was missing emails or getting them with much delay simply because my mac-based email server was in the basement and my laptop where I work a good portion of the day is not.  The Mac works very well, and it’s nice to be able to download and store stuff that people send you.  Being a user of email since the mid 90’s it’s perhaps important to note that now there seems to be little reason to stick with the traditional POP account where downloading occurs, except, if you wish to have files locally available for backup.  Or perhaps if the end of the world comes and you wish to read your emails one last time before your power also goes out.

I signed up to gmail thinking it would be a good alternate or ‘junk’ mail stop.  To my surprise I find myself using it exclusively.  I have a few workstations, a couple laptops and a whole world of online PCs that I could not read my email from.  To suddenly have complete access to email from any workstation without using pathetically unstable software to download my email (outlook) was a complete revelation.   My old ways were transformed.

The only negative I can see to gmail is it’s inability to actually organize your inbox.  You can create ‘categories’ and show only those categories, but when in your inbox everything that has not been deleted is there in a big everlasting stream, much like a blog.  I suppose blog format, a stream of chronological data is the new paradigm for data management.  I’m getting used to it, but I guess I’m still a hierarchical dude at heart.   Science fiction has been touting the idea of a central data link where all users don’t actually have local data but log in and access data live over a network link.  This model seems to be what is actually occurring in data sharing.  Freaky.

The original idea to write this post was because I just checked my email and noticed that my ‘free space’ has more then doubled since I signed up a few months ago.  Google seems to have the idea that rewarding you for continued use is a good thing. Who am I to argue.  My personal email storage capacity has grown from around 1900MB to 4631MB.  Yes, that IS over FOUR gigabytes of space… for emails!  The need to have a dedicated home based email system is evaporating, if not completely gone.

On the other hand, if you decide later to move back to a POP server model you can use this with gmail!  There seems to be very little in the ‘downside’ department.

the converted.

Noise was once our friend

Well, maybe not friend in the traditional sense, but certainly an accepted flavour and character of photography. More then that though, noise was a symbol of art, danger, sports, spooky night scenes, police actions, and much more. In short, noise meant ‘things of the night’.

Before we go any further I’d like to mention that by noise I refer to anything generated at the time of exposure or development, not whatever shmoosh ends up on your film after that.

So, When does one get noise?

• Using fast film with nice big breadcrumb-sized grains to soak up all the juicy light. Where would anyone ever need such raw photon vacuuming muscle?  Why, out in the jungle at night, or walking around the city at night, or only ambient light to shoot a rainy nighttime football game. Are we seeing a pattern?  The idea that grain equals danger and action lies here.  Verdict: Cool.
• Laughing at your meter and exposing three reckless stops under or even over what you know is correct, then either under developing or over developing to balance the ‘light equation’.  Either way, why would anyone in their right mind do such a thing on purpose. Well sporty film fans, it’s either to get a cool ‘look’ or to use up some of the Tmax400 you have sitting in the freezer, but instead of the measly 400ISO you achieve the super heroic sensitivity of 3200ISO.  So this kind of grain though looking a little different then actual grainy fast film, usually is associated with the same kind of activities as described in the first point. Verdict: Cool.

So what happened?  Why has noise become a symbol of a bad photograph?  Noise is banned from photographs being submitted to many high end stock photography websites.  It has become impossible to sell images which have clear noise.  Well, to be specific, clear digital noise. Film grain is noise.  It’s a chemical process, like pretty much everything happening of interest on earth.  Now we take photographs with an electronic process which we all know is a pretty binary system.  Achieving noise in this world involves math.  So, I suppose it makes sense that noise in this new digital landscape would become demonised.  I mean, it is true,it’s actually quite distracting.  I have to admit, I often have little recourse above attempting repair in Photoshop. When all of my efforts result in my accepting that the electronic din of noise was not going anywhere, I then hop to channel mixer and make myself a nice black and white.

So digital noise is bad.  I get it. How does one now express themselves and be dangerous.  Not that I’m any of that, but I have in my photographic endeavors already run into the technological limits of CCD film.  I often shoot with my camera on 3200.  The thing is great normally, and my work will show how much more prolific and both technically and artistically I have grown in leaps and bounds since switching to digital, but, I can’t do the creative stuff anymore.  The results need to be messed with before anyone will accept them as actual ‘photographs’.    I’m a defiant guy so I have decided that my cult-like mind programming needs to be questioned.  NOISE IS GOOD.  Noise represents the infinite complexity in nature and I actually love a good noise every now and then.