by Ian Muttoo

For many years now, we have been in the throws of an all out digital photography revolution. Before the seeds of this revolution were planted within the mainstream photography world, film was king.  And although film photography nevertheless has its adherents it is only really fine art photographers who are nevertheless holding on.  It’s fair to say that digital photography has officially usurped the throne.

That is not to say that there are no drawbacks with digital photography.  While, arguably, the losses connected with moving from vinyl and CDs are much more clear (the dynamic array of vinyl is far superior to that of CDs), there is also a qualitative loss going from film to digital.  However, software has turn into so sophisticated that the shortcomings can be mitigated, and some may possibly say, eliminated.  And even CDs, while they do not have the depth of sound of vinyl, at least they do not have scratching and static noises.

A lot of photographers held quick to film for a lengthy time, waiting for digital to match the top quality of film.  Well, all but the fiercest diehards will concede that for most types of photography, including wedding photography and industrial photography, digital has not only arrived, but it has surpassed film.

For many years now digital has had it over film when it comes to convenience.  With film, you had to process the film and then if you wished to adjust the images in Photoshop you had to scan the negatives.  With digital you take the images, upload them quickly to your computer and start off working on them.  For a lot of, that alone is the price of admission.  Some digital wedding photographers, for example, upload the ceremony and park pix onto their laptop for guests to view during the reception.

Another not insignificant downside to digital issues the potential to shoot almost unlimited pictures.  On the surface, this looks like a very good issue, and it is.  However, it also indicates that numerous new digital photographers shoot their images indiscriminately, as if they think if they maintain shooting they’ll get “all the shots” – which not only helps make them a lot more obtrusive, but often benefits in capturing a boatload of photos, even though somehow managing to miss the magic moments.  Alas, as is often the situation, much more is not usually greater.  Those photographers who came from film discovered to look for the ‘moments’ and not shoot willy-nilly like there was a gun to their heads.  Of course, they also had to maintain in thoughts that the a lot more they shot, the more rolls of film they used, and the far more they had to approach.  So, there was a self-limiting mechanism in place, which arguably created a more focused~attentive photographer.  So, although digital offers the opportunity to make certain you get the shots, the good photographers even now picks their spots.

Irrespective, the final couple of years have observed more advances in digital camera technologies that are rendering film photography purely niche.  Firstly, the image high quality is now on par with film.  Secondly, the reduced-light skills of the new higher-end cameras is staggering.  The fastest film is 3200 ISO and it is really grainy.  Only photographers especially wanting this ‘noisy’ search would use this film, though often they had no alternative because they had been going to be shooting in a reduced-light circumstance with no flash.  It’s almost unfathomable how very good the new digital cameras are in this regard.  Top Nikon and Canon cameras can shoot up to 102,000 ISO.  Ridiculous.  Now, it is insanely grainy at that setting, but what it implies is that you can have highly serviceable photos at up to about 12,000 ISO – and that is amazing, especially for photographers who shoot with organic light and typically locate themselves in reduced-light situations.  The days of possessing to sacrifice depth of field or sharpness to get a shot – or just not be capable to get the shot at all – are over.

When employed effectively and to its complete potential, digital photography rules.  All hail the new king.

This video explains some the variations and similarities of shooting with film vs shooting digital.  There is also a correlation to shooting film and recording music on tape and editing digitally. And how shooting manually, focusing manually and creating every single shot count gets you more engaged in the procedure as compared to shooting tons of frames on a memory card.
Video Rating: 4 / 5