Digital is Dumb
I just bought my wife a new film SLR, so this may seem a bit
self serving, but...
We are photographic dinosaurs. Of the three cameras I use
most frequently the panorama has no meter, my 35 is a rangefinder
with match LED and my medium format has only aperture priority.
My wife was using a Canon AE1 with a zoom. I've never used a
camera with a zoom. While I do all sorts of fancy scanning and
Photoshopping she sends her color negs to a mail order photofinisher
and gets back 3x5's which she puts in albums. No fuss, no muss and
10 cents a print.
So the new camera came as a big jump in technology. Not only does
it have a much bigger range zoom (28-200), it has motor wind,
auto exposure of many flavors, and auto focus as well. All this for
under $500.
As Father's day is coming up the media is filled with ads for new
cameras - all digital. The SLR features seem to be about the same as the
film camera in terms of functionality, but the cost is more like double
the film camera. The performance may or may not be
better than film depending on the megapixels and the print size. But for
people like my wife, who I think represents the bulk of the picture
takers, I just don't see the advantage. If she doesn't want to fuss with
memory cards, computers and home printers, then she needs to take her
images to a local photofinisher. The costs of prints will be the same or
higher and she has to wait to get them back just the same. So the only
cost savings in the actual film itself. At about $3 per roll that extra
$500 will take many years to amortize.
So what's the incentive? The ability to look at the picture on the
built in screen? With modern automated cameras almost all pictures come
out well. It seems to me that for this type of user the digital
revolution has been oversold. This may help explain why so few images
are printed out, it is just too much effort.
--
Robert D Feinman
Landscapes, Cityscapes and Panoramic Photographs
http://robertdfeinman.com
mail: robert.feinman@gmail.com
Robert Feinman
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