Richard wrote:
> I had the good fortune to be on the sidelines for the start of the Super
> Bowl and there were tons of photographers down there. Virtually all of them
> had Nikon digital and I saw zero Canon digital cameras. I was disheartened.
I don't see why you should be disheartened. First of all, why should it matter
to us what other folks choose to use? But beyond that, this is an example of the
kind of situation where digital comes into its own--one where speed is most
important and quality is secondary (and "art" isn't even a consideration,
really). It shouldn't be a surprise that press photogs don't review their images
as they go; after all, they're not the ones deciding what goes in tomorrow
morning's newspaper. Also, it's their job to generate a large number of images
in order to insure that any particularly noteworthy incident is captured "on
film," so to speak. Now, if they were shooting for a high-quality book of their
own work, it would be a different story (and they probably would be using film).
Personally, it doesn't really matter to me if Canon ever comes out with a
"Nikon-beater" digital camera, and I certainly don't care whether Nikon or
Olympus sells more digital cameras than Canon. Canon is a very large, very
successful corporation, and since I'm not a shareholder, their unit sales are of
little concern to me.
IMO, a lot of the perceived advantages of digital cameras for the hobbyist are
illusory. Any little time saved by not going to your local lab to drop off and
pick up film is lost in the time it takes to adequately edit and print digital
files; and given the high cost of printer ink--and what is your time
worth?--digital is not particulary cost-effective, at least for low-volume
shooters.
Furthermore, so long as digital and computer technology continues to evolve, the
quality of film scans will continue to improve, so that ten years from now I
will probably be able to get a much better digital image from my current
negatives and slides than I can now, whereas if I were using a digital camera,
my photos would be no better in five, ten, or twenty years than they are today.
For me anyway, having a film original and the potential for ever-improving scans
of those originals is the best of both worlds.
Of course, I'm not a newspaper photographer and my needs are not a press
photographer's needs (high volume and fast turnaround).
fcc
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