Hi Frank, Those were very good comments and I enjoyed them. I'm glad that you hit send instead of delete. I agree that people won't improve their photography much just because they have digital.
Charles I'd might as well wade into this one: Much of what you said in your intitial post, and in this one, I agree with, John. Sort of. You're making the assumption that people really care about improving the mistakes they made with their film p&s's. I don't see that happening with many (most?) people. Walk around touristy areas, and it's amazing how many have digi p&s's these days. And, they're making the same mistakes that they made with film. Looks like they're taking about the same number of photos. I don' see many folks editing on the fly - which BTW, really isn't a good idea in my books. It's pretty hard to consider a photograph "in the heat of the battle" so to speak. The only way I'd delete something while shooting is if I ran out of memory, and I had no choice. Editing should be done after the fact, when one can be a bit more detached, and has the time to properly consider why something should be deleted. Now, if someone really wants to improve their photographs, they'll do it, digital or no. They'll have already decided to buy an SLR or decent rangefinder, for the flexibility they afford. They'll have already learned how to eliminate red-eye, and started to try to compose a bit, rather than just "point and shoot". Here's why I think digital is a boon to the casual amateur. It's new technology. It's exciting. You can send piccies back to Nanny and Grampy ~while you're still on vacation~; "here we are standing next to Old Faithful this morning...". You only have to remember the camera - 'cause you can buy AA batteries anywhere in the world (AFAIK). So a lot of folks are going to take more photos just because of the convenience of it. You take more photos, some are bound to turn out. "The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
