----- Original Message ----- From: "Don Sanderson"
Subject: *ist D image quality-_Was -Stupid Question #999
I already retracted my 1.5:1 comment, just a brain cramp. :-(
HOWEVER... one thing still bugs me.
<things that bug Don snipped>
Digital has a different set of qualities from film.
Film (even 35mm) still has more resolving potential, and film still has a longer tonal range, and if that is your most important criteria, then digital is not for you.
Digital makes up for a lot of this by having no grain and by looking sharper.
For a pro, resolution is just one more of the things on the list of compromises that go into doing the job. If the need for it is outweighed by other factors, then other factors will rightly sway the decision for tool usage.
The pro boys that I talked to when digital was just taking off all had one thing in common: they weren't buying film anymore, and they weren't paying for processing, and they felt that the digital camera would amortize itself on these savings alone.
Lower down on the list, mentioned by some, but not others, was that it put the photographer in more control over the results.
Some were content to let the labs deal with it, some weren't.
The vanguard of the digital era is the wedding photographer, really.
Digital is ideal for this type of photography.
The technical requirements aren't as stringent, but what digital is better at is better for weddings andmainstream portraiture.
No grain, and lower resolution can be a blessing, as can ease of retouching flaws.
If you are a busy wedding shooter, it is quite likely that your film costs may run into a hundred dollar bill or more per job.
Thirty jobs, and you have paid for one hell of a nice digital camera and accessories. When I was shooting weddings for profit, that would have been one season of shooting.
That's a pretty strong incentive.
Here's another one: on digital, I can shoot WAY MORE PHOTOS, and give the client more choices.
When one is a big time photogrpaher shooting high priced fashion models, one will shoot tons of pictures, and bill the cost of the film to the job.
Now, this advantage has trickled down to the lower cost jobs.
The shoot I did this past weekend, if I had been shooting film, I doubt if I would have shot more than a couple of rolls of film per model (well, except for the scene with the hat).
It might have represented an unwelcome cost to the client.
Instead, I shot some 750 pictures. I didn't shoot a whole lot more poses, but I got a lot of different expressions that I wouldn't have got had I shot less (film).
This is value added for the client. They
Digital has become a societal buzzword. We've been trained as a society to think that if the word digital is used as an adjective, the noun will automatically be better.
We were told that digital audio is better, digital phones, clocks, watches, television and a myriad of other consumer technologies have all been touted as an improvement, and all of them, in some way or another, have offered some sort of improvement, although usually also at the expense of some other, perhaps less quantitative criteria.
As an example, audiophiles insist that good vinyl is better than any digital recording.
They are probably right.
However, in my living room, playing my records on my turntable, I found that eventually, the inevitable happened, and the record started to make funny popping noises.
My CDs don't do that.
To me, and obviously a lot of other people, judging by the paucity of records available now, this has some advantages over records.
We may be giving up some qualities, but are gaining others.
It may also be that what we are gaining is more visible (audible, I suppose in this instance) than what we are giving up.
So, when a wedding photographer tells his potential client that film is old hat, and he is shooting DIGITAL, that client may look favourably, simply because of cultural conditioning.
When one photographer starts using it to an advantage, others will quickly follow.
That the pictures look pretty darned good really helps.
And that, my friend, is why I think pros are shooting digital.
Stenquist probably has a better idea of this than I do, but I bet that most high end product photography is still being shot on large format film.
The unwashed masses tend to follow the trends of the professional. This is why a lot of people use high end Nikon or Canon cameras, when they will never make use of the qualities that are built in.
Everyone knows that Nikon and Canon are "professional cameras".
Cachet value sells.
So, with digital gaining a beachhead with the pro market, and a suddenly happy camera industry feeding the hypefest, digital has also taken the amateur and snapshot market.
William Robb
