On Jun 21, 2006, at 3:38 PM, Bob W wrote: > For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not rejecting it or being grumpy. I'm > finding out about it with a view to making a fairly rational decision. > It seems to me that the difference between my approach and the > approach taken by most of the people I know is that I am thinking hard > about it before I make the decision, so I will at least know in > advance what I'm letting myself in for. > > It seems to me that if more people had given it this kind of > consideration film would not be dying. Inside they have allowed > themselves to be herded by the electronics manufacturers who have an > interest in short product cycles which trap customers into frequent > high-dollar repurchases for minimal additional benefit.
Um, well, I gave the notion of digital media in photography a lot of thought many eons ago. I started doing digital imaging in 1984 and immediately recognized that here was a technology, in its infancy, that would move forward into the future. It took twenty years of hard work for the digital cameras of today to be what they are, which seems a very long time, but in retrospect it took 200 years of film camera and film technology to reach the apex they achieved. And digital photographic equipment is still very young, has a huge amount of upside left, where film technology has been pretty much at a plateau since the 1980s, with only very small, incremental improvements despite major money being spent on development until the middle 1990s. Whether the migration of the mass market to from film to digital process was some huge plot is irrelevant, really. I see what I do now as having been advanced tremendously by the capabilities that I could never get to with film and darkroom, for lack of money, capability and time. I could never build a home darkroom setup and produce 20 A3 Super color prints for an exhibit in an evening's work, for instance. I can do that easily today, with quality that rivals the best of what's available technically from any professional lab ... that reveals the flaws in my own vision and workmanship rather than the bones of my equipment. That to me is a plus. I've invested my money and effort in new equipment, in learning, in understanding to further my photography. The transition change from film to digital has had a cost, but I feel that for my purposes that cost is now behind me. Starting now instead of five years ago, the cost would be lower, not higher, since the technologies are at a more mature state. I'll continue to buy new equipment as it suits my needs now ... and probably on a schedule similar to what I used to do with film equipment. A new lens every so often, body upgrades to the top of the line pro class when it becomes available, etc. With the equipment now available, and the computing power now so cheap to do what I need to do to produce my work, what drives purchases is productivity and vision, not obsolescence. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
