By now, almost everyone who has a camera, it would be a digital camera. And by now, most of us would not have heard about film cameras anymore. Even if we did have one, we would not use it as much as we like due to costs and problems getting the picture to com eout. Welcome to the Digital Age.
More than ten years ago, having a Digital camera was like being the first sucker to buy a version 1.0 product. Yes, you have the latest expensive novelty gadget And the quality really sucked. Getting the pictures into the computer was even worse. And also, at that time, photo paper trickled warily into the market. Let's not even mention memory cards and the format war that nearly broke out.
Back then having a film camera has its own advantages. You could take thirty six pictures in blind faith, and hope one of them would come out well. Only to be disappointed three days later when the laughing technician handed the thick envelope back to you. And when you're bored, you could take out the brownish negatives and try to imagine the “actual colours” of the image that might come out. And when you're done, you just put them back into the thick negative book/folder/shoe box.
With a Digital Camera, you could shoot as much as you want depending on your memory card capacity (and battery power) and still get to piss the volunteer on the spot who took blurred/cropped pictures of you and your smiling friends. Not only that, you also get to shout embarrassing instructions that retard for not knowing how to use a digital camera. But if you had a film camera back then, a few days later, you know that volunteer has the last laugh. Especially if you're a tourist and forgot to remove the lens cap too.
But above all, the most important thing about having a film camera actually teaches you about photography. Pretty soon, with the tremendous amount of money spent buying films and what nots, you start to learn very quickly from your errors such as removing the lens cap, parallax error in close ups, ASA rating and most important of all, the types of films you need to use. And when you're serious about photography, then you would go deeper into subjects like apertures, f-stops, compositions and so on.
And some would even go into processing their own negatives and developing their own photos. And with some imaginative darkroom techniques, the pictures would be amazing. But now, there are reports that some are starting to go back films. They claimed that the image from a film has a richer (and a slight 3D effect) compared to the flatness of a digital image. And in time, those who started off with digital cameras would not have any good photography skills or discipline. Everyone would be like me, a point & shoot guy, who just take photos without much thought about composition, “lines”, angles, etc. Ha ha ha ha.
But here and now, like it or hate it, the Digital camera has really arrived. And it brought with it the some of the biggest advantage that no one can ignore: The ability and the ease to produce an image within the shortest time and with minimal cost and in a format that can be viewed all around the World instantly. Some camera manufacturers went with consumer demands and as a result, phased out film cameras. Even camera shops invested in digital printers. By now, a digital camera is so common, it has been the norm for mobile phones as well. And digital cameras have improved so much that they offered feature unheard of compared to film cameras such as low light photography, face/smile recognition, image stabilisation, and with more to come. In effect, a moron like me can now take as much good quality pictures as possible and then download it to my Notebook where I can select the best shot, edit it with some software and then upload it onto my Blog. And if I feel like it, I can pay some jerk RM5.00 to take the memory card from my hands, slot it into their computer, print the picture out and throw it to my face. All within less than 20 minutes or so.
More than ten years ago, having a Digital camera was like being the first sucker to buy a version 1.0 product. Yes, you have the latest expensive novelty gadget And the quality really sucked. Getting the pictures into the computer was even worse. And also, at that time, photo paper trickled warily into the market. Let's not even mention memory cards and the format war that nearly broke out.
Back then having a film camera has its own advantages. You could take thirty six pictures in blind faith, and hope one of them would come out well. Only to be disappointed three days later when the laughing technician handed the thick envelope back to you. And when you're bored, you could take out the brownish negatives and try to imagine the “actual colours” of the image that might come out. And when you're done, you just put them back into the thick negative book/folder/shoe box.
With a Digital Camera, you could shoot as much as you want depending on your memory card capacity (and battery power) and still get to piss the volunteer on the spot who took blurred/cropped pictures of you and your smiling friends. Not only that, you also get to shout embarrassing instructions that retard for not knowing how to use a digital camera. But if you had a film camera back then, a few days later, you know that volunteer has the last laugh. Especially if you're a tourist and forgot to remove the lens cap too.
But above all, the most important thing about having a film camera actually teaches you about photography. Pretty soon, with the tremendous amount of money spent buying films and what nots, you start to learn very quickly from your errors such as removing the lens cap, parallax error in close ups, ASA rating and most important of all, the types of films you need to use. And when you're serious about photography, then you would go deeper into subjects like apertures, f-stops, compositions and so on.
And some would even go into processing their own negatives and developing their own photos. And with some imaginative darkroom techniques, the pictures would be amazing. But now, there are reports that some are starting to go back films. They claimed that the image from a film has a richer (and a slight 3D effect) compared to the flatness of a digital image. And in time, those who started off with digital cameras would not have any good photography skills or discipline. Everyone would be like me, a point & shoot guy, who just take photos without much thought about composition, “lines”, angles, etc. Ha ha ha ha.
But here and now, like it or hate it, the Digital camera has really arrived. And it brought with it the some of the biggest advantage that no one can ignore: The ability and the ease to produce an image within the shortest time and with minimal cost and in a format that can be viewed all around the World instantly. Some camera manufacturers went with consumer demands and as a result, phased out film cameras. Even camera shops invested in digital printers. By now, a digital camera is so common, it has been the norm for mobile phones as well. And digital cameras have improved so much that they offered feature unheard of compared to film cameras such as low light photography, face/smile recognition, image stabilisation, and with more to come. In effect, a moron like me can now take as much good quality pictures as possible and then download it to my Notebook where I can select the best shot, edit it with some software and then upload it onto my Blog. And if I feel like it, I can pay some jerk RM5.00 to take the memory card from my hands, slot it into their computer, print the picture out and throw it to my face. All within less than 20 minutes or so.
A.jpg)
This team took some pictures of a shophouse and edit it on the spot. And
if the owner does not like it, they can then re-shoot, edit it and even put
some effects there and then. This saves time as they do not need to go back
to their office and come back days later with test shot photos.
or
She is uploading the photos on her blog......
2 comments:
It is indeed quite true that it helps to take better photographs if you started off with an analog camera. Nowadays I can take an almost perfect picture, everytime, with the camera I have (or used to have, since its now officially DEAD!), but I still think in terms of ASA, ISO, shutter speed, and Appature. I would switch to manual to override the settings assigned by the auto mode if I think I can make the shot better.
However, there's no substitute when it comes to framing or composing a shot. No camera in the world can tell you how to take a shot; it can only help you make the shot as perfect as technology would allow.
Check out these pics I took recently:
http://fast-c-nation.blogspot.com/
(or click on my username)
Like I said my camera died on me so for this trip I had to take along my father's point-and-shoot digital camera. But I still managed to capture some amazing shots. Photoshop helped a bit in making the photos look better, but that's where technology ends, and the human touch took over.
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