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On digital photography, part 2 |
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Tuesday, 11 January 2005 |
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Yesterday's post has gotten me thinking again about digital photography, so I guess I'll just do the whole week on digital photography, and be done with it... (euh... let's just say, I'll be done for a few weeks after that...)
Today's toughts are about the now opmnipresent comparison between digital and film, it's not a fair comparison because they are basically different media. It's at the same level in my mind as a debate about wether oil paint or watercolor paint gives the best result. The only answer that makes sense is that they can both give good results, they just give different results...
I think it's about time that film photographers recognize digial as what it is : a new media, and not as a threat to their precious (my prresssiousss....(sorry, Gollum lapse, there, happens sometimes...)) emulsions. There are things that film does better and will always do, there are things that digital does better (yes, i know, shocking !), like in low level light, where digital noise tends to be less overwhelming than film grain (in high-end digital cameras, at least...)
Now, for my own work, i prefer film, for many reasons : you can't use a view camera with digital except with multi-thousand dollar scanning backs, and I happen to like view cameras. Digital still has trouble with high and low light values, and I like to have a full greyscale. It's things that apply to my own work, but anyone else's opinion can be different and digital can be wonderful when the final product is digital. Since more and more photos never get printed, and get sent by e-mail or posted on websites, or "projected" on the DVD player, a digital workflow is good in those cases. The instant feedback of digital is also very valuable, and in the time i've spent working with a digital SLR, i've learned many things, and my photography is now leaps and bounds further than it was.
I've also learned that digital is not for me, not for now at least, and since I'm on a path to larger and larger film sizes and contact prints, I doubt that it will ever be, except maybe for snapshots and the web... |
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