I can't tell you how many times in grade school that I had to bring in a collage of my family and then lost the photos. I can't tell you how many times in grade school that I had to bring in a collage of my family and then lost the photos.
Wow, I never had to do that.
today of course we have to back up our digital photos like any other sort of data. And wonder whether we should actually print most of them out.
It's only when dealing with older relatives that I ever handle physical photos anymore. I think the last time I developed a roll of film was after traveling around Eastern Europe in 1999.
Bad data-protector that I am, I wonder if my print photographs aren't actually much safer than my digital ones. Sure, they get dusty and torn and faded over the decades, but by and large they're still around, whereas I just know any day now my hard drive will crash and all my digital photos will up and disappear.
Thank goodness that digital files never disappear!
Use Flickr people. 20 bucks a year gets you unlimited capacity.
Would your second-grade self have the same taste as you have today? Perhaps the real cuteBecks photos are in fact those that stayed home. I myself remember having had awful taste in shoes.
There's a valid point to 4. I'm paranoid about trying to store my prints well, but also scanning them and adding them to the digital collection, which I'm paranoid about backing up. Basically, it's twice the neuroticism.
I do use Flickr partly as a backup solution, but for expediency's sake I never upload the pictures at full size. Takes forever.
The flipside of this, of course, is that not only are digital photos not destroyed by school projects, but that all of those embarassing pictures of you as a youngster can be replicated, and replicated, and replicated....
And emailed to large lists of people.
With captions added.
All those digital photos people are taking now? They are lost. Statistically speaking, they are just gone. Print them, or lose them.
I say this both as someone who is a bit of a luddite (I mostly shoot film) but also as someone whose day-job* specifically involves the creation and maintenance of digital imaging archives (so I have some realistic sense of what keeping digital images for any length of time involves).
* the one that funds my depressingly endless grad-student career ...
I am paranoid about pictures in much the same way as mrh. I immediately off-load from the camera, then upload from my desktop to my gallery, then back them up to the external drive, etc., etc. For a while I maintained two gallery installations so that I'd have a backup of that. It gets a little crazy, but ttaM is right: digital is not forever. Digital is temporary storage.
That said, my last roll of film was from 1998. I found it and had it developed a couple of years ago and was pleasantly surprised to find some old vacation pictures. My mother occasionally finds a roll from some previous decade (I think the longest she'd had one was 25 years or so) and takes them to the drug store just to see what comes back. For all that digital is impermanent, seeing the pictures once beats losing the roll in a sock drawer and never seeing them at all.
I think a big part of the pleasure of old photographs is the serendipity, the digging through old boxes of prints, seeing Great Uncle McManly Pants back when he had hair, etc. That's largely dead, at least for a short while.
The % of photos taken today that will survive 10 years from now will be small, and, possibly as importantly, the ones that do survive will be a consciously chosen subset. The ones people have chosen to print, rather than all the rest. Again, there's something lost there.
Digital, of course, allows much quicker and wider dissemination of images, and even just among family and friends, photos have wider circulation. I'm not being a total luddite, and I suspect that the digital storage issue will fade as newer technological advances come on-stream. But, for the time being, people ought to assume that every photo they take on their digital camera, except for the tiny % they choose to print, is gone.
Not just that, but *how* they print them is important too. Although, again, with long-life inks, that's becoming less of a problem.
Well, using long-life inks, if it's on an inkjet printer. Or optically. A lot of photolabs use ordinary colour paper [like back in ye olden pre-digital days] but print onto it from digital 'negatives'. Which produces prints with the same archival stability as prints from film.
This is all extremely distressing. If I burn my digital photos onto a CD (which I don't do regularly, but know I should, or at least thought I should, for safe-keeping), why is it that I should expect them to be lost? I thought that was a fairly secure medium. (And if I always have photos both on CD and hard drive, and replace either one from the other whenever there is a failure, aren't I in fact very safe?)
I'm worried I may need to start printing photos.
the ones that do survive will be a consciously chosen subset. The ones people have chosen to print, rather than all the rest. Again, there's something lost there.
Mmmmmmsortakinda. The biggest difference digital photography makes to me is that I take a ton of photos in order to have a couple of good ones, whereas with film, I always tried to catch "the" moment. And really, the photos that survive are a small subset as is: the ones that got put in albums or, when grandma dies and you go through her stuff, are of people you can identify.
The lifespan is CD-Rs is, or can be, quite short.
http://computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,107607,00.html
According this article, an IBM expert claims a lifespan of 2 to 5 years. Wildly varying claims for CD lifespans float about, though. Theoretically, high quality CD media, properly stored, ought to last quite a bit longer.
Of course, if you also have hard-drive copies and re-burn the discs every now and again, you are probably fairly safe. Combine that with using some sort of on-line system and you are probably very safe. Of course, that requires some level of vigilance. It's not quite 'chuck it in a box in a cupboard'.
re: 17
I take a ton of photos in order to have a couple of good ones, whereas with film, I always tried to catch "the" moment.
Yeah, I quite like that element of film photography. However, that's just a personal preference.
It's not a new shift, of course. The history of photography is full of shifts from relatively slow cumbersome systems -- 8x10 plate cameras, for example -- that encouraged a certain 'meditative' process towards faster systems -- 35mm cameras -- that encouraged a more 'random' approach. With some people preferring one or the other, and lots of others (like me) shifting back and forth, depending on mood or circumstance.
At every stage there are some 'purists' decrying the changeover. Sometimes, of course, they have a point -- 8x10 view cameras take pictures that nothing else can match -- but sometimes they also miss the point -- small, quick cameras let you take pictures you'd never take any other way.
If shooting hundreds of digital frames gets shots that would have been missed otherwise, it's all good!
I lost some extremely cool pictures on our last vacation because the film wasn't feeding correctly, even though the counter was incrementing. Film is dead to me.
re: 20
Heh, yeah. I've messed up a couple of times developing [I develop my own black and white, mostly] and lost some stuff.
In that sense, older cameras are less prone to some of those mechanical/electrical type errors. If I load film in some of my older cameras, I know if it's not feeding right, because I can see it. Of course, recommending 1950s cameras isn't really a universal solution to film problems.
Of course, recommending 1950s cameras isn't really a universal solution to film problems.
Comity!
And, saying that, I am going to a wedding this weekend, and if I had a decent compact digital camera, I'd definitely take it.
I remember the first rule of my photo science class was "film is cheap." How nice that this has gone to its logical conclusion of free. But yeah, I need to get in the habit of culling greatest-hits of my digital pics for high-quality printing.
Before my wife and I separated I had only just started working on my wedding album, two and a half years after the fact. Our wedding photographer was shite, so we never ordered any prints from him, but we had tons of great stuff from friends and family, all on my iPhoto. I'd kind of like to disc the whole thing off and give it to someone to turn into a book for archival purposes. Don't really want to spend too much time on it right now, you know? I think my girlfriend would disapprove.
Also: what are the best digital still and video cameras, with low price as the first consideration?
Ohh.. I also need to buy a new camera, so let me free-ride off 25. My wife is looking at the canon rebel xti or the nikon d-80. I know nothing about cameras.
She also thinks the rebel xt or the d-50 would work. I worry that she's trying to buy more camera than we need; she's a decent photographer but we're mostly just taking baby photos.
24: isn't there, like, a button in iPhoto to do that?
isn't there, like, a button in iPhoto to do that?
Totally, and it rocks. We've made a little iPhoto book for every major holiday and vacation for the past few years. Cheap and fun!
I worry that she's trying to buy more camera than we need
Not necessarily a bad thing. I have a Nikon D100, which was a profoundly irrational expenditure, and 95 percent of the time I use it to take photos of my daughters. I haven't had time to learn half of what the camera can do, but I've gotten scores of great portraits of a quality I could never get with a compact digital camera with a built-in lens. Of course, if you already have SLR lenses that will fit (and if you can afford it), definitely get a digital SLR.
I just have a little HP Photosmart (R707) that I got on sale for cheap and I love it. Light, easy to use and I think it takes pretty fine pictures despite my best efforts at fucking them up. If you're just taking baby pictures I think a digital SLR is probably way more camera than you need. If your wife is serious about it as a hobby, though, the friends of mine who have them do indeed love them.
I'd agree that if it's just for baby pictures, it's overkill. I'm assuming that if she's looking at that kind of camera, she wants to do more with it, but that assumption may be totally incorrect.
She wants to have it to do anything and everything she might want to do with it, 99% of which will be take baby pictures.
That was basically my attitude, and now I can't see using anything but an SLR. If you can rent or borrow one for a while to check it out, that's what I'd recommend.
If you're just taking baby pictures I think a digital SLR is probably way more camera than you need.
You're missing something, here. Every non-SLR digital I've ever seen has a delay between pressing the shutter-release and actual shutter-release; only SLR's eliminate this. Regular digitals are fine -- until your baby starts moving.
I think 37 is exactly her concern. All the photos of our kid look great when you press the button, but look completely different (usually worse) by the time the camera gets around to taking the photo. Getting a good picture involves predicting what the scene will look like about 1.5 seconds in the future, and taking photos accordingly. Not the easiest process.
But isn't there a shittier (and consequently cheaper) SLR we could get that would solve this problem?
37 gets it right. Also, dSLRs are so cheap now that there's not a massive price differential between a higher-end compact and a mid-range digital SLR. And the lenses are, outside of the really really high end compacts, much better on the SLRs. The digital SLR market is fairly mature, so the impression I have*, is that any of the mid-range models from the big manufacturers -- mostly Canon and Nikon, but also Sony, Pentax and Samsung -- are pretty good cameras.
* I work with digital cameras a lot at work, but they are *really* high end [$30,000+ high end] so not really relevant here, so I've not had tons of hands on experience with the current crop of dSLRs ...
I'm partial to Nikons, since you can use their autofocus lenses on their older manual focus cameras, and, with some limitations, their older manual focus lenses on their autofocus cameras, including DSLRs. (Which means, if/when I get a DSLR I won't have to buy new lenses.) If none of this applies to you, you should make your decision based on how comfortable the camera is to hold. Not kidding.
McMC of this parish takes amazingly good pictures with a canon point and shoot. Ttam, carrying this principle to absurd lengths, takes amazingly good pictures with a 1950s Russian film camera.
A digital SLR is only an advantage if it has a notably larger sensor than the point and shoot -- I think they all do, but this is not at all to be confused with megapixels -- or if you are going to buy, and use, more lenses than the ones it came with. I have a pentax one, partly because you can pick up dirt cheap old manual pentax lenses all over the place that work perfectly well with it; partly because it is a lot smaller than most of the competition. But it's probably safest to get a good point and shoot and see if you really, really, after a year, as missing good pictures because of something it won't do. By that time, the DSLR will be cheaper.
28: There's a substantial selection process that comes before you can press the button. But it's not a bad idea.
Can't you mostly beat shutter lag by depressing the button halfway and holding till you shoot?
Also, any recs on digital video? My last one was a Sony Digital-8 that shoots on Hi-8 tape. It's pretty crappy, although I think that may have come from dropping it, not inherent crappiness.
re: 41
Yeah, I plan to get one of the new Pentax dSLRs as soon as I can afford one, as I already have a bunch of old (and very good) Pentax-mount lenses.
Pretty much all dSLRs have massively bigger sensors than compacts, although the Olympus/Panasonic/Leica 4-3rds system has a pretty small sensor it's still pretty large compared to even high end compacts. I can only think of one compact advertised as having a dSLR sized sensor
37 nails it. I have a Digital Rebel Xt. It works well for those pesky moving kids. You could certainly find something better, but it is a good value.
I have a great film camera that I simply never use anymore.
I love my Canon point-and-shoot, but it has its limitations, and the lapse of time between pressing the shutter release and the actual release of the shutter is one of them. I get around this by mostly shooting stuff that doesn't move. Also, non-interchangeable lens, and not that much zoom. I still love it, but a nikon digital slr would be very very nice. I'm so happy not to shoot film---I'm far too messy to be a good printer, and I have no nostalgia for the darkroom at all.
43: Coming soon if it's not available already: no-tape video cameras--so worth waiting for.
"I'm far too messy to be a good printer, and I have no nostalgia for the darkroom at all."
Yeah, I quite like working in the darkroom but, tbh, it is a hassle setting up an enlarger (I have mine dismantled most of the time), so instead I shoot hybrid. Shoot on film, scan, print digitally.
ttaM, what kind of printer do you use?
re: 49
I just have a fairly cheapish Canon iP4300. The prints are good, but not perfect. I've seen better prints from some of the higher-end Epsons.
Still, it's good enough for me. If I really want super-high-quality I'd either use an enlarger or send the negs out to get printed.
nattarG:
What kind of camera do you use?
25, I bought a Nikon D40 based on online recommendations and picked it over Canon because I have Nikon lenses from my analog SLRs. I haven't played with it much yet, though, on moving subjects or otherwise.
I was hoping that the technology improvement would compensate for operator inadequacies.
re: 51
I don't own a digital SLR. But, in terms of film cameras, I have quite a few: 14, I think at last count.
However, my 'main' cameras in terms of the ones I use most are:
Zorki 2C [Soviet made 'leica' copy]
Kodak Retina IIc [beautiful folding 35mm rangefinder]
Pentax P50 [compact, 80s SLR]
Fuji GS645S [medium format rangefinder]
Flexaret Automat VII [Czech made TLR]
Salyut-C [Soviet made 'Hasselblad' copy]
Prices are so cheap on even really high end gear that I have acquired a fair bit of either good or quirky/odd stuff over the past 5 years. Some of it was given to me by friends who didn't want it or who were moving to digital. My whole 'collection' of film cameras and lenses cost less than a bottom-end digital SLR with basic zoom lens.
Some of those cameras produce results you'd struggle to equal with any affordable non-pro digital camera. Less convenient to use, of course.
37 is right. There are two big problems with compact digitals from that point of view. Lot's of people figure `oh, we're just doing baby pictures, we don't need a fancy camera' Then they let some guy at best buy upsell them to a $500 compact or whatever.
The two biggest problems are this: shutter/AFS lag and small sensorts. (the third is no real wide angle)
The first one makes it difficult to take pictures of your kids if they are actually moving. The second one means that almost universally, the compacts are bad in low light. (fuji being the only exception). This is primarily because the actuall sensors are too small. Low light here basically means anything you would have used say, 400 ISO indoor film foor. Not in direct sunlight, you know, like almost always in your house or in the evening, etc.
As a result, the cameras usually want to use flash. But the little flashes are a) underpowered and b) in the worst possible place.
If you want to avoid these problems, the only realy way out with digital is an SLR. And you may not realize it, but you probably want a proper flash too.
further on to 55:
any of the entry level SLR's would work for you. As a general rule, nikon has been offering a bit more bang for the buck as it is in a 2nd position in the market, but canon has more lens options (which may or may not matter to you)
The D40 is a tiny camera for an SLR, but it achieved this by not having a built in AF motor, so some lenses won't work with it (at least they won't auto focus). So this might be a factor for some, although it's a better deal than the rebels. Total expected budget, how many and which lenses, etc. really matter as to what your best bet will be. Digital bodies are more expensive than film bodies (they do a lot more) so there is a tendency to cheap out on lenses to compensate, which is probably a bad idea. Many of the kit lenses really aren't that good, so you might consider buying a body only and a suitable lens seperately. That being said, lots of people are very happy with their rebel or d20/d30 kits from canon, or the d40/d80 kits from nikon. I'm just noting that the lenses shipped with many of these(exception, nikon 18-70 option) are optically speaking very far from either companies best work.
Anyone thinking they'll just use their old manual lenses with a digital SLR might be in for a surprise. Some of them simplly won't work, or at least won't meter. Worse though, lower end DSLR bodies are set up terribly for manual focus. To get a reasonable body for this in Nikon, you have to go to the D200 ($1500 USD or so, body only) and Canon is worse, you'd have to go to the 5D really, which is $1000 more.
re: 55 and 56
Yeah, kit lenses are generally crap, tbh. Actually, non-extortionately-expensive zoom lenses (in general) are crap.
That is where bodies that can use old manual focus prime lenses can really score.
Digital cameras (apart from the higher end ones) are also, as you say, generally poor in low-light. Irrespective of whether they are SLRs or compacts. Of course, if flash performance is important even compact cameras can 'drive' a slave flash.
57: some compacts don't have a hotshoe though. But you are quite right, you can run a flash on many compacts and `prosumer' cameras. However, that doesn't help you much with the fact that you probably have a slowish lens, and anything above ISO 400 is probably iffy, if you can do it at all. Some compacts honestly aren't much good above ISO 200.
By comparison, most of the SLR's these days will do ok up to maybe 800, or at least 640. Combine that with a cheap prime lens at f/1.8 or f/2 and you have probably at least 2-3 stops more to work with, which is a huge difference indoors.
As for the low light, not all SLR's are equal of course, but even one of the poorer low-light performers tend to be a lot better than most all compacts. The APS-C type sensors are more than 1/2 the full frame 35mm size (about .65) and many compacts are only about .15. Small size is good for some things, but not for noise performance. The frustrating thing is that digital 35mm is in general *better* at noise than film, but only , as you say, with expensive cameras. All because of this stupid marketing race on useless megapixels.
re: 58
I wouldn't disagree with any of that.
57: I waited for the d200 to come out for that very reason, it was the first nearly affordable body that really is quite usable with manual lenses. As a result, some of my favourite lenses cost me about $50. Quite a difference from the extortionately expensive (but really quite amazing) 2.8 zooms. Which, sad to say, I've fallen for a couple of.
I wouldn't want to use manuals much on a nikon d70 though, or a canon 30d. Not without a modified viewfinder, anyway. I'm sure they are a dream on the 5D, but it's not cheap.
It it striking how poor the finders are on a lot of SLRs with APS-C sensors. As you say, not geared towards manual lens use. The finders are small, dark, and they make it very hard to focus manually. Saying that, I have used auto-focus era film cameras that also have relatively poor finders in comparison to the (amazing) finders on the earlier generation of manual focus SLRs. My Pentax P50 has a noticeably brighter finder than my Pentax SFX.
Although, saying that, I have taken some shots, for a previous job, with a D70 using a mixture of autofocus and old manual lenses and it was OK.