----- Original Message ----- From: "Titrisol" : The future maybe digital, but the quality is not there yet. I'm no longer teaching or working as a photo tech, but prior to my departure from the college I found myself quite despondent at the rapid assimilation of digital to the exclusion of everything else. Half frame cameras in preference to medium or large format? groan the argument was always the same - resolution. but always on digital's terms. Never a comparison to 25 asa films or tech pan - always the 'consumer grade 400 ASA film scanned by medium end scanners' V the highest quality settings on the digital. Never the 'look' of the image, always that golden resolution issue. Any digicam produced image printed up and set beside a film based/RA image and examined under a magnifying glass for a direct comparison of real resolution and almost invariably film would win, but no one wanted to explore the concept of real resolution, just the fact that students could tinker blindly with an image proved magnetic enough to draw the majority away from film into the playground of digital. To be perfectly frank, the course slid rapidly downhill after the Borg took over - where once I'd find students examining roll after roll of perfectly exposed, perfectly focussed E6 film on the light table to find the one great image, I was instead seeing rows of students sitting in front of variably hued mac screens staring at thumbnails first to find the correctly exposed shots, then enlarging the remainder to find the few that were also in focus, and then fiddling for hours with the one or two remnants of their shoot that could be salvaged. By the end of the advanced diploma one or two students could be found back shooting film and printing RA4 but on the whole the remainder would continue on shooting digital and buying/upgrading/buying/upgrading like good little consumers after they left and turned pro. I still keep close ties with the college, lecturers and staff, and from time to time I will help a particular student who shows promise. Earlier this year I lent one an 8x10 camera to play with after he'd borrowed my 4x5 for a couple of months. Currently he has staff and students pouring over his transparencies, amazed that he can take two sheets of film and produce 2 perfectly exposed, perfectly focussed images that look stunning on a light table. the work is exquisite. he's good - damned good, but also had the wit to realise that format contributed heavily to the look of an image, and also had the nouse to discover the same thing many photographers from earlier times had learned - shooting costly, cumbersome formats makes you a better photographer. he knows that unlike digital, every messed up frame comes with a sting in the tail - lost time, lost opportunity, lost money. He doesn't need to think about exposure anymore, he never brackets (even digital!), he never uses autofocus and oddly some may think, he never misses a shot. He's learned how to judge the light, he's learned how to both critically focus and also how to zone focus. he's learned to be patient and wait for the shot rather than just hammer away at the motor dive. His work exceeds the quality of every student who's passed through the college in the last 5 years. The credit goes to him of course, they're his eyes and it's his mind that creates and composes the shots, his will that led him to seek out the costly large format experience and to do well at it. My contribution is minimal, but I've been rewarded greatly at seeing him progress so well. I would go so far as to say he's earned the title of being a Photographer. he shoots digital for what it's best for, rapid access to images or to get pics around the world fast, he shoots 35mm for convenience (alone), medium format is selected for a compromise between convenience and quality and the big stuff - that's pure quality :-) Funny, I was reading an article in a recent photo rag here in Oz and some bloke in the East was prattling on about his wonderful new digital 4x5 - sa ying how good his new digital (the emphasis was always on the digital) camera could correct converging verticals *in the camera* (gasps of amazement from the readers), and how it was SO COOL that he could get these really big files (that needed a really big computer to work up) - and the kicker? It only took him 35 minutes to make an exposure (hoorah!) damn. think guy, 35mm, 66,69,4x5,8x10,11x14.. it's irrelevant. f16 60 - pop. you have the shot. ah progress... k
