Once was, cameras didn't matter a jot - you bought the right film for the occasion. Digi isn't that flexible, if a sensor perfoms poorly under certain situations, then that is that. Of course that is not counting weird artifacts, odd unrealistic motion based distortions, sensor panel overload lines, electronic interference (a la the pics I posted a time back when the camera was a tad too close to a TV transmitter) - I'm just thinking of the light or colour sensitivity. Photoshop can be employed to jiggle colours about, but that ever sought after 'realism' is difficult to achieve when the frame of reference is so biased. Think of so many movies these days - the hyped up colours that are all the rage.. Matrix-style, 300, etc.. see here for the "everything is teal and orange" point http://www.cracked.com/article_18664_5-annoying-trends-that-make-every-movie-look-same.html (language warning) that's extreme, but I've seen so much commercial photography of late which 10 years back would have seen a first year student told to reshoot. Your lenses and camera once paid for were essentially good to last you forever barring accidental damage, that was a plus. However it was not that simple even back in the days when 35mm was king. you still needed the right gear for the right job. Some people might say it doesn't matter what you use, it's all about the picture - using a 35mm to produce a billboard shot will work for sure, but that shot will pale when set alongside a shot taken with a 4x5. Even repoduced at low magazine resolutions, a shot taken on 4x5 will blitz a 35mm shot when done right. If the customer wanted the studio shot of their product to ooze opulence, 4x5 or 8x10 is the format to shoot. Horses for courses though, trying to snap all the kids as they ran squealing about at little Jimmy's birthday party required a quicker camera to use than a clunky LF or MF camera. And going all James Bond on somone would be a little hard with a full 'Blad outfit, so enter the minox or mamiya sub miniatures. Even if you needed the quality of MF, the choice of lenses somewhat limited what could be done - you wanted the skater gritty urban realism type stuff then out came the 35mm with the 8mm lens. Point being, sometimes a compomise was needed as the gear just wasn't available for fully optimizing the shot. Simple fact is 35mm was so successful because 35mm was the *convenient* format. Quality was acceptable, cameras were small and light, fast to operate and could bang off quite a few shots before needing reloading. Half frames were uncommon, but proved very popular with the press crew - but they were less convenient to the general population that standard 35mm as press photographers had access to in-house labs which handled the stuff with no fuss - the processing facilities available to the average Joe were a little more troublesome. There were many false starts in the smaller formats that promised to be even more convenient than 35mm, but they failed: 110 and disks - results too grainy, Instant - film too expensive, 136 - cameras too basic. When electronics entered the cameras, took over all those complicated controls and made any plonker a photographer, the cameras really took off with consumers - convenience won again. Enter digital - infinitely more convenient than film for the vast population, the death warrant on 35mm film was signed, sealed and delivered. Now (as I predicted) phones have taken over for a lot of people as they're more convenient again, and they're with most people all the time. Nowdays though even the market wants convenience above almost everything, editors and art directors want work done yesterday, accessible to them while they're in-flight on their ipads - so again, the speed of digital outweighs quality. Run through the right RIP, even a mediocre shot can be worked up to look good (see 'everything is teal and orange' again ;) - and for some subject material it can be more than good. As to upgrades - I found if I walked into a job with a Hasselblad I got jobs over others with Mamiyas, even if I shot the job with a mamiya. The impression was that I had good gear, I must be good. Not for mums and dads though, for them I'd carry in a Canon F1N. Whatever the customer would recognize as a 'superior' camera The latest shiniest digicam may not be needed for the job, may be absolutely the wrong tool for the job - but for a pro if it helps get the photographer the job then it IS the right tool .. and this demands the pro own it - and subsequently, the necessity of upgrades is a fact :( If I were to tell a customer I used a pentax 6Mp, edited on a win98 machine using PS5 or freeware they'd think I was pretty lame, irrespective of the work I produced. If I told them I had a $7500 PC with quad monitors and 10 Tb or mirrored raid 10k drives running win7 using whatever the latest version of PS is out there, they'd think I was cutting edge .. people are funny. But i'm not working in the industry any more. If I were I guess I'd be shooting digi same as everyone else ... I might even lower my standards a bit. For my own pics, I still print most of the (few) B&W images I produce in the darkroom from film - the 'look' is better to my eye than any injet print, and I find the prints quicker, cheaper and easier to produce. I've parked my colour inkjet too. When (if) the time comes for me to start cranking out large amounts of colour work again I'll fire up my RA4 and go buy wet chemicals and spend a few weeks bashing out prints - the chemistry is SO much cheaper than inks and color management is so much easier. k .
