Digital Photography? I Almost Spat When I Came Across The Phrase!Writen by Doug Harvey
I had been a semi-professional photographer for some years working with my faithful film based SLR rather than enter the realms of digital photography. I knew very dial and lens and produced results that pleased the eye and when it came to wedding photography, the bride and groom. I photographed many subjects with a great preference for land and seascapes and for quite a while totally resisted the digital photography urge.
One day though, my hand was forced. My trusty SLR had developed a fault and I needed to fill a wedding photography assignment. All I could do was ask a friend if I could borrow their camera. They were quick to help out, but instead of a film based camera all they could provide was a 5 mega pixel digital camera. I was horrified! Time was against me though and my friend ran me through the basic operations of the camera. I set off and covered the wedding with digital ease no worries about how the prints would turn out as the results appeared right in front of me that was a BIG benefit!
That was the beginning of discovering a whole new world. I was previously under the impression that digital photography took the creativity out of the shot, but I was wrong. Instead it has simply been a different approach and indeed an approach that can lead to more variety as I manipulate the image on the computer screen instead of in the darkroom. With increasingly more and more able photo editing software packages coming on the market worlds of opportunity have opened up before my eyes. I quickly discovered other benefits. I must have saved a fortune on buying film. I dont even print all my photographs either. I just have them on my computer to look at now and again or use perhaps as backgrounds on my desktop. After all, how many of us used to take rolls and rolls of film, have all the prints developed, look through the resulting prints expectantly, maybe put a few in a photo album and have the rest take up space in a drawer somewhere and rarely see the light of day? Special prints get loaded onto an SD card and taken to a nearby print shop I decided that was cheaper than trying to print them on my printer, but you may feel differently.
As a result of borrowing that camera, I decided to take the plunge and bought my own nothing flash (excuse the pun!), just a reasonable camera with a number of options. Now, without the pressure of having to pay for prints that may not turn out well, I can take the camera almost everywhere I go and capture shots I might have otherwise missed.
I have to confess though that with my particular digital camera, (and I have heard the same said of others), it is a bit of a pain having to cycle through menus to achieve a particular type of shot or meet certain lighting requirements etc., but would I go back to my original SLR? Well, I cant quite bring myself to part with it. We see to have formed some relationship that I cant really explain.
If you were to ask my advice about entering digital photography now, I would still have to debate the issue to some extent after all, holding a few SD cards between your finger and thumb just is not the same has holding onto a wad of photo prints. I think I will go and caress my old SLR just one more time
Digital photography or otherwise, author Doug Harvey has been involved in photography from a semi-professional viewpoint for many years and for more informative digital photography articles invites you to visit http://www.betterarticles.co.nr/art/dphotog/UnderstandingDigitalPhotography.html.