Has Digital Made You More Competent Or Lazy

[Ysarex]

You didn't answer my question above.

If I had taken it using film it would have been B&W, because all my supplies film,paper, chemicals were bought in bulk. Color separations where to expensive at that time for newspaper work. That said, had I taken this shot back then, I would have overexposed, to increase contrast and capitalize on the reflections leading into the trees. Maybe something on the order of.this.
View attachment 121749

I would also have also tried an underexposed shot, though I think this look is better. I'm not sure the author was saying everything occurs in the camera, I think his statement was more to the effect that the availability of technology allows some to be "less careful or lazy" in getting everything right in camera, because they know there is so much that can be done to correct flaws later. I think he's using the term "more competent" as being able to make use of all the tools available from camera through computer, not as one replacing the other.

You don't have the benefit of having seen the original scene. That JPEG from the camera is not representative. I showed that as a way to illustrate the lighting problem that the scene presents.

Your original post definitely reads for me as a "get it right in camera" myth post -- no offense, but it is a common theme. It shows up a lot in the RAW versus JPEG blogs and debates where the JPEG shooter ultimately declares, "I'm a real photographer and not a graphic artist. I get my photos right SOOC," then slams the door and walks out.

If instead by "getting everything right in camera" your book author means, as a prelude to the rest of the process of creating the photo, then I can support that. The one real exception, and that's why I brought it up, is shooting transparency film. In a studio the tool that goes hand in hand with transparency film is the studio lighting. But under available light the only control you have is the camera. As a result then the photographer has to be selective and work with limited choices. A scene like the one above just isn't going to work and often the best thing a photographer loaded up with slide film can do is walk away, "wait for better lighting."

As such transparency film is an exacting discipline, AND with a limited range of acceptable outcomes. However negative film assumes the darkroom and so getting it right assumes the darkroom. Likewise digital capture assumes post processing and so getting it right assumes post processing.

So are people sloppier today with digital tools than they were in the past? I don't think so. Did I know film photographers in the past who would shoot with an untested camera and untested film and then try and beat a decent print out of a too thin or thick negative in the darkroom? Oh yes, many scores of them. Are they the same people who today shoot sloppily with an untested camera and try to patch it up in LR? Same people. In the amateur market today we have P&Shooters and back then we had Instamatic Shooters. The one thing that digital has done is just create a much larger group of participants.

Back to the Cypress trees. That's Big Oak Tree State Park, MO. The lake in the park literally dried up in the drought of 2012. One of the reasons the JPEG looks so bad and is not representative of the original scene is because I got the raw file right in camera. The best raw file is always the one that has the most exposure right up to the point of sensor saturation. The JPEG the camera makes from that will often appear washed out and overexposed. There's a nice dramatic sky there but because of the backlight you can't capture the sky with transparency film without seriously underexposing the foreground. So there's no get it right in camera option (someone out there is thinking graduated ND filter and that's why I picked this shot with the trees). I put the raw file (CR2) into DPP and reset the camera picture controls from neutral to landscape with +3 contrast and then dropped the exposure a stop and a half until the highlights in the sky were properly placed. This is probably a fair simulation of what transparency film in a camera would look like if exposed for the sky.

With B&W film we get Zone System controls and all the hoops we can jump in the darkroom. Getting it right in camera then is a prelude to finishing the job in the darkroom. The one single point that teachers of this practice stressed above all other points was what Ansel called pre-visualization. Everything hinged on your ability, while standing behind the camera, to see the final darkroom print. Otherwise how do you know what to get right in the camera? Getting it right meant getting the whole process right.

I shot the scene in color and I saw my final photo as a color image. So I'll show you that next. One thing I did do that's unique to digital tech is I applied a dark red filter to separate the clouds from the blue sky, only I did that and kept the photo in color. This is the photo I took and it required getting it right in camera so that I could get it right in post. Because of the tricky scene lighting it did require some involved post processing. One critical point about this photo: not possible at all using transparency film and not possible at all using the JPEG software in a digital camera. So getting the raw file right and then knowing how to do the post processing isn't a case of laziness behind the camera with a repair done in post it's a case of there's no other way to do this.

Here's a B&W conversion of the same photo:

Joe

 

[astroNikon]

Digital has helped tremendously.

I used to hook up a AE1 or N80 film camera to a telescope.
Take a shot, send it out to developing, it would come back blank or OOF, etc.

Digital has allowed me to see instantaneous results and corrects.
I gave up on film after wasting some money and film away on that endeavor. But after getting a digital camera starting getting back into my hobby again.

 

[table1349]

Oh this will be fun....
How to Transform a Bad Snapshot Into 'Fine Art' with Lightroom

 

[astroNikon]

I'm still the photographer I was 30 years ago.

but 30 years older

 

[chuasam]

Competent.
In the film days there was too much of a lag between shooting and feedback.
I also held back my shots because I could feel the money slipping away.
To me it is about the pictures, regardless of the technology used to make it.
I started photography around 2001 so I was at the tail end of film and the start of affordable digital. I got my first DSLR in Dec 2004 and haven't shot more than 10 rolls of film in the 12 years past.

 

[chuasam]

I'm still the photographer I was 30 years ago.

That would be my nightmare. To not evolve and improve over 3 decades.

 

[petrochemist]

This is aimed at the more senior members on the forum, those who remember the days when an image was primarily created in camera. Granted there were some things you could do in the darkroom, or by your choice of film, but by and large it was in camera.
I started a book this weekend on creating in camera as opposed to relying so much on editing software, and it made me think. I went back and pulled out some old photo albums, and realized that I had actually created some decent images where the only options available on the camera were aperture, focus and shutter speed. Now even low end camera's have dozens of options and controls, yet it seems many are less creative in camera, relying instead on software after the fact to "create" something. Comments?

I have never used a camera that restricted you to aperture, focus & shutter speed. Several I've used didn't have options for any of those but all have direction, position, timing...

With regard to your question digital has made no difference in my laziness. I try to get my images as right as possible in camera & do minimal post processing (to lazy to learn post skills?).
Digital has allowed me to try photos I would never have bothered with using film - pushing the limits in just about every direction, sometimes knowing that post processing would be needed to combine multiple shots, often in ways that where not possible with film (such as focus stacking or HDR).

 

[chuasam]

I take way more photos now that I use my phone

 

[thereyougo!]

I think it can make you both more productive and lazy.

I shoot with a view to edit later much of the time, though I don't spend a huge amount of time editing. As dynamic range 'improves' in cameras, I suspect editing will be more and more required to prevent flat images. Already, images I take with my 645Z properly exposed need processing to make the best of them. I put improves in inverted commas because I think there will come a time when the amount of dynamic range is too high.

In the end, it's the end result that counts and whether you like it and whether you are getting what you need from it artistically. Everything else is just chaff in the wind.

 

[Nickilford]

Speaking of my own experience only, I don't believe digital has made me lazy at all. If anything, digital has allowed me to progress at a much faster pace than I ever would have with film. I started taking pictures with film but at that time it was on it's way out the door.

RAW file processing and post production is an inherent part of photography today. Period. What does it mean when people say "get it right in camera"? Nailing exposure? Getting nice popping colors and contrast? Personally, I want my RAW files to be as flat as possible and slightly overexposed (while retaining detail in highlights), of course this will depend on the scene but basically that's how I roll. What matters to me is making images, the final product. That's it. And I shoot in such a way that gives me a file with as much information as possible, so i have great raw materials to work with in processing and so i can materialize my vision.

Things evolve all around us, photography is no exception. Digital has revolutionized photography in a great way IMO.

Just want to throw a question out there about "lazy". Is it really that digital has made photographers lazy or are those that seem to hate on digital too lazy to learn digital and all that it entails, including post production?

 

[smoke665]

Just want to throw a question out there about "lazy". Is it really that digital has made photographers lazy or are those that seem to hate on digital too lazy to learn digital and all that it entails, including post production?

The question was misleading in its simplicity, as I'm not sure there is one answer. As several have pointed out already those that embrace and use new technologies as supplements to their existing capabilties have become more productive. The ones who where lazy in film days are likely more so in digital because of the ability to correct mistakes post processing.

 

[LARZRARZ]

Being able to review the shot as soon as I take it has increased productivity quite a bit for me. I can review the photo, have an assistant take a second look, and re-shoot if necessary to correct any issues. I started with film and my learning was very slow. I switched to digital and it was a game changer.

It's vexing to me when people say digital is lazy. It's had quite the opposite effect on photographers in my opinion.

 

[sashbar]

I think first and foremost a black box with different specs or technology never makes us more or less lazy. It does not depend on what we shoot with, it depends on what we are. I am just as lazy with a digital camera as I was with a film one.
In many ways a modern digital camera made life easier for some of us, but it also raised the standarts and expectations for others.
Modern cameras are a blessing for beginners or casual shooters, allowing them to get into photography and to take much better pictures of their friends, kids, cars, dogs and cats. Has this wonderful new technology made life easier for professionals? If anything it made it harder for them, because of higher expectations and higher competition.
And as soon as photographers, be it an amateur or a pro, start to aspire for some artistic creativeness, they find very quickly that a modern camera is ruthless, because it is so revealing. And the first thing it will reveal, of course, will be their creative impotence (simply because 90% of photographers are creatively impotent or weak by definition, and that is just a sad fact of life, just as with any other artistic occupation). There is nowhere to hide with a modern digital camera and no post processing will fix it.
So modern digital cameras are a double edged sword in that respect. They make life easier for some photographers and make others to work harder.

 

[Fred von den Berg]

I try to get as much right in camera anyway and it doesn't matter whether I'm using a film camera or a digital one as far as that is concerned. Either way there is work still to be done after the camera part of creating an image is finished with.

That said, digital has allowed me a certain freedom to try shots that I probably wouldn't contemplate with film. For me film = to err on the side of caution whilst digital = nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[Overread]

One day I want to meet these lazy people who can take snapshots in the camer and spend hours in editing fixing them up. Because I really don't think that person actually exists in the photography world.

It's a boogyman of digital that many think and talk about happening; they say that "in camera doesn't matter in digital and you'll just edit it." And yet what we see is people taking reviews of histograms to perfect exposures; we see them composing; getting shots right in camera; shooting in RAW etc....

When one looks at "photographers" as a hobby or professional group people are still getting it right in camera; they are still perfecting things. If anything the lesser dynamic range of digital compared to film makes getting it right in camera even MORE important than before = especially with regard to highlights where digital is weaker than film (and despite huge advances in shadow detail restoration the highlights are still, far as I'm aware, a dangerous area to overexpose).



Also film cameras had auto mode; they had priority modes and AF and all those other fancy things digital cameras have now. Barring the medium aspect if we'd kept with film at the forefront they'd likely have most of the fancy features digital have today.






For me digital made me a photographer.