Bigger possibilities with a smaller card?

TiCoyote

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So a friend of mine mentioned that she always got better shots on film, not just because of the nature of the medium (I have no interest in that old debate) but because she felt that when she was limited to 24 or 36 shots, and when she had to pay to process or take the time and effort to process, she really took the time and effort to compose shots. Now, when she shoots digital, she just fires away.

I often find that I'll take 4 or 5 shots of the same scene, trying to zero in on what I'm going for, but the first 2 or 3 are usually fairly careless. When I come home from a session, I have 150 shots, and then I have to sift through them all to pick out the very few keepers.

Anyway, my dad just killed a really old Canon P&S, which actually used a CompactFlash card, and replaced it with a Nikon P100, so I told him I'd take the card. Turns out it's 256 MB. My first thought was, "great, what am I going to do with this tiny thing."

But then, I had a thought. 256 MB holds 36 JPG or 9 RAW. I'm going to take this little card out shooting for the next few weeks, and see if I spend more time on each shot.
 
Excellent idea! I agree completely that "cheap film" is the curse brought about by digital photography. It's great to have the ability to shoot several hundred shots without having to stop, rewind and re-load every 36 exposures, but I think it also makes us lazy and corrodes our creativity.

Let us know how it works out.
 
Good idea...except that you can still review & delete the shots to make room for more.

How about this...cover up your LCD screen with something that won't easily come off (but won't leave residue...maybe gaffer's tape). Then wait until you are home before you look at the images.
 
This argument kind of reminds me of people who always run late so they set their clocks fast. But then they end up knowing in their head that their clock is fast anyway so they just sleep in for another 10 minutes anyway.

Why not just take the lesson from your observation here, instead of limiting yourself severely. When you approach a scene, don't just start firing shots off wildly hoping to get something good, with the mindset that 'its digital so it doesn't cost me anything, and I can fix any issues in PP'. Instead try and nail the shot first time - then review it and critically analyse it, and take another shot if you need to. In the time it takes you to take 8 or 10 wild snaps, you could have done one or two carefully thought out shots that come out better.
 
Quote Fokker:
This argument kind of reminds me of people who always run late so they set their clocks fast. But then they end up knowing in their head that their clock is fast anyway so they just sleep in for another 10 minutes anyway.
______________________________________________________________________
I do that... :er:
 
I do that...
Ya...me too. :lol:

Why not just take the lesson from your observation here
Of course, the simple answer is to do just that...take your time and be more deliberate...but I think the exercise here it to help those who are habituated into shooting too much.
After all, it's easy to say something like....'Why not just eat less and exercise more'...but that's easier said than done.

Turns out it's 256 MB. My first thought was, "great, what am I going to do with this tiny thing."
I have an 8MB CF card around here somewhere.
 
If you take 100 shots of the same scene, but all different f-stops, shutter speeds, iso, etc - and then take the time to pour over them to find what worked and why - it can be/is an incredible learning process.

I've learned more doing that than ANY magazine, forum boards, etc. could teach me.
 
This is a six of one, half dozen of the other type of argument. My wife once "worked" a family photography situation in very tricky light in Hawaii,and finally achieved a beautiful photo on shot #28 of the sequence...she and I both concluded that had she been shooting film, that photo would never have been realized...it would have taken nine dollars in processing and three dollars in film to get that shot.
 
This post reminds me of a time when I had a 1GB hard drive PC with 8mb of RAM! I could only play about 15 MP3's that time! lol circa 1993
 
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, lol.

Just because you have a big card doesn't mean you have to fill it up.

Just because you can go out and blast away 500 pictures at 10 frames per second doesn't mean you should.
 
Who has the signature file that says, "You always miss the shots you don't take."
 
:thumbup:+
it is one thing to really work a subject and another to FIRE away with out thinking (just because you think it doesn't cost money) The cost is in the loss of light and opportunity.
 
i don't know about which photography , but "the great one" said it about hockey all the time.
 

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