Has Photography become more or less complicated

[gsgary]

Recently I checked the numbers for the cost to buy, develop, and print a roll of film using a service to process the film. It was around $15/roll. After about 30 rolls you've spent enough money to buy an entry level body and lens. In the long run, digital is certainly a lot less expensive.

You aren't comparing like with like in this equation. An entry level DSLR with kit lens is going to have issues with build and image quality and will only have a crop sensor. How many rolls before you hit a high-end camera with good glass, a full frame sensor and that will still be working 30 years from now? I'm not so sure that digital is less expensive when you compare on an even field.

And don't forget to cost in a faster computer every time you get a fancier fullframe like a D800

 

[hamlet]

I don't want to sound controversial and i'm speaking from total ignorence. But when you edit your pictures, isn't that a form of perverting reality? And i'm not even saying that is something good or not, just that it doesn't represent what we actually see. And again, i am speaking from complete ignorance.

Examples:

 

[amolitor]

People who like photography have always tended to be interested in technical things. I like to say that many photography enthusiasts actually like cameras, but not photographs.

Most photography ever done, but some immense margin, was done with the greatest of ease. Point. Click. Share. Virtually every photograph ever taken was taken in the last five years with a cell phone of P&S camera. There's some statistically insignificant collection of pictures from before that, and taken with DSLRs and things, but whatever.

Photography as a whole has gotten simpler, to the point of being trivial.

For the camera enthusiast, however, it has remained as complicated as you like. Would you like to spend days and days working on a single picture? You can do that, as you have always been able to. The tools and techniques available are much wider now, all the old stuff remains but now we have photoshop and HDR tools and so on and so forth. There are even a few people who like photographs, who are in it for the final picture, who slave away at great length over individual pictures, using old methods and/or new.

I don't think any element has gotten more complicated, though.

 

[astroNikon]

When I think of the old days of AE-1/N80 I think
1 - take picture
2 - take film roll to the store, fill out form, enclose roll in the envelope.
3 - pay $$ based on speed of turnaround (CVS, etc). Later on they mailed it away
4 - look at pictures and realize that one shouldn't bother attempt to take pictures of Jupiter anymore

Today
1 - take picture
2 - look at screen to review
3 - modify setting to actually get a picture of Jupiter
4 - snap away trying to improve colors, scope tracking, etc

Of course, this excludes taking the picture to the computer for any processing what so ever, or into a darkroom.


Before I bought my D7000 I briefly thought of resurrecting my dusty N80. But with batteries costing $20, then film and remembering those steps above and the cost of processing, I figured I'd pony up for a nice digital camera.


Of course now I'm enjoying taking pictures of everything else too. At over 9,000 shutter releases now, I'd "shutter" to figure out how much that would be in film cost .. pun intended

 

[Solarflare]

Overall a lot simpler. No more handling film.

And cheaper. No more handling film. Well, unless we talk medium/large format. Then film still might be cheaper. Of course - in the long run, digital will catch up here, too.

And higher quality. Sensors are pretty close to perfect planes, the different colors are all in the same plane now, and their resolution now surpasses what film can do.

And more reliable. Silicone digital sensors can reach efficiencies of 40% and more (even 90% for infrared). Even removing the losses of the Bayer Colorfilter, thats still higher than film.

And more flexible. Digital sensors can run at their base ISO (between 80 to 200, typically) and ISOs that are even out of the defined range (i.e. above 10,000), and the best ones can do so with relatively little noise.

There are disadvantages, too, though. A film camera can run on one battery for a year or so. Digital needs constant, large batteries. Well made film cameras can last for decades. Digital can last half a decade, tops, after that increasing incompabilities cause increasing problems.

And the possibilities increased, too. And if you want to use these new possibilities, of course the complexity increases.

 

[EIngerson]

Photography hasn't changed at all. Editing on the other hand........

 

[peter27]

Of course now I'm enjoying taking pictures of everything else too. At over 9,000 shutter releases now, I'd "shutter" to figure out how much that would be in film cost .. pun intended

Is it necessary to take photos of everything? Probably more thought would have gone into 9K exposures on film. I use various films and two labs depending, but working on my average cost of film and developing it would cost somewhere in the region of 2K € for 9K exposures, which means a 22 cents cost per photo (including print at 9x13). How that works out with your costs I don't know.

 

[Nat.]

It's all just variation on a theme, isn't it? Focussing light on to a photosensitive medium. It's become more accessible, what with iPhones and digicams and stuff, instead of having to lug this around with you on the back of a donkey or small child.

Maybe it just seems more complicated because we're using computers. I think mucking around with chemicals is probably just as complicated as mucking around with photosites.

 

[amolitor]

Of course now I'm enjoying taking pictures of everything else too. At over 9,000 shutter releases now, I'd "shutter" to figure out how much that would be in film cost .. pun intended

Is it necessary to take photos of everything? Probably more thought would have gone into 9K exposures on film. I use various films and two labs depending, but working on my average cost of film and developing it would cost somewhere in the region of 2K € for 9K exposures, which means a 22 cents cost per photo (including print at 9x13). How that works out with your costs I don't know.

This is a slippery slope. Should everyone use wet plate? Sure, it's a little more expensive, but by golly you really think through every exposure. And, holy cow, the resolution cannot be beat. I mean, it *crushes* the D800e, and all your little roll film cameras.

 

[Devinhullphoto]

I'm not one of those people who've been around for decades but I find my time and expenses now using a dslr over my older slr next to nothing. I don't print much and as stated above, with film it had to be printed to see and share with friends. Now I load onto my computer, edit and share on here, Instagram, Flickr, and Facebook. Occasionally my mom prints off some of my landscapes for her house but I rarely do.

The one thing I'm always paranoid about when using film is that "did that shot turn out like I wanted?" Sometimes I won't know for a while because lately I can't justify spending that much on printing film and waiting. Since getting my camera(aside from my new 50mm) I haven't spent much money. I think it's not complicated at all but then again I've been using Lightroom for a while and so it's not hard to go through a bunch of photos and be done. Like state above digital can do things that film couldn't easily do. I wouldn't be able to do it but I'm sure some people still have darkroom knowledge to be able edit ways you can digitally.

 

[Newtricks]

Photography is no more or less complicated now then it was 20 or more years ago. Got my first (a Brownie Box) camera in 1970, set up was simple... put film in, set camera for ASA of film, meter for exposure, set A&S and take the photo, D7000 set up... set metering mode, set focus mode, set ISO, set WB, set AF, fine tune AF, check memory card, check battery (ies), assign function to the AE-L/AF-L button and the list goes on and on. Taking photographs has not changed, but making sure your DSLR is set up correctly sure has.

 

[Newtricks]

Post production has however gotten a lot less complicated, I never had the space to set up a full time darkroom, loaded film from bulk rolls into a daylight loader, and from cartridges to reels and into daylight tanks in a changing bag, but when it came time to process... black out the windows in the kitchen, cloth tape the gaps around the doors, turn of the light and wait for your eyes to adjust just to sure there wasn't stray light leaking in, then set up the enlarger, the trays, the washer, the clothesline, the timer(s), the hose and those damn things that sat in the bottom of the trays that water flowed through to keep the chems at the right temp (can't think of the name), set your water temp, pull out the paper safe that had the paper needed for the printing you where going to do and the list goes on and on.

Today with digital, remove the card from the camera, put it your computer, transfer the files to a folder, open your editing software, delete the files you don't like and edit the rest.

One thing I've noticed (at least for me is), even though I've only been shooting with a DSLR for over a month I snap away much faster then I ever did shooting film. Came home from the SB the other morning with nearly 400 images on the memory card, shooting film, I doubt it would have been more than 120 shots (3 rolls) in the can (loading my own I was able to get 40 exposures from each cartridge). The most film I ever shot was during a 6 week vacation in Colorado in '91, 300 feet of Kodak Technical Pan, 25 ASA exposed at 50, after getting home I thought I'd never finish developing the film let alone printing the keepers.

 

[Ysarex]

Scott pretty well answered this in the first response.

Prior to the late 1880s you'd have to say that film was the more complicated since back then you had to make your own. But around 1888 George Eastman introduced the iBrownie and trademarked the slogan, "You press the button, we do the rest." You didn't even have to put film in it. You bought the camera preloaded and just took pictures. When you reached the end of the roll you dropped your iBrownie (and $15.00) in the mailbox and got it back with your photos and the camera reloaded with a new roll of film. In 1888 it couldn't get easier than that.

IF HOWEVER you looked at one of those photos and asked, "Hey how come Spot is all blurry chasing that stick?" Or, "Hey I thought there were clouds in the sky when I took this photo, where'd they go?" Well now those are complications, and the answers could get just as complicated as you'd like them to be right up to, "I would never use a film without first running extensive tests that included a densitometer and characteristic curve graphs to see how the film responds to different developers."

Today the iBrownie is an iPhone. You could argue in favor of the iBrownie since at least the shutter release was physically obvious (more intuitive to use), but then the iPhone does show you the result instantly on a tiny little screen that you can't see in bright light. Does the iPhone take the same pile of cr*p photos that the iBrownie took? Go ahead and point one at a backlit landscape with white clouds in the sky and see. And the minute you look at the result as ask, "Hey I thought there were clouds in the sky when I took this photo, where'd they go?" Or, "Wasn't the sky blue and not green?" -- the complications begin.

And it all boils down to; For the past 125 years, either YOU learn and YOU do it (and the learning curve is as steep as always) or you blissfully settle for iBownie/iPhone cr*p and so not much has really changed.

Joe

 

[Gavjenks]

It's so much easier now. No chemicals, no waiting, no expensive film or worrying about exposing or ruining rolls. Time that was spent in darkroom is halved by sitting in front of the computer and it is much more comfortable and relaxing.

(Responding both to you and several others who focused on easyness)

Easier yes, but that wasn't the OP's question. Is sitting in front of the computer less complicated? I'd suggest not. It's probably equally as complicated as darkrooms, because you have more tools and options, but you save on not having to know esoteric temperature curves, etc. They probably about balance out. Similarly for cameras, there are more buttons and options now on our bodies, but fewer steps to set them up and less mental math to do per shot for metering and such.

 

[GDHLEWIS]

Am glad a few people who have dealt with Film have replied this this thread. Iv never had the joys of dealing with film and would utterly to give it a go at least once, doubt I would be able to get the chemicals here in Qatar. I do remember with my old point and shoot camera enjoying picking up the prints from the shop, a lot more than I do uploading photos to my computer. Maybe next time I am in the UK Ill join a class to process film, all I know is I hate dealing with photo shop, even tho it is a fantastic tool and the options are endless I'm just not much in to photo editing find it a tiresome process and would rather be behind the camera as most people on here would I'm sure.

Cheers for every ones views keep em coming