Digital photography is better-period!

So if this is so why do we have to spend so much time in front of a computer screen fixing images after snapping the shutter, back in the day many a time I would not even look at chromes when picked up at the lab, I knew I had the shot and 99.9% of teh times clients would be flabergasted by what they got, now asking for a talent's head from one shot to be placed on this other is a normal reply?

Some will argue that we are actually making better images.

Where are then those superior images, where is all that digital stuff that beats the doors out of what has been shot before the digital wave?

Where are then those superior images, where is all that digital stuff that beats the doors out of what has been shot before the digital wave?

That is an interesting point. Whenever I need inspiration, I always to go back and look at the old b&w stuff from years ago. I would say I keep abreast of what is going on today, but am inspired by things done half a century ago. Go figure!

Scotti

Back in the 80s I could only dream of placing text under a photo for a model's portfolio or whatever. It required a litho neg placed on top of each sheet of paper when exposing. Today that thought just sounds silly.

Sure sitting in front of a computer all day sucks, but having a client loose or damage my film wasn't too cool either.

Camera Raw, Smart Objects and Layer Masks have opened up unimaginable possibilities. I'm actually looking forward to what's next.

Point is they both have their strengths and weaknesses, but the level of control has become available to those who wish to embrace it. It's not going away no matter how much griping goes on!

Here's the thing about comparing now to then:

We've all been taught, either literally or contextually, that "then" was when the Old Masters produced their Great Works.

If you reposted, say, one of Cartier-Bresson's great black and white shots to a modern photo review board and claimed you'd done it in Photoshop from a digital original, assuming you didn't get caught you'd get nothing but static - too soft, too noisy, no detail in the shadows, etc, etc. But put C-B's name on it, and it's a masterpiece. (I can have the same discussion about Jackson Pollack and my ten-year-old daughter's paintings, but let's not go there.)

All props to the trailblazers, yes indeed, but they were men and women like we are, not angels. The limitations of their equipment forced them to work harder on what they could control, and I am quite willing to admit that back when it was expensive, time-consuming, and stinky to be a photographer, those who did do it on average seemed to put a little more work into it.

However, I'm guessing that there were just as many (proportionally) bad shots with the Brownie as there are with Nikon CoolPixes. It's just that they haven't survived, and can't be beamed to half the planet through MySpace in seconds. When we look back at "then," we are seeing a non-representational sample of the output of the time. It's not reasonable to compare "now" to "then" for whole hosts of reasons.

M

re - the level of control has become available to those who wish to embrace it.

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well put and what else is there to say?

but i think there are many parallels where even during film days the sky was the limit in how far one could go to achieve perfection.
not all will take full advantage of all the digital capabilities.

quote:

Originally posted by bruchi:
[qb]Where are then those superior images? [/qb]

Film or digital. Both are simply different recording mediums. They do not in themselves guarantee anything but a way to catch light.
A National Geographic editor once noted that they were "Up to their eyeballs in photographers, but only up to their ankles in ideas." The human component has not changed. Its the part of the equation that decides what to shoot, and it remains decidedly analog.
I shot film for 10 years before going to digital. In my 5 years of shooting all digital, I've shot some things I'm proud of and some things that are easily forgettable. I have yet to look at any of the images from that time and say, "Man, I wish I'd shot that one on film."

Sure hope my previous post didn't sound anti-digital. I bought my first Mac in 1985 and began fooling around with MacPaint, developed by Bill Atkinson for Apple. I consider myself very fortunate to be around for the dawn of digital. It's like being around for the dawn of photography in the 19th century, very exciting times!

As far as images being more artistic in the early days, it probably boils down to two things:

1. There was no money in it so why not be an artist?

2. We're looking back at only the iconic images of that time.

Today everyone is out chasing the almighty dollar, and with good reason. How else could we afford all this digital equipment?

Scotti

Tell me it is another way to record images and I'll give you all the reason.

100% of my image recording is done digitally I ask for just 4 things:

1- Promise me none of the drives where my images are stored will ever erase including the 2 extra backups which already happened once.

2- Don't take film away from the face of the earth and make it acceptable to clients once again, 100% of mine will not accept film anymore.

3- Explain to my clients that after 28 years in the business the digital images I give them now are the same great quality finish product as the transparencies I gave them the first 20 years or so and that they are fine as they are and that all of that photoshop/frankenstein of images is not really needed, fun for them and their egos but not necessary. Just pick the one that hit the mark and go with it, it worked fine for 2 decades.

4- I am a photographer, not a retoucher.

Other photographers retouch so I MUST?
Thanks a lot guys for that by the way!

I never signed up for retouching 101, RAW conversion is already enough in the added time consumming tasks of digital already. If retouching is really needed and sometimes it is, let someone else make a living too as it was done those first 20 years I shot for you.

Sounds like someone needs their diaper changed.

bruchi,

I'm shooting a house that has power lines that intersect the exterior view that the architect likes. Today he emailed asking if I can get creative and PS the hell out of it to remove them. I replied that I'd shoot a scout shot and get an estimate from a retoucher. Retouching wasn't in my initial shoot estimate so I'm not going to eat it. I spend more time in post than I already want to because I'm my own worst client. The problem with control is being able to stop yourself and press Command Q!

"4- I am a photographer, not a retoucher. "

Charge any retouching by the hour and they'll have some kid do it in-house.

(I can have the same discussion about Jackson Pollack and my ten-year-old daughter's paintings, but let's not go there.)

StMark,

I had an art teacher who knew Jackson Pollack. He used to say, "The only thing we know Jackson Pollack can really do well is drink".

Scotti

RAW because the in-camera processing is not anywhere near as good as the processing power of the computer. Eventually these things will become more caught up, though like those who did their own darkroom more there will be those who do RAW processing well into the future.

The average person is way behind on the technology curve, and likely used the term IBM Compatible up until a few years ago. The average person probably also thinks PhotoShop is fairly new, or that you can output images with the latest version that were impossible with earlier versions (usually because they never got on with the previous version). Thus the magic is at the touch of a keystroke or two . . . if only they knew the right keys to stroke . . . which is why they want a photographer. This also leads to many requests for additional work, because they think it is simply a keystroke or two, even though they don't know how to do it.

The technology often over-shadows the images. Twice I had clients want me to shoot with a rented Phase One, and I shot film beside it through the same Contax, and when they got the images on CD-R, they didn't know which was which . . . so what was the point, other than some perception that a high dollar digital back promised better images. Considering that a computer monitor shows under 2 MP, and images are being judged from full screen in their office, it does seem like reality is suspended at times.

It is . . . because it is . . . there are expectations that some clients want to be met, whether or not they understand any of it. Imagine if they stood beside/behind their car mechanic and told them what wrench to use. The emphasis is too often on the gear, and not the images, which I think is wrong.

Deliver digital: even if you still shoot film, everyone expects digital files (FTP, DVD, or CD-R) as delivery. Even scanning film only saves a step in editing over direct capture, and that is editing, because you can choose to only scan some of the shots and not all of them. Even with that, anyone concerned about their images will open and check every file, and likely do a little adjustment. This time needs to be incorporated into what you charge, into scheduling, and considered as a factor in the volume of work you can do at any given time . . . clients expect this.

Of course, we could simply boil all this down to client education. I think it is our responsibility to explain how and why of those images making it to our clients. When many other industries try to build in value added services, then we should at least consider it, because our competitors will do that; in other words, if more clients expect retouching, it might not be long before more clients demand it; then we need to include that in our fees.

Perhaps my situation is a bit different so for all the weeping.

I am in a very small market where all photographers include retouching, meaning, they do it for free so it is expected by clients. Here many a time art directors will shoot their own images and "fix" them in photoshop, add to that heavy use of Royalty Free images and much "cheaper" options in South America and it is seriously hard to go against the curve.

I had a scanner (gave it away to a friend that does fine art) and I did shoot film and scanned images to deliver to clients, that was the best of both words, I could keep my film! But there is no longer a lab in town and no time to send film to Miami to be processed, I was at one time going to buy a JOBO but there's simply not enough work to justify the expense and trouble.

So I suppose that in a nutshell my real problem with digital is that it is not my preffered medium and it leaves me no other options than itself and I don't like that one bit.

I always add a separate line item in my bids for "color correction, basic retouching, perspective correction (if necessary), and file management" then quote hours x rate = fee.

In my T&C I state that all files will be delivered as 8-bit, Adobe 1998 TIFF files, unless otherwise specified, which may incur additional fees.

So, everything that happens back at the office is another line of income that I'm happy to get.

I can always sub it out if I want to - I know an excellent retoucher who charges me $25/hr less than I charge my clients. She's also an excellent printer who's very good at raw conversion and getting the best out of the image before reaching for the selection tool, if it's needed at all.

IOW, once I've got the shoot on the CF card I am potentially done with it and still make some extra money...just like I did when I marked up the E6 lab fee and handed my client's the chromes.

Then again, I can make even more money by doing it all myself and usually opt to because at this point in my career I have more time than money.

The reason I put the TIFF thing in my bid is to dissuade a client from working straight off my unprocessed raw files. I've only been asked once but it won't be the last time. The raw conversion is where I do much if not most of my work to make the image look like it came from -me- so I insist on charging them for me to do the work, or charging them not to!

Either way it's revenue beyond the shoot fee...revenue that, unfortunately, mostly goes to pay for hard drives, software updates, etc. etc. but it's better than nothing...

I think the worst thing for me about shooting digital is that I can do the shoot much faster. Far too often I've had to cut my shoot fee to a half day rate because I can do the job in half the time it took on 4x5. I love shooting 4x5 but to do it right takes a lot extra time - careful metering, polaroids (oops, "fujees"), focusing and perspective corrections takes quite a bit longer but that works in my favor. Oh, and I still add a post fee to work on the drum scans, though less hours per shoot because there's less work to do.