Oranges & Apples (Introduction)

The "Digital Revolution" in photography has now been afoot about 7 years. Before that film had been photography's medium for over a century, 35mm the standard format for 50 years. Digicams now give many amateurs quick results and attractive snapshots, and high end digital equipment can speed production for pros. If your interest in photography is mainly utilitarian (a means to other ends) you probably won't find this weblog interesting or useful. But if you're attracted to photography as an art form you should understand the hidden costs digicams pose.

These costs fall into five areas:

1. Image Longevity
We are told, the images captured with digital cameras will far outlast film, as they are data files which don't chemically degrade. But as Stewart Brand points out, this assumes that digital file formats and media will stay legible. Film may degrade, but digital media can degrade faster, and both the format of the files themselves and the media used to store them obsolesce.


2. Equipment Cost and Depreciation
The sales pitch goes: you won't have to buy any more film, so you can justify spending more on a digital camera. Right? Well, as Dean M. Chriss, Dante Stella, Ken Rockwell, KB Camera, and this case study demonstrate, depreciation and other expenses related to digital technology drive costs well beyond initial camera price. In fact, digital is likely to cost you more in the long run than film. Caveat Emptor!


3. Self-Printing Expenses
The digicam industry suggests, Now that you own a digital camera, purchase an inexpensive photo printer and print what you want, when you want it! But as many consumers have discovered, digital printing is not as cheap or simple as it sounds. A good photo lab handles color calibration, paper and ink handling, and printer maintenance for you. If you print your own photos, these jobs (and expenses) are yours. Dante Stella and KB Camera examine the challenges and expense involved in printing your own images. See also Challenges of Inkjet Printing.


4. Ergonomics
Consumer digicams are stylish, compact, pocketable. However, their diminutive size can make them awkward to hold, and complicated menus hamper operation. Camera warmup time, low temperature performance, shutter lag, electronic viewfinders, and battery life are some further distractions absent in film cameras. But a more general and insidious characteristic of the digicam is its impact on creativity. By reducing the cost and increasing the speed of acquisition the digicam encourages us to postpone judgement and deliberation about our images until some time after acquisition. Rather than visualizing before the shutter opens we gather a load of frames in hopes of locating a meaningful image later. If we aren't careful we will more than repay any time saved by acquiring images this way in managing all the wasted shots later on.


5. Image Quality
An oft-repeated claim is that digital photos are better because they lack film grain. But consumer digicams with "1/1.8 inch" (actually only 9mm, just under 3/8" diagonally) sensors have widened the performance gap between professional and consumer photography. As Bob Atkins' research shows, consumer digicam sensors and professional sensors (many times larger) are in different leagues. And, unlike film cameras, consumer digicams must blur images before capture, as explained by Thom Hogan. These factors affect the appearance as well as resolution of consumer digicam images: sharp and clear, but lacking fine detail. Small sensor size also gives typical digicams greater depth of field and longer focal length than film cameras. Depending on your goals this may not be beneficial.

In summary, many benefit from digicams despite the costs. However, the prosumer especially should be wary that digital equipment may not perform as expected and quickly obsolesce. More than a few have found digital so dissatisfying they returned to film. If you're interested in more than snapshots but would like to invest in only one technology (film or digital), I recommend you study the articles presented here and consider the tradeoffs involved before making a purchase.

Finally, the purpose of this blog is to provide clear and unbiased information. I collect the best sources available and try to make them more navigable. However, the use you put this information to is solely your responsibility. If something I've said is in error, please notify me by email. And if you have information to add, I welcome comments to any article, or even an entire article if you would like to write one. But opinions expressed without supporting facts would defeat the purpose and will not be retained.

No matter the equipment, good photography will always be hard work. Thanks for your interest, and may God bless your efforts in this journey,
Carson Wilson