Thursday, October 28, 2010

When Film is Better than Digital

This week I read an article on Digital Photo's website called "When Film is Better than Digital". The article started out by saying that digital, in just about every situation, is better than film. It is true that almost everyone today who takes pictures uses digital, from professional photographers to hobbyists. Digital is cheaper to shoot and you can see the pictures and delete as you go. But according to the author of this article, William Sawalich, there are five situations in which shooting film is better than shooting digital. The first is when you want the look of film. Digital photography can emulate it, but only true film can have that true, distinct look. I would agree that only film can actually look like film.

The second situation was when making long exposures. If you are doing really long exposures, film won't produce the noise that you can get with digital. He does note that digital is good for most moderately long exposures. I would find it interesting to compare a long exposure done with a digital camera with the same picture done with a film one. The third situation, and the one I found most interesting, was shooting landscape photography. Film meets needs for color, contrast, sharpness and detail, all without the need to download and backup files. The author seemed to list this one more out of convenience than anything else, since he seemed to say that film could capture the same quality image without all the hassle of having to save them or charge batteries.

The fourth situation had nothing to do with actually taking photos, but rather storing them. He seems to think having a closet full of well organized film is more simple and secure than having them on a hard drive, and he can always find a negative for any picture. I would say that a hard drive takes up a lot less room than a closet, but he makes one point that is hard to argue with: the closet never crashes.

The fifth situation sums up the article nicely. Use film if you have an excess of time and money. Since each shot taken with film costs money, both to take and develop, it is considerably more expenxive than digital, where one hundred shots are no more expensive than ten. It takes a long time to see the result of your work; no looking at the monitor on the back of the camera. But film can do a good job of teaching you how to take the picture right the first time, since you have to really think about it, and may only have one shot. The only problem is, I don't have an excess of time or money, but maybe I will take out the old (really old) Pentax, just to see how it goes.


Digital Photo, "When Film is Better than Digital, Five Situations in Which Film is a Better Choice", William Sawalich
 http://www.dpmag.com/how-to/tip-of-the-week/when-film-is-better-than-digital-10-25-10.html

Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Wildlife Photojournalist

The second article I read was about Tim Laman, a wildlife photographer. Tim has a doctorate in biology from Harvard and has done many articles for National Geographic. He has training as a field biologist, so he can go deeper into his subjects lives, and believes photography can have a positive impact on conservation. His education and achievements are impressive, and so is his photography and lifestyle. The article gave good insight into the life a professional photographer.

Tim said it takes about four or five days to travel from his home in the U.S. to his field location - a rain forest camp in New Guinea. This could include a day of domestice flights and two of international travel. This sounds to me like a lot of sitting and waiting, and plane rides are never particularly entertaining, or relaxing. After getting to the site, he has to spend several days scouting for the animal he is looking for, then he builds a blind. To get the picture, he gets up at around four. He spends three or four hours in the blind, and says that once an expedition is in full swing, he will have three or more blinds for different species. He also said the lighting in the rain forest, where he usually works, is not good, and some assignments, like photographing wild monkeys, are extremely difficult.

In all, it seems like it takes like it takes a lot of work, time and devotion to get that one good shot. The life of a professional photographer is not just hiking around and taking pictures. Tim spends four or five months of the year away from home, and still photographs when he is home. His "personal challenge" is taking pictures of the iconic Walden Pond, which is five miles from his home. He spent quite some time trying to make amazing and interesting images of a simple pond. His life, it seems, revolves around photography, just like any professional photographer's should.

"The Wildlife Photojournalist", Outdoor Photographer, August 2010 by Mark Edward Harris

Your Perfect B&W Print

One of the artivles I read this week was "Your Perfect B&W Print" in Outdoor Photographer by Ming Tshing. I as intrigued by this article for two reason. The first was that I have always liked black and white prints. The contrast and simplicity of the images often make them more attractive to me than full color images. The second reason was the content of the article. It was relatively long, probably three full pages of print, and I never thought it should take that many pages to explain how to make a black and white print. I didn't think it was any more complicated than hitting the button to convert it. Apparently, I was wrong.

I first learned about setting a black point and a white point. Although I had never heard of this before, it seemed simple just from the name. But it turns out, in many images, it may not be as simple as picking the darkest and lightest pixels. You have to visually identify the area you want to be black, and may sacrifice detail in the shadows in order to keep detail in lighter areas of the image, and the same goes for white. Picking good black and white points can result in a more defined image. In landscapes that should not have a lot of contrast, like foggy ones, picking a black and white point is not the way to go.

Shadows/Highlights is an adjustment tool that got a lot of attention in this article. The tool is used to recover shadow and highlight areas. There are also adjustments to make to specific regions of the image, adjustments to midtone contrast, and sharpening the image. The artticle ends by saying even all of this is not the only work to be done for black and white images. Over all, I learned a lot from this article, and have more respect for the amount of work that goes into creating a good black and white print, something I no longer think is simple.

"Your Pefect B&W Print", Outdoor Photographer, August 2010 by Ming Tshing