No idea where that sentance came from. There are a number of people that can get decent results with film. There's alos plenty of peole that can't take a good picture with a digital camera.
close in what sense ? Are you sure all those 'photographers' you see taking flash picures at the olmypics and other stadiums are getting what they see on the LCD. ?
Seems quite common to see loads of people flashing didn't see that even 20 years ago.
No but being able to change shutter speeds and aperature are a distict advantage when teaching photography which is why you can't really teach photography on a mobile phone.
you can learn photgraphy without a camera.
They don't have to be. But would yuo take singing advice from someone that couldn't sing but have a really good auto tuner ?
In order to be able to copy someone else you need the skills. Whether it be singing or photography.
If you want to know how to cook a book on microwave cooking is hardly the way, but you can make yourself something to eat. Cooking and reheating AREC differnt you may not be able to tell but other can.
Any camera (film or digital) that has the ability to turn off its automatic features which are useful when time is tight and they are the difference between getting reasonable picture or not getting it because you're still making manual adjustments such as focus, aperture and shutter speed, but which should not be relied on in all situations because, as you rightly say, the settings are not always correct and because they don't encourage you to acquire a greater understanding of the techniques of taking photos and the variables that you can adjust.
That probably includes many compact cameras (eg Canon G9, Canon SX260) which have auto-everything modes but also have manual focus, shutter/aperture priority (as opposed to Program mode) and also have Manual mode which give you control of both aperture and shutter speed.
Results with one of those cameras are surprisingly good, but there is noticeable "noise" (random speckle, analogous to film grain) and optical distortion from a fairly cheap lens.
So maybe you need an SLR - again, with auto-everything if you need it but with the same degree of manual or semi-auto settings. A larger sensor and better, interchangable lenses give better quality images.
Incidentally, the same degree of auto-everything but also manual focus, exposure etc that I had on my film camera (a Canon SLR with motor drive, roughly 1990 vintage) with various metering modes (spot, centre-weighted, average over whole frame); my previous one (my dad's old Yashika from the
1970s) had manual focus and manual meter only, with ground-glass focussing screen and metering that required you to adjust aperture and/or shutter speed until neither a (overexposure) LED came on. I have to admit that it was easier to judge manual focus with the older camera's ground-glass and split-screen focussing screen than it was with the Canon's focussing screen which was ground glass only with no split screen.
One thing you don't get with compact cameras (film or digital) is the ability to stop down the lens to see what DOF the aperture will give you.
As regards getting a photo without a battery, I think you'd struggle to find a film camera that didn't need a battery. All the ones I've had over the past 40 years, except my grandpa's old Voigtlander that had a passive meter (*), have needed a battery at least for the exposure meter and also with some for the film advance motor drive. I *think* that those cameras would not even fire the shutter without a battery, even if you used an external meter to determine aperture/shutter speed.
(*) ie a photo-voltaic light cell in the light path generated a voltage proportional to light intensity and drove a needle, without needing a battery; it also had a dual viewfinder (not through the lens) which presented two images from about 2" apart in the camera and relied on parallax to show you when those images overlapped and hence you had focussed on the correct distance
I could make a case for saying that the developing and printing stage of film is a distraction in the sense that it introduces extra parameters that can be varied, after taking the photo, to affect the final image. Or am I being a devil's advocate? :-)
I fully agree. Do you accept that not *all* digital cameras are "toys" like this and that many give you the same level of manual override that you'd have with a film SLR? It is those (and not the fully-auto cameras in phones) that I think the rest of us on this thread are talking about when we say that digital has the manual modes to aid teaching but additionally, over and above film, the instant feedback of what effect these manual adjustments have on your photo.
Depends whether you mean the live view as they are taking the photo (answer: not it definitely isn't) or whether you mean the photo as recorded on the memory card and which they may play back immediately after taking the photo. If they bothered to look at the played-back photo and wondered why it was mostly black apart from the back of the head of the person in front, they might learn why. Of course they could make the same mistake with a film camera in thinking that the optical viewfinder always showed them what the film photo would look like - but it would take them until they had the film developed to see that.
But yuo don;t do that sort of thing with film. There's no such thing as RAW in the film world.
The only reason people use RAW is because the digital jpegs aren't good enough for what they want to do with them, so what does that say about digital.
so it's the equivalnet of film in that you get everything rather than a cut down amount of data that you get with jpeg. Sure it might be good enough.
try expaining why you'd use jpeg to someone that has only used film. Why do yuo want a lower quaility image i.e a jpeg when yuo can have maxium quality
NO, I said explain what a stop is in digital remmeber you haven't a film canera yuo are teaching with a digital camera. So what is a stop and what does it mean. Why call it a stop one have such strange stop numbers....... why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8
with shutter speeds even digital camera, you select 1/125 or 1/250 why not have the dial set to 187ms exposure ?
Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of the aperature and shutter speed I set.
Coudl I also say that worrying about what sort of monitor you'll be using fopr viewing yuor digitasl images, should you got HD, 4K or imac 5K and the4n there's the indivual manufactors that also suplpy curved screens is that not a disctaction or do you only view you images on the cameras LCD.
If you're going to print them then there's even more problems of which printer , which papar, should I use 3rd party inks and papers. or are yuo saying there's no differnce between the basic office printers and the photo printers ?
I'd say that even fewer film cameras were toys.
I'd say no, they are differnt.
so a photo shot at say f11 at 1/125th is the same as f4 at 1/1000 on the LCD the picture looks the same. what if you either change the film from ISO 400 to 100 ?
does shutter speed and aperature actually matter if the exposure as seen on the LCD looks correct. is that all you need to do is check the brightness of the LCD.
1st you have to understand why your adjusting those variables and why.
which is why you'll find most photographers choose such cameras.
So how come those with the lower end cameras don't notuice such things.
which is were the interesting point comes in , if you give an person a FF fully features DLSR with they get a better picrure than they would from a cheap camera. The coirrect answer is they wiull get a better quailty image, whch says nothing about the quality of the photograph they end up with.
Giving a person a DSLR does NOT make them a photographer. They may well find it easier to take a photo but that's not the point.
but doesn't make you a better photgrapher, or better at taking photos.
I had a canon A1 with the MA motor drive that took either 8 or 12 AA batteries .
Lucky 'bstard my first camera was a Praktica L no battery, no meter, My next was the Praktica VLC 2 which had a meter and a battery and a detachable top.
Probbably not but its a function I rarely use as I have an approxamate appreciation of what DoF is. DoF isn't an exact sceince it depends on many things.
My practica L didn;t neither did my fathers camera that were 2/ 14 square. My ploriod land 110B camera doesn;t have a battery either. Olympus trip.
Yep the LTL3 I borrowed had that. Trouble with those cds cells was their memeory.
I have a lieca rangefinder add on but not the camera.
The time between pressing the shutter and the exposure. It will be the same for a digital as a film SLR as there is no difference in the process. However if using a digital 'live view' or a 'mirror-less' camera then the shutter has to close and the sensor be set before the exposure can begin. 'Electronic first curtain' eliminate this delay.
SLR use 'phase detect' autofocus which is faster than hunting for edge sharpness as the system knows which way to focus (ie near or far). Some newer mirror-less such as the Fuji have phase detect sensors on the main sensor (in SLRs it is a separate system).
?snip?
Try manual pre-focus: set the focus point to where the subject is likely to be, concentrate on tracking alone, press shutter when in range.
RAW is equivalent to having a negative. i.e. (in principle) a record of the light level falling on each pixel of the sensor. JPEG is lossy compression you cannot recover the lost detail.
Instamatic? Other similar cameras with no accurate control of exposure other than "sunny/cloudy/flash" settings and constant shutter speed. Though maybe not quite as bad as the cameras in some mobiles.
What additional manual override do you get with film SLR that you don't with digital SLR? In what other ways (apart from the obvious one of silcon versus film for sensor) are they significantly different and how might you learn less with a digital SLR?
There are some photos (static subject, everything at infinity) where you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish the pictures even at full size never mind on an LCD screen. At the other end of the scale, a subject with a very large range of distances would look different at the two different apertures, even on small LCD; likewise for a fast-moving subject where the amount of blur would be different. But the LCD gives you a more approximate impression mainly to check brightness (ie do you want f11, f8 or f5.6 at 1/125). Which you can tell even in the live view before exposing. Those are the sort of things where the instant nature of digital probably offers its greatest advantage, although there's nothing to stop you checking the taken proto on the LCD, maybe magnifying some critical part to check that what you want to be in or out of focus really is.
Accurate focussing is easier on an optical viewfinder than an LCD, which is why I prefer a DSLR with this feature or a film SLR over a camera that
*only* has an LCD viewfinder.
A digital SLR, if you decide not to view the playback of taken photos, is no worse than a digital, assuming you view you photos at a reasonable size on a computer afterwards. You can take as many variants as you like without having to pay for them, which encourages experimentation, and each photo is tagged with the parameters that you might need to note for the future, without you having to keep a separate paper note of them and match them to the correct frame of film, especially if the slides or prints are not labelled with frame number. Only Kodak numbered their slide mounts on Kodachrome; when I had Ektachrome developed in my local photo shop the mounts were invariably un-numbered.
Digital camera users are almost spoilt for choice here because you can take different photos at different ISO numbers and see *some* difference, though probably less than with film. You don't get the increase in contrast and garish colours if you push-process Ektachrome by 3 stops (been there) and you don't get such an increase in graininess. Indeed I've take found identically framed/exposed pictures at 3200 ASA and averaged them to produce a result that is virtually indistinguishable from one at 200 ASA. Even if you could register the film accurately, I think the increase in grain of an average of the film frames would be noticeable compared with 200 ASA film.
There is a tendency (and I'm guilty of this myself) to let the camera choose its own aperture and shutter speed - both on digital and film. For many subjects it doesn't matter much. But I'm well aware of when it is critical - which is why I'd use aperture priority if I wanted to force a very deep or shallow DOF (and preview the effect in the viewfinder or else the LCD [maybe magnified] on a camera that had not optical viewfinder or DOF preview; conversely I'd use shutter priority if I wanted deliberately slow shutter speed to blur the water of a waterfall or else deliberately fast to catch the droplets of a fountain - and digital would give me the opportunity to see what effect this had to check if I need to retake with even slower or even faster.
The times when this level of checking is needed are relatively small, but it's nice to have to opportunity if necessary.
Is there anything where a film camera plus close examination afterwards of slides/prints can teach you more than a digital camera plus close examination on a PC screen of the photos, assuming in both cases you use an SLR with the same degree of manual or semi-auto (aperture/shutter priority) settings and turn off autofocus and any other auto settings if they inhibit learning.
It's a shame that a lot of lenses (especially zoom) are not made any more with focussing markings on the barrel to show, for a given focus point, roughly what range of distances should be in focus at a given aperture. Obviously it's bit more difficult with a zoom lens rather than a prime lens because you need curved lines to indicate reducing DOF, for a given aperture, as you increase the focal length, and you can only do it for a zoom with trombone rather than twist ring adjustment of focal length. Without these lines it's harder to learn about setting hyperfocal distance. But that applies to both film and digital - indeed if you have a DSLR with a
35mm sensor you'd use the same lens as for a film camera.
Because in the film world you have to make the choice of which film to load. Digital enable you to choose that later (with RAW) or decide in-camera from shot to shot (if JPEG only)
Because RAW to JPEG is the equivalent of developing a film. Most people only want a postcard size print from film, you wouldn't pay to have a
10x8 print of every shot.
inverse square law. A stop is a stop, digital or analogue, It is the effect of the iris in the lens
There aren't any more distractions with a digital camera than with a film camera. The fact that a digital camera has a display doesn't mean its a distraction. If you are that concerned then a camera with shutter speeds and aperture settings is a distraction from composition so use a box brownie.
You are wrong a manual camera has controls you don't need that are a distraction from taking pictures.
You don't need film either. You just like to assume digital does it for you when in reality you can do as much or as little as you choose.
I have several auto only film cameras including a Nikon SLR. They don't make them much these days as only odd people think film is the best way.
So most cameras around today are auto and most of them are digital so digital is bad and old fashioned film is good, strange logic at work there.
You can get perfectly good wedding pictures on some phones these days, even Apple has made the camera a bit better than 35 mm cameras can manage under good conditions. They employ professionals because the friends are there to take part in the wedding not do crowd control which is what wedding photography is all about. The pictures will be fine on a fully auto camera 99+% of the time.
Most people do only view them on screen these days but you can always adjust them to suit what you want to see. If you want to match it to comercial printer colours you can use a colorimeter to calibrate your screen.
With film prints you print them and use a "panatone" swatch and try again until its close. You do this for every print if you need accuracy. You can automate it with digital as you can photo a swatch and print it and then photo it again and compare the differences and calibrate your printer if you want to. It will stay calibrated until you change inks unlike your film and paper that change with age, temperature and exposure (you did know that the different layers in colour film have different exposure characteristics so colour balance is not constant over the exposure rang of most cameras (not including bulb)).
There are even more variables if you use an enlarger and paper.. paper type chemical type temperature exposure time filter settings which enlarger lens where have you dodged where have you burnt in what type of film was it did you force the ASA rating etc etc
Kodak sold a lot of instamatics, Polaride sold a lot of toy cameras, I bet the percentage of digital cameras with manual settings is higher than it ever was with film. You can still buy disposable film cameras that you consider to be toys.
How so, you still haven't said what bit of digital is not what you want.
What's the subject?
You can check what the LCD tells you to know if the exposure is correct if you used a digital camera you would know that the LCD is far more than a display to look at pictures on. Some cameras even have built in guides to explain how to make better pictures, like
composition guides when to use a faster shutter how to blur the background etc etc
I can do it without light which proves the definition you quoted above is rubbish.
It can produce images,
It didn't do photos either.
It does what you tell it, the same as a film camera.
Yes it does, it varies with exposure time and colour film varies differently for each layer.
contrast,
Yes it does, see above
colour/monochrome,
You can print using panchromatic paper so colour does go to B&W.
So take colour pictures and print B&W if thats what you want, you don't have to decide before you load the camera.
It opens up new creative ways of doing things so yes it does make some a better photographer. Teaching people to only use film limits what they can do so it makes them a worse photographer. If you teach them to use a digital camera then all you need to use film is to know what films you can still buy, which isn't a lot.
I have a Pentax MX, the battery went flat years ago so I just use my experience to get the exposure correct, the same as I sometimes do on my digital camera.
I haven't run a film through it for a few years now, it costs too much and there aren't many good places to get the film developed and even fewer places that do good prints.
I did send one film off to somewhere that returned a CD of digitised negatives but they were a pathetic 25k byte jpegs when they came back so that was a waste of time and money. I scanned the ~6,000 negatives I have myself and that took months of part time effort.
There were loads of toy film cams out there. Most digitals aren't in that they normally do make effort to get a relatively good pic from the hardware, unlike the who cares attitude of so many low end film cams.
So you get your digital camera out and adjust the settings and see what happens. With film you adjust the settings wait three days and forget what setting you adjusted. There are no settings on a good film camera that aren't on a good digital camera. You can even tell them to record in B&W if you want to, but it only saves a bit of space on the card so why bother?
they do but they remember how bad film was so don't care.
You give the same person a to flight film camera and they will get the same results, so what?
It is the point, you want to teach them to make better pictures not prat about with stuff they don't need to know about to make an equivalent picture using film.
If the object is to enable them to take better pictures then don't throw old obstacles in the way. You may as well teach them to paint.
How does using film?
What you do get with digital is the ability to take a shot and SEE what the DoF is.
So you want to teach photography using a film camera without batteries now?
I don't need a rangefinder I can estimate distances to a few percent with ease.
RAW is the equivalent of film in that its the total range of values the sensor has captured. JPEG is just a processed and compressed RAW, the equivalent of a print. As a consequence some information has been thrown away in the JPEG just as it is in a print.
If you shoot in RAW it just means you are saving all the data and so you can do more with it later.
The same as film but you think its different for some reason.
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