"death of photography as an art form"

The articles demonstrating the mathematical superiority of film vs digital "photography" remind me of a movie line...

Robin Williams in "Dead Poets Society" sarcastically saying ... something about the mathematical analysis of poetry being excrement.

Art is art, we create and view and experience art to reflect and add to our LIVES!

Ok off soapbox now.

Hammy #54417 said:

I was browsing and saw a page about film vs digital:
http://www.wrightphoto.com/DigitalCameras.html
and thought it was "interesting"...

Comments?

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Yikes. These guys must have a warehouse full of film with a short expiration date. Either that or they've run out of Eclipse solution and are terrified of cleaning their CCDs.

Anyone know where I can get a coupla cartridges of 126 and a few boxes of flash cubes? I hear there's a place called Disneyland in California and I hear nobody's bothered to take pictures of it.

Joe

Hi,

Note, too, that they're all PO'd at Polaroid for dumping them off the dealer list because they can't sell enough cameras to keep being a dealer.

I guess I'll stop picking on them now and let them get on with their ranting until they go out of business.

Stan

Jorgen said:

Jorgen

Hammy said:

Whoa!
Don't shoot the messenger.

I was browsing and saw a page about film vs digital:
http://www.wrightphoto.com/DigitalCameras.html
and thought it was "interesting"...

Comments?

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Mark B. said:

Well maybe I'm missing something, but I'm pretty sure Bob was just
being sarcastic.

Mark

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Well, I was trying to be sarcastic, but I'm having trouble keeping this quill pen hooked to the net

Stephen,

Hey! Walk in there with the D1x and ask them what kind of film it takes! I bet that they mistake it for an F5 and hand you a roll of 135!

If you do that, make sure you tell us all about it. I'm sure it would be the laugh of the month around here! Especially, if you try and find the latch to open the film back and wind up opening the CF card door instead and ask them how that big can is ever going to fit in there!

Oh, I'm having enough chuckles at the thought alone.

Actually, there's a similar shop over in Cary, NC and I'm now tempted to go over there and try this trick myself.

They have an 'I hate digital' attitude as well, but they have a nice flatbed scanner and a Kodak dye-sub that they use to restore damaged prints. They don't consider that digital, since the input is from a wet-process print and the printer isn't 'digital' since Kodak is the manufacturer. That PC that connects the scanner to the printer and runs photoshop has nothing to do with digital, I guess.....

Stan

Stephen Livick said:

Hello All

I live not far from these people ( just a 45min drive) and its tiny
little town in South Western Ontario Canada.

They are behind the times in my estimation, by the way I am the
only one in these parts of the Country with a D1x camera. So they
have most probably never seen a decent pro digital camera, and I am
willing to bet on it.

Stephen

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Eric,

Well, I can understand that!

However, I'm rather fond of Woody, Buzz and that whole gang and they only exist as a collection of bits on a rather large) hard drive somewhere.....

Stan

eric said:

eric

Dennis Hays said:

... and of course George Lucas using digital capture over film and
producing films is no where near art!

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Hi, Again.

OK, this is my last one for today on this subject. I just had a wild thought, though.

How's this one for a Luddite statement (now, don't take it literally and toss that truck load of stones at me, as I don't believe any of this tripe I'm about to write for one nanosecond):

Photography, in any form is not art. Never was. Never will be. It's just a picture.

My wife can produce art.

She uses a pad of paper and either a pencil or a pen and ink. She can produce the most artistic renderings of a scene. No photograph from any sort of camera can match that, so a photograph can never be art.

There. Now. Did I manage to out do Mr Wrightphoto.Com with that one?

OK. Now, we can all get back to making non-artistic non-photographs with our worthless, overpriced digital cameras and print them on automatically erasing paper with worthless printers.

I must note, though, that my artist wife hangs a lot of my worthless non-art digital prints up on the walls of her office and studio. There must be something about them that appeals to her artistic sense.....

Stan

Hammy said:

Whoa!
Don't shoot the messenger.

I was browsing and saw a page about film vs digital:
http://www.wrightphoto.com/DigitalCameras.html
and thought it was "interesting"...

Comments?

Click to expand...

Why! I don't understand why a One Hour Processing company would be adamantly against digital photography!

Poor fellow. I'll bet he was a laid-off Linotype operator that thought he would start a new business that would NEVER be overtaken by computers!!!

I liked the 'art form' gambit, though. He didn't just say, "Hey folks! I'm gonna be out of a job if you keep buying those things!" Although, he hinted as much when he mentioned his new diet.

There's a joke running around about why some people should be forced to hang a sign around their neck saying, "I am Stupid." I think we found a new candidate.

Hammy said:

Whoa!
Don't shoot the messenger.

I was browsing and saw a page about film vs digital:
http://www.wrightphoto.com/DigitalCameras.html
and thought it was "interesting"...

Comments?

Click to expand...

I'll bet the autopsy is going to show large holes where grey matter used to be!

Joe Mastroianni said:

jmastroianni said:

I was browsing and saw a page about film vs digital:
http://www.wrightphoto.com/DigitalCameras.html
and thought it was "interesting"...

Comments?

Click to expand...

Yikes. These guys must have a warehouse full of film with a short
expiration date. Either that or they've run out of Eclipse
solution and are terrified of cleaning their CCDs.

Anyone know where I can get a coupla cartridges of 126 and a few
boxes of flash cubes? I hear there's a place called Disneyland in
California and I hear nobody's bothered to take pictures of it.

Joe

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Here's a laugh riot, from their "Digital vs. Film page" ( http://www.wrightphoto.com/Digital-vs-Film.html )

In reference to a printed digital image:

"The image itself contained very little detail, and close examination shows the image to consist of dots."

Boy, I wonder if these Einsteins have ever looked through a loupe or an enlarger focuser before.

Hammy said:

Whoa!
Don't shoot the messenger.

I was browsing and saw a page about film vs digital:
http://www.wrightphoto.com/DigitalCameras.html
and thought it was "interesting"...

Comments?

Click to expand...

Hammy said:

Whoa!
Don't shoot the messenger.

I was browsing and saw a page about film vs digital:
http://www.wrightphoto.com/DigitalCameras.html
and thought it was "interesting"...

Comments?

Click to expand...

I hope that none of his customers believe his malarky. It's one thing to have an opinion, it's quite another to make a complete jackass out of yourself by stating absolute rubbish for all to see. That is indeed one of the funniest webpages I've ever seen. He put his own "kick me" sign on his back! Whatta kook!

DWH said:

They had to do something to sell their state of the art Samsung
35mm cameras....

And what the heck does this mean?:

"Digital Cameras are not capable of taking "Photographs". Images
resulting from digital cameras cannot be defined as photographs.
"Digital Photography", therefore, does not exist, and should be
called something else."

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I kind of agree with that to a degree, digitographers are a zillion more times technically inclined. I know more about capture and manipulation than any three counter schmucks in our town. If there were truth to any of it, I'd certainly listen but I've seen toooooooo much to the contrary. Heck, let 'em believe that film is better, it'll give them something to do.

Hammy said:

Whoa!
Don't shoot the messenger.

I was browsing and saw a page about film vs digital:
http://www.wrightphoto.com/DigitalCameras.html
and thought it was "interesting"...

Comments?

Click to expand...

At first I thought this was a joke. It's not. Then I thought, well may be this is a very old page, it's been updated June 3, 2001.

This page gives a strong arguement for NOT legalizing drugs.

Jim K

Dr. Gonzo said:

Boy, I wonder if these Einsteins have ever looked through a loupe
or an enlarger focuser before.

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Or ever looked at certain photographs by photographers of the recent past who are considered among the masters. Capa's war photographs, for instance. Sharp? Not always. Grain-free? Not bloody likely. Put a loupe onto one of them, and you'd think that conventional photographic technology is horrible -- unsharp, smudgy-looking, worthless.

That people don't typically view photographs through loupes doesn't appear to have occurred to the aforesaid Einsteins.

I did something really really bad.
Stay tuned...

Jason Busch

PT Barnum had it right. There is one born every minute.

You know, I also bet this guy does $275 weddings on Sat afternoons with his 35mm Diana (or Diana clone).

Seriously. We are all witnessing, today, a similiar revolution that happened when the Daguerrotype was replaced by wet plates and paper. When those gave way to dry plates and then film based negatives. And then the 'portable' 4x5 Speed Graphic that made 'wedding' photography what it is today. Of course, this led to 35mm minature cameras and then Instamatics, Point and Shoots APS and then, (shudder) DIGITAL ...

As always, these are just tools to use for the good parts and workaround their bad parts.

It took Ansel Adams and others to get photography recognized as an art form in the Museum of Modern Art.

I doubt the US Marines could actually demonstrate to this chap, some of the great work that has been done with digital.

Jon ...

VERRRY Interesting! Their math is pretty good about the resolution of film... BUT, I bet that the lenses on those shining little "beauties" they sell are not much sharper than about 35 line pairs per mm. SO, 35 line pairs X 2 lines per pair X 24 mm of film = 1680 lines of resolution on a 35 mm frame. Why does 1680 sound so familiar?!?! By golly, their toys are just as good as a E-10! Nuf said... jrdii

Hammy said:

Whoa!
Don't shoot the messenger.

I was browsing and saw a page about film vs digital:
http://www.wrightphoto.com/DigitalCameras.html
and thought it was "interesting"...

Click to expand...

i just like to make commentary thats all

Mark B. said:

Mark

eric said:

Member said:

Well, I've got to agree with that tastefully done page. After all,
good literature disappeared with the advent of the typewriter.

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i dont agree. with the typewriter and more recently the computer it
has simply added more people to the equation. there is allot more
rubbish to sift through but the brilliant writers are out there
(let me know if you find one). i think its the same for
photography. its out there you just have to look harder. i think
maybe the great literary writers of the last century may not be as
great as people think. there was no mass communication so the few
writers that were able to get through to people were forced (as
there was no other options to the readers) on the public. the
technologies we have today have opened up to almost everyone the
ability to create at will. personally i would rather have a nation
of free thinkers that may not be genius than stuffy old men stuck
and fixed in their ways and always forcing them on everyone.

open your mind a little. you cant keep living in the past

eric

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Just kidding. I'm certain I could come up with 20 without too much effort. Mostly from my own bookmarks.

Everyone needs a dog to kick. So this guy is kicking digital cameras. There's times I'd like to kick mine but I stop just short of doing so when I remember that I can't afford another.

The info, is partially correct but he stops short of completing his articles without supporting them. My most incompetent english teacher in grammar school would've given me a D- if I'd submitted this report.

His blanket statement that digitals will never equal 35mm cameras is obviously arrived at without much investigation. Let's all get together and chip in and rent an 8 X 10 scanner back camera and challenge him to some landscape photography. Who's gonna hold the bet money?

I partially agree with his archival quality statement. Both film and digital have a problem in this area. The world has already lost a tremendous amount of printed info and digitized data (tape or film incidentally) from deterioration of the media. Much of the early (and valuable) data that was recorded digitally can't even be read anymore. The equipment to read them no longer exist. It's a serious issue that wasn't addressed and sorely needs some attention. Digitized data from 20 years back can't be read in many cases.

Perhaps he should look at a Lightjet printer that uses rgb guns to print on light sensitive paper. Same game as a chemical darkroom englarger only better.

The guy just has the as* towards digital cameras. Me too in many instances! I won't go back to film though. I like to do the whole process at home without waiting and I don't have a space to setup the equipment required for a chemical darkroom and a filtration system that will allow me to dump the toxic waste from color processing into the city sewer system!

Stan,

I think you nailed it - these folks are frightened. Possibly inbred also, but we won't go there.

Coincidentally, I just saw a news release on Imaging Resource about a "digital minilab" just hitting the market. It's much like conventional minilabs, makes prints on photo paper from CF and SM cards (probably MS and who knows what else also - don't recall now). Oh, and it starts at just $85,000, very comparable to regular minilabs of similar capacity.

What this tells us is that digital photography has arrived. Our friends ar wrightphoto.com will eventually be looking for different work, because there fear will prevent them from embracing new technology. Marketshare for the conventional minilab services places like wrightphoto provides will be losing ground over the next ten years to digital minilabs and similar ventures. So much for my crystal ball report for today .

By the way, you're right about the minilab business. I used to own one (I was good at it, really! ). The manufacturer of the equipment I owned would happily sell to someone else a block away, even though their background was in lawnmower repair. Owners usually had no background in anything photographic and they hired high-school and college kids to run the equipment. It was embarassing as hell! I'm sure not much has changed.

Regards,
Scotty

Stan Disbrow said:

OK. You're safe, at least from me.

What a bunch of ranting. yawn. I see a person, or group thereof,
that is very frightened. Well, that's their problem.

I find it interesting that they'll use a scanner to digitally image
film, though. A scanner consists of a light source and a linear CCD
and a stepper motor. It images in a manner not much different than
a camera CCD, including the color filter arrays and resulting color
interpolation.

I suppose that the twit-heads have no idea just what technology
lies inder the covers of their scanner and how it relates to the
much-hated digital camera technology.

The main site shows a typical small camera shop and advertises the
usual 1-hour photo processing. My opinion is these machines are
usually poorly maintained, adjusted and operated. What a wonderful
way to treat the film.

Well, Hammy, I thank you for my morning chuckle!

Stan

Hammy said:

Whoa!
Don't shoot the messenger.

I was browsing and saw a page about film vs digital:
http://www.wrightphoto.com/DigitalCameras.html
and thought it was "interesting"...

Comments?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...