As is often the case with new media, the appearance of digital cameras has generated some controversy among professionals and connoisseurs over whether digital pictures are, or can be, as good as film. The debate has tended to revolve around technical and aesthetic questions like, "Can the colors in a digital picture be as rich and true as film?" It parallels earlier arguments over, say, CDs versus vinyl: some audiophiles argued (and still argue) that LPs have a richer, more dynamic sound than CDs.
BBC News has a piece arguing that "Why digital cameras = better photographers," and it builds its case less on the technical merits of digital photography, than on the practices that it makes possible: you can immediately preview your pictures, the LED screens let you set up your composition more easily; you can erase the bad pictures in near real-time; and you can Photoshop out red-eye or other problems (within limits).
This highlights a common difference in the way that professionals and ordinary users think of the same technology. When professional photographers think of photography, they think of the work of Ansel Adams or Richard Avedon. The rest of us think of the pictures that come back from the drug store or drive-through photo booth. Ordinary users are interested less in the ideal properties of a technology than in what it lets them actually do.
Comments