“And also, with film you had to wait hours or days to see what you had come up with,” he added. “With digital you can see instantly what you’ve missed, so it can really help you fine-tune your composition. That’s a big benefit.”
Nonetheless, when listening to Mr. Burnett talk about the evolution of photo technology, you hear a bit of the priest whose temple has been invaded by heathens.
“The change really started with autofocus,” he said. “That opened up much of what used to be a more craft-based part of the business to almost anybody. I mean, if you can hold it steady and aim it and push that button, you can get an in-focus sharp picture a great degree of the time. And digital, I mean, now anyone with a camera can shoot one, see how bad they screwed up, try and fix it, shoot another one.”
One of the benefits of digital photography – the fact that amateurs can take better-looking photos and doctor them using photo-editing software – is also becoming a bane. Photofinishing labs increasingly are refusing to print professional-looking photographs taken by amateurs.
The reason: Photofinishers are afraid of infringing on professional photographers’ copyrights.
I know a lot of people who use digital cameras, and the only ones who’d ever even THINK of looking at the screen and re-shooting something are the people I know who’ve used film for years. And then you have people like me, who say “well, I can fit about 75 more photos before I have to move them off the card, so I’ll take a couple shots of this” and snap off 5 or 6.
I’m one of those people who normally checks the screen for reshoots on the spot instead of just taking extra pictures and going through them all afterwards. Even though I’ve been using exclusively digital for about three years the old habit still persists, whereas a lot of current digital camera users were probably never regular photographers back in the film days, when it required significantly more effort for even the most trivial holiday snaps.
Funny, it was my digital camera that inspired me to pay more attention to getting a decent shot – the fact that you can see your picture and decide whether or not to reshoot is a great bonus. At the moment I’m saving up for a better camera with more features. I’d stick with digital, but only because it offers you greater freedom.