Digital BW, The Print

Claude writes:

> It's an interesting approach in theory, but I
> have tried this and it doens't work.

With an HDTV camera?  An expensive experiment, although you need the
resolution to even approach practicality.  And even then, the resolution is
far below still photography.

But it all depends on what you need; photojournalism has been known to use
video stills regularly.

> Those are not fair statements. You are underestimating
> the timing it takes to capture those images, and the
> amount of skills required to do so.

Sorry, but when photographers claim that they need thousands or tens of
thousands of exposures to capture the same things that other photographers
captured with 4x5 cameras in years past, it's pretty obvious that quantity
is being substituted for quality.  Eventually you arrive a a point where you
just shoot images continuously and then pick a few stills later on.
Shooting like that can be done by an unattended camera, almost--it certainly
does not require a talented photographer.  It just requires a photo editor
with time on his hands.

> I have a friend who photographs for the NBA and the NFL.
> He used to shoot bags of slide film. Now he has 3 Canon
> 1d's and 1 1Ds. Doing kids dancing, gymanistics, any
> kind of sport is NOT a matter of just spraying the air
> with exposures as you suggest.

I'm not suggesting it; photographers who blow through 15,000 exposures at a
single event are suggesting it.

In theory, the ideal photographer only needs one shot, which he will take at
the perfect instant in time.  A less than ideal photographer will have to
take quite a few shots, a few of which might be suitable.  A
non-photographer will just shoot continuously, and the photo editor will
pick the random shots that happened to come out good.  It's a simple matter
of mathematics.

> There are lots of people who earn a good living
> precisely because they CAN nail those shots.

The more they shoot, the more likely they are to nail the shots ... and the
less talent they need to do so.

> You comments are offensive to those who make a living
> trying to get those great shots and using the best
> equipment they can afford to do the job.

If they are taking offense, that is their problem, not mine.  Of course, if
they tacitly recognize that they are using a shotgun approach to getting
their photos, I can see why they'd be upset if anyone explicitly pointed
this out.  But it's really hard to see why, say, sports today requires 100
or 1000 times more exposures than sports of yesterday.  And frankly, I don't
see any great improvement in the shots that actually find their way to
press.

Additionally, sports photography--one of the few types of photography that
can somewhat justify a shotgun approach, although not as much as one might
think--is only a tiny part of photography as a whole.

> I'm trying to give you some factual experienced
> anwers and make some good points, but you only seem
> to be interested in making fun of something you don't
> understand and insult the ones who do.

I'm not making fun of anyone.  I'm calling into serious question the notion
that one can just take thousands and thousands of photographs and be a
better photographer in consequence, which in turn is often used to justify
going to digital photography.