Digital BW, The Print

I am simply amazed at the low ratio of "keeper" images people are getting.

No wonder people are happier with digital if they are keeping only one 
of 5 images much less one of 50!  Any editor I ever worked for would 
have kicked my butt for ratios like that.  Even today, if I "waste" more 
than 10%  or 15% of my imagery I get pretty peeved..

I'm sorry, but those are the kind of ratios you get from casual shooting 
- as the Brits would say: of "Holiday snaps"..

And digital leads to MORE not less of that... Instead of learning what 
one did right or wrong and  trying to replicate that or learn lessons 
from it, digital makes it way too easy to just shoot 50 shots instead of 
one - and take that serendipitous good shot home..

When I started making my living doing sports photography,  it was a film 
world..  Yet, there were sports shooters who shot rolls and rolls of 
film..  They would simply hold down the  shutter release  with the 
camera on auto during a drive to the basket (in basketball for example), 
instead of waiting, timing,  and shooting.  That's all fine and good if 
you aren't using ceiling strobes that take 3-4 seconds to recycle, but I 
was..  So, I had to learn to compose and time my shots, even with 
objects in motion...  I'd shot between 3 and 5 rolls at a basketball gam 
(often that included the film in a remote backboard camera.. Maybe 5 to 
7 at a football game...  At the same time, there'd be others shooting so 
fast their motor drives sounded like  machine-guns facing a Chinese 
human wave attack in 1951 Korea.  Almost invariably the guys/girls who 
shot like that were newspaper people. Sports Illustrated's staff people 
never shot like that, and my own shots, not those of the machine gun 
shooters ended up in Sports Illustrated, ESPN magazine, and bunches of 
other glossy publications - while theirs were relegated to where they 
belonged - the back page of a local newspaper.  That relationship hasn't 
changed in the digital age, if anything the spread is greater between 
someone who shoots carefully and someone who shoots like a tommy 
gunner.  One example - you can easily shoot a test shot on digital and 
adjust the settings to properly take advantage of the lighting you have 
(or go and change the lighting), however, being able to understand 
lighting and pre-visualize fully remains an advantage - unfortunately, 
life proceeds apace - sometimes you won't get the chance to re-shoot and 
the guy/girl who  could set the camera correctly without a test shot 
will have the seminal image...

The point is that there is NO substitute for learning how to shoot, how 
to light, how to compose, etc.  Digital can make that harder OR easier.  
For those willing to take time and learn, digital offers the opportunity 
for immediate feedback and a much faster learning curve.  For those who 
just want a few nice "snaps" - people who would probably be better off 
shooting HDTV video and simply using a screen grab instead of  stills - 
it means they can shoot tons of images ignoring the very lessons they 
could learn..  Like any technological advance it's a sword that cuts 
both ways..  For a thoughtful person it can allow people who didn't get 
it before (because of the long delays between shooting and print) to 
actually become relatively proficient, on the other hand it means 
there's a LOT MORE crap out there..


 
Keith Krebs

"Just some guy," and caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSON_Printers/
 
"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
guys"