Analog... or silver-based?

Isn't it true the French do (and say) things differently?
Can we leave it as analogue photography?

Film and electronic should be the names, both systems capture an analog image, the electronic one converts the recorded voltages to digital data after the shutter closes and the electronic device is read.

But Bob I shoot on plates and paper too, and that's not film.... :blink:

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Originally Posted by Worker 11811

Okay, the "digital = crap" thing I started off with was a joke... and I hope most of you figured that out. ;)
However, my illustration, here, is meant to show that, unless you are a traditionally trained photographer or unless you have had instruction by a traditionally trained teacher, it is likely that you have not learned to be critical of your own work in order to notice things like aberration or macroblocking and you probably have no idea what dynamic range means to a photograph.

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Remember many of us are not pro-photographers and do this purely because we enjoy photography. As an amateur/hobby photographer, I have neither the finance or inclination to have instruction by a traditionally trained photographer, particularly so as I never expect any recompense as a result of taking photos!

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Originally Posted by Worker 11811

In any case, my standard response to anybody who tries to chide me about shooting photos with film is: "I bet I can take better pictures with an empty beer can and a roll of duct tape than you can with your $2,000 digicam."

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Actually just further to that, I would say that most people I speak to when I tell them I shoot film are usually blown away/amazed (in a positive way!) that I do shoot film and when they find out I develop at home, even more so. One of my female friends, when this weekend past saw me carrying 20kg of large format camera gear up and down a mountain (for one shot) was very complimentary!

Who said you had to pay to have somebody teach you photography? Neither does it have to be formal, book learning either. :)
My first photography teacher was my father. My first photography lesson was when I was ten years old where he handed me a loaded camera and said, "If you break this camera, I'll break you! Now get out of here and don't come back until number in this little window says '36.'"

Further, you're here. Aren't you? APUG counts for something. Doesn't it?
Last I heard, all sorts of traditionally trained photographers were teaching others about photography right here at this forum.

You, like me and many others here, are naturally autodidactic. We don't learn the same way others do and it doesn't make sense to compare the way we learn to the way others learn.
Bottom line: Just by being here and participating, you are becoming a traditionally trained photographer, taught by other traditionally trained photographers. That, by itself, probably puts you head and shoulders above the unwashed masses.

Just to make it clear, that "I can take pictures with a beer can" bet is always made with a wink and a smile. I don't ever mean it to be taken as a put-down.
Okay... So, I have a warped sense of humor. Sue me. ;)
(Still, I just gotta' make a pinhole camera out of a beer can! ;) )

You are right. Most people who learn that I am a traditional photographer are pleasantly surprised to hear it. When I talk about getting in peoples' faces about it, I refer to a rare minority of cases. When I do get uppity, it's always in the tone of a good natured banter. Even with an abundance of smilies ( ;) :D :) ) it's hard to get that kind of tone across via the internet.

Even without training or informal study, you've still got one thing that sets you above 90% of the population, be they photographers or anything else: Work ethic.
To carry 45 lbs. of gear up a mountain shows that your interest in your subject of choice is more than just a pass time. You care about the work you produce and you have the foresight to think about your work and to be critical of yourself and your results.

You've got more ethic in your little finger than most people will ever have in their own lives. Digicam or film, that's what makes you a real photographer.

IIRC, Sean chose "Analog" Photographers User Group because it was reasonably distinctive, sufficiently understandable as being distinct from Digital, and because most of the other possibilities were unavailabe :).
It is sort of like Kodak - a phrase (word) chosen to mean something.

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Originally Posted by keithwms

But Bob I shoot on plates and paper too, and that's not film.... :blink:

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I understand, but isn't that closer to antique photography :cool: that was also an obtuse jab at people who are under the impression a digital camera is 100% digital. Being in IT for a few decades, I remember and have worked with a few analog computers as well, both electronic and mechanical ones, (K&E rules). :)

BTW, your images are captured with a light sensitive film on a non flexible or opaque backing. Modern photographic film is a light sensitive film coating on a reasonably dimensionally stable flexible backing material.

So film photography still works. :) It's all in the daffynitions isn't it. :D

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Originally Posted by Bob-D659

I understand, but isn't that closer to antique photography :cool: that was also an obtuse jab at people who are under the impression a digital camera is 100% digital. Being in IT for a few decades, I remember and have worked with a few analog computers as well, both electronic and mechanical ones, (K&E rules). :)

BTW, your images are captured with a light sensitive film on a non flexible or opaque backing. Modern photographic film is a light sensitive film coating on a reasonably dimensionally stable flexible backing material.

So film photography still works. :) It's all in the daffynitions isn't it. :D

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Also, if you really want to warp peoples' minds, tell them that all photography is black and white. It is only through chemistry, dyes, filters and electronics that we can create the illusion that the photograph is in true color. Take out the dye couplers or develop in the wrong chems and you will have a black and white rendition of your subject on supposedly color film. Pull the color filters out of a Technicolor 3-strip camera and you've got nothing. Without the Bayer filter, your digicam is no better at capturing color than Tri-X.

It makes peoples' hair smoke when you tell them it's all just a trick. ;)

With respect to instruction in photography, I agree that one needn't spend money to learn.

My parents put the idea of photography into my cranium at a young age. Each of them taught me what they knew about it that, while not encyclopedic, got me started. I supplemented that instruction with reading to learn more, chiefly from the set of encyclopedias we had, and making mistakes.

The only time I paid money for instruction was a darkroom B&W course in college, whose lessons continue to serve me.

One "tool," if you will, that I use to this day is self-criticism. Any time any photo was bad, I asked myself what went wrong, and figured out what to do in the future to keep it from happening again. In time, the errors diminished, and I now self-critique less frequently. (Of course, I still learn, chiefly new techniques and the like.)

Dieter

They also don't understand when you tell them the image from a Bayer filtered device is not a real colour image, but a mathematical approximation of what the lens projected on the image plane. :)


Tri-X is good, but I personally prefer Neopan 400, sniff, :(

You should read some of the threads on some other forums about Nikon's latest, the hand wringing that the camera can, gasp, out resolve most current lenses, plus Nikon stating that to get the best results you should use a tripod.

Who would'a thunk that the world isn't made up of nice tiny perfectly formed coloured squares. :D


BTW, APUG is a great acronym, thanks Sean.