Digital, the future, and the delete button.

[jfretless]

All,
I'm currently watching the BBC series, "The Genius of Photography."

Something struck me as I watched it last night. A lot of the great images shown in the series show blurred hands, slight OOF, etc...

In the digital age, it's apparent to me that the general populous is after the sharpest, clearest images. I would bet that a lot of these "photographers" are quick to hit the delete button if the image on the LCD is anything less than "perfect."

With film negatives, you pretty much keep all the exposures... be it because of the way we store the negatives in strips of four or five, or any other reason.

So, do you think that today's "photographers" are doing themselves a disservice by deleting any images that doesn't meet their requirements at the moment?

We all know as time goes on we look at the images we've taken in the past with a different eye.

In my case, being a "pack rat" and a tech geek, it's easy for me to keep "every" exposure I have taken with film and digital. Disk space is cheap and why delete something forever when it doesn't cost you anything to keep it.

Thoughts?

Thanks.
John

[imajypsee]

were different from the way some photos made today via digital sensors. Some of the reason for a (supposed) preference for "sharp"-ness may be due to the digicam look. Deep DOF has trained young photogs to see "sharp" as the way to go. When the young photog turns to analog, the talk is often about the sharpness of the photo or the sharpness of the lens, and so on. I'm 63 years old and LOTS of my old analog stuff is sharp... and LOTS of my old analog stuff is not so sharp. My use of modern digital cameras (Canon and Pentax) has been guided by my use of film/analog equipment and the way film looks compared to digital. At first, I was beyond thrilled with the sharpness and detail in the frame. And, I'm still thrilled with detail, if the photo is of a bird or flower or so on. But, I'm also thrilled with some of the "effects" of soft focus or blurred motion or.... well, you probably get the point.
And, given my age... my eyes aren't what they used to be ;)

[williams473]

Yes I think that digital photographers do themselves a great disservice when editing in the field. It changes the whole process of shooting to evaluate what has been captured on the spot. It is important (in my opinion) to focus on the subject matter, and not so much on what you're getting at the time of the shoot. I see it all the time from people working with digital cameras - shoot, look at the back of the camera, shoot - repeat. I will admit it is nice to check every once in a while to make sure you're getting something, but an LCD's resolution and size isn't adequate enough to evaluate the quality or content of what you have anyway.

Plus, we learn from our mistakes - learning takes a lot longer when you delete all your mistakes, or images you perceive to be mistakes. What if you were to make a "mistake" and delete what might later because the jumping off point for an entire way of thinking or shooting? Digital shooters should treat their memory cards like film - download all the images, archive them, label them and do your editing through selection, instead of physically removing images.

[pachuco]

It is very true what you say and very sad. I work with DSLR's every day and although I get tack sharp images I always feel they are a bit clinical, almost perfect in sharpness. I am not a digital verses film type guy, I use both allot, but my favorites are my slightly out of focus shots that I take with my film bodies. Why is that? For me, I shoot film not for what it can do, but for what it can't do. The out of focus shots remind me that it was me behind the lens i guess. Does that make sense?

[chris000]

It may be because I've used film for 30 years (and still do), but I keep all my RAW images. I'm a great believer in taking the opportuity to look at the 'failures' with a fresh eye weeks, months or years later. Deleting from the camera on the day of the shoot is a big mistake I think.

[Pherdinand]

no they don't do a disservice to themselves by deleting all those. Actually i think they should delete much more than the ones not sharp enough;)

Honestly...People make too many damn photos. The result is: either they bore to death the relatives,friends, by showing x-thousand holiday snaps, or they put the shots on a dvd and never ever look at them again (until the dvd stops working, but sorry, this ain't a "which is more archival" thread!)

[williams473]

Juan-Carlos,

Man you have some really strong work there - absolutely beautiful! The Juarez stuff is great - you have brought forth the essence of life in these images - the tactile, the ragged, the imbalanced - those are qualities best recorded on film and that reflect the randomness of our world, and the style supports the subject matter. The apparent softness of the images whether it is from your lens, your camera or your enlarger (or even if these were scanned negs) really works with the subject, and has a great quality.

Some of your other work with "better" lenses is fantastic also - you just have a great eye and clearly a sensitivity to your subject. Nice :)

[Martini]

I never edit in the field, only on the computer when I can
fully evaluate. One thing that's no different from film
to digital is that bad photos will not get better.
Delete, delete, delete.

[funkaoshi]

Funny, I made this exact same comment (http://flickr.com/photos/funkaoshi/2237520200/) about a photograph of my friend which I certainly would have nuked had the photo been taken on my XT vs. my K1000. Mind you, people take crap loads more photos with a digital camera, and learning to erase your bad photos is a habit everyone should develop.

[williams473]

I have to disagree with the last couple posts and reitterate what Leicasniper said: What does it cost you to keep those "bad" photos? Some disk space? There must have been some inital reason for taking the "bad" picture in the first place - what was it? Why is the picture bad? These are questions you don't have to face if you just delete, delete, delete.

[pachuco]

Thank you for your kind remarks Williams473! :D

[Nh3]

If you took a picture and no one saw it, does it exist?



lol

[yanidel]

I guess it also comes to how many shots you take during an outing and the time you have for post-processing.
Yet I agree that too many people keep bad photos or several shots of the same scene. It can be pretty boring for the ones looking at these "great pictures" of the County Fair ...

[funkaoshi]

Keeping bad photos doesn't cost much in disk space, but it does in time wasted trying to track down that photo you actually like.

[jfretless]

Awesome replies. Thanks!

With the delete button, used in the field, the number of "brilliant accidents" is greatly reduced.

John

[Pherdinand]

exactly, funkaoshi.
I have enough trouble to find out which photos i like on film, actually to find out that none of them are good, i can not imagine how it is possible with shooting many time smore in digital.

[williams473]

"It can be pretty boring for the ones looking at these "great pictures" of the County Fair ..."

Well you don't have to show all your images to everyone - that indeed would be pretty boring! I'm talking about the raw meat of a shoot though - the good bad and ugly. I would never subject anyone to view every frame of a certain shoot - actually, I don't let anyone see my contacts as a rule. The finished photo is all there is in my opinion, but the photos that didn't make it for one reason or another can inform you at a later date. And again, if I found I had a large percentage of my images that were worthy of being trashed from a particular project, I woudl start to question why or how I was shooting in the first place. I've dropped many a project right in the middle because I looked at 10 or 20 or 30 contact sheets and decided the project sucked, it wasn't any good, or whatever and quit it to start down a new path. Course, I'm never working for anyone so that is a nice luxury to have.

[Pherdinand]

lol
you are in a nasty mood today, Bill. :)

You are right of course.
The problem is always with the people. The user. Not the technology, nor the ideas.

[funkaoshi]

@bmattock I have Lightroom cross referencing all my digital photos. I know how to use a computer, thank you. And I agree it's a big step up from a negative binder. That said, I still erase stuff judiciously. Lightroom helps with narrowing my search for a photograph down, but if I kept every shot I took it would still be overwhelming. Never mind that entering the useful metadata about a photo (people, place, etc) is a tedious process.

[funkaoshi]

I think another thing to keep in mind is that scarcity is sometimes what makes a photograph interesting. That one print you find that is full of emotion because it's your only photograph of something that matters. I think in the future these sorts of photos aren't going to exist, because everyone will have 1500 photographs of their baby's first month, 50,000 of their wife, etc, etc. I don't think my children will ever experience the same sort of joy I get from stumbling on an envelope with old photographs. Oh look, Dad's old hard drive. Here are 1800 photographs Spring 2008. If you don't want to look at your sea of photographs, who will?

[Al Patterson]

All,
I'm currently watching the BBC series, "The Genius of Photography."

Something struck me as I watched it last night. A lot of the great images shown in the series show blurred hands, slight OOF, etc...

In the digital age, it's apparent to me that the general populous is after the sharpest, clearest images. I would bet that a lot of these "photographers" are quick to hit the delete button if the image on the LCD is anything less than "perfect."

With film negatives, you pretty much keep all the exposures... be it because of the way we store the negatives in strips of four or five, or any other reason.

So, do you think that today's "photographers" are doing themselves a disservice by deleting any images that doesn't meet their requirements at the moment?

We all know as time goes on we look at the images we've taken in the past with a different eye.

In my case, being a "pack rat" and a tech geek, it's easy for me to keep "every" exposure I have taken with film and digital. Disk space is cheap and why delete something forever when it doesn't cost you anything to keep it.

Thoughts?

Thanks.
John

I never delete in camera unless it's a shot of my feet or something. You really need to look at pictures on a larger screen than on the camera to tell whether it can be salvaged or not.

[Pherdinand]

broken BB code?
Technology sucks, unless you understand it :D

[jfretless]

I don't think my children will ever experience the same sort of joy I get from stumbling on an envelope with old photographs. Oh look, Dad's old hard drive. Here are 1800 photographs Spring 2008. If you don't want to look at your sea of photographs, who will?

I don't think that is necessarily true.

Regardless of the subject, nothing now is never as good as "you" remember it.

...remember soda in glass bottles. ... the sound of vinyl records. ...high performance cars of the 60's. mechanical camera... who needs batteries.

Right? regardless of the subject, it will never be like is was.

Let your kids be the judges... I have a feeling that they will put a lot of value in to the pictures you have taken of them. ...better yet, I bet their kids, your grandkids, will cherish the images even more.

John

[yanidel]

I have to admit that sometimes I don´t control myself and just hit delete in frustration because just missed the decisive moment. And regret it, because the shot was sometimes still worth it :bang: Hopefully it is not that easy to delete on the RD1, so I cool down just on time most of the times.

Otherwise, can´t see sh.. :cool: on the small RD1 screen, so I just wait to get home to delete.

[Leighgion]

Yes, I suppose if I have one of my thumbs removed, I'll treasure the one that remains. But really, I'd sooner keep them both. I likewise have no interest in deleting photos to make the ones that remain seem more interesting to someone else.

There was a flirtation with this kind of manipulation in poetry. There were modernists who purposely wrote as if a piece was a fragment of a larger lost work. I think it works for effect to a point, but purposely thinning how many exposures you took is beyond that to me.

Like or not, photography is now democratized and the world is awash with quick & handy images, which to me means that not only is deleting some of them is not only okay, but vital. I generally don't delete a lot in-camera, preferring to see things on my computer first, but keeping every casual shot is something I've given up. Some "failures" are instructional and interesting, true, but some are just plain garbage. No matter how big hard drives grow, I still don't want data that I have no intention of ever revisiting. Each of us sets our own criteria for what should get canned.

[jfretless]

I

The next generation has zero interest in our photos or our cameras. They'll be on eBay or the local dump before our bodies are even cold.

But I could be wrong.

That would suck. First I would roll over in my grave, then come back and haunt their camera equipment.... You know, make them think the have front/back focus issues and excess dust on their sensors. ...making them go crazy trying to setup and perform focus tests with rulers.

...could you imagine? :angel:

John

[myoptic3]

You can certainly shoot all manner of blurry, out of focus images w/ a digital camera if it is manual focus, or even if it is AF. I think that this is two different ways of shooting. W/o a playback screen, a film photographer is going to take less shots, but probably take more time on each one, if possible. I am dubious of what you can tell on a small LCD screen anyway, especially outdoors.

I doubt that there is any real difference between deleting it on the camera, on the computer, or deciding not to scan or print the neg.

I suspect that the reason a lot of the great shots you saw on the telly were, no surprise here, taken by great photographers. They realized that there is a lot more to a good shot besides sharpness. Mood, viewing angle, the decisive moment, right film for a given subject, lighting, etc. Your subject matter is the most important thing. Even a poorly taken shot of Sophia Loren is going to look fine. A tack sharp shot of, for instance, Dick Cheney is going to look really bad.

Probably getting great shots cannot be taught. You can learn technique and master your equipment, but you either got it or you don't got it

[Pitxu]

.......Each of us sets our own criteria for what should get canned.

Or what should get shot.

Really, maybe more "editing" should be done before pressing the button.
This was discussed in another thread, do we shoot more on digital just because it's cheap?

[funkaoshi]

Now you say it doesn't actually cost you any time. Which is it?

Looking through hundreds of photos is still a pain in the ass, even if all of those photos are of the same thing. And as I said before, a sea of photos you don't want to look at really has no value.

[pachuco]

I don't delete anything.

@pachuco - "...although I get tack sharp images I always feel they are a bit clinical..." Try using old manual focus lenses, you can have your cake and eat it too in that sense.

I will try that! I have some great Canon FD glass and I can get an EOS converter I think.

It can't get me any more strange looks than when I bust out my M3 in the press box! You know the jokes...."is that your Grandfathers camera?" :p

[Al Patterson]

I will try that! I have some great Canon FD glass and I can get an EOS converter I think.

It can't get me any more strange looks than when I bust out my M3 in the press box! You know the jokes...."is that your Grandfathers camera?" :p

FD glass just screams out for an A-1 or F-1 to use with them. They are cheap enough on the used market.

[pachuco]

FD glass just screams out for an A-1 or F-1 to use with them. They are cheap enough on the used market.

I have an F-1N that I love but when I have to send images quickly I am stuck with my EOS DSLR's. Oh well!

Bill - Are those EOS converters not good? I have not used them but I think it would be cool to use the FD glass with my 30D.

[Al Patterson]

Don't hate me - I prefer the cheap, non-Canon-made, Cosina-made-instead T60 for my FD glass. For my FL glass, the lovely FX of my childhood, which I paid way too much to have completely restored. However, I do have a nice black FTb which I am quite fond of, a silver FT, and a Bell&Howell-labeled FD35.

No problems from me Bill. I always wanted an A-1 back in the day, but bought an AE-1 instead. (No cash). So, now that A-1's are really cheap, I have two of them. I know a guy whose daughter uses his old TLb for her school photography class.

[Al Patterson]

I have an F-1N that I love but when I have to send images quickly I am stuck with my EOS DSLR's. Oh well!

Bill - Are those EOS converters not good? I have not used them but I think it would be cool to use the FD glass with my 30D.


From what I've seen one can pick up a used FD class body for much less than the cost of an adapter. That being the case, why pay extra money for the adapter? (I'm talking about the Canon adapter, not the third party ones).

[landsknechte]

Or what should get shot.

Really, maybe more "editing" should be done before pressing the button.
This was discussed in another thread, do we shoot more on digital just because it's cheap?

Yes, but does it matter? When I had access to a free darkroom, I bracketed a heck of a lot more than I do when I shoot film now.

On a lot of levels, it can be quite beneficial. Digital has done a tremendous amount for my photography, as it let me screw around and be far more experimental than I could have afforded to have been with film. I'm now a lot better of a photographer when I pick up a film camera.

[Pitxu]

Yes, but does it matter?

For an experienced photographer it's a matter of quality over quantity.
Having said that, I think that that any tool or process which helps learning has got to be a good thing.

[landsknechte]

For an experienced photographer it's a matter of quality over quantity.
Having said that, I think that that any tool or process which helps learning has got to be a good thing.

Exactly. One has to become an experienced photographer somehow, and quantity can lead to quality.

[funkaoshi]

I don't have any photos I don't want to look at.

You must be an awesome photographer then.

[Pitxu]

According to Wiki:

Baka may be:
An American nickname for the Japanese Ohka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohka) (a kamikaze (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze) rocket plane that saw limited use before the end of World War II) based on the insult word for idiot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot).