Rloren

Thirty years ago I used to take photo's with film with a decent Pentax. It was just a hobby, for fun. As I remember I only needed to use three settings, aperture, shutter speed, and focus. Life was good. I took some pretty good photo's.
Fast forward thirty years later I bought my entry level DSLR, Nikon D-3300. Whoa.! It's a whole new game. A camera that is a computer?...A computer that is a camera?...One of those, I guess.
There is an initial tendency for me to want to bypass all this technology...dozens of settings and editing software if you screw up.! I almost want to put everything on manual and go "old school." Three settings and the new ISO.
Back in the day' the computer and software was my brain and my eyes. No bells and whistles, just my ability as an artist to see, frame, and focus a good shot.
I would probably be foolish to disregard all this technology and add it in little by little as I learn digital.
Picasso and Rembrandt never had Photo Shop and they did just fine. Oh well, times change. For now it's all just for fun and that's ok.....

Dannj

Don't let it not be fun! You can still take the tripod approach with digital and be the artist you want to be. For me, the fun part comes in "seeing" the result before I push the button. If you want to use all the bells and whistles go ahead. If not, that'a fine too. You're still in charge😊

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

If you had a through the lens meter in old cameras you also had to remember to adjust your ASA/ISO when changing film speeds!

I, too, cut my teeth on film. I joined the digital revolution about 10 years ago and found that I took more photos in my first month than I did the previous 5 years with my film camera! I got hooked on digital and won't ever go back!

I did my own black & white work back then (including bulk loading my film); I learned all sorts of tricks to do it the darkroom, so post processing digital photos is only a step away from that.

Just like the good old days, you need good camera discipline with digital meaning that you need to know what you're doing.

As to Picasso and Rembrandt, they may not have had photo shop, but they didn't record "reality"; I remember reading about Rembrandt's "Night Watch" and the lighting technique he used -- the people who commissioned the portrait refused to pay him. Artist (no matter the genre) manipulate the image to conform with their idea as to what is beautiful.

Brucej67 Loc: Cary, NC

Not so, 30 years ago (for me 50 years ago) you chose ISO (or ASA) based on the film you used and you chose the film based on what you intended to shoot. Back then HDR was known as the Zone Setting and instead of a computer you had a dark room (unless you gave your film out to be processed). There is nothing new just a different way to look at things.

cdunn Loc: Brevard, NC

I've discovered that, for me, all fundamentally new technology requires a gestation period. I recall thinking tv remote control was for pathetic sloths, and, later, couldn't imagine I would ever convert to digital photography, which I ultimately did about 10 years ago. But, at age 69, I've become eager to see the latest technology, which frequently helps me, in both mental and dexterity aspects, attain my desired result. They have also elevated my desired result, which is still perceived creatively by me, so I am now much more grateful for these advancements and willing to devote the time to learn them.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Picasso and Rembrandt needed to understand and work with a chemistry lab. Probably to a degree you and I are not capable of!

They would no doubt have absolutely loved the digital world where it is a computer! Primarily because "just fine" was never a goal for either of them. They wanted to do it better tomorrow than they did it today. Computers may or may not be fun, but they do provide increasingly better results.

Rloren

You folks are all correct...One of my sayings.."Just when I had all the answers, they changed all the questions."

James R. Kyle Loc: Saint Louis, Missouri (A Suburb of Ferguson)

Your, almost, exact occurrence - and or feeling - happen to me when I bought my first digital camera (Canon 10D). Yeah! Since 1963 when I entered the art and science of Photography = the Manual only and chemical method was all that there was. And Then.... WOW.. All these buttons and Menu things???

I saw that on the "Main Dial" was an "M".... Reading the little Book that came with the camera I just applied what I was - like Forever - always doing with a film camera. I really liked the changeable ISO (ASA) settings that I could do to suit each and every image that I was about to capture. Funny part was - when I went out shooting in the yard I fell into the Old Thing about shooting "Conservatively" = you know to save FILM.... Oh!!!! Wait! I do NOT have to Do THAT anymore.... I Went NUTZ... I shot EVERYTHING --- I mean EVERYTHING. And If I did not really like it - I could delete it and do a re-shot right then and there.

You too should not be Overwhelmed as I was - You Now have the Freedom to run wild and free with all of your picture making skills that you have learned years ago. My Only advice it that you have so much information via the Search Engines that you can just type in ANYTHING and get almost instant information on. Go on YouTube and get VIDs of what to do with whatever.... And there are great helps out there like here with the U.H.H. (Welcome BTW)

Please enjoy the New Era of photographic image making....

:-)

Dannj

Great comment about Picasso, Rembrandt and all the Masters. Obviously, they didn't just dip the brush in the paint and hit the canvas. Developing correct chemical mixtures, brush materials and textures, etc. required years of experimentation and they couldn't fix their mistakes or create a different image by merely pushing a button. That being said, the Masters and all great visual artists share a common gift: the ability to "see" the image they wish to create. The rest, as easy or difficult as it may be, lies in the mechanics.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Absolutely correct!

Poor Picasso, due to circumstances he had no control over, spent some time using things like house paints, because nothing else was available in a war torn world. Can we even begin to imagine the mental effort it took for him to figure out what could, and what couldn't, be done with house paint!

As for the ability to see... I once saw a really fascinating video clip of Picasso make a painting for entertainment. To start with he drew a picture in one corner, then he made several marks that seemed to have no meaning in another corner. Then he went back and painted around the image (but never over it) in the first corner, transforming it to something entirely different. Then he added marks in the other corner again, and made some in another corner. He kept doing this, for half an hour! He went through maybe 10 or 12 totally different images, all of which were later buried in the next, but never covered over. Eventually those first marks in the "other corner" became a very delicate bird in flight. Each and every drop of paint had significance in at least one separate image, some of them becoming parts of several different images.

Picasso clearly saw every stroke he would make before he even mixed the paint.

And there is another side to that. Henri Matisse was filmed doing a painting in maybe the 1940's, though it might have been after that. He was old. But the film showed him doing something really interesting. He said he had no idea that he did this. He would hold the brush up to the canvas and make several stroking motions before putting the brush to the canvas to apply paint. Essentially he knew in his mind what he wanted, but he had to practice to train his muscles to do it exactly right.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

I was very disappointed with 35mm film (I now think I must have had a defective Canon camera--exposure never worked no matter how I did it using the built-in meter). I moved to a twin lens 6x6 and it was glorious, especially seeing the negative enlarge in the darkroom without the quality disintegrating. Then I got a 4x5 press camera, then a Burke and James 5x7, and all was revealed. I read hundreds of books, including Ansel Adams, and as I managed a retail camera operation for 20 years, I had many people to talk with.

I got a digital--eventually--and used it to make "sketches." If I liked a shot, I came back with large format for a real picture. This saved a lot of the labor involved. However, maybe all along the reason large format was better was not so much in the film or the cameras, but in the fact that it forced me to take time on each shot. You think? Now I have the works for digital, but very little knowledge of Photoshop. And the online help does not help much because every edition of Photoshop has entirely different ways to do the same thing (and some essential concepts are never really explained). I have Elements, so I found a nice big book on using it--but often the screen is entirely different because Elements itself has many editions. I figured out how to make the gray sky blue (one picture) and the background rosy pink (one shot), but I don't remember how I did it.

I discovered a large format back that you use to replace the film back--it adapts the back of 4x5 to accept a Canon digital. Now I can test a shot, then insert film. I develop it (B&W) in a daylight tank, then scan and edit and print the modern way, as best I can. This picture was taken with the Canon digital on the back of a Linhof 8x10 camera with huge Carl Zeiss 360mm f4.5 Tessar lens, about 20 feet away, just tweaked a bit in Elements. I am not sure why I am still drawn to my LF stuff--I have no urge to write on an old typewriter anymore. The one real reason is that no digital sensor has anything like the data capture of a 4x5 negative, does it?

James R. Kyle Loc: Saint Louis, Missouri (A Suburb of Ferguson)

======================

Charles....

Really liked what you posted.... I still make use of a 4X5 and a 8X10 = Only now days I am making use of Photographic Paper (you know - The Old "light Sensitive" stuff). having a lot of fun doing so. I have even sold a few prints. Prints that I made on a Canon 100 Pixma printer.

Sorry to have strayed from the Original topic here.

JoeB Loc: Mohawk Valley, NY

Hello, welcome to UHH.

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

Welcome to the forum.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

Thanks, Joe!