Until this post, I didn't think about all the parallels between film and vinyl. I was a complete audio nerd going from vinyl to reel-to-reel to Dolby cassette to CD. Copying music could only be done in real time, taking hours to transfer to tape or burning a CD from vinyl. (We thought that CDs were a permanent medium not knowing that prolonged light exposure would decay them also).
I spent most of that time trying to eliminate surface "noise" and scratches trying to improve the sound "quaility". And of course every upgrade in equipment enhanced the sound "quality", and too often the noise. Digital and the newer software eliminated the "pops, scratches, and surface noise", but according to many, it also reduced the "warmth" of the music.

Now, thinking about film and digital, does this sound familiar?

In the darkroom, you can reduce, crop, dodge, burn, adjust exposure contrast and colors and... These terms are not "computerized language," they are photographic language. Conceptually, I don't see a lot of difference between a negative and a RAW image, nor between darkroom processing and software processing. In either case, the photographer composes a shot, captures it, and then processes it to get a desired effect.

What separates great photography from the rest is the skill of the photographer: his or her vision and, of course, experience, be it composition or processing. Don't get me wrong, I'm far from a great photographer, but I can appreciate Henry Cartier-Bresson, Matthew Brady, Man Ray (take a look at some of his photos if you want to see some interesting pre-Photoshop compositions), Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange (who caught Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out) - she said "A camera is a device that teaches people to see without a camera," which personally resonates.

When cameras appeared, painters probably looked at photographers as cheating. I suspect that some in the different schools - classicists, romanticists, impressionists, cubists, surrealists, modernists, etc. questioned the capabilities of the others.

Some of the great classical painters manipulated subjects in their work for purely commercial reasons, driven by the fact that their sponsors had very specific views of what they would pay for (a lot of what is recognized as great portraiture is very flattering to the paying subject...). And the truly great artists were almost completely unconstrained by the actual subject: take a look at Picasso's Guernica, then compare it with photos of the bombed town.

Technology advances, and art along with it. Doesn't mean the old is bad - there are still painters. Nor does it mean the new is bad either.

Just different.

Hi all,

Have a new lens on order. The salesman has recommended a UV filter to protect the lens (at a not insignificant price...). I returned home and did some research, and have found that opinions vary. On the one hand, yes, filters protect the lenses. On the other, the filters themselves can become scratched or dirty and degrade image quality. (I could add more, but the opinions seem to fall largely into these two camps.

So, my question to the UHH community is, do you recommend using a filter or not? If so, what (apparently modern digital cameras have UV sensors in front of the screen, so a UV filter is largely redundant on these...)? If I'm going to buy one, I wouldn't want to put an inferior filter in front of good glass.

Thanks for your opinions.