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

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YES!

BRAVO.

-0-

PRodacy Loc: New Mexico

Digital post processing is no different than manipulating film in the darkroom. We just have a few more options now.

r.grossner Loc: Rockford IL & Sarasota FL

Kodachrome 25 didn't give you a lot of room but could be real sharp and taught me allot.

r.grossner Loc: Rockford IL & Sarasota FL

Boy this stirred up replies.

GAS496 Loc: Arizona

This response may anger some members but here goes anyway. Film photographers have to try their best to get it right in camera to the best of their ability. Exposure, depth of field, and composition have to be as exact as possible because the tools available to them are limited in the darkroom. This is what photographers do. Digital capture allows for almost unlimited ability to manipulate images down to individual pixels. Let me give you an example.

I was photographing with a close friend. We chose the same subject, the front door of a three hundred old Spanish mission in Southern Arizona now a National Park. He was using a mega pixel digital Nikon, I was using a large format camera. My composition had to be tight to avoid signage erected to explain the rules for entrance. He was able to take a wider more pleasing composition and take out the signs after capture and the concrete sidewalk. While I accept that he is a highly skilled and award winning photographer, his abilities are more of a computer technician than a photographer that create his beautiful images. I prefer to practice the art of photography the way the medium was invented with large format equipment.

So no, you are not an old fart. You learned the skills of a true photographer that should help you create great images with whatever method you decide. So many on this site prefer and advise others to just adjust things post capture. Poor advise in my opinion in the long run.

lmTrying Loc: WV Northern Panhandle

Just courious. If you blew your sense of smell treating your sinus infection. And being able to smell is the biggest part of the sense of taste, what's the point of going? lol

I know, it's part of the joke. Eight plus years of using Neosanepherian (?) did wonders on my nose. A lot of foods just don't taste the same. That, is a fact. I do truely hope yours is not fact.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Your point seems to be that if you can envisage the end result, and how to get there, then any technique can work. If digital post processing allows for creating that image then what is the problem, surely it is the final image that really counts?

radiojohn

I was doing a Q&A show on Wisconsin Public Radio about typical camera questions. A fellow emailed me, thanked me for the info I had given out and added, "I'm getting the hang of my digital camera and what all the buttons do. It took me awhile, but after all I am 98."

dynaquest1 Loc: Austin, Texas

And my great, great grand mother said the telephone was not necessary...refused to use one. Digital photography and the incredible ability to induce magic during post is not cheating, or side-stepping, or taking advantage, or acting like you are a photographer when you are not...it is adapting to the way things thankfully are in 2017. In your world, I suspect, we would still be fighting wars "properly" by advancing shoulder to shoulder in tight formations so the enemy could mow us down....the way "skilled and properly trained" soldiers should do war.

radiojohn

Somedays you want to be Ansel Adams, other days Andy Warhol.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Excellent observations.
--Bob

lmTrying Loc: WV Northern Panhandle

Good point. Worthy of a lot of consideration.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

There is a modicum of truth in what GAS496 wrote. From my observations, film did require a good bit of discipline and understanding in order to produce a negative that was produced by optimum exposure and development. Optimum being the operative word. It's not a matter of just get something and fix it in post. There is a word for that approach. It's called schlock.

Approaching the subject and knowing what is required to obtain the optimum exposure to render the image one sees in their mind's eye requires knowledge of how the process works, not just what buttons to push. This understanding has nothing to do with soldiers going into combat, by the way. It has to do with understanding the equipment and the process. In my world, and I'm sure GAS496 would agree, there have been numerous improvements over the cameras made and used 100 years ago. There are some technical advancements, though mostly in lenses. Regardless of whether we are talking about film cameras or digital cameras, it boils down to a light tight box with a damned good piece of glass on the front of it. Further, it amounts to a proper amount of light being passed through that lens for an appropriate amount of time. That's it. Anything past that removes the photographer's skills and let's the camera take over the process of making a photograph. Though some would still call themselves photographers, even if they only control when the shutter release is pushed.

Oh, and as for your great great grandmother. I hope she never had an emergency that would require calling someone to seek emergency services. I'm sure she was a sweet lady and I'd hate to think anything would happen to her as a result of her refusing to use a phone.
--Bob

bylinecl

"Old Fart?" Really? Yes, well, your choice of metaphoric pronoun, not mine.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

And where the camera is placed, and in what direction it is aimed {and what lens is mounted on it if it is an ILC}

Camera placement is extremely important; something which cannot be fixed PP and cannot be automated.

After thirty-eight years of marriage, my "five minute photo stop" is a family joke of sorts ... as long as my wife has remembered to bring reading material along ... because I can easily spend fifteen minutes pacing around deciding which perspective is the one I want {and even though digital is "free" compared to film, I may take two or three from different positions, but I'm not comfortable taking one of each and every possibility - then sorting it our later}. If you look at my comments on images by others, often you will find a question of the sort "Did you think of taking four or five steps forward and three or four to the right?"