Saturday, August 14, 2010

Big Lens, Small Flowers

I took this photo a long time ago. I had just recovered it from my old hard drive.

I wish I still had that old camera.

-- Without Wax

4 comments:

Have Myelin? said...

Nice photo. What kind of camera was it? Do you prefer film over digital?

sincerelysober said...

Myelin, you ask a deep question.

This was from my Canon 35mm film camera. But, I scanned the film on a digital film scanner at work, the best. Once I did that, I used it to make a very good print.

But, you must understand...the film scanner I used was the best. It scans more than you can just read on any other type of scanner. It reads the film deep. If you want more depth, it can do it.

In truth, film can take you deeper into an image; you just need to give the film enough light.

If you don't have enough light, digital will fix everything else.

-- Sincerely Myelin

sincerelysober said...

I'm sorry; I guess I didn't exactly answer your question. It was a Canon AE-1 Program. It's a sweet film camera.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_AE-1

However, I now prefer digital for so many reasons. Let me tell you a few.

If you screw something up, you'll know immediately and be able to retake the shot.
White Balance is a feature more advanced cameras have. It allows you to adjust the camera for the existing lighting. Don't confuse it with Auto White Balance (AWB); that feature is just stupid. Most advanced cameras (all Canons) have this feature, but few people know how to take advantage of it. You use a white card and put it in front of the lens, then press the White Balance button (it's in a menu). That adjusts the camera for the existing lighting. The equivalent in film would be to change your entire film out, to something like tungsten for incandescent lighting. But, like I found in one room I was shooting for a wedding, they had three different lightings: incandescent, florescent, and halogen. (It was an ugly room.) They don't make a film for that! If you don't make this adjustment, your images will all have an orange tinge. You've seen these types of pictures before. I shot that wedding with both film and digital and the latter came out flawless. You just have to remember to turn off White Balance when you move outside. Oh, and you need to remember when making this adjustment to do it seperately for flash and no-flash. Of course, the major reason for using this feature is to use existing lighting without a flash.
Another thing is that with current cameras, your talking about 10+ megapixels, you have this ability to be lazy with your composing of the frame; because you can always go back and zoom in later. There's so much detail saved with 10MP that you can zoom in very deeply without loosing detail. That's where the camera does its digital (vs. optical) zoom. But, you can always zoom in on your computer after the shot is taken. With film, you need to think about maximizing the surface area of the film while your taking the shot. So, you have to crop in as close as possible. Zooming in later, like say in the darkroom (if you even have one), looses detail and the picture becomes grainy.
And that's another thing: zooming. Zooming into an image is child's play with digital. You can easily do it at any kiosk. With film, you need to make the initial print, show a lab assistant how you want the image cropped by marking up the print, then have them print it again zoomed-in. And if they get it wrong?
There's no hassling with film speed or type. Let's say you change film speed, but forget to set the camera, your entire roll is wasted. Then you have to push the film in development (over/under develop the roll; trying explaining that to a lab assistant...they can't even do it in one-hour labs.)
One weird thing to get used to is that there is no original with digital. With film, it's the negative. But, with digital, the "original" is merely a spot on a memory card that can easily be erased, copied, modified, etc.
Oh, and here's a seldom used feature: RAW image format. If you choose this advanced feature, you'll be able to adjust for the lighting after the shot on your computer. However, there's a big drawback in that RAW does no compression, which leaves the images at least 10 times bigger. Most professionals wont even use RAW, because they know how to make those adjustments on the fly, and you can always immediately view the image and know you'll need to correct for something.
The most important thing to consider when buying a digital camera is still the same for film: the lens. A big lens makes all the difference. In this case, size does matter.

Sincerely,

-- Without Wax

sincerelysober said...

I'm sorry; I guess I didn't exactly answer your question. It was a Canon AE-1 Program. It's a sweet film camera.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_AE-1

However, I now prefer digital for so many reasons. Let me tell you a few.

If you screw something up, you'll know immediately and be able to retake the shot.
White Balance is a feature more advanced cameras have. It allows you to adjust the camera for the existing lighting. Don't confuse it with Auto White Balance (AWB); that feature is just stupid. Most advanced cameras (all Canons) have this feature, but few people know how to take advantage of it. You use a white card and put it in front of the lens, then press the White Balance button (it's in a menu). That adjusts the camera for the existing lighting. The equivalent in film would be to change your entire film out, to something like tungsten for incandescent lighting. But, like I found in one room I was shooting for a wedding, they had three different lightings: incandescent, florescent, and halogen. (It was an ugly room.) They don't make a film for that! If you don't make this adjustment, your images will all have an orange tinge. You've seen these types of pictures before. I shot that wedding with both film and digital and the latter came out flawless. You just have to remember to turn off White Balance when you move outside. Oh, and you need to remember when making this adjustment to do it seperately for flash and no-flash. Of course, the major reason for using this feature is to use existing lighting without a flash.
Another thing is that with current cameras, your talking about 10+ megapixels, you have this ability to be lazy with your composing of the frame; because you can always go back and zoom in later. There's so much detail saved with 10MP that you can zoom in very deeply without loosing detail. That's where the camera does its digital (vs. optical) zoom. But, you can always zoom in on your computer after the shot is taken. With film, you need to think about maximizing the surface area of the film while your taking the shot. So, you have to crop in as close as possible. Zooming in later, like say in the darkroom (if you even have one), looses detail and the picture becomes grainy.
And that's another thing: zooming. Zooming into an image is child's play with digital. You can easily do it at any kiosk. With film, you need to make the initial print, show a lab assistant how you want the image cropped by marking up the print, then have them print it again zoomed-in. And if they get it wrong?
There's no hassling with film speed or type. Let's say you change film speed, but forget to set the camera, your entire roll is wasted. Then you have to push the film in development (over/under develop the roll; trying explaining that to a lab assistant...they can't even do it in one-hour labs.)
One weird thing to get used to is that there is no original with digital. With film, it's the negative. But, with digital, the "original" is merely a spot on a memory card that can easily be erased, copied, modified, etc.
Oh, and here's a seldom used feature: RAW image format. If you choose this advanced feature, you'll be able to adjust for the lighting after the shot on your computer. However, there's a big drawback in that RAW does no compression, which leaves the images at least 10 times bigger. Most professionals wont even use RAW, because they know how to make those adjustments on the fly, and you can always immediately view the image and know you'll need to correct for something.

Sincerely,

-- Without Wax