Digital Cameras
Jun. 5th, 2004 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebRobin got a fancy digital camera. First he brought it to Dave and Lyn's party where he played with it and got advice. Then he brought it to Tam's and Mosch's where he read the manual several more times and got more help. And he took hundreds of pictures.
Tam also has a digital camera, and Mosch also took hundreds of pictures. I learned that with hundreds of pictures, you can get an effect similar to having a movie camera without the tedium associated with bad home movies. You just don't get the same sense of what the week was like with my mere forty-five pictures. Not that I've gotten them developed yet.
In the olden days, I knew I preferred a film camera over a digital camera because I could get double prints and give away half (even to low-tech people) and because I like to put the prints in scrapbooks with running commentary. I enjoy taking down these scrapbooks; reading them is like re-living my vacation (only quicker and cheaper). It's still expensive to print digital photos.*
But now that I've spent a week with digital cameras and I'm trying to decide which rolls of film to get double prints from, I can't help realizing that most of my friends don't even want to be encumbered with my prints. For example, my parents would probably rather look through a Las Vegas album I made than get a pile of pictures in the mail to add to their stack of stuff. Of all my backlog of undeveloped film, I think I'll only get doubles of my Denver pictures.
And the whole idea of having prints is starting to feel clunky, old-fashioned, quaint. Several of my friends share their photos on their web pages. Another option is to burn pictures on discs to mail or to store an extra copy for yourself. Is it so much harder to look at a screen than a scrapbook? On the one hand, it does seem foolish, even arrogant, to rely on a lifetime supply of electricity and internet access. But to fear a collapse of the infrastructure does seem a bit melodramatic. I'm starting to feel like some old person afraid to step into the new world. I don't want to be like my grandmother when she refused to get a computer and play with e-mail and the internet, even though she already was an accomplished typist (the hardest part).
And today I touched the digital camera. Robin is replacing the sink, and I'm documenting the process. I have to say I love the instant gratification. (Even though my pictures mostly weren't that great.) And I like not having to go and pay for developing. And I have a web page anyway--I really am just the sort of person who should have a digital camera. Robin says there are affordable small durable digital cameras with zoom. Of course, I'm not going to do anything rash. Nor do I have to: I get to use Robin's camera if I'm very, very careful.
* No it's not. Tam says, "if you upload your digital photos to Shutterfly.com (or another similar place, like Ofoto), you can get prints for ~ 0.22 - 0.29 cents each (depending on how many, whether you prepay, etc.).... An even cooler thing about Shutterfly is that they automatically print the filename AND the date the picture was taken on the back of the prints."
Tam also has a digital camera, and Mosch also took hundreds of pictures. I learned that with hundreds of pictures, you can get an effect similar to having a movie camera without the tedium associated with bad home movies. You just don't get the same sense of what the week was like with my mere forty-five pictures. Not that I've gotten them developed yet.
In the olden days, I knew I preferred a film camera over a digital camera because I could get double prints and give away half (even to low-tech people) and because I like to put the prints in scrapbooks with running commentary. I enjoy taking down these scrapbooks; reading them is like re-living my vacation (only quicker and cheaper). It's still expensive to print digital photos.*
But now that I've spent a week with digital cameras and I'm trying to decide which rolls of film to get double prints from, I can't help realizing that most of my friends don't even want to be encumbered with my prints. For example, my parents would probably rather look through a Las Vegas album I made than get a pile of pictures in the mail to add to their stack of stuff. Of all my backlog of undeveloped film, I think I'll only get doubles of my Denver pictures.
And the whole idea of having prints is starting to feel clunky, old-fashioned, quaint. Several of my friends share their photos on their web pages. Another option is to burn pictures on discs to mail or to store an extra copy for yourself. Is it so much harder to look at a screen than a scrapbook? On the one hand, it does seem foolish, even arrogant, to rely on a lifetime supply of electricity and internet access. But to fear a collapse of the infrastructure does seem a bit melodramatic. I'm starting to feel like some old person afraid to step into the new world. I don't want to be like my grandmother when she refused to get a computer and play with e-mail and the internet, even though she already was an accomplished typist (the hardest part).
And today I touched the digital camera. Robin is replacing the sink, and I'm documenting the process. I have to say I love the instant gratification. (Even though my pictures mostly weren't that great.) And I like not having to go and pay for developing. And I have a web page anyway--I really am just the sort of person who should have a digital camera. Robin says there are affordable small durable digital cameras with zoom. Of course, I'm not going to do anything rash. Nor do I have to: I get to use Robin's camera if I'm very, very careful.
* No it's not. Tam says, "if you upload your digital photos to Shutterfly.com (or another similar place, like Ofoto), you can get prints for ~ 0.22 - 0.29 cents each (depending on how many, whether you prepay, etc.).... An even cooler thing about Shutterfly is that they automatically print the filename AND the date the picture was taken on the back of the prints."