Has digital made photography too easy?

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Pickett Wilson

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No, this isn't a cheap shot at amateur photographers. I'm actually talking to serious photographers - amateur or otherwise.

Has the ease of digital photography decreased the pleasure you get from photography?

Film photographers are welcome to the discussion, too. :)
 
Yes, technology made it easier to make technically good photos. However, that is only the small part, it's all in the content (framing, composition, timing) at least for me.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
No, this isn't a cheap shot at amateur photographers. I'm actually talking to serious photographers - amateur or otherwise.

Has the ease of digital photography decreased the pleasure you get from photography?

Film photographers are welcome to the discussion, too. :)
Click to expand...
Don't think so. Why would it?

Cheers,

R.
 
I think photography has been easy for a long time. I find using my Zeiss Super Ikonta very easy, and using that has not changed a lot since it was released, except perhaps for faster films, which make using faster shutter speeds easier. Other than that, it's an easy camera to use, and has been for a long time. Taking *good* photos is entirely another issue, and I don't think digital changes that except for the ability to chimp, but that only really helps if your subject isn't going anywhere.

For me, something becoming too easy will diminish how much pleasure I get for something. Effort/reward applies in every hobby I've ever had, from building radio controlled cars, to going to the gym, programming computers, playing pool and snooker, and now photography.

I can't think of very many hobbies where effort would not play a part in how much I enjoyed it. Maybe bungee jumping or something, where it's very easy to fall off a ledge, but still excellent fun.
 
Digital certainly changed the darkroom, which used to be an area where the photographer had enormous control to complete his/her vision of the image (or try to salvage something that fell short) whereas digital darkroom invited everyone in the food chain to tinker, and less emphasis on getting the perfect negative/capture.

To my mind, there have been many incremental developments that have made photography progressively easier, reducing the requirement for time-consuming apprenticeship. These include: Standardized chemistry and emulsions; in-camera metering; accurate auto-exposure; reliable auto-focus. Most of these are now considered indespensable but originally were innovations.
 
A basic snapshot is much easier to accomplish than it used to be. With auto everything one just points and pushes. However, as we know there is much more to beautiful or impactful photography than snap shots. In some cases the high tech stuff makes it harder to control the tendency for the camera to decide that everything should be average.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
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Has the ease of digital photography decreased the pleasure you get from photography?
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Definitely the opposite. The picture taking event is so easy now that I can spend my thoughts (before the shutter click) thinking about what should be in the picture and (after the shutter click) what I want it to look like.

Also, if you include computer post-processing, making an image now takes MORE time and effort for me because I never had my own darkroom, but now I spend lots of time on the computer manipulating images.
 
I'm "relearning" developing film and prints in the darkroom. Yep, digital has eliminated the need to learn the former processes. But some of those processes have been replaced with digital and color technologies, like managing data.

Is the new technology easier? Maybe not, if you had to learn from scratch.
 
For people photography I find the most important ingredients are:

Posing
Lighting
Composition
Rapport with subject(s)

I'm a minimalist relative to equipment as I think it can occupy too much of the process, at least with photographing people.

My 2 cents.
 
Digital photography, for me, is not really a problem; it's all the automation that usually comes with it. Take all the dozens of auto-focus settings on my Nikon D7000. Ridiculous. Yes this definitely takes away the pleasure. I would think that shooting an M-9 would be a real pleasure.
 
If the question is asked as 'has digital made good photography any easier' then the answer is no, I think. There's still a lot of crap out there which I contribute to regularly.
 
The last Nikon film camera was the F6 ... that camera made film photography as easy as it was ever going to get. Every bit as easy as a D700 or similar.

Or are we talking clunky rangefinders here? :D
 
I have two digital cameras that I use frequently. However I feel like a computer monitor not a photographer when using them. On the D90, I sometimes put the thing in manual so I feel like I have more control. When using the M3, I am in control, not the computer. Plus I despise the cheap plasticky feel of modern cameras.
 
I think even a cursory glance at Flickr or similar should answer this question.

Easier maybe, better, probably not. Although I would argue for me at least, film choice bakes in a certain look and for me since I generally like this look, digital is more difficult because I fight the medium to get it to look pleasing to my eye. In fact though I long for the supposed ease of digital, for me it's actually more difficult.

As to how much it has decreased the pleasure, that I would think is a very individual question.

Personally I get more immediate, visceral pleasure using my Leica M4p than any other camera, film or digital. However when I'm looking at the results, the pleasure from a good shot is roughly equal. Using a Mamiya 7 isn't' especially pleasurable (though it's a nice camera) but looking at the scanned negatives certainly is.
 
As someone who uses both, no. I'm also getting a little tired of these "are things worse than they used to be?" threads. So I won't be posting in them or reading them any more.

Things are different. Things always change. For nearly 100 years photography has been a mass medium. The advent of color didn't make creating amazing images easier or worse nor did auto focus, 35mm film or anything else.

Making a photograph that spans distance, emotion and time is still one of the most difficult things to do in art. Nothing is going to change that. In my opinion.

End rant.
 
I find street photography really difficult. I'm not much interested in any other kind of photography. I've recently bought an X100, my first digital camera. The X100 doesn't make street photography any easier. I now have a choice of colour or monochrome but that's it as far as I'm concerned. It's still really difficult to capture something I want to keep or print.
 
The drudgery is gone. Is that what you miss? or maybe the sending out of masses of film and a large check when you have a project, or just a vacation?

You could always just snap away with a film camera and hope for the best. That allows for easy production of crap.
 
Damaso, my intent isn't to prod anyone to say things are worse than they used to be. I was an early adopter of digital. I was always frustrated with film's weaknesses. After decades of film, digital was the second coming for me.

The real question, I guess, isn't really about process. The process is just a tool to communicate a passion for something else. I'm curious about how digital has shifted the equation. How important, indeed, have photographer's realized, with the shift, that the process actually is, to the pleasure they get from photography?
 
More than anything, digital technology has made banal and idle chit-chat about photography very easy through online social platforms.

If we all spend as much energy taking photos and processing them as we do with our forum agendas, we'd be far better photographers.
 
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