Photography is an expensive proposition. Early on I got around a lot of the expenses by buying used cameras and lenses, bulk film, and shot mostly black and white. As long as your glass was good and you paid attention, the quality of the image had far less to do with your dollar investment than it does now. I am certainly now too nervous to buy a used or refurbished DSLR...
The playing field is starting to level off - $500.00 or so will get a decent DSLR and lens. Printer costs are dropping (but those cartridge prices are obscene).
So - how to get good images - at least in the technical sense without driving straight to the poorhouse?
Shoot RAW.
Look at great color prints and paintings. We pollute our vision when we look at most newspaper photography with the kind of flat, muddy color inherent in the newsprint papers used.
Use a tripod (get a used heavy duty one).
Shoot a lot. Since storage space is no longer as much of an issue, shoot a lot. It is nice to have an external drive to store images on.
Someone very wise once said "We make a photograph, we don't take a photograph" being a passive observer allows luck and chance to play too large a part in one's work.
So - the advantages of digital? Huge. With a large enough memory card or cards, hundreds of images can be made. The image can be worked on over time without worrying about chemicals going bad, or paper becoming outdated. No more scratched film, dust to spot out of prints, hours of washing and drying prints (with gallons of water being used).
In any event, as, Ansel Adams once said "it's amazing how advanced photography has become without geting any better".
No comments:
Post a Comment