Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we are going.”—Professor Irwin Corey
If there is one constant theme running through the kind of complaints I hear from photographers is that there is too much change in the technologies that we use to make images. New cameras, more megapixels*, new file formats. and new memory card types. It’s enough to drive a same person…
In a Post Pandemic World
This thought process seemed much more obvious pre-pandemic but it’s obviously still going on in a post pandemic (if that’s what this is) world. I personally think it’s not the never-ending parade of new product introductions that concerns many people but instead believe that it’s the pace of these changes that is the root of the problem.
Just about the time you think you finally got a handle on all the latest digital doo-dads, along comes a new product or paradigm shift—like 8K video—to add confusion and indecision to the direction you thought you were heading. Believe me I understand; sometimes it seems that when it come to the introduction of new digital imaging hardware and software, we are traveling at warp speed.
Back in the Day
My guess is that just about the time that photographers got the hang of the daguerreotype process, the paper negative was invented and these same kinds of gripes were heard in the neighborhood bierstube. Over the years we’ve changed processes from glass plates to sheet film to roll film, to 35mm and even 25mm (aka APS) film, and along the way we’ve dallied with 110, 126, and disc film (remember that one?) formats. I think that part of the problem of coping with change is that, as photographers, once we have one favorite way of doing things, we hate to make any changes.
Many years ago I remember talking to a young wedding photographer and advising her to switch to 220 film instead of the 120 rolls that caused her keep reloading, oft times at awkward moments during her shoot. The thought of her making this one small change freaked her out but after her employer gave her a few A24 backs to use with her Hasselblad 500CM and she shot just one wedding with them, she was hooked. “I wished I had done this sooner,” she later told me.
It is like that with for DSLRs, mirrorless cameras and removable media too. The PC card begat CompactFlash and then SecureDigital came along and almost everybody was happy with these two media. I often refer to SD cards as Wheat Thins, because that’s what they look like to me and their just as easy to break or lose. But not as tasty. But nevertheless companies keep throwing new card formats at all the time including Xd Picture Cards, CFastm, CFExpress and XQD. Yeah, I’m tired of this too.
*Last Saturday’s post took a whimsical look at the question of “How many megapixels is enough?” If you missed it, click on that link…
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