SOME RANDOM DUDE

After some significant talking and planning, we picked up our first digital SLR. My wife wanted to have the chance to experiment without the expense that film can bring. Considering the cost of high quality film added to the price of developing, being “trigger happy” with the camera can begin to rack up money. Ironically, our desire for a digital SLR was for both of to have a set of training wheels for our film cameras. If we wanted to experiment with a new type of shot, we could try shooting it with the digital and then go back for the final shot with our film cameras. Sure, there are going to be differences, but the ability for a dry-run with even remotely similar results is priceless.

We decided on the Canon Digital Rebel XT and we are very satisfied so far. I am not particularly a fan of digital cameras but there is no denying the freedom of shooting a hundred exposures in a night with no expense or scanning. As expected, I noticed that the point-and-shoot mania kicked in very quickly after using the digital. Nonetheless, as this camera was bought for experimentation, I guess that is part of the equation. Another nice thing about having this camera is that all of the “modern” features that come standard nowadays like autofocus, burst shooting and exposure control - things that were only a dream when our film cameras were made, are now available to us. Unfortunately, those features came with the many problems of modern cameras. Plastic and light-weight rubber seem to be everywhere on the lens and camera body. In addition, the craftsmanship is obviously much lower than our older cameras - I have no doubt our 40-year old cameras will outlive our digital. That being said, for what it is, we are very happy with what we received.

So far, I have been very impressed with the image quality that this camera produces. At this point, we are using the camera’s base-model lens, so it is only going to go up from here. There is strong contrast and nice color saturation. I would be lying if I said it was as good as a roll of Velvia with a good Nikon lens, but it is still very impressive. Coincidentally, the 8 megapixel file it spits out is almost the exact image size we would get from a roll of print film scanned in from a flatbed. The only difference is a cleaner output than many of the prints we pull in from the scanner. Once again, those advantages of the digital go right out the door when we shoot with slide film. I was expecting the low exposure shots to turn out quite horribly. On the contrary, the images turned out very similarly to how I would have expected them to look from film. This was a bit of a surprise considering all my experiences with digitals in the past were quite the opposite.

One reason why we decided to go with the Canon after being a life-long Nikon user was the almost unanimous testimonies that the Canons shot a bit cleaner. From what I have heard, Nikon digitals tend to shoot with more of a warm tone while the Canons are more neutral. I must say, my loyalty to the Nikon brand is pretty much nonexistent in their modern cameras. I do not truly understand why or how that came to be, perhaps it is my dissolution with modern business and manufacturing or the overall lack of craftsmanship in modern cameras. While I could never see myself shooting with anything other than a Nikon for film, we both simply wanted the best bang-for-the-buck for our digital.

One of the reasons I was personally interested in a digital SLR is the ability to manipulate your shots in the RAW format. I must admit, so far I am pretty impressed with the results you can achieve. Anyone that has used photoshop for photo correction knows that there is a threshold of how much one can do with levels and curves before the image begins to look very unrealistic. The RAW format allows for much more control over the image to allow that extra amount of control we all desire.

Subtle yet strong changes can be made to exposure, contrast, saturation and many other visual aspects of your photo with the RAW format. Impressive.

I still have a tremendous amount to learn when adjusting RAW images. The hour I played with it up to this point already seems very promising though. At the risk of sounding bias, I have not felt the need to do much color correction with shots taken correctly on a good roll of slide film. In all fairness, I feel that I am going to have to take quite a few more shots before I can construct a strong argument either way.

So for better or for worse, we like our new camera. In a way, I am glad that my feelings about digital photography have been validated so far. Our digital is not a replacement to film. What I do feel is that we now have a very high quality camera that will allow us to play, uninhibited by cost or lack of materials. My hope is that our playing will allow us to take better photos and in turn get more out of our film.camera, canon digital rebel xt, digital slr, Photography, raw format, slide film srl