This
shot was taken with a Vivitar V3800N 35mm SLR body through a Pentax 135mm f2.8 lens
set at f4 and 1/500, using Kodak Portra 400 film. Everything, including the
film and processing didn’t exceed $200. To take a digital picture this good
would require a state of the art full frame or high resolution ASP-C sensor
DSLR costing $2000 or more.
One
of the beautiful things about old fashioned film photography is that
professional and amateur photographers both worked at their craft on a fairly level
playing field. Professionals generally bought better, more expensive equipment to
stand up to the rigors of daily use and abuse but the equipment that amateurs usually
bought was just as capable of producing excellent pictures. Some professional
equipment like high end and/or multiple flash units used with the old film
cameras certainly enhanced the pro’s ability and made his job easier but the
point I am trying to get to is that with film photography it was primarily the
skill and knowledge of the photographer that made the difference in the quality
of the pictures, not the cost and sophistication of the equipment.
Today
that is no longer the case. While there is still something to be said for
having the ability to compose a picture properly, anyone with enough money can
buy a full featured, full frame or medium format digital camera and take
excellent pictures out of the box with the auto-focus and on board light
metering system and computer doing all the “heavy lifting.” Beyond that, they
can further “enhance” their pictures with all kinds of sophisticated
post-processing software.
Those
of us who cannot or will not shell out the thousands of dollars needed to buy
these professional quality cameras, computers and post-processing programs must
be content with nice cameras taking “good” pictures with smaller sensors and
less sophisticated features.
Now
I don’t mean to minimize the capabilities of modern cameras using ASP-C or
Micro Four Thirds or those with even smaller sensors. These cameras are
certainly not cheap either. Still, there’s no comparison between the picture
quality produced by these amateur cameras and their “big brother” professional
counterparts.
As
a result I believe we are in the midst of an anti-revolution, revolution. A remarkable
number of potential amateur photographers are realizing that since they only
look at photographs on their phones, tablets or computer screens anyway the
cameras in their cell phones take photographs that look just as good as their digital
cameras. Plus with the dizzying array of apps available for cameras phones it
is literally possible to have more features on your camera phone than on your
digital camera. Instagram and Hipstamatic for the iphone; and Lightbox and
Magic Hour for android are just a couple of the many popular apps that promise
to turn your camera phone into a high end digital camera.
From
my observations it seems like there are many more people trying to imitate the Holga
look and vintage black & white than there are trying to achieve the “high
end DSLR look.” The fact that the Holga
itself is achieving record sales along with other toy cameras is more evidence
that there is an anti-revolution going on that rebels against the high tech
slick digital camera revolution that started a few years ago.
Of
course there are lot of really bad pictures being taken and exhibited as “vintage”
or “artistic” too. Light leaks (real or simulated) , double exposures, poorly
focused shots and pictures displaying other examples of liberties taken with
age old guidelines for composition do not in and of themselves qualify as “art.”
That said, true creativity recognizes no bounds and today’s camera phone is a
big improvement over the box camera and Instamatic of yesteryear. I have a
pretty good one and use it frequently but I’m not giving up my 35mm or my Holga
either.
