Got my Olympus XA fixed this week. Turns out what seemed like a mechanical problem — the rewind button didn’t pop out and allow the shutter to be cocked — was electronic. Or at least that’s what they told me (and billed me for). But I got new foam seals around the door and it looks a tad cleaner. Brought a roll of Neopan and loaded it in the shop . . . I need to start carrying it around more and running film through it. I haven’t uploaded anything to Flickr in ages, partly because I am backlogged in scanning and partly as I have not been shooting for one reason or another, none of them good reasons.
There was a detailed conversation going on about digital and analog photography, with two pretty experienced and knowledgeable guys discussing their dissatisfaction with digital images, even as they marvel at the technology in the cameras. It may be obvious to some, but it appears that camera technology isn’t really advancing in terms of image quality. Sure, you get bigger sensors and high pixel counts but do you really see more lifelike and realistic dynamic range? What consumers want and manufacturers deliver is bright and punchy — ie, saturated — images, whether it’s realistic or not. At the same time, the film available now is the best there ever has been and the manufacturers keep making it better as well as making it possible to switch from a saturated palette (Portra VC, I’m looking in your direction) to a more realistic one, all with a rich dynamic range for you to use as you like.
One of the parties involved said that he has had to go back to shooting film to satisfy clients who have fallen out of love with the digital stuff they are seeing. A side-effect of digital equipment getting cheaper that I had not thought of is that the client might have the same gear as the professional he hires, and might feel like he can offer suggestions or even make creative decisions based on his experience. Yikes. Who needs that aggravation (cf: Dick Cheney telling Norman Schwartzkopf how to run the campaign to recapture Kuwait)?
So it’s by no means cut and dried. For all the techno-whizbang that these cameras offer, what are the pictures like? And how easy is it get the picture you want? My Nikon 5400 is pretty useless at anything I try. Even ordinary ambient-lit grab shots are often a mess. Either it uses the flash and lights the center with a dark halo in the rest of the image or it captures a really interesting but useless motion blur. Or sometimes something else just as unsatisfying. Ye Olde 127 Instamatic was more reliable.