Digital camera technology is certainly superior compared to conventional photography. But there are exceptions to the rule…

I started to take pictures at age 15. After some 28 years of playing with conventional analogue cameras, I bought my first camera, a Canon G1, in the summer of 2000. I wasn’t convinced about the benefits of digital photography, but I felt curious and wanted to give it a try. I spent about $ 900 for this 3.3 mega pixels camera, and some additional $ 500 for a flash disk with 128 MB memory. Prices have come down a lot, since then. Has digital photo quality become better since? Perhaps, but certainly cheaper. Digital cameras are about to reach a plateau of perfection. The most dramatic change is the price drop for memory chip cards. A 128 MB flash disk costs today less than 25 $, and even 500 or 1000 MB chips are not any longer expensive. This means that storage problems for the digital files, even so ever increasing in memory, are essentially solved. In 2003 I bought a Canon Rebel, my first digital mirror reflex camera with 6.3 mega pixels. Very recently, I added a Sony 7.2 to my collection. Some advantages of digital photography are obvious. These are:

• Immediate quality control
• Compatibility with modern media (internet in the wider sense)
• Immediate distribution (in context with the internet)
• Time and date recording, and GPS for documentation ( a few models have it)
• Almost unlimited, and fast editing possibilities
• Independence from your photo dealer, his lab quality and pricing
• The comfort of treating your pictures at home, on your own PC (no poisonous darkroom chemicals needed any longer).

I also believe digital cameras produce by far better colors (in hue, and absence of gray tones) at the shot. But let’s come back to quality issues. Three parameters control the quality of your picture:

• Resolution of the sensor plate. Like a conventional film, the sensor plate is sensitive to light and measures/ translates the focused light waves into digital information. The high mega pixel number translates in theory into a high resolution, but this is only half of the story.

• The quality of the lenses. Digital cameras require supreme resolution – but customers love light-weight cameras and the convenience of a zoom lens. Both features tend to reduce resolution. And unfortunately, digital camera lenses don’t always live up to expectations. In 2002, I switched to a Canon G2, which came a lot cheaper than its predecessor model. Comparing the two, I found that the older model produced sharper pictures than the G2 – despite of having a less sensitive sensor plate (3.3 versus 4.0). The sharpness of scanned negatives (. around 2.7 mega pixels) taken with my Carl Zeiss Contax even beats many digital pictures of 4.0 mega pixel resolution and above.

• Camera software.

Where are digital cameras limping behind in comparison with analogue machines? In a few limited applications such as:

• Shooting against the light
• Sensitivity at dusk (digital photography can’t match the sensitivity of a 1600 ASA).
• Sport photography at high speed
• Several portrait applications
• Contrast. Nothing beats the sharpness and ambience of an analogue black-and-white Carl Zeiss, Leica or Nikon picture. I wasn’t able to get comparable results with my digital cameras.

On all other applications, I believe, digital cameras are superior – also reflected by the booming digital camera sales market. This said the lower price segment (“beach & holiday cameras”) of digital cameras (around $ 150) does often not yield pictures that can be compared in quality with analogue cameras from the same price range.

Personally I use my digital cameras much more often than my older analogue models. Middle-price segment digital pocket cameras are extremely powerful, and a modern digital reflex camera can do wonders. But there are days I feel the urge for a true , old-fashioned, wonderful black-and-white shot. That’s when my digital cameras disappear in the drawer, and I love to feel the heavy cold weight of my lovely stainless steel Contax G1 in my hands.

© 2005 by Franz L Kessler