| I attended a Jazz, Dance and Arts and Crafts | | | | photographs at an event like this. I actually liked the |
| Festival this past weekend. It was mostly for children | | | | motivation of the film photographer as he wanted to |
| and it was great to be there with my son. During one | | | | send some photographs of the event to the director |
| of the demonstrations of modern dance, I | | | | with the digital camera. What I do want to say is |
| immediately noticed the director of the dance | | | | digital photography shouldn't take the 'thinking' and |
| program taking photographs with his Nikon 2Dx digital | | | | anticipation out of photography. When you are using |
| camera with a 35-70mm f/2.8 lens. This lens allowed | | | | your digital camera, keep the following in mind. |
| the director to capture the dancers at the equivalent | | | | 1. Anticipate the photograph - wait for the right |
| focal length of approximately 42mm - 105mm. | | | | moment and snap the photograph. Don't always rely |
| As the dancers went through their motions, I kept | | | | on multiple exposures to get the shot you want. |
| hearing the firing of the camera's shutter, almost in | | | | Often you only have one chance to take a great |
| rapid succession like a machine gun. Certainly this is | | | | photograph. You ought to practice for this and not |
| nothing new and the new 2Dx has large buffer. | | | | overly rely on technology. |
| However, what was interesting was the man on the | | | | 2. Match the resolution with the result - if you know |
| other side of the room taking photographs of the | | | | the use of the photographs, then perhaps all you will |
| same event with his film camera. He was using an | | | | need is JPEG fine or JPEG super fine. This will take up |
| older Nikon FM3. This is a fully manual camera. He | | | | between 2 - 4 MB of space and will get you results |
| was taking photographs with both a 28mm lens and | | | | on paper of up to 11 x 14 inches. The film camera will |
| a 50mm lens. Both of his lenses were of fixed focal | | | | allow you to enlarge the final result (with the quality |
| length. While he wouldn't be able to get the close ups | | | | of the light as the wild card) beyond 20×24 |
| of the other photographer, he was taking his time | | | | inches. While the digital camera will probably match |
| and only pressing the shutter at the most opportune | | | | the resolution with the result, you get the added |
| time. | | | | safety factor with film. You can always enlarge the |
| What a study in contrasts! The one photographer | | | | photograph later. |
| shooting in rapid succession with his digital camera | | | | 3. Keep work flow in mind - the film photographer is |
| while the other photographer only pressing the | | | | going to go to a lab and get his roll or two of film |
| shutter at the right time - definitely anticipating the | | | | processed. If he's smart about it, he'll get the images |
| photograph due to a limited resource, film. Perhaps I | | | | scanned directly onto a CD at the time of processing. |
| was observing something deeper. Would the skill of | | | | Once at home, he'll look through a minimum of 72 |
| anticipating a photograph be lost by photographers | | | | images and possibly send 4-5 to the dance director. |
| who have a large memory card and who just keep | | | | Conversely, the dance director will have hundreds of |
| the shutter on successive exposures? At the same | | | | images to sort through. He may have a few that are |
| time is the film shooter missing out on the ability to | | | | nearly identical and the time spent to get the top 4-5 |
| make his photograph a little better by having multiple | | | | images will be considerably more than the film |
| exposures of the same subject? | | | | photographer. |
| First, there is no right way or wrong way to take | | | | |