We live in a technological age. Everything from your computer to your TV remote
features ‘drop-down’ menus, through which you scroll and then press the ‘select’
button or whatever. Even resetting the digital clock in the family car requires
an instruction manual. With cameras, the digital revolution has brought us the
dreaded drop-down menu as well, plus other claimed advances.
These claimed advances include super little plastic bits
called ‘memory chips’, onto which you store hundreds of your photos, to download
to your computer when you feel inclined, and print even later. No more need to
carry film canisters that store the negative film with a measly 36 images on
each one. Hooray for technology!
However, is it quite as good as it is cracked up to be? There
was a communication that had been written to the Bangkok Post, in which
the letter writer was pointing out the fact that when he used to travel he would
take 12 rolls of print film with him, which gave him a minimum of 432 frames.
This needed the power of one fully charged NiCad battery and he was set up for
the trip.
But technology has arrived, film is old hat, and now he needs
three memory chips to cover the same number of shots, with each chip costing
around B. 3,000. He also needs much more than one fully charged battery, so
needs to take additional ones, and a battery charger. If he wished to save on
chips being carried, he could download his single chip to a computer, meaning
that he would have to carry a lap-top as well. The accoutrements of technology
becoming both space consuming, and expensive.
The writer also found that he was now totally dependent upon
a source of electricity, mentioning that sometimes this is not available as in
some places in India, parts of China, and remote areas in Russia, Tibet and
Nepal and many other countries. Suddenly, technology and its drop-down menus is
not so user-friendly as it is claimed, and in fact has some serious limitations.
The battery technology is definitely lagging behind. The writer states, “It
tickles me pink to know it (technology) is so easily defeated and fallible.”
Now it should be pointed out that the writer said he was
forced to go digital as his print film camera was deemed obsolescent after being
in his possession for 12 years. “Just think of the simplistic beauty of a print
film camera. Point, (auto) focus and shoot,” he wrote nostalgically, almost as
if he had been forced at gun-point into the new technology.
Up till then, I felt very sorry for the writer, but what was
being glossed over is that print film, and print film cameras are now completely
dead. When we were all using a print film camera, you had all that simplicity,
but it actually was not as simple as today’s DSLR. “Point, (auto) focus and
shoot” is just the same, other than the fact that it is faster, more accurate
and even simpler, and you have the most fantastic feature of ‘instant’ review.
You know immediately whether you got the shot you wanted. Something print film
cameras could never do.
But what camera remains my favorite? The venerable old Nikon
FM2N. A totally mechanical camera with no drop-down menus, but handy rotary
buttons on the top of the camera which I can turn to change shutter speed and
the ISO of the film. A rotating ring on the lens barrel gives me complete
(manual) control of the aperture too. Advance the film by working the lever. How
simple is that? Unlike the letter writer, I do not have to carry spare batteries
either.
Returning to the letter, “My new digital has buttons, bells,
lights, menus to choose from, enough to rival a Boeing 747 cockpit. Who needs it
all? Is it really necessary?” he asks. The simple answer is that it is not
really necessary, but certainly will produce better results.
Simplistic beauty is better served these days than before.
Believe, even I run completely digital these days.
