Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Getting Engaged

Olympus Pen EES-2 versus Petri Compact E, c. 1960

20090304 typecast

2 comments:

Olivander said...

That need to slow down and focus (no pun intended) is one of the big reasons I like medium-format. The simplicity and rapid-fire approach (again, no pun intended) of digital is actually what drove me back to film a few years ago. I had lost the emotional involvement of crafting a photograph. Mind you, I still use digital for a lot of stuff, but when I want to do something serious, film is what I turn to.

If you really want to think about setting up a shot, just try a view camera sometime. Then you get to add focal planes vs film planes to the equation. I've spent damn near an hour at times just prepping for the "click" moment.

mpclemens said...

Don't get me wrong, I still salivate over the nice digital SLRs out there, but even on my own mid-range digital I tend to shun the automatic modes in favor of twiddling with one setting or another, typically preferring to shoot aperture-priority.

I like the slowing-down aspect. If I could get my darkroom back together, I'd be happier still.