I currently work with four different types of camera: iPhone, Digital Rangefinder, Medium Format (120 film) and Large Format (4×5 film sheets). Each one offers a different experience largely influenced by their physical nature (size, weight, etc.) and the level of automation they offer; the more capable the camera, the lower is the number of steps that are visible to the photographer.
A step in the process is frequently accompanied by a decision. Automation assigns the decision making to the camera. For the novice, or one in a hurry, the camera’s judgement of things may be perfectly adequate. For those times where control over the outcome is important, it may not be.
Automation of steps therefore represents a trade-off between convenience and control over the outcome. While automation impacts usability and process control, artistically the impact is on choices related to image quality and the composition of what is in the frame.
A comparison of each experience is summarised in the table below.
The counter starts from the point where a subject is selected and completes with a digital image indexed and processed in Lightroom. The following observations are mostly banal and thus lack any material significance or contribution to the art of photography, yet I continue to present them.
- There are a total of 49 steps identified:
- 29 involve decisions impacting image quality (15) or composition (14)
- 10 steps relate to process control (which often has an impact on quality, albeit indirectly)
- 1 relates to tracking meta data
- 1 relates to managing the [digital] images
- 8 relate to managing the film development process
- 15 are mostly mechanical, meaning one physically must do something
- There are 6 steps common to each of the cameras which suggests they are essential. These include:
- Frame the Subject
- Focus
- Take the shot
- Move image to computer
- Load image into Lightroom
- Index and process
- In executing the above 6 steps, 4 decisions are made by the photographer and 25 are left to the camera:
- The subject of the image (composition)
- What’s in focus (composition)
- Indexing and processing of the image (composition and quality)
- While these 6 steps are visible to the photographer, regardless of the equipment used, automation does influence the experience and in turn usability. Usability determines the contextual knowledge one must posses as well as the complexity of execution. As such, usability plays an important role in adoption. For example, focusing with an iPhone is completed by touching the subject on the screen, automation then ensures that part of the image is in focus. For the Digital Rangefinder it involves manually adjusting the lens’ focal point, while pointing at the subject, until the focusing mechanism reports it is in focus. Meanwhile for the Large Format camera, one must visually assess whether the subject is in focus; there are no built-in technology aids. I use of a magnifying glass placed against the focusing glass.
- If the complexity of taking a photograph corresponds to the number of steps and decisions to be made, then:
- The iPhone is the simplest requiring only 6 steps and 4 decisions
- The Digital Rangefinder is quite a bit more complex requiring 14 steps and 11 decisions
- The Medium Format camera requires 35 steps and 19 decisions
- The Large Format is then the most complex with a stifling 47 steps and 25 decisions
- A modern DSLR would probably add 3 more steps and 3 more decisions to the iPhone, positioning it somewhere between the iPhone and the Digital Rangefinder in terms of complexity.
- While it is intuitively obvious that complexity plays a role in adoption, I have no direct evidence to support the claim. Personal observation indicates convenience and accessibility are also factors, as well as the basic question of need; how frequently does one really need an artistic-level of control?
There are additional observations, but I will leave those to the reader. As for conclusions, I will ponder these data over the next little while and see what develops.
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