Digital pictures

[Spencer]

Since this digital cameras showed up something's gone bad with this whole system.
I mean before I had a lot of pictures of ourselves, I could show them to anybody, I could carry them in my walet, whatever. When we took them, we had to wait for the delivering or what do you call it, the whole process was more exiting somehow.
Now I can take thousands of them on one CD., but I just never print them out, (if I do, I print them too big to fit in my pocket) I need a computer to take a look at it, because if you have a thousand pictures of something, how could you choose which one deserves to be printed out?
(It's insulting to the rest of them)
I like it because I can grab the best moments if I take five pictures of every single movement, but I don't like it, because it's not fun anymore.
What do You think?
Spencer

[Daniela]

Hi Spencer,
You do have a point! I am very keen on photography and take a lot of pictures. I have shelves of albums at home with printed pictures. My daughter simply adores looking through these albums, it's like reading a book but the main character being herself and the family:) It's sooo exciting!

The reason I wanted to buy a digital camera is that you can take a lot of pictures at a time and it's easier to share them via internet. I've been using a digital camera for three years now and you know what? I never ever printed a single picture of them. I have thousands but for the last three years I haven't added an album to my shelves. It kind of makes me feel sad because I do love the paper pictures, they are a lot more romantic, aren't they? I keep saying to myself that one day I will print them out but I know that it will be long from now.

Lately, my PC has been experiencing some technical difficulties and I realized that I could easily lose my pictures because I had no copy of them. The thought that I keep them "somewhere there" on the hard drive made me feel safe but there's nothing safe in a PC, is there? So, it took me hours to copy them on CDs and now, after I have done this, I feel much better. Right now I keep thousands of pictures on just ten CDs. Amazing, izn't it?

One thing that annoys me indeed is that if you want to show them to a friend you have to turn on your PC and it takes away a bit of the romantic feeling.

On the other hand (let's point something positive as well), like I said, it's much easier to share them online. I can mail you thousands for a very short time and this is very convenient, especially for people like me whose friends and family are all over the world.
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[Spencer]

We had a lot of albums as well, my wife wanted to make one (a lot) about our daughter, when she was born we bought this camera, since that no pictures.
We even bought a picture-printer too, but it's so expensive, (ink, paper,stuff like that) so we keep them for an I-don't-know-what occasion.
(My wife doesn't feel safe till the pictures aren't on CD.
She doesn't trust PC at all)
My brother in law is a kind of photographer, and he says it's not that fun anymore, 'cause anyone can take really good pictures by keep on pushing the botton (as I do all the time) and some of the dozen MUST be good.
On the other side, I can do something with my eyes: I cross them and manage one of them to look at the other direction, while I keep the other crossed. It's not a big deal, but I've never seen it actually, and I didn't think I will ever.
Two days ago I mentioned this problem of mine to my wife
and she instead of saying that I should have grown up already, and get out of there, she said I could make a video of myself doing this motion, and I could see myself being an idiot. (She didn't say this, but I think this was the reason)
So thank Digital Camera, I'll see myself this way soon

[Nicole2112]

At least photo-quality printers are becoming less and less expensive these days. A friend of mine sold me his Canon i450, and if you print in color onto photo-glossy paper (about twelve sheets of it came with the printer), and if you get all the settings right so that the photo is correctly positioned on the paper, it's hard to tell the difference between that print-out and a professionally developed photograph.

[Jamie (K)]

I can see your point, Spencer. I also find it a bit annoying that digital photos mostly remain in the ether.

My aggravation with digital photography is something else, though. My pictures tend to be a bit unorthodox, and I take a lot of them in the dark. I used to shoot them with ISO 1000 film, sometimes with the camera adjusted to ISO 400 so that the exposure time would be longer. I have a lot of nice pictures I took at night in various cities or at home. So far, digital photography doesn't let me take pictures like this.

However, even newer film cameras never let me take these photos, because they were designed to protect us from ourselves. I don't like to carry around big, bulky professional cameras, so I preferred to use so-called "idiot cameras". The idiot cameras became more and more idiotic, though, until they wouldn't allow you any flexibility at all. Thus, I had to buy old cameras, like one old Olympus and a LOMO that's basically 1970s technology in a 1940s casing.

[Thumperfive]

I'm of two minds - it's nice to be able to see if you've taken a bad photo before processing the film and all that, but now people would rather have the electronic images than a paper copy - which will survive a computer crash!

[Jan]

One thing that annoys me indeed is that if you want to show them to a friend you have to turn on your PC and it takes away a bit of the romantic feeling.

Hi,
you may recover or save a bit of the romantic feeling using
DVD player I used to do like this mostly all my CD's burnt
with hundreds photos I bring down to TV lounge and
simply play them on the screen
Almost any DVD player reads CD's with pictures if you don't
get them right on screen it will be a matter of an slight adjustment in menu.
I know it is not the same but as somebody allready said
you live you learn I mean adapt or try to adapt
regards
Jan

[Raettopia]

Yeah, I prefer to hold a photo album in my hands and flip through as opposed to glancing through a folder on my computer. The romance is indeed gone. But I like how you can tell instantly if it is a good picture, delete it if it isn't, and go on from there. Plus I'm poor these days and can't afford to develop photographs.

[Seeemilywrite]

I love digital cameras! i think they have revolutionized picture taking. I like that I can send 100s of pictures to friends overseas on one CD.

[Yankee]

I'm a digital camera fan. But I also print out quite a few of my pictures. Digital photos are especially good for me since my family and friends in the US are so far away. It's easy to send pictures by e-mail. And it's also possible to get "regular, old-fashioned" prints of of your digital photos.

I do have a pet peeve, though. Some people don't know how to share their digital pictures very well. I've got a cousin in the States who regularly sends gigantic e-mail attachments. For example, 8 pictures of the kids, 12 MB. The images are huge, they take forever to download, and can't be viewed on my monitor until I reduce them. Somehow that takes most of the fun out of receiving them.

Amy