Digital Photography is Here to Stay

When you look around you, either at a party, school play, sports match, family gathering or literally anywhere there are people, take note of how many have a camera! Quite a few? Look again. How many people have a mobile phone, or a camera phone? Does it use film? You see what I am getting at?

When you think about it, it's impossible to keep using film, the demand is too high for the instant gratification and excitement that this new era of photography brings. With consumers crying out for more and more digital technology, the manufacturers have to meet this demand, with the lesser sought after film cameras taking a back seat.

Some unfortunate proof of this is the recent liquidation of a well known black and white film maker, as well as companies like Kodak halting future production of all film cameras.

There will always be some demand for film use, especially from the enthusiasts, but the mainstream consumer is already on the digital photography bandwagon.

Would you like to understand digital photography a little better? Click here for a quick and simple insight.

If you are about to buy or upgrade to a digital camera, fear not, it will be the best thing you ever did (in photographic terms of course), and this site is aimed at making the transition or journey fun, easy and hopefully profitable if you so desire.

If you are entering the world of the DSLR (Digital SLR), then our tutorial guide to the bits, buttons and terminology of digital photography and cameras, should help you on your way through this minefield of technology.

!!! Important Digital SLR Message !!!

If you are using a DSLR for the first time, you may find some things a little strange but don't worry, we are here to help!

Most of us who have used either film cameras or digital compact cameras in the past have had either the nice people at film processing labs, or the in-built processors in compact digitals, to do certain things for us.

Things such as colour saturation, sharpening, adjusting contrast levels etc., which just left you to just take the photographs.

A digital SLR whether it is a "Prosumer" or "Professional" level camera, isn't so kind. It produces more of a digital negative file which, I am afraid, you will almost certainly have to work on in some form of editing suite, but DON'T PANIC!

Most of us converts, have found this has given a whole new and exciting lease of life to digital photography, and with the right guidance, I am sure you will notice this too. Especially when you see the quality of the results!

Give us an example of what you mean!

Ok. This photograph was posted on a well-known forum asking for help. The guy had just bought a Canon EOS 20D, was new to digital photography and this was one of his first pictures taken. He didn't like the contrast, colour saturation and the overall look. I thought the composition was great but the picture needed a little work.

As I said before, these cameras are quite different to film Cameras, but once you get the idea of what is needed, it is a breeze. All I did here was about 5 minutes or less in Photoshop CS. I adjusted the Levels, contrast and Shadows/Highlights, and tweaked the colour contrast and sharpness a bit. You will find more detailed explanations in the Photoshop tutorials, but for now this is the result.

Of course, in my opinion, the photo was maybe a little under-exposed at the time of taking. The beauty of digital is that you check the picture immediately, adjust settings and fire again.

I would say, from my marketing experience, the photograph is actually good enough for publication (The photograph in its own right, not because of my tweaking!). Hopefully, this guy was put on the right track and started to enjoy the camera a lot more!

This is covered in more detail in the "Using a DSLR" tutorial.

!!! End of Important Digital SLR Message !!!

To find its roots, read up on a Brief History of Digital Photography It has been around longer than you think!

Digital photography has come a long way in such a short time, and why do I say it is here to stay?

• Environmentally Friendly - No chemicals or solutions to throw down the sink (Or all over your clothes if you have ever had a darkroom)
• Safe - No rolls of film to lose in the post, get wet, get dirty or get scratched once in negative form.
• Cheap - No "Burning" of expensive film and processing. With digital photography you can just fire at will and not worry about cost!
• Instant Results - Particularly useful for Sports or Press Photographers. Pictures of a fantastic goal, for instance, can be uploaded to the news pages of the internet before they have even kicked off again! Like it or not, we have entered the "I Want it Now" era.
• Storage - With the capacities of storage media on the market today, it is possible to store millions (Yes millions) of photos on one hard drive...how many cardboard boxes full of old photos under the stairs has THAT saved?
• Selective "Keepers" - Best of all, you get to delete all the bad photos (assuming you take bad ones...!) before they even get stored. I remember, as a 14 year old, the sheer excitement of that TRUEPRINT envelope landing on the mat 2 weeks after sending away, to the disappointment of so many over/under/not exposed photographs.

If you are still not convinced, read our tutorials on developing skills and how to better your knowledge of digital photography.