" They Were All Fuzzy Anyway "

Speaking with a well-known photographer at a Camera Electronic new product night I wasn't surprised to hear he had been revising some of his older images, but I was intrigued when he pointed out their flaws. They were panoramic images taken on a film camera - made by the same firm that was debuting the new digital body. The two designs were worlds apart - the new 40+ megapixel mirror-less vs the old wide-format analogue camera. Of course we were nostalgic for the design of the older camera - an impressive beast - and compared it to other famous equipment of its period. We both decided that the Japanese firm showing the latest digital mirror-less had it all over the European factory that also made those older pano cameras. Not sure we could have persuaded people at the time, but we can now see it as the truth. His time spent dealing with the big transparencies sounded tedious - they had been scanned and he was engaged in spotting them - forever. And not white spots either - transparencies with dirt show black spots. You can hide 'em with terrestrial landscape shots, but skies and seascapes show them up cruelly. Click, click, click in Photoshop until your eyes start to wobble. But his next candid admission was a sad, but welcome confirmation of something I have seen in my own work; the resolution on the transparencies is nowhere near as fine as modern digital work. I thought it might just have been me and the old cheapie lenses I used to use - apparently it was also a feature of some of the rather exotic medium and large format lenses as well. The other factors that might have been in play - camera shake and mis-focusing - were hardly a factor for him - his work was on a big tripod and precisely focused with the technology of the period. But he says they were fuzzy and I believe him. I have long since hung up a lot of the nostalgia I had for older equipment and processes as newer ways have emerged. I do dread the ever-changing nature of the complexities on the computer, but I can recognise that modern technique makes success a lot better bet. It still requires an artistic eye, as well as an artistic finger, so that lets me out - but the clients of Camera Electronic are better at it, and need not pine much for the past. Mind you, I can remember filling up the petrol tank of my car from empty for $ 4.50 ...and you can't get much more nostalgic than that.