Hi! Bruce, without disrespect, the aesthetical qualities of the snaps your daughters shot with their DP&S - how good are they?
Don't misunderstand me, I am not against Digital. However, I think that instant feedback will have some kind of negative impact of, how to put it, uninspired perhaps, amateur photographer. Let me give an example from my profession - programming. Debugging with trace which I did quite a lot somehow had me thinking much more as to where could be a problem __before__ I'd go to the lab again and have the sucker executed once more to get me more evidence. At the same time, debugging with full of bells and whistles interactive debugger can be very long. The beauty of the beast just kills my will to actually think the problem through - I can have infinitely more runs at the same time I would get one trace from the lab. To translate it to photo-language I'd try. Film photography, especially towards the end of the film cartridge makes you think very well as to why, how and when you're taking the shot. Actually, even when the film is just loaded one is already limited to 36 exposures. Digital photography however is about - keep shooting until you get what you want. Sometimes it is good - say for M Reichmann who recently seemed to have shot some wild birds. Sometimes it is very bad - you just missed the moment that would never come again, and because you have this wondrous alumo-box full of electronics and software - you did not care to set up it quite right. Furthermore, I have MZ-6 which is a smart little camera. To tell you the truth I am in process of buying an ME-Super so that I would be able to learn more of the way things are done, instead of just relying on Pentax programmers and electronics engineers. Again, if you're just shooting for snaps and not in order to study the craft (don't kick me all around because I called photography craft, ok? <bg>), then P&S or DP&S is the way to go. And of course DP&S is way more convenient. Just my cents. --- Boris Liberman www.geocities.com/dunno57 www.photosig.com/viewuser.php?id=38625
