4 ms·
It's funny that the old point-and-shoot film cameras everyone used in the 80s and 90s were perhaps the best way to actually capture what's going on rather than
by floren 7y ago
It's funny that the old point-and-shoot film cameras everyone used in the 80s and 90s were perhaps the best way to actually capture what's going on rather than turning a photo into a big production.
You'd hold the camera in your right hand and prepare for the picture by cranking the film with your thumb. When you wanted the picture, you'd quickly raise it to your eye and take the shot. There was no waiting for focus, because they were all set to infinity focus. They used simple analog light sensors to set the exposure the instant you pointed the camera.
With a phone, you might raise it to your face so FaceID will unlock it, then you look for and open the camera app, then you're using both hands to hold the phone out in front of you and wait while it focuses and figures out exposure; if you're using a cheaper phone, this could be several seconds. Then you take the picture and, again, if you're not using the freshest iPhone it might take 1-2 seconds between tapping the shutter button and actually being sure the picture has been taken. It's intrusive and slow.
Photos from my childhood often feature me either looking at something else or having just turned my head to look at the camera because my mom called to me. Photos today often seem to have a more posed and unnatural feel to them, because it's difficult to take a good picture stealthily; "hang on, I'm going to take a picture" is the common refrain.
- jfengel 7y agoI know that a good photographer can take a good photograph with anything, and a bad photographer myself won't be improved by better equipment. Still... I took exclusively dreadful photos with those cameras. Part of it was that film was a barrier to practice. Results took days to produce, and the sum cost of film and processing quickly became higher than the camera itself. So I'd use up a roll of film, send it off, get depressed at the results, and quit. I was "in the moment" at those events because a camera would not have made happy memories. With practice I might have eventually learned something about composition, but I don't have fond memories of those cameras. It's only now that I have a camera with me at all times, and a computer struggling to adjust my shots to some kind of artistic merit, that I have become the sort of person who takes photos at all.
- floren 7y agoI'd say there was a difference between taking pictures so you had a visual memory of the time you visited Hoover Dam with Grandma, vs. taking pictures because you want an artistically meretricious result. I would say almost none of the photos in our family albums are worth sharing on account of composition, but the contents are valuable to me because they show my grandfather (dead 25 years), they show my dad at 25 standing in front of the horse trailer in which he briefly lived while herding sheep, they show me playing on the steps of a home I only vaguely remember from the LORAN towers I could see blinking from my bedroom window.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- nkrisc 7y agoIn my experience, anyway, you're absolutely correct. The family photos from my childhood that I've enjoyed the most are almost all either blurry, out of a focus, or just too dark/light. It's not the quality of the photo that anyone cares about.
- jerf 7y ago"I know that a good photographer can take a good photograph with anything, and a bad photographer myself won't be improved by better equipment." With high latency, a photographer may take a technically high-quality photograph of the moment half-a-second too late. Skill can't overcome latency. I've become half-decent at accounting for the latency... pushing the button to take a picture, wait quarter second, then call out to the kid in question to look at you. But it's definitely one of those places where the old analog ways have an advantage over all of our digital ways and their interminable deciseconds extending into seconds of endlessly getting ready... gotta load the home screen, gotta load the camera, ok, now, wait a second, gotta initialize the camera hardware... whoops, gotta swap out some of your apps... ok... NO WAIT NOT OK oh crap they pushed the button... uh... load the button push handler... uhhh.... ok, CLICK. Sigh.
- Stratoscope 7y agoMy Galaxy Note 8 camera is nothing like you described. You don't have to unlock the phone, just double-press the power button even if the screen is locked and it goes directly into the camera app, ready to shoot. You can even review and delete photos in this mode. If the phone was locked, it only shows the photos that you took in that session. Latency is barely noticeable. I always take multiple photos anyway, either a burst or by tapping the shutter button repeatedly. I never dared do that with a film camera except for very important shots. So I get a lot more interesting shots now and a lot more "keepers".
- floren 7y agoI just tried the same thing on my Nokia 6.1 and it worked! It still took 2-3 seconds before it was ready to shoot, but it's a major improvement. Thank you!
- mceachen 7y agoThe volume rocker buttons are frequently mapped (or can be in settings) as a shutter release, too. Handy when you've got gloves on.