Digital cameras make life easy

The digitisation of our world has been a forward march for years now with e-books slowly but surely replacing conventional books, online streaming of movies and television shows making DVDs obsolete, CDs evolving to MP3s on a large scale, road maps being crumpled and tossed aside to give way to GPS and so on.

The story is no different for cameras.

Film roll cameras have also succumbed to digitisation, but that might not be a bad thing.

Easy wizard

A digital camera, an electronic piece of wizardry, makes life easy for the user as it records photos and videos without the hassle of film rolls.

The electronic goods market is flooded with scores of these digital cameras and with increasing spending power it is becoming a popular choice, especially among young people.

For good reason, these DSLRs (Digital Single Lens Reflex) as they are commonly known, sell by the dozens.

Most people get better results with a DSLR. You can edit and alter photos on the camera itself. Also there are so many things that can go wrong with making prints from the negatives of a film; the quality of photos from digital cameras attracts beginners and hobbyists.

Ram Keshav, 21, a freelance photographer who specialises in wedding photography, has been clicking away for the past six years. “I got my first DSLR when I was 15 and learnt the nuances of photography on my own,” he said.

Practice perfect

Compared to their film roll counterparts, digital cameras are arguably easier to get a hang of, of course after a few rounds of practice. “Improvements in technique come from practice, but it isn’t tough to grasp. I read articles online and look at other people’s work and improve myself,” added Ram.

However some people may argue that using a film roll camera requires a greater level of skill.

Mind you, it is quite a process loading film into the camera. Precautions must be taken to ensure that the film is properly inserted as a small mistake can render the film useless. It can also be tedious for a first-timer.

But what they lack in convenience, film roll cameras compensate with a sense of nostalgia and history. They are believed to have been invented by George Eastman, founder of Kodak, some time during the late 19th century, and have been in existence ever since.

History is history

Some people may remember Eastman’s famous advertising slogan, You Press the Button, We Do the Rest, for Kodak, a brand synonymous with film roll cameras.

Unfortunately all the history that comes with the film roll camera has become, well, history.

The world we live in is dominated by rapid advancement of digital technology that has changed the way we communicate and interact with one another, making life easier.

Digital cameras offer levels of technology that were never imagined possible with the conventional camera, which is why this Charles Darwin type evolution from the film roll camera to the DSLR was inevitable.

Digital photography might not be the best cup of tea for those on the nostalgia trip; however it is the way forward before, dare I say, it too becomes obsolete.

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