Jack laments the current fad or fashion of film. I can relate.

I was never as much into photography as a younger man as I became when digital arrived. Chiefly because of cost. When I was shooting with "intention," I was shooting slide film, because it was cheaper than getting prints. Later on, I was shooting mostly as a tourist when we made port visits, using whatever plastic Canon compact 35mm auto-whatever was available at the time.

Somewhat later I bought a Canon AE-1 Program, which seemed to be the most popular camera at the Navy Exchange. But I'm unsure of whether I have any pictures from that camera. I probably do, but there's no meta-data on the prints to tell me, so I have to guess from the sharpness and depth of field.

I genuinely appreciate digital photography. Although I confess that I too sometimes succumb to the fads and delusions of things like the "CCD-look." For the most part, I do understand it's all just numbers and you can make them anything you want. So if you work a little bit on contrast and saturation, you can make your stacked 80MP CMOS sensor have as limited dynamic range and high noise as that beloved 8MP Kodak CCD.

It's all just numbers.

Anyway, same thing with "computing." I can still kind of recall the excitement many of us felt with the advent of "home computers." I can definitely recall the ridiculous amounts of money many of us spent for precious little utility, just the chance to experience something that felt like "the future." If I'd have known then what I know now, I think I'd have run away screaming.

I do still enjoy those old machines. Mostly in emulation. They do recall the feeling of thinking the future was going to be something cool. I still think that much of the attraction, for me, was that it empowered me to put something on a TV screen, something that had been just a device to look at things someone else had made. Probably the same thing that motivates me to maintain the marmot. I get to read something I wrote on a screen, and other people can too.

Same thing with the pics, I guess.

Why they should want to is a question I don't dwell on.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:13 Tuesday, 5 September 2023