From silver salts to digital dots
The change from silver salts to digital dots is really enough to make my head spin. In a good way, I guess. But how do I begin to compare?
This is more than an excuse to sell new photo gear. Believe me. I managed to salvage some of my old good stuff when the new camera came alone about four years ago. Pentax. I mean, even a Takumar made from real optical glass and brass can be fitted to a new digital body. And if I ever have to fall back to roll film, I will know how to do so.
But, this afternoon, my old ways were passed by the new ways, and I’m still stuck in the dust cloud. I needed photos for a particular government document.
At one time, I actually prepared this sort of thing for clients, and I had the ritual down to a science/art. Load film. Expose. Develop. Dry negatives. Enlarge. Expose to paper. Develop. Dry. Cut. Stamp. Profit. The whole thing only required a few hours of my time, and the office never rejected my efforts.
Today, between two bus runs, I went to a nearby pharmacy and stood still for thirty seconds. Then, the clerk put the memory chip from a small camera into the same point-of-sale booth that the average client uses, pushed a few menu choices on the touch screen, waited for the attached inkjet printer to (noisily) produce two copies and had me pay about the same amount I would have received back in the late ’70s. No inflation here.
When she inadvertently stapled the copies together, it didn’t matter. She hit reprint on the menu, restamped the paper and I was “out of there”, in time to catch the next bus. Total delay, a matter of minutes. And with a bit of luck, the new, faster pics will be accepted (probably by the same government officials).
