Digital Photography and Computers

[scubert]

I think the debate over digital vs film is just plain silly. That would be like people arguing that we should use silverplate instead of regular film because regular film is cheating, as the exposure times are so much faster.

The camera and the media are simply tools, some tools make jobs easier, but it's the skill of the photographer that is still needed to make the tools work properly.

The argument about 'digital darkrooms' and image manipulation being in some way 'dishonest' is a silly one for anybody that's ever spent time in a real film darkroom. If people think there is no manipulation of the image going on in 'real' darkrooms, they are truly clueless. The computer is again, just a tool that makes some of this work easier.

All that being said, here are a few of the things I use in my never-ending quest to take a picture that isn't of a fish's butt (and those of you who shoot underwater know what I'm talking about)
Olympus 4040Z camera in Oly PT-010 housing (this may change after last trips problems) >
Photoshop 5.0 as the primary editing tool.

I don't really have a specific system for cataloging my pix, I arrange them by trip for major stuff, and generally by theme for the everyday 1 shot here, 1 shot there kind of stuff. I also have a folder for images that have been re-sized for the internet.

Storage is currently on my 40gb harddrive, but I back everything up on 2 cds, one set handy and one set in a safe deposit box. Crashes happen fairly frequently on windows computers, and you wouldn't want to lose years worth of images in one quick (and horrible) second :o