This is some of my latest image testing that's ultimately intended for an eventual mural image, other than some minor boosting to its saturation levels and a bit of lassoing and curves tweaking in certain areas just to smoothen things out, its pretty much as it was captured. After spending the last 35 years daily working with various types of film and chemistry. I can't tell you how much I love the freedom of expression that's found in the digital photographic world. The truth is it's pretty close to a modern day human founded miracle in my opinion.

However that being said, the following are my opinions regarding this new digital realm and are based on my own experience of working with it. While behind any mural that I make are my overriding creative motivations, those things that spark and ignite my creative inspiration to take flight and want to make images in the first place, that is not what this ramble is about. It's more about sharing my views on the developing maze and endless glut of equipment, not to mention the numerous programs and upgrades that are currently available on the digitally based imaging treadmill. Something that we are literally being forced by the manufacturers holding the proverbial carrot on a stick, to run upon and try desperately to keep in step and pace with.

For the last five years when photographing I have been using digitally based Nikon equipment to capture my images. But before the digital era I was a Nikon equipment fan since the early 1960s when I owned a black Nikon F body that didn't even have a light metering system available at that time. I ended up giving my first Nikon body away to a young Indian photographer while photographing in Calcutta India. I have owned and worked with every type of image capturing platform. For twenty years I worked steadily with a large format 8x10 wooden Deardorff sheet film camera. It was after all considered to be the traditional tool used by those older more seasoned fine art photographers, you were just not seriously into photography unless you were using a large format Deardorff to execute your image capture. It was something akin to climbing and topping mount Everest, only in the photographic realm I suppose. Now I have also owned and worked extensively with Hasselblad 6x6, Mamiya 6x7 and Linhof 4x5 and 5x7 sheet film cameras.

So I can tell you quite frankly that I do honestly enjoy working digitally though. I have been able to explore many different creative imaging avenues just like the image seen above, without the over burdening cost of film and custom made chemistry. The latitude of image control is far greater digitally than it ever was when using film. How wonderful it is not to be locked in the smelly darkroom day after day. The reality for me is that the multiple image mural work I am now able to formulate and create would have been close to impossible using the older conventional film and chemistry methods and that's just a fact.

While I actually like working with digital technology it does come with an attribute and inclination that I find most troubling. Let me tell you a little story from my life which illustrates the direction today's digital equipment is taking. I have a ninety-three year old father-in-law who in this past year has moved into in a retirement home. A former bomber pilot during the 1940 to 1945 war, and smart old codger, still with all of his male testosterone argumentative marbles. Who asked if we could go to MacDonald's for a hamburger while we were on our last visit. Being long time vegetarians ourselves since 1975, he knows that a trip to MacDonalds is an extremely rare occurrence for us, although they do have nice clean washrooms that we use while we are traveling about on photographing excursions.

We agree and take him to the fast food restaurant. I go to the counter to get a simple coffee and hamburger for the old frail white haired guy. I stand in a long line that seems to take fifteen minutes before I get to the server. At the busy counter I ask for a coffee and a hamburger. The young clerk spiels off something I simply don't understand; apparently there are a range of various combos, or mcdeals something about hamburgers, fries, and a drink, possibly something called "happy meals" I don't know? I say again just a burger please. He then rhymes off a list of the various "sandwiches" as he called them that are available. I haven't a clue what he is talking about. I don't want double anything and certainly nothing cheese covered, I just want a plain and simple hamburger.

There is a lot of commotion because of my indecision and I say loudly" JUST GIVE ME A HAMBURGER.... PLEASE that's all I want, oh and a coffee also please". Now I haven't drunk coffee myself since 1975 so the server's response threw me again. He asked did I want a small, medium, large or extra large coffee, but he mumbled it so quickly I had a hard time hearing what he said above the very noisy lunch hour din. There were several annoying squealing beepers bleeping loudly behind him and dozens of people talking loudly standing in long lines behind me. I shrugged my shoulders. He then asked me something else I just couldn't comprehend about the combos I think, and if my order was for sitting in or taking out, I replied very loudly I JUST WANT A COFFEE AND A SIMPLE BURGER, THAT IS WHAT YOU SELL HERE ISN'T IT? The entire place hushed up as if something terrible had or was going to happen.

As I experienced in this fast food restaurant when they made ordering a simple coffee and hamburger a far more complicated issue than it really should be, I am increasingly worried at what I see being played out in this new digital realm. Camera makers now include the "proverbial digital kitchen sink," and then are throwing in even more esoteric technical fluff, to dazzle and impress everybody with their endless choices. But I would like to ask exactly to what purpose?

What really is essential to capture photographic images? My Nikon D1x camera has four LCD menus to choose from, the "Shooting Menu" the "Set Up Menu" the "CSM Menu" and the "Play Back" menu, now the one I use regularly is the CSM Menu which has 36 options and unlike the smaller quicker to use "Shooting Menu" it has some of those particular options which I tend to use, and many of them with their suboptions to choose from. Now I only use three of those 36 options which generally are always constantly set and two other options which I have to set occasionally from time to time as I work.

I also find when working that I never ever use the LCD monitor on the back of the camera for viewing images, its just not good enough quality to see anything when outside in the bright sunshine. It is also an incredible draining battery waster, so mine is literally always turned off. I don't need nor have I ever used the bracketing feature as I tend to do everything in the Manual mode using spot metering of a gray card that's placed in the scene when shooting a many imaged mural, one reading being taken at the beginning, then all images have exactly the same exposure throughout the photographing. For taking quick single shots I always use the Program mode and then rotate the rear thumb wheel to come up with a shutter speed and aperture combination that I am the happiest with. I find Nikon's multi metering system works well and you can usually always depend on it. And with digital's incredible image latitude I can easily fix just about any and everything except of course for gross overexposure on the monitor in the Nikon Capture Program.

I don't require voice memo or GPS positioning (while only an option the D2x camera is now hard wired for it). I usually only capture my images in the NEF ( Nikon Electronic File ) also known as the RAW mode. I have yet to use the Tiff or any of the numerous Jpg settings in four years of continual use and thousands of images taken. I shoot everything with the in camera sharpening always permanently turned off. I leave the white balance continually set in the Cloudy (6000K) setting all the time outside even in brightest sunshine or dark shade because it gives me decent looking images, and the Tone compression is always set to High because of my landscape detail subject matter. I only sharpen the image in Capture and can easily tweak the 6000K Cloudy setting Kelvin temperature of the image up or down in Capture if it's a necessity, which I will admit some times it is.

I question on the new Nikon D2x body that I should have to go through the annoying digital third degree about the choices of selecting either Tiff, Jpg Low, Jpg Basic, Jpg Fine, Jpg Extra Fine, Nef, Nef plus Jpg Low, Nef plus Jpg Basic, Nef plus Jpg Fine, White Balance, Tone Compression, Image Size; Small, Medium or Large images and all interrelated to the other format choices that are available, and then on the D2x having to choose between Nikon's own Full Sensor Size or the Cropped Sensor Size. The choices seem endless and confounding and frankly to be honest with you I would only ever use one, full sensor and the NEF (RAW) format. Like the LCD on the back of the camera body these sizing choices are all far too costly to implement and simply redundant useless digital fluff in my mind.

It appears to me that digital engineering teckies, computer junkies and a photographic advisory board pushing for every last digital item thinkable are now in charge of current camera design. The results are instead of producing a camera that can take excellent quality images involving a minimum of technical bells, whistles or hoops and mazes to work your way through, they have burdened all of us with a vast glut of needless digital "smoke and mirrors". The argument I suppose they would make is that someone somewhere out there might just need the GPS positioning, voice memo, and wireless transmitting, and endless menu and image size choices. The issue for me is that most of what is being provided is simply redundant and not going to be used by the average photographer and yet we collectively are all having to pay for these unnecessary and expensive extravagances included.

Let me tell you of what I once experienced in India which nicely illustrates my technology over kill point of view. It happened in a five star hotel in Delhi; Delhi is the main transit point in India so you frequently have to go there to catch international flights. We often use the high end coffee shops to eat lunch just to sit in the air-conditioning. One day after eating we went to the hotel's gift shop to look around. My wife wanted to purchase some post cards costing just a few Rupees. There at the check out was an super duper brand new looking IBM cash register, with every bell and whistle on it that man could ever think of. This machine must have cost the hotel a small fortune, it looked very expensive and we were most impressed with the hotel's technology as we walked up to the counter.

Well the clerk took our post cards and surprisingly used a small hand held abacus to add things up mentally, then laboriously hand wrote out the bill. At this point he asked for assistance and eventually three individuals were gathered around staring at the complicated cash register. After sometime one of them dared to put a hand out and then a finger on just one key and pressed it. With much relief the cash register door flung IBM efficiently open, much to their chuckles and smiles and "thank goodness" we did it attitude. They made the change, the transaction had taken half an hour. The point I am making is that this cash register could easily have taken control and totaled probably every transaction in that large five star hotel. Yet only one simple "open drawer key" was being pressed by the people who were using it.

It is the exact same scenario with these new digital cameras. Most of the digital camera equipment is used on a basic straight forward level. I would be willing to bet that 80% of the incredible, sophisticated technology that is currently build into these latest cameras never ever gets used. The overwhelming capabilities might as well not be there and yet the crazy thing is we are paying a high price for these camera bodies that are literally becoming high priced digital toys, meant more for equipment based technophiles but really not being designed for genuine hard core photographic image makers. Just remember that old joke about people not being able to program their simple by comparison VCR's, or even set their timers which constantly flashed a dayglo neon green 00.00 displaying the time.

Added to all this is the sad reality that the technology advances so quickly that a digital camera which is only three years old is considered virtually redundant and therefore more or less a worthless piece of digital junk in the general market place. Unlike the old film cameras, trade in values on digital equipment are literally ridiculous to virtually none existent. Basically only companies or those well healed types can afford to take the ride on this always changing always running digital treadmill.

Over my life time I have found that the simplest things are the best and this is especially true when it comes to technology. The more we simply pile on the more there is to break, foul up, or complicate the situation. Give me a good camera body that operates with a minimum of finicky fussing and put the emphasis on delivering incredible image quality. To get this image quality in digital, the research and development dollars should be spent on the "chip" to increase the pixel capacity and recording ability of the camera. Those other bells and whistles should really be reduced down to a minimum. The chip should also be replaceable so that as improvements do occur all I have to do is pay for a new chip and some latest upgrading tweaks in programing to be installed in my camera body

Furthermore camera manufacturers should make the technology actually work for the user. Allow for uncluttered individualized programing; that is each person should be able to pull from the numerous different menus what is important to them and put them into one quick and easy to look at special customized menu. Everything else could go into a sleep mode and not be seen again until it is required. This would eliminate scrolling through forty different headings trying to find something, especially in the bright glaring sunlight, looking for those one or two options that you need to tweak in the camera for specific image.

Or perhaps another option would be to look at what car manufacturers have done for years now. You can buy a basic model of a car or you can purchase the same automobile fully decked out and loaded. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to purchase a top of the line digital camera body like the Nikon D2X but only in a basic no frills configuration, and be able to get it for about two thirds of the price of the same fully loaded unnecessarily overburdened "never ever going to use all of those things" D2X camera body.

In closing I'll share three stories of mature photographers all of whom have made their living the past thirty five years by taking pictures. I see one of them that refuses to get on the digital treadmill because of the digital instability; he is doing digital but still scanning his film to do it because the digital backs he requires are too expensive, and in the end like everything digital simply will not maintain their value. Another photographer who leapt into the digital realm four years ago is now in training to become a bartender and casino card dealer. He's was just not able to handle the complexity of his high end camera and learn the computer programing necessary to work successfully in the digita realm; and then there is the last one, myself, feeling used by the manufacturers. All of the very expensive digital equipment that I purchased just four years ago is basically completely worthless outdated and was literally outpaced just a year or so after purchase. I have been known to be a dreamer, so I continue to hope that one day I can own a digital camera that can maintain its value for more than a few years and could be upgraded when needed and can deliver quality images but with a minimum of menu choices digital clutter and aggravation.

SL