Drones

Today it seems the US government is requiring drones to be registered. This has the rabble on photography groups up in arms because of the perceived attack on drones used by photographers and videographers.

How did this come to be? It seems people with drones have been missing them. Indeed, during the South Carolina floods there was footage of drone users going around security cordons to play with their drones. I say play because so many people took photos and videos of the floods that no image could be remotely saleable. Add to this that emergency services have complained about drones hampering while recording their work.

There have been complaints about drones from pilots whose planes have had to divert away from areas where drones have been causing a hazard to women complaining of voyeurs videoing them. Clearly a very unsavory group can afford and own drones. The volume of complaints has increased tremendously so now drone registration is here.

I've never owned nor used a drone. The only use I can see for a drone is to inspect rooves for damage instead of scampering up ladders. In terms of flying, they're not exciting unlike a model aeroplane which requires all kinds of skills, as they fly themselves.

The biggest problem with drones are
1. Owners have no liability insurance so its hard to get compensation for damage caused by a crashing drone.
2. Owners will be hard to trace in the event for example a paedophile flies a drone from a van to a neighborhood half a mile away and videos children. The video is back at his van before the drone is and the drone is expendable. He can fly it to get the video and simply abandon the drone.
3. Terrorists could use drones as delivery methods for biological and chemical weapons.
4. Nosey parkers sending drones into places they shouldn't and causing problems.
5. Espionage of all kinds. Pepsi could fly a disposable drone into coca-cola headquarters to spy out new secrets as an example.

At the moment drones can't carry much weight - the consumer level drones anyway - though people have weaponized drones. In the future, Amazon etc are thinking of drone delivery. With that power of drone, weaponization is very possible.

Weaponized drones have another issue. Its possible since all drones use software for drones to be taken over and controlled by hostile groups. Indeed, a Terminator style future with armed drones controlled by hostile groups used to attack a country is very possible.

Drones have much wider implications than to photography. The genie is out of the bottle and Pandora's box is open!

The true cost of photography

Years ago, before I went digital with my photography, I debated the cost of digital versus film. I'm still not sure the costs work out in favor of film.

With film I used to buy bulk rolls of 100 feet of film and put it into 36 exposure cassettes. It was something that could be done on a rainy day. It was quite fun to do. I suspect I would go through a roll or maybe two a year. Each bulk roll would yield around 25 cassettes of 36-39 exposures.

Currently 100 feet of film is around $70. My film of choice was Ilford HP5+ black and white. As with digital, I printed very few of the photographs I took, storing the negatives in date order in a ring binder. As I processed my own films, the cost was low enough to be negligible and certainly not more than $1 a roll.

There were many skills involved leading to a much more satisfying experience. Skills that just aren't used with digital leading to digital photography being rather a dumbed down version of photography.

Film cameras changed very little over the years though with increasing technology they became increasingly unsatisfying in use. Built in meters ended the skill of estimating exposure based on lighting conditions, built-in automatic exposure made people lazy about their exposures, built-in autofocus took away many of the focussing skills needed. APS film was clearly a step toward digitization. APS film had a magnetic stripe that recorded exposure data.

Along came digital and people have no fear of spoiling a photo because photos now cost nothing per photo. That meant a great explosion in camera sales as those afraid of making mistakes knew they could just keep reshooting until they got it right.

The great explosion of photography came as a great bonus for camera manufacturers as they expanded their factories, doubled, tripled and quadrupled production and profits. Immense money was spent on research and development. New cameras which had been introduced on average every 7 years were now churned out every 18 months. This ensured companies could sell new cameras every year without worrying about a saturated market.

The camera companies agreed amongst each other that to best milk the market, they would dribble out improvements slowly. This would ensure customers would replace their cameras every two years. Needless to say, a lot was spent on marketing and brainwashing the public into believing they needed to "upgrade".

So now we have a situation where $500 - $1000 is spent every 2 years on a new digital camera. Over the fifteen or so years I've been doing digital photography, I have spent (on cameras alone) $2,500 and I got off lightly. Had I upgraded every two years the that figure could well have been $10,000.

Because of the constant upgrading, older digital equipment loses its resale value. I paid $1,200 for a camera that I'd now get maybe $80 for on a good day.

With film, the cameras used to lose resale value far more slowly. As an example, I had a great deal in 1990 when I bought a 10 year old Nikon FM for $300. It was a great little camera and got used right up until I went digital.

In the ten years I used $1,800 of digital SLRs I took 10,000 photographs. Of those, I can certainly assure you many were duplicates or very similar. Some were for GIF animations. In my film days, I doubt I took 2,000 photos. The interesting thing though is that the slower and more deliberately I took photos, the better I liked the results.

I have never taken photographs as an art form. I leave the arty farty stuff to people who fancy themselves as great artists. My photography is stuff that I think looks good and now that I'm not trying to knit rice puddings (selling photography), I just photograph whatever I want. Sometimes I even follow the latest trends!

I suspect the photos on digital were more fun because of their instant view ability. I suspect film photos are better because they're more considered.

But back to cost. Digital costs many of the skills of film because they're not used. Taking 10,000 photos on a film camera would have cost $19,444 in just film. That's a stupid comparison though as film users think before pressing the shutter button.

In 20 years of film cameras I took 2,000 photos. That's around 100 a year or 3 rolls of film a year. Even though there would be years when I'd take no photos and years when I'd use many rolls, it balances out.

Looking at how I do my photography today - I use a cellphone and take between 0 and 10 photos a day. Most are not the kind of photos I'd use film for. Film I used for things I wanted to remember. Digital is just a fun thing.

I have a feeling the true cost of digital is more than monetary. It's is a cumulative de-skilling of the photographer combined with a lessening of the worth of photographs. There was a time when a grainy black and white photo of Machu Picchu meant something. Now a million tourists a year take darned good photos of Machu Picchu on their cellphones.

It's getting very much to the point where one asks whether photography has become like writing. Everybody can read and write. The scribe of old is now history. The photographer is also headed for history.

Does photography now have value other than to the companies that sell overpriced camera gear?

I have a feeling I would be taking fewer photos with film but better photos. I'm with somebody that said some 15 years ago that the digital darkroom was the best thing ever to happen to photography. I see their point of view totally.

What about camera size? Well, since the current DSLRs are oversized enough to resemble something Fischer-Price would make, I can't say that I'm impressed. Digital camera lenses are also larger along the same lines. It is all lighter though. I rather suspect the plastic is thick to compensate for its flimsiness as opposed to the metal originals.

I can honestly say I feel photography has been greatly devalued by digital to the point where spending money on cameras should now be grounds for hoots of derision. Perhaps this is the time for those who are really interested in photography as opposed to the current digital gizmooligy to get into the wonderful old processes using dry collodian etc.

4 months of freedom

Has it really been 4 months since Facebook decided that I couldn't use their service unless I paid them by giving them information they should never possess? Checking back, it does appear the parting of the ways was on or around June 30th.

Have I pined for Facebook? Have I crawled back, capitulating to their demands? Have I quietly set up a different identity? Have I, Hell! While I haven't been busily throwing darts at an effigy of Marc Zuckerburg while cursing his heritage as the eternal Jew, I have been enjoying my life more.

Without Facebook I have been concentrating on other things. I've joined a real photography group. I've worked on my bus. I've done a lot. Oddly enough aside from photography on my phone, I've not done much photography.

I have investigated changing my camera system and have investigated buying new lenses and new bodies in order to take the kind of photo I'd like to but selling a working sytstem for peanuts just for that seems silly. I've pared down to what I actually use from the ton and a half of stuff I has. Wanting to take night sky images like so many others do seems a little bourgeois. Basically I'd be paying to copy others instead of using what I have, and stretching it to its limits.

The photographers of old largely had one camera, one lens and did their best with what they had. The possession of massive amounts of gear does not bring happiness nor better photography. All it does is clutter the house after costing a ton of money that withers away agonisingly before your eyes.

For me, the thought of money tied up in gear that's not being used and which is depreciating rapidly while being a thief magnet is good enough reason to minimise. Some things such as my Canon S1IS have plummeted so much in value that they're pretty well worthless. It used to take decent pictures but picture quality has declined though the videos are still excellent.

Oddly enough, I'd still be using an all in one had I not been using one of those iniquitous online forums. I remember an Australian lady who went to the forum for advice on a camera. She received the forum "advice" and got her camera. I encountered her a year or so later and her comment was that the people on the forum didn't know anything and that the camera was "crappy".

Well, I was happy with my all in one but succumbed to the temptation to get a DSLR though in fact while the image quality was clearly higher than my all-in-one and had no shutter lag, it just wasn't as convenient. Of course then I was pressured by somebody I knew at the time into getting all the stuff I'd need in order to be a professional photographer. So, I ended up with way too much gear. Now I have cut back to just the stuff I think I use and still I feel I have too much bulk.

I look back at the all in one and wonder if there's a better way. I don't need ultimate image quality and 8 megapixels is adequate for my photography. I don't really need more. I've a hankering to do more high speed imaging and more than an all in one might be capable of. Thus I've been looking at other systems.

Despite my wrong turn into DSLRs (which are nice but not really what I want in a camera), I would still like to get close to the same image quality. A friend at a camera club showed me his Olympus which was very nice. It was compact enough to be much more portable. I keep coming back to the Nikon 1 though. For some reason that little camera has captured my heart, being both small and having decent image quality. The one I'd like though, that does everything I want is hideously expensive though. C'est la vie!

So, eventually the plan is to go smaller. As and when it can be afforded though. The basic thing is that though I like taking photos, the immediacy of my cellphone means it gets used while my DSLR doesn't. The bulk of the DSLR counts against itself too. What I'm crying out for is CONVENIENCE. And, of course, freedom.

Just as I am free of Facebook, I cut myself loose from forums too. I joined a camera club which is a very non judgemental group. So I wonder through the valley of life, fearing no opinions.