In the digital camera age, I’m finding that it’s really easy to get caught up with all of the tweaking of settings that come with today’s digital cameras. I suppose part of this is due to the way I learn, but another aspect of the digital photography age is that you can now take a photo and immediately see how it turned out.

There is no longer the need to shoot an entire roll of film and then take it into the photo lab for processing before you can see it. No, we have entered the age of immediate gratification when it comes to our photography.

This is an entirely different mindset than we had in the film camera days. Taking a photo at different exposures (bracketing) was much more important because you wanted to make sure that you had captured the shot at the right exposure. We were also more mindful as to how many shots we took for fear of running out of the film.

I’ve been wondering if the ability to take a digital photo and then instantly see how it turned out – makes us better photographers.
I’ve mentioned before that I don’t get caught up with all the bells and whistles provided by cameras. I’m just not that type of a geek. I do adjust exposure and depth of field, but that’s about it.

But I’m just not convinced that going through the constant tweaking of camera settings based on the image that shows up in the digital camera viewfinder produces a remarkably better photograph. I do think that there’s a limited “return on time spent” when it comes to the overall integrity of the photograph itself.

There are different types of photographers. Some are more technical, while others are more artistically oriented. Ansel Adams was a true technician, both behind the camera as well as the darkroom. But I wonder how he would fare in the digital camera age. Would he spend countless hours in front of the computer tweaking the contrast in his digital image? I kind of doubt it because I think much of his interest was just being outside and in touch with nature.

The ability to take a digital photo and then instantly see how it turned out has changed the landscape of today’s photography. I’m not sure that it’s made us better photographers, but it certainly has given us a whole new set of options.