Many uses of the digital Camera

                                                         by   Sal Calabrese                   

 

Digital photography has changed our way of thinking and also has helped us to get the best photo possible. What Polaroid film did for us digital can do without the expense. While on a trip to Sedona { ARIZONA } I found myself searching for the best photo of Cathedral rock. Sedona is in red rock county and has a number of rock formations that have names because of their shapes. Cathedral Rock is named because it looks like a cathedral. There is also coffeepot rock, bell rock and my new favorite snoopy rock. I must confess I could not picture snoopy rock until this last trip to Sedona. Even though I have been there 5 times before, the image only came together this time. I can finally see snoopy. Upon entering Sedona State Park , a park ranger told me were I could get the best angle of Cathedral Rock. When I finally found the spot for my shot the light was awful. There was no magic glow on the rock and the reflection in the water was barely there. But being a Photoshop nut and a Digital photographer I took the shot anyway. You will see it in another article on Photoshop.

As I was shooting digital it did not cost me anything to take this photo.

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       I  continued on my trek around the park and came across some trees that happened to frame Cathedral Rock. The first photo was a wide view that had most of the trees. Checking my digital viewfinder I thought to myself not bad, but would less trees be better? So I cropped out the trees a little more. Again I checked the viewfinder. Not bad, but what if I crop a little more? The third shot was it!   I carefully selected just a few trees in the viewfinder and  took the image.  I then precisely checked the scene and liked what

I saw.  I now had an image in my digital memory card bank.

          The next step was to replace the digital camera that was mounted on my tripod with my film camera.  I then carefully checked the position to achieve the same cropping and made the photo.  I took 2 more shots bracketing the exposure a bit, just to be sure.

This gave me both digital and film images for multiple uses back home.

           The other great advantage with this technique is how many frames of film I saved.

By using the digital camera as a cropping tool, I would study the image in the digital window and then find the flaws in the composition.  I would crop again and check the result.  Most of these digital images are deleted and I only save the one or two I want.

Then when I’m sure of the composition I can create the scene on slide film.  This has

saved me lots of frames that used to fill up my waste basket.

 

                                                                                      Sal