Okay, this one is driving me nutz so I'm going to blow off a little
steam and be done with it.

Repeatedly I have been seeing/hearing the phrase "back when digital
photography was new", sometimes with a wry intent, but more often with
complete seriousness that carries a sort of blasé "been there/done
that" attitude (possibly a symptom of a sort of time-compressed,
multitasking, revved-up, "Moore's Law" mentality that many of us live
with today).

I have to admit that I find it triggers equal measures of irritation
and humor.

Photography in general stems from the ancient concept of the "Camera
Obscuras", but for the sake of my comparison I consider modern
photography to be a direct descendant of the first film negatives
created by Henry Talbot in 1834. That gives photography a pedigree of
at least 170 years. Even starting from the first Leica (1924) we have
a photographic history of 80 years!

By contrast, digital photography (using a sensor as opposed to a film
negative) can, at best, claim a history of roughly 17 years with
Kodak's first commercial sensor around 1987 or, more practically,
about 13 years because the 1991 release of the DCS cameras by Kodak
could be considered the spiritual equal of the stunning release of the
1900's "Brownie" camera. Today (2004) we have moved well into the
equal of the "Leica/Kodachrome" phase (roughly equal to 1936 in film
terms).

Obviously development of digital photography has been accelerated
since digital took only 13 years to cover roughly the same span that
took film photography 36 years. This is no real surprise as many
aspects of digital photography (especially lens technology) rest
firmly on the well developed shoulders of film photography. However
even at this faster pace it seems apparent that digital photography is
still a very young sibling to it's parent (film photography).

Just as Talbot had no idea what his creation would (pardon the pun)
develop into, we have no idea what digital photography will accomplish
in 80 (or 170) years.

We're standing in the shallow end and I'm telling you now that digital
photography is still very, very, new.


Drifter
"I've been here, I've been there..."