Good-bye to that life I used to know

Justin and I shot a wedding this weekend, but this is a throwback frame to the days when photography was all plastic instead of pixels.

Sunday was a first for me in many respects. First serious shoot with the new 20d. First wedding in which we were the primary photogs. First professional gig with strangers. Everything went pretty smoothly. We got at least a few really solid pics, although our corny, staged family portraits will need some work. That will only get better as I get more proficient with my new camera, which every day amazes me more.

Inspired by the experience, and the fact that I forgot my camera's software at Amanda's place, I revisited some old photos from my cousin April's wedding, which I have been meaning to scan for, uh, well, let's just say that April's about to pop out her second kid. (Fun fact: she's naming the kid Grady, after my grandfather and brother.)

Like most folks, ever since I picked up and used Justin's digital SLR several months ago, I knew film was doomed. At the time, I would have given it 10 years. Now, after four days with my camera, I'd knock that down to five. The reasons are many and tedious, so they deserve their own post.

But the one thing I will miss are shots like the above. Digital cameras employ electronic sensors in place of film, and the overall recording space of those sensors is smaller than that of 35mm film. So a little of the image collected by the lense is not recorded. The effect is that digital cameras "extend" lenses by a factor of about 1.5. So wide-angle lenses are suddenly no longer wide angle. It is the only drawback to digital that I have found, since they have pretty much eliminated the noise image problem. To get the picture above, which was taken with a generic, sorta wide-angle 28mm lense would require, on my 20d, a $400-500 14mm lense.

Hmm... all right, I'm exhausted — shit got crazy at the board meeting tonight: a major resolution did not pass unanimously, and the heavens were rent asunder. Nine working days left. Not that I'm counting.