Thursday, January 19, 2006

Ludd me do

I had a rite of passage of sorts. Yesterday I made my first on-line purchase. Bought a used Olympus OM-2n camera on eBay. I've always wanted an SLR and fortunately, a lot of hobbyists are unloading part of their collections and switching over to digital photography. There were digital cameras on sale, too. A 5 megapixel CMOS digicam was being sold at 4,700.00 pesos. Quite a bargain, but I figured digital cameras would be with us for a long, long time, and film photography would slowly fade away and become the sole domain of artists and hobbyists. I figured film photography has a few more years left before it acquires a cult status and would jack up prices for collectibles like the classic OM-2. But that's not really why I bought it. I can say I bought it because I wanted to take pictures that I can control. I didnt want a fully automatic point-and-shoot that churns out "perfect" pictures everytime. But that's not quite it, either.

Remember when CDs first came out and everybody heralded it as the ultimate in audio technology? Rich sounds in a medium that would last forever, it was supposed to make vinyl obsolete. Well it turns out that analog recordings on vinyl sound much better than digital recordings and guess what? CD's would probably last you 10 years before that laser thingie causes the medium to deteriorate. In the meantime, collectors still have copies of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album playing perfectly after 40 years. Same goes for eBooks. Your best bet is still to collect books on paper. There still are books in museums that are a thousand years old. MP3s? The way they compress the whole thing is to sample the digital files even worse than they do CDs and cut off sounds beyond the range of human hearing, the very thing that gives recorded music its warmth and "live-ness." It'll do in a pinch, but really, do you want to collect or enjoy music that way? Relaxing in your favorite lounge chair with a glass of wine, and then slipping on your iPod? MP3 is for the morning commute and nothing else, a job it does well.

If you look at the OM-2n I bought, you won't be surprised that it's over 20 years old. It's solidly built, heavy and reassuring. You could brain somebody with it. Fortunately I found a hobbyist who knows how to take care of his equipment. He even took time to meet me and show me how to use the camera properly, an old fashioned way of selling things. I showed the camera to an officemate who's also a hobbyist and he was amazed at the pristine condition it was in. Not a scratch anywhere. The leather case is pretty much beat up, but that's ok. It just means that the machine has been put to use and has given its owner lots of good times. For the price I bought it with, I wouldn't be able to buy a simple, mostly plastic, point-and-shoot digital camera that won't be able to do half what the OM-2 could. It's only advantage is you can immediately see what your picture looks like. Perfect for the I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now generation. "I don't care. Just give it to me now."

Maybe I find the digital world a bit offensive. It represents a philosophy that's all flash and no substance. It makes promises it doesn't keep and lulls us into a false sense of security. They market it as an improvement, but really, all it is is convenient, if anything. The internet hasn't changed anything. All it did is make things faster. And when you're heading towards Armageddon, you don't want to get there in a hurry. Civilization doesn't move forward with convenience. It moves forward with patience and attention to the finer things. I'm all for that.

3 comments:

grifter said...

On the camera newsfront, maker Nikon is ditching its SLR line and focusing on digital cams. It is expected that Olympus, Kodak and Canon will follow suit ...

Jego said...

Fantastic.. That means classic SLR's will be even rarer. Nyahahahaha..

grifter said...

Not to mention harder and expensive to fix once it breaks down. nyhahahahaha!