Would Ansel Adams Have Gone Digital?

Roland Piquepaille writes "After viewing photographs by Christopher Burkett, which are not digitally manipulated, Peter Lewis wondered what place have digital cameras and image manipulations in the art of photography. And a question hit his mind. If Ansel Adams, one of the most famous photographers of the 20th century, was still alive, would have he gone digital? Lewis talked at great length with Richard LoPinto, vice president for SLR camera systems at Nikon Inc. to find an answer. And guess what? LoPinto thinks Ansel Adams would have loved digital cameras. The article also discusses digital camera resolution and the future for film camera sales. This overview contains more details and a small photograph by Christopher Burkett."

Comments

Ansel was a scientist.

[odenshaw]

If you ever look into the three books that Ansel wrote, "The Camera", "The Negative", and "The Print", you can see how Ansel was a scientist. Just take a look in the backs of those books at all of the charts and graphs he has for different elements of the photographic process. He tested everything and knew more about how the film, camera, developer, and paper would react with each other, then almost anyone. Kodak would even give him new film to test out and report back on the characteristics of said film. He also came up with the zone system, which is a scientific way of going from what you want your photo to look like to actually making it look that way.
I think Ansel would have loved to test out the digital cameras and make observations on how the digital camera matched up with film cameras in different situations.

Re:Anyone ever talk to Ansel Adams?

[Zocalo]

Yes! I've been trying to find this quote for a while, but it wasn't in the book I thought it was. The following quote is by Leo Laporte in the forward of "Shooting Digital" by Mikkel Aaland:

Mikkel Aaland has worked as an itinerant photographer, making pictures much as his 19th century counterparts must have, in a makeshift studio-on-wheels, capturing images of anyone with a few dollars to spare. After nine years on the road, the result was his 1981 book, "Country Fair Portraits".

Shortly thereafter, another legend, Ansel Adams, told Mikkel that if he were beginning all over again he'd be shooting digital. Mikkel took the great man at his word and became one of the first to use, and write about digital photography.

It's an anecdotal quote, but 1981 is a big year for digital photography as it's when Sony released its first "Mavica", probably the first mass-market digital camera. I'd say that Ansel saw the potential in the technology even then, assuming of course he hadn't already encountered digital imagery from early recon satellites, the SR71 and so on.