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

An Environmentalist will choose digital

[ericspinder]

Ansel Adams was above all a environmentalist, probally more so than a photographer. Do you know the kind of chemicals needed to make a roll of film into a negitive? Just the enviromental savings from the lack of processing would have given him a reason to use digital.

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.

He would have, but...

[cirby]

He also would have kept his film cameras.

A 10-megapixel image is nice and all, but Adams used everything up to 8x10 cameras, and there's nothing like that kind of resolution even in the planning stages for digital. He certainly would have used digitals for his "small" works.

For big landscapes? no.

For example, a 4x5 using Velvia color film is in the 200 megapixel range, and the 8x10 would be closer to the gigapixel category using 25 ASA black and white...

Oh, for the love of Pete.

[sammy baby]

"At great length?"

"Considering his typical tendency to use high-quality, large-format cameras and his desire that it be handy and convenient, I suspect he would be attracted to our D100, for its size and versatility and overall digital image quality.

And while waiting for the perfect shot, he'd enjoy an cool, refreshing Coca-Cola(tm)!

Give me a break, people. This was a puff piece.

Source of the Opinion

[MyHair]

I have no idea if Ansel Adams would have used digital, but I wouldn't go asking an officer of a camera manufacturer if Adams would have bought new equipment if I wanted an objective opinion. (Disclaimer: I didn't RTFA)

Ansel Adams is well known for large format very high resolution imagery; I doubut he would have achieved the same results with today's cutting edge equipment.

Re:Hard to say..this guy though definitely would h

[cosmo7]

Ansel Adams and the group of photographers - the f64 group - essentially worked to promote a style established by Edward Weston. It has much in common with Stieglitz' Photo-Secession - the concept of absolute honesty combined with absolute control of materials.

Adams' main contribution to photographic technology was his 'Zone' exposure system, which combines exposure, development and printing into a single system. It was like a very early ColorSync (even if it was in black and white).

Photography before f64 and the Photo-Secession was only considered 'art' if it was manipulated. Most Victorian photographic art was sacherinely allegorical. When photographers such as Weston and Adams came onto the scene, their images were considered shockingly raw.

To suggest that Adams was somehow considered a fraud would be to misconstrue the history of photography.

Re:Try again : Done !!!

[Taurim]

Maybe 1.09 billion pixels (40,784 x 26,800) is enough to beat it :

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm

It is done with a Canon D60 6 MPixels DSLR and PTAssembler + PanoramaTools, two great freeware and easy to use tools.

http://www.tawbaware.com/ptasmblr.htm

Don't forget to check the others pictures in "Max Lyons Digital Image Gallery" :

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/

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.