Making the Big Switch

Elizabeth dances with her new husband at her wedding.

 I was a film photographer for 35 years -- 1968 to 2003. My exposure technique was carefully honed. I developed my own color slides and developed and printed my black and white film. And I enjoyed it all. When digital came along I didn't want anything to do with it.

And yet. . . I was doing quite a few weddings in those days, shooting color negative film. Processing the film and making 4x6 or 5x5 proofs in house was not economically feasible, but lab costs ran about 75 cents per shot. And my competitors were switching to digital and pocketing the savings.

After talking with my friend Bill Bangham, editor of Commission magazine, which had won many awards for photographic excellence, even against such competition as National Geographic, I decided to take the plunge. And plunge it was, as I had to sell my extremely capable Fuji GX680 in order to raise the $3,000 to buy a Canon 10D. Then I set about, at age 66, to teach myself Photoshop!

To give myself some learning space, I decided to do a few weddings with both digital and film cameras. The first was the wedding of Elizabeth and Marc in June, 2003. The photograph at the top was made with the 10D at an ISO of 800, which was pushing it a bit, and the lens was wide open at f1.8. The resulting picture is blurred, but I included it in their album because this faulty image captures the spirit of the occasion far better than a perfect, needle-sharp photo could have done.

This was my first use of a digital camera at an actual wedding. However, a few weeks before that, I used the 10D for a bridal portrait.

 Leslie's bridal portrait.

 Leslie's wedding was coming up not long after Elizabeth's, but she requested a pre-wedding bridal portrait session. I normally used a Pentax 67 medium format camera for these assignments, but decided to take the Canon 10D as well and used both cameras for each pose, so this was the 10D's actual first professional outing. I chose a file from the 10D and a negative of a similar shot from the Pentax and had the lab make a 16x20 print of each. Almost no one, including the lab technician himself, could tell which was which. To me and others who saw the prints that was pretty convincing evidence that digital was something to consider seriously.

Now, I hardly ever shoot film any more, but I'm still nostalgic for it.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography      film photography     wedding photography   Canon EOS 10D camera      Pentax 6x7 camera      Fuji GX680 camera     bridal portraits     Commission Magazine