Digital photography and film: looking back and wondering what we have lost

I was in a cafe recently and saw someone playing with a Rollei Twin Lens Reflex (TLR). For those who have never seen one of these they have two lenses mounted one above the other, The top lens is used for the view finder and the bottom is the active lens. The viewfinder is  a horizontal ground glass screen and  you turn the lens till the image is in focus. I once had a Russian Lubitel 2 TLR which had a magnifying glass to aid focusing. A spring loaded metal lid protected the viewfinder and when  the lid was opened metal leaves sprung up to shield the viewfinder from Ambient Light which made focusing and composition easier. The picture was in square cm by 6cm format and took 120 film, a wide film with a paper backing to protect it from the light. The operation was entirely manual, and needed a separate exposure meter or the sunny 16 rule.

Although I have moved to digital and have no intention of going back to film in the foreseeable future ( never say never) the sight of the TLR made me wonder what has been lost in the transition, or relegated to an expensive specialist niche.

I have no intention of being a grumpy old man. Every generation of photographers  tends to become grumpy old men decrying the loss of skills  technology brings with it: Medium Format Photographers claimed that the lack of technological aids in their cameras fostered a more careful approach to photography ( ignoring the fact that early press photographers took photographs as quickly as possible on medium format cameras) and Large Format Photographers similarly deplored the haste with which Medium format cameramen took pictures. This is to be expected. Thousands of years ago there were complaints that the use of writing would lead to a decline in the ability to remember things and I daresay there was  someone sitting around arguing that flint axes were better than bronze knives, especially for  sacrifices (actually obsidian knives can be sharper than surgical scalpels).

Similarly those who started with manual focus on a ground glass screen decried the use of rangefinder cameras where two images of the scene appeared unless the image was in focus, at which point they merged, both decried autofocus, noting that the early autofocus cameras took so long to find focus that a shot of say a squirrel could be lost, and users of prime (fixed focal length) lenses tended to consider users of zoom lenses as lazy. Alongside that were the advocates of handheld exposure meters instead of in camera metering.

The earlier methods all had advantages and disadvantages and some, such as use of exposure meters, should still be mastered by professionals for the increasingly rare occasions they are needed. The risk is that techniques will fall into disuse and oblivion and need reinvention and I hope this series of articles will do something to slow that trend.

Looking back at Film Cameras gives a hint of the variety of cameras that took film.