# Photographers: What's the Best Picture You MISSED? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 25, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891 "2016-07-25T21:11:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2016, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/41 "2016-08-02T04:56:48Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Nice… But you still have one step that a film-SLR doesn’t: “turn it on.” I don’t know what the start-up process is for a d-SLR, but it is not instantaneous. It is instantaneous. I notice absolutely no lag while holding down the shutter and turning the dial to “on.” The instant I flick the power-up, the shutter fires. By the time you get your non-electronic film SLR to your face and properly focused, I’ll have at least five tack-sharp frames on my dSLR, even starting from an off position. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/42 "2016-08-03T02:58:34Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It is instantaneous. I notice absolutely no lag while holding down the shutter and turning the dial to “on.” The instant I flick the power-up, the shutter fires. By the time you get your non-electronic film SLR to your face and properly focused, I’ll have at least five tack-sharp frames on my dSLR, even starting from an off position. I don’t comprehend this at all. Why would your dSLR be five shots faster than a film SLR? (And why do I get dinged for “getting the camera to my face” but you don’t? Why do I get dinged for focusing and you don’t? If you’re using auto-focus, remember that this takes time; auto-focus cameras have to do some work to bring the focus together. This is true of film and digital auto-focus cameras both.) I’ll grant that film-advance takes time that digital cameras don’t have to pay – but digital cameras take time to register the image on their data-storage devices, and that’s a time-cost film cameras don’t pay. I don’t believe for one tenth of a second that the power-on time for a dSLR is “zero.” All electronic devices have a power-on delay. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/43 "2016-08-03T03:15:55Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > (And why do I get dinged for “getting the camera to my face” but you don’t? Why do I get dinged for focusing and you don’t? If you’re using auto-focus, remember that this takes time; auto-focus cameras have to do some work to bring the focus together. This is true of film and digital auto-focus cameras both.) I am taking all this into consideration. I am counting “getting the camera to my face” for both your camera and mine. I know how fast AF is vs MF. I’ve been a professional photographer for 20 years now, and I started out professionally in sports (shooting NBA and MLB games). If you’re really in practice, manually focusing can be very fast indeed. But if I were starting with a camera on my side, one film camera with a lens set to an arbitrary focus point, and one dSLR that is turned off for whatever reason, set to an arbitrary focus point, I would absolutely bet that I could get multiple in focus shots off the dSLR before I the film camera. And I think the vast majority of photographers would, too. > [@](#): > > I don’t believe for one tenth of a second that the power-on time for a dSLR is “zero.” All electronic devices have a power-on delay. It’s apparently 0.3 s. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/44 "2016-08-03T03:21:44Z")
Missed the rest of the edit: It’s apparently 0.3 s, from the specs. I personally don’t notice any delay (quite literally zero), but I suspect that’s because the camera turns “on” before the switch is fully flipped to the on position. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/45 "2016-08-03T03:24:41Z")
ETA: ACtually, I’m wrong. It’s a 0.12s startup time. Sorry, at any rate, this is a pointless and pedantic side discussion. Back to the OP… ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/46 "2016-08-03T06:00:16Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Not mine but a friend’s, who is a pro photographer. > > During the London terrorist bombings back in 2005, she was near the site of one of the bombings. Police and ambulances were there and everyone was running in one direction away from the entrance to the tube station, including abandoning their cars on instruction from police. > > Apart from a traffic warden who was calmly ticketing one of the abandoned cars. > > She said it was one of the few times she didn’t have a camera on her. She couldn’t sold that picture time and time over. In a similar vein, I missed a shot (no damn camera) Background, over turned semi lying on its side on a sharp bend, Foreground a yellow warning sign with a picture of a semi in the middle of overturning on a sharp bend ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/47 "2016-08-03T09:33:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I love digital photography, not least because, heck, you just shoot everything, and keep the good results. Electrons are a lot cheaper than film! Of course the trick is to be the one guy who knows which [good result to keep](https://www.cah.utexas.edu/photojournalism/detail.php?nickname=halstead&picid=6). > [@](#): > > Halstead speculated that most other photographers had used digital cameras and erased any similar photos. ---
**Author:** ![efyou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4da419/32.png) [@efyou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/efyou)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/48 "2016-08-03T09:40:36Z")
When I was about 14 I went to Alcatraz on one of those tours of the prison. I was really excited about this and took all kinds of cool shots etc. I didn’t even have film in the camera, wtf? Never been back to Alcatraz. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/49 "2016-08-03T16:29:13Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Of course the trick is to be the one guy who knows which [good result to keep](https://www.cah.utexas.edu/photojournalism/detail.php?nickname=halstead&picid=6). Exactly why I never, ever erase any outtakes ever. (Okay, pictures of the floor when my camera is on my side and bumps up against my hip, I might delete those, but usually don’t bother.) You never know, and hard drive space is cheap. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/50 "2016-08-03T21:19:53Z")
**Critical1** and **efyou** : those are the stories I opened this thread for! OUCH! Just like fishermen talking about “the one that got away,” this is what has surely happened to nearly everyone who’s ever messed with photography! Robert Heinlein said, “The bird is cruel.” So is the birdie! (re keeping everything, no way. I’d end up filling all my file-systems with less-good duplicates. If I see something nifty, I’ll take a blort-load of shots of it, hoping to bracket a good pic. All the runners-up get tossed. Why keep a bunch of lesser results? But, yes, I do see the value of keeping good pics even of lesser compositions. A “throwaway” pic of a street sign might be interesting some day when the city tears up the street for a water line. You could have a “before and after” comparison.) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/51 "2016-08-03T22:46:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Halstead speculated that most other photographers had used digital cameras and erased any similar photos. I find that rather surprising. That picture was taken in 1996. There were certainly digital cameras used back then (via Kodak digital backs–the first dSLR didn’t show up until the Nikon D1 in 1999, I think), but they were not the norm. I was working for AFP in 1997 and 1998, and it was still 95% film. Digital backs would be used for a few shots to get something on the wire ASAP, but the bulk of the photos would be taken on film, processed, and scanned. I find it very hard to believe that “most” photographers were shooting that event digital. I rarely saw digital backs at the events I shot back then, either. Reuters, AP, the local press, etc., were using film. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891/52 "2016-08-03T22:56:27Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I find that rather surprising. That picture was taken in 1996. There were certainly digital cameras used back then (via Kodak digital backs–the first dSLR didn’t show up until the Nikon D1 in 1999, I think), but they were not the norm. I was working for AFP in 1997 and 1998, and it was still 95% film. Digital backs would be used for a few shots to get something on the wire ASAP, but the bulk of the photos would be taken on film, processed, and scanned. I find it very hard to believe that “most” photographers were shooting that event digital. I rarely saw digital backs at the events I shot back then, either. Reuters, AP, the local press, etc., were using film. Actually, I should correct this. There was the Kodak DCS series, which is what I would see at events. I thought those were technically digital backs (their design was piggy backed on existing Nikon models), but it looks like they’re dSLRs in their own right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/photographers-whats-the-best-picture-you-missed/760891.md?page=2)