What I hate about digital photography ... oh, for the days of film.

First of all, I have to tell you, that I was dragged into digital photography kicking and screaming. But the truth was, film was getting harder and harder to find, and I had more than one store clerk tell me that it was "obsolete."

So, in October 2006, just before a four day excursion to the great Smoky Mountains National Park, I purchased a Nikon D80 camera body as a secondary camera to my trusty 8088 film camera.

I was not surprised that my twenty year old lenses fit the camera body. After all, Nikon's bayonet mount has been a standard for years, and so the glass snapped right into place!

What did surprise me was the fact that the auto-focus and auto-exposure worked perfectly! The modern digital body was fully compatible with my 1985 era lens and that was awesome.

The fist sign of trouble occurred when I put in a 2 GB memory card. The counter indicated 500 photos were available at full resolution. 500 photos? Wow, with film, I would shoot 6-8 thirty-six exposure transparency rolls on a good trip. If I came back with 250 photos the trip was a success.

But as I began using the digital, a thought occurred to me:

"There is no penalty for taking a bad shot!"

With film, every time you opened the shutter, you spent money. Every shot was properly set up, properly composed, and hopefully, properly lit. If the image in the viewfinder didn't look interesting, you didn't waste the money to pull the trigger.

The digital camera however, does not penalize you for a bad shot. As a matter of fact, you can indiscriminately shoot away, and if you don't like the results, you can simply delete the image. No harm, no foul.

The upshot of all of this is: There are plenty of poor quality photos everywhere. The art of the shot has eroded to a simple game of chance. As a matter of fact, after much research and experimentation, I have come up with a corollary:

"The digital camera has transformed photography from an art to a lottery."

The prevailing school of thought is that if you take enough images, one of them has to be good. And that is essentially true, it's no longer a skill, it's a numbers game.

For an old picture-taker, that's quite an adjustment. But I will keep taking shots when I get the chance.

After all, if I take enough shots, one of them is bound to be good!

Note: Film photographs were used to illustrate this post!

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