Joerg, who has a digital camera, has some interesting thoughts on the shortcomings of digital photography...

Thoughts about digital photography

I have been thinking about digital photography for quite a while, and I simply can't help but feel that there are too many unresolved issues, which are brushed aside too lightly. I thought I'd write them down; and given that I started my weblog to keep an inventory of links with comments I thought I might as well write about it here. You probably don't want to continue reading this if digital photography is simply the greatest thing that ever happened to photography and people who see problems with it are just old-fashioned losers. There is no doubt that "digital is here to stay"; that's not even the point. So spare me emails that contains sentences like "just accept it" or "get over it" or whatever else you have in store when people aren't behaving as sheepish as you think they should. I have been working with what we like to call modern computer technologies (of which digital photography is a part) long enough to know that while general resistance is usually futile, some resistance will lead to meaningful improvements.

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Joerg also pointed to Bruce Barnbaum's rant...

Thoughts on Digital Photography

There has been a great deal written about digital photography over the past several years. It’s time to step back from all the hype for a more grounded assessment. Because this assessment comes from me, a photographer who has done no digital work, it may appear negatively biased. In my defense, I will note that I feel digital approaches are perfectly legitimate, I regularly invite and work with digital practitioners as co-instructors with me on my workshop program, and I have not hesitated to judge digital images as "best in show" when I have been invited to jury exhibits. So while I don’t do it myself, I’m not biased against it. There are two basic points I wish to emphasize in this article. The first is that traditional photography carries a host of powerful tools in its tool chest that are neither diminished nor superseded by the advent of digital. Second, there are problems with digital methods that are ignored or glossed over regularly, and these probems should be recognized and openly discussed along with digital’s many attributes.

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