Comment Re:...the best photographers were older people... (Score 3, Interesting) 97
All that experience can be accumulated hundreds of times faster in digital where you can see immediate results. Tomorrow's experts will be more expert than yesterday's experts, just as the 20th century saw huge leaps in athletic performance such as running and swimming races, weight lifting records, etc. There are also thousands of artists today that equal the top handful of masters of old times, it simply isn't acknowledge because it is subjective, and appreciation is inherently relative, in the same way people love 60's sports cars even though they are actually slow and poor-handling.
Actually, there's something to be said about the "old way". Where it took days from when you took your photo to when you got it back.
It meant you had to work at your shot - you had to compose it perfectly, get the exposure right and all the other stuff. Then click the frame.
If you were good, you didn't take extra shots "just in case". You knew that after waiting the few days for the photo to come back, it'll be good.
Today's digital camera? Just click away mindlessly until it comes out right. Trial and error. Just snap snap snap. You know the drill - after that trip you come back with 10,000 snaps, and then filter out through the whole lot to find the few that are keepers. Because the rest would be garbage.
Which approach is better? Hard to tell. Though truth be told, equipment actually doesn't matter. National Geographic photographers have intentionally gone on trips equipped with nothing more than an iPhone and still take stunning photos using nothing more than the default camera app.