Digital cameras herald golden age of photography

I believe that the golden era of photography is now.

There are those who might pine for the halcyon days of film that produced legendary photographers such as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Alfred Stieglitz, but the digital age has truly brought photography to the masses.

Although digital cameras are still more expensive than equivalent film ones, the prices have come down enough so that most people can afford some sort of device, be it a DSLR or point-and-shoot or cell phone with a built-in camera. And they are easier to use than ever.

In the early days of automobiles, the driver had to know the rituals of starting the car and changing gears - even repairing the vehicle. Today, one can just hop in a car, turn the key and go.

In the very beginning of photography, the photographer had to be a technician as well as an artist. One had to have an intimate knowledge of f/stops and shutter speeds, how to develop film and make enlargements as well as other technical aspects of photography. From the old Brownie cameras in the early 1900s to the Instamatics of the 1960s to the disc cameras of the 1980s, with some successes and failures, camera companies have striven to make their products easier to use for the average person. Digital cameras have become the ultimate in ease of use.

With digital photography, most of the guesswork has been eliminated. Rather than wasting rolls of film to make sure you get the right picture, you can simply review the photo on the camera's monitor to see if it's one you want to keep or not. One can check if the picture is too dark or light, if it's blurry or not, or even if grandma has a telephone pole sticking out the top of her head. Even sending pictures has been simplified. A simple download to a computer and your family photo can be sent to relatives across the nation, even worldwide, via e-mail.

Storing your images is simpler, too. I have dozens of binders filled with old negatives and slides just gathering dust in a cabinet at home, and even more family pictures squirreled away in a cupboard. Today, one can keep pictures on a computer or external hard drive or on CDs/DVDs. If you need to take some with you, use a simple flash drive and you can carry hundreds of pictures in your pocket.

As pictures have gotten easier to take, the outlets for photography have grown as well. Family portraits, baby pictures and vacation photos are still, and always will be, what photography has been traditionally used for, but the advent of the Internet has created a host of new channels. There are Web sites and blogs for every interest and taste. Most use photos in one way or another. Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace allow users to easily share their thoughts and pictures with one another. And the recent phenomenon of the citizen photojournalists has allowed the world to see civil unrest in far-flung places such as Iran and Myanmar.

Perhaps the digital age won't see the likes of the legendary photographers of old, but photography is more widespread, more egalitarian and more relevant than ever.

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