Digital Photography in Roman Churches:
Advantages, Disadvantages
Advantages
Now that digital cameras are capable of two megapixels and more,
with lightweight hard-disk storage to match, the generation and
storage of quantities of high-quality images on site is possible.
Being digital from the start means cleanliness, repeatability and
visibility, good light-gathering, efficient built-in flash,
negligible cost, weight and bulk, and flexibility and quietness:
- Cleanliness: photographs away from base are at the mercy
of film processing outfits some of whom (judging by the
horrors visible when examined under a lens) develop in
vegetable soup, sump oil, or straciatella, hence the frequent
wisps of dirt which are impossible to eradicate. Digital
photography is clean: if the lens is impeccable, then so will
be the image;
- Repeatability and visibility: modern digital cameras allow
the examination of a video output from the digital image on a
screen on the back of the camera; the C-2000-zoom, in addition,
allows a zoom-in to examine details. If unsharp, the image is
deleted and re-taken;
- Good light-gathering: the camera seems to see more than
the human eye in the viewfinder or on the video screen, thanks
to the light-gathering power of the CCDs (ditto with digital
video camera, which can operate and "see" in very low light levels);
Many churches are very dark indeed, and sometimes aiming the
camera in the general direction of which is required (because
so little can be seen through the viewfinders optical or
digital) produces an acceptable image. Again, given that modern
cameras offer a range of ASA ratings (the C-2000-zoom gives
100, 200 and 400 ASA, with aperture or shutter priority, or
automatic), you can work more efficiently with a digital camera
than with a manual one. I don't know the calculations, but would
guess that similar results to using a digital camera at 400ASA
could be obtained only by pushing negative film to 1600ASA.
- Efficient flash: It is usually good advice to avoid using flash
except when absolutely necessary, because it makes objects "glare",
and tends to flatten sculpture. In the gloom of many Roman churches,
however, the choice is often between flash and no picture at all;
- Negligible cost, weight, bulk: once the camera and flash cards
have been purchased, and assuming the batteries can be kept charged,
photographic failures can be scrubbed and a new start made.
Conceivably, with fewer moving parts, the wear and tear on a
digital camera is probably less than that on a manual camera.
For example: on a recent research trip to Europe, I made over
7000 digital exposures. Leaving aside the photographing of
chapel and museum labels at a lower resolution (helpfully
adjacent to the images they describe), this is the equivalent
of some 200 35mm 36-exposure films - and much easier and lighter
to carry home on a 2.5-inch 5oz PCMCIA hard disk than as
process film stock.
- Flexibility and quietness: the ability to use two different
resolutions (video, and 2.1mp - and a third I can't afford to
bother with) means that skeleton-cataloguing can be included
with the images themselves without wasting disk-space. The
shutter is totally silent. Compare a Nikon or other SLR, which
goes off like a busy day in 1793 in the Place de la Concorde,
and is liable to get you thrown out of some churches.
Disadvantages:
- Lenses:
- Assuming the resolution(s) available are now satisfactory for
web work (although not of course up to the notional 12+
megapixels that Pan-F can provide), then the Achilles' Heel
of digital cameras is the lack of a good range of add-on
lenses.
- Photography in a tight space, or for stichable panoramas, requires
at least a 28mm lens and preferably a 20mm or a 20mm-35mm zoom.
And reaching for the details in a church vault could do with the
zoomability of - say - the 10x optical zoom on the Sony
DSR-PD1P digital camera, which reaches the equivalent of a
300mm lens on a 35mm camera.
- Add-on lenses for digital cameras are indeed available, but in
a far narrower range than for manual cameras (unless one
buys the Nikon E2, or its Canon equivalent, which are
professional digital bodies, and priced accordingly). No doubt
this situation will change rapidly as the digital camera
replaces the manual camera. The only camera I've come across
for which (January 2000) a fisheye lens is available is the
Sony Cybershot, made by a thirdparty firm).
- Gradation:
- The CCD cannot give as subtle and gradual a range of tones
as can be registered on negative or transparency film. As far as I
am aware (not very far, perhaps), this is a characteristic of CCD
technologty, and it is difficult to see how even clever electronics
could bypass it. This is something to watch for when generating digital panoramas
either outside or in a church or other building, where strong
sunlight will play havoc with the results. A digital camera
is as it were Manichaean in its rendering: strong sunlight will
be brighter than bright, and the shadows much darker than they
appear to the human eye.
- Thus although gently distributed sunlight is indeed a nice
atmosphere to photograph, for panoramas and church
photography a bright but cloudy day gives much better,
because much more even, illumination - and hence saturated
colours;.
Mea Maxima Culpa
You will notice that many of the images that form this project
are far from perfect. A proper photograph campaign requires
much time for planning; diplomacy contacting monks, nuns,
priests, custodi; perspective shift lenses and stepladders;
a battery of lighting sources; and an army of helpers to
clear the 150 stacking chairs from in front of the monument;
to clear away the noticeboards, pews, exhibitions of modern
religious art; or to lift up the confessional in order to
photograph the tomb slab it half-hides. None of this have I
had the resources to do, taking all the photographs myself,
attending many masses (in some churches the only time the lighting over the
High Altar is turned on) and trying to return at different times of
day to assess different lighting conditions.
Hence many of the works of art shown in the images in
this collection are partial,
hidden by aforesaid stacking chairs or confessionals
Another problem surrounds the photographing of
marble, a material prized for its luminosity and, frequently, for
its polish. Beautiful in even sunlight, marble cannot be photographed
digitally when half-sunlit,
half in shade, for the reasons given above. Again, on most types of
marble, the flash reflects back to the camera - hence my
tendency to photograph marble slightly off-centre in order
to avoid such throwback. The alternative in a gloomy setting -
namely an even illumination carefully set up with arc lights - was
not available to me;