Digital Photography is free

I think we all still think of digital photography as being free.  The fact that we no longer have to pay for film, processing and printing every 36 frames makes us think that there is no cost to clicking away with our digital camera, phone or iPod.

But photography is certainly more expensive in the digital era.

Today I finally bit the bullet and ordered a new second hard drive for my main workstation.  The time taken to shuffle working files around to create space for new work was just getting too much.  Granted I took the old one from my old laptop so I can’t really complain

Now this drive is just for the ‘active’ images – those jobs where I’m still expecting print or album orders – the archive is separate (and I’m slowly filling that up too).

I remember doing a broad check on the cost of the pro-level Nikon SLRs back from the F4 days to current D3 generation.  I didn’t do a full NPV calculation but the cost of those bodies hasn’t changed an awful lot – of course you get a lot more technology for your money.

But now you need to add a whole lot of extra stuff to the cost of your pictures: computing power, storage, backup.

And in the end you’ll still have to print your best images if you really want to enjoy them at their best.

Digital Photography has changed the way we take pictures for ever.  Many of those changes are positive (and there are a few more subtle negative ones).  But you get nothing for nothing.