Talk:Analog photography

Necessary?
Is this article really neccessary? We could just redirect to photography. -- Gphoto talk 01:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Not in the previous form Alf photoman 18:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

CCDs are digital?
Isn't photography with CCD-based cameras by definition digital photography? I am removing all references to CCDs from the article.--Srleffler 07:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

No, CCD's create analog signals which are converted to digital by a/d converters —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.164.151.10 (talk) 17:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes the output of CCD's is analog. In analog video cameras and camcorders the analog signal is use as the output or recorded on tape. They are, however, the primary sensor for digital photography. Gah4 (talk) 00:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Chemical is analog?
How is a camera using a chemical film analogue? Should we not call it a chemical camera? Foreeye (talk) 15:30, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Hate to say it, but technically, any current type of sensory device is analogue. In a digital apparatus, the signal that the sensor receives is converted by a DAC. If I take a photograph with a 135 film camera, develop the film, then scan it to a computer. How is that different from a CCD/CMOS sensor, that creates an electrical charge from collected photons, then that signal is passed trough a micro chip that creates a bit string based on the amount of charge? In reality, a CCD/CMOS sensor is nothing more than a reusable piece of photographic film. Nebrot (talk) 11:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Stop reverting this
My edits are according to Wikipedia policies. Often this means removal of content, especially self-promoting material. If you disagree, that's what this talk page is for. Please stop reverting this without a good reason, thank you. 77.49.102.16 (talk) 23:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Your edits are not in keeping with Wikipedia policies. You have removed valid content from this article, including the entire references and external links sections,  and replaced it with your personal opinion.  You have done this three times  in less than 3 hours.  As I said in my last edit comment, why don't you just add what you what to say to the article instead of deleting the perfectly valid content that is already there? --Soiregistered (talk) 00:52, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Pardon me, but it is you who keeps undoing my new version of the article, without any reasons or suggestions i might add. Maybe you should re-read Wikipedia policies then, and this article to see if the content is valid or not. What i have removed is redundant content which is used to support an erroneous use of the term 'analog photography'. It is not my peronal opinion, it is a technological and scientific fact: "digital photogrpahy" refers to the image processing and phototographic workflow and the equipment used for this, not in the recording medium itself - which as even your version of the article points out, is analog.


 * There is already an extensive article on Wikipedia about film vs digital photography. It is not 'analog vs digital' because of course the term is erroneous; Digital photography still uses analog capture. As i said (and you deleted instead of reading), the term 'analog photography' is a catachresis, because CCD and CMOS sensors are analog devices. That's why every single digital camera has to use an analog to digital converter. Using the term analog to describe a chemical process makes no sense.


 * My version of the article sticks to the term itself and the technical facts, without any attempt to produce evidence to support a particular use. The reason i deleted the references is because they are no longer relevant after the redundant content is removed, and they were not cited in the text in the first place. There is nothing else that is not covered in the main photography articles, and frankly this should be just a footnote in the main Photography page. Can you justify why this deserves its own article, and if so, why should it contain the information i deleted? 77.49.102.16 (talk) 02:38, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * If you had even provided a single reference to support your view, I would at least see you as trying to be constructive, but you haven't. An internet search on "analog photography" and "film" occurring together yields 270,000 hits. That's a lot of people to think are wrong about something without the benefit of your presenting even one cited source.
 * What reference do you want me to provide, a dictionary? You misunderstand me; i am not saying that the term 'analog photography' is not used, i am saying that it is erroneous. I you don't know what analog means, please look it up. I don't know what reference i could possibly provide. The google results only show that the term is in use, nothing more.
 * I believe that the standard is that the term is being wide used for a given concept, not whether the term itself is correctly formed.


 * The fact that digital cameras have a sensor which is analog is irrelevant; 'analog' is being used here just like it is used in 'analog audio recording', i.e., in the sense of the process being 'all analog'. And using the term 'analog' to describe a chemical process (film) also makes perfectly good sense; the word analog doesn't come originally from electronics and mechanical and chemical analogs are just as valid as electronic ones.
 * The problem is that all photography is analog. The use of the word analog, as used in the article, does come from electronics and is not suitable to describe a chemical process. Unless you are a kid, you know that the term came into use only after digital photography was well established. I wish i had a source to support that - i don't, but you know as well as i do that it is a fact.
 * You seem to know what an analog is. So analog, as it used in the article, means exactly what it means when it is used in the sense of mechanical or chemical analogs. Look up 'land line' in the OED and then tell me it means 'not a cell phone' (even though the term has existed since 1865).


 * Your goal seems to be to have this article deleted. If that is the case, you should go about that according to normal procedures (you can't use WP:prod any more, I guess, but there are other procedures) rather than by undermining the content of the article as you are doing. You have already violated the three-revert rule here by reverting me 4 times   in less than 6 hours, so if you want to continue with that, you might want to first consider self-reverting your last undo. --Soiregistered (talk) 06:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * First things first: you undid three times. I reverted your reverts, not any kind of contribution. If that is your MO then i might as well copy-paste a previous version instead of clicking undo. However, i don't think such conduct it constructive.


 * Yes, i stand by my original proposal for deletion, as i don't think this is article material. Inclusion of the term in the Photography article should be enough. You haven't demonstrated why this is material for a separate article.
 * I'm not here to argue about deletion of the article. Feel free to pursue that if you like.  This was about non-constructive edits.


 * Do you have some special information that suggests that this article is "self-promoting material"? Soiregistered (talk) 01:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Not the article as such, the way in which it is presented and the link at the end. The information in the article that you keep adding is such as to support their technically incorrect use of the term. Otherwise, it normally refers to film (photochemical as opposed to photoelectric capture photography if you want to be pedantic) - as does the APUG website in their own words. Of course, the fact that you keep adding it back is a little suspicious in itself. My personal opinion is that indeed the whole article was created for that purpose alone, but it can be salvaged, more appropriately as a wikitionary term. 77.49.102.16 (talk) 02:38, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think you can substantiate any of those opinions. According to the edit logs, the external link in the article was added (a year and a half after the article was started) by someone who has been a Wikipedian since 2005 and who has made over 500 constructive edits to other articles.  Everything else in the present article was added by others.
 * That information is irrelevant, it does not confirm or deny anything, apart from the long-standing bias against unregistered contributors, but i can live with that. Most of my contributions are appreciated. And yes, it is an opinion because there is no evidence for it other than common sense. If i had something to back it up, it would be fact, not opinion.
 * Again, the standard is not what you or I think, it is what is used in "out there". Although I don't know anything about APUG, that seems like a not entirely disreputable source (given that the APUG Wikipedia article has existed since 2006).  And there's those other 300K online hits for the term.


 * And to anyone else reviewing this matter, note that in the logs for this article there is a previous attempt 9 months ago, from a different IP, at arguing as 77.49.102.16 is. That edit was reverted as 'bordering on vandalism'. --Soiregistered (talk) 06:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it wasn't me on my 9 month long crusade to delete this article, thank you detective. It is called a dynamic IP, for all we know it could have been you, me, or indeed Barack Obama himself. There are already more people using the same arguement, look above, or take five minutes to ask in any photography forum. 77.49.83.41 (talk) 12:10, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, the terms does seem to be controversial. If there is controversy, my view would be that the article should contain information about the controversy, not that the article should be deleted. --Soiregistered (talk) 17:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm having a look at this reversion - I think the term deserves an article as much as Digital photography, and it's been around a while, so I oppose deletion. Bear with me... Baffle gab1978 (talk) 08:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Being in use for a while does not validate a term's encyclopedic value, this is irrelevant. As i said above, the term only came in use after the term digital photogrpahy was established, used catachrestically and retroactively in juxtaposition. Likewise, the term digital photography was established to differentiate from film photography; its use is declining somewhat, because the average of young people are becoming less familiar with film photography. Check this out: http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22analog+photography%22%2C+%22digital+photography%22


 * I have added back text and references from a previous version with a little tidying and added appropriate tags. There is no need to add POV text; the term is as valid as Digital photography and wasn't created by APUG. I don't think this should replicate information available elsewhere, but should concentrate of the types and processes of analogue photography; it could become a 'hub' for the subject. Just my opinion, that's all. Baffle gab1978 (talk) 10:16, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Not created, appropriated. Everyone else refers to it as film photography. The article itself is a brief description of film photography, with a passing reference to digital. Why shouldn't this page redirect to a section in the Photography entry? What can this expand into, other than an article pointing to digital and film photography? 77.49.83.41 (talk) 12:10, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * There was a brief description of analog forms of video like VHS, until you changed it. I would revert that, but there's no point unless you stop changing it back. --Soiregistered (talk) 17:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * There is more to analogue photography than just film - for example, Daguerreotypes, plates, pinhole, photograms, alternative / archaic printmaking techniques (salt printing, calotypes, cyanotypes etc etc...). This could summarise and link to each subject's main article as required, just as the digital article does. Baffle gab1978 (talk) 01:50, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The 'analog' in analog photography
I'm putting this up to prompt, perhaps, more meaningful discussion here and to organize and clarify what I see as a problem with the article in its present form (as well as with many of the comments here on the article's talk page); there is first some discussion of the meanings that 'analog' and 'digital' have and then there is a chart summarizing the 'analog' aspects of (some aspects of) photography; this is all given here as 'original research' so I am putting it here rather than in the main article:

The word 'analog' comes from a root meaning 'proportional', but 'an analog' is (in English, at least) something having some physical similarity to something else. 'Analog' as an adjective can mean either 'analog-like' or 'proportional'---the latter has the additional connotation 'continuous-valued'. (The connection of 'proportional' to continuous-valued is not entirely obvious but presumably there is some sort of implication that 'proportional' means 'in any proportion' and not just 'in integer proportion').

Digital things, in the sense that they are digit-like (i.e., like fingers), are discrete-valued (countable) things. Thus, 'digital' is an antonym to analog in its 'in any proportion' sense. Digits are numbers, which are abstract things and not analogies (in that word's 'physical similarity' sense). Thus, 'digital' (in the sense of number-like) is also an antonym to analog in its 'physical similarity' sense.

analog : digital :: continuous : discrete

analog : digital :: real : abstract

Under the (obsolete) regime of continuous-variable physics, digital things and physical things didn't really overlap in either sense. Thus, there is a flavor to digital which implies 'abstract and number-like' while there is a flavor to analog which implies 'real and physical'. Digital electronics and now ubiquitous analog/digital conversion together have blurred the usefulness of the original distinctions. Digital things are now real enough and as proportional-seeming as anything else. Digital things use digital technology and so it has become easier to define 'analog' as 'doesn't use any digital technology'; this distinction is useful in that it precludes things from being 'restored' to analog form after they have been digitized.

analog : digital :: no digital : some digital

So, whereof 'analog photography'? It's a concept that appears to have some established usage. Apparently, however, nobody knows exactly what it means or where the lines of inclusion/exclusion are drawn. Some seem to argue that 'all photography is analog' based either on a claim that all sensors are analog (which is not true; many electronic image sensors are effectively 'digital' since they count photons) or perhaps on the argument that an image is, by definition, an analog. Some say that analog photography is 'synonymous with film photography' (which is also not true; that ignores analog video photography, which even existed for a short time in a 'still' format, as well as some other non-film technologies). Although I disagreed with it's relevance initially (giving instead more weight to other the definitions of 'analog'), I think the 'doesn't use digital technology in the signal path' distinction is useful, even if it does not capture the historicity of the 'analog' concept which is a significant factor in the way the phrase gets used.

--Soiregistered (talk) 05:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

This is some great original research, but as you know there is no place for that in Wikipedia. The problem is that there was no such term as 'analog photography' until some time after digital photography became popular. Your chart is a nice try to intimidate the layman editors, but 'analog' is not a technical term like you are trying to present it, and has never been used in that sense until this article. So you get such nonsense as "digital photography is analog". Yes, technically it is, but by this point we have well and truly lost the original meaning of the terms, not to mention missed the point of an encyclopedic article. In the same sense, some analog clocks and watches are digital. This is playing with semantics and technicalities. There is no such thing as 'analog photography' in the real world. Even the APUG explain, plainly and clearly, that 'analog' is just a word they use to mean 'traditional' and generally 'not digital'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.49.223.121 (talk) 07:56, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Mhmm Fahim Of Wiki (talk) 16:53, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Flickr Analog
Flickr (and a lot of other sites) seem to define it as film only. http://www.flickr.com/analog phocks (talk) 03:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Why we say "analog" and "digital."
"Analog" and "digital" entered our vocabulary through the world of electronics. They are two different modes of signal processing. People started talking about "digital photography" when they started using cameras that employed digital signal processing techniques to capture, enhance, and store the image. (It's analogous to how they talk about "digital audio," "digital TV," etc.) Nobody ever used to talk about "analog photography," or "analog audio," or "analog" anything, but I'm not surprised. "Analog" has been slowly losing its original meaning ever since the world went digital. As far as most people know, it's sole meaning now is just, "not digital."

If wikipedia needs an entry for "Analog Photography" then it really only needs to be one sentence long: It need only say that analog photography is any form of photography that does not employ digital means to capture, process, store, or reproduce images. 71.199.121.113 (talk) 15:49, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


 * This page should be deleted and replaced with a forward to photographic film. Duckwalk71 (talk) 19:48, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Film is not the only medium for non-digital photography. Wet and dry plates are also used. — HTGS (talk) 23:03, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, "analog" could be used only in the context of electronics, and together with "digital" it makes sense only in connection with computers. Once upon a time there have been Analog Computers and Digital Computers and their names reflected the relationship of their signals to their natural counterparts. Analog ones were, well electrical signals "analog to" the corresponding physical or mathematical value because they changed proportionally to those inside a system that simulated them. The term propagated to general electronic signal processing, e.g. audio technology, because it used essentially the same principles. However, I don't know of any "photographic analog computers" or "photochemical signal processors" or anything else that would connect the photographical process to the term "analog". Like someone said, "analog" has become a colloquialism for "not digital", but I thought Wikipedia is a place where people can get some knowledge, not the "anti-knowledge" ignorant people accumulate. I don't really care if a term gets 50 million hits in Google, it is still incorrect (or stupid), and articles describing those should be limited to something like "a common misconception about...". Otherwise, perhaps we could take all the commonly misspelled words and make a separate article for each of those? Regards, Arny (talk) 22:14, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Editorial wars on Wikipedia are common when "LaNgUaGe EvOlVeS" people arrive and apply this mantra to every aspect of semiotics. In their opinion, we should change everything depending on how popular it is. They adore degradation of vocabulary.
 * You are correct, it was never "analog photography" and it never will be. Lajoswinkler (talk) 14:52, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Now I get it! 😀 Fahim Of Wiki (talk) 16:54, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

List of film types listed
There is a lot of film types currently manufactured that seem to miss on this rather sad (but essential) list. If someone more expert than me on Wikipedia could add all the Lomographic films currently (as of 2014) made (including the lobster, the turquoise, the purple), the Revolog films, the Washi film (manufactured by lomig perrotin), the black and white infrared Orwo manufactured by Filmotec, Rollei Nightbird, Color Implosion, Cine Still 800, etc 109.25.106.37 (talk) 00:53, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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How to quote the same reference multiple times
Hi,

I have expanded this article a little by quoting the reference from Lomography.com. (I have added the definition where the reference is linked and the sub-head Growing reasons for popularity .) For both the edits, its the same source. How can I quote the same reference multiple times. Please help. I want to expand this artcile according to wiki policies. If these edits are acceptable, I will continue to work on it.

Best regards - Veera.sj (talk) 10:54, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

"Analog photography" is a post hoc, ergo propter hoc neologism made by people who never used film
The name is "film photography" or even better, more neutral and commonly used, "classical photography".

Calling it "analog" is idiotic. It's a neologism that emerged fairly recently, when a critical mass of people formed who either lost their touch with film or never used film. "It's not digital, so it must be analog because everything is either digital or analog". Well tough luck, it doesn't work that way. Lajoswinkler (talk) 14:47, 4 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Not all non-digital modes of photography use film. Both Film photography and Analog photography are therefore a little bit inaccurate, but at least analog isn’t misleading, because it is a commonly used term, even if strictly inaccurate.
 * I think the best way forward would be a sincere review of the literature to see what the most common term is for what I usually call “chemical photography” with my students. — HTGS (talk) 21:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That's why I said "classical photography" is the best term. It has a long established usage and it covers film, plates, everything where photosensitive material is chemically transformed by photons.
 * Looking at what the most common term is will not help. What is most common does not equate what is most correct, it hardly ever is because average person is lazy. We should not pander to the ignorant and the companies selling film that are riding the recent small wave of film ressurection and trying to attract (mostly) young hipsters through social media that rewards popularity through their algorithms. This is an online encyclopedia and we're following definitions, not a linguistic observation and reporting on what terminology is used and how prevalent something is. Lajoswinkler (talk) 21:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Most precise would be "Chemical photography" which would seem odd to insiders and outsiders alike. "Classical" is necessarily vague; one possible way to define it would be "Pre-film". So, precision is not what we will get. What we can pick is a vague term that insiders can like, such as "Classical" or else one that outsiders can recognize, such as "Film" or "Analog". Seems to me, jargon is only recognized by insiders. Since we are not writing for our fellow insiders, we should only use jargon where it is precise, which "Classical" in this context is not. This leaves us with "Analog photography" unless someone can suggest yet another. Jim.henderson (talk) 21:31, 9 February 2024 (UTC)