A digital decision

Like most people, I don't embrace change readily. That's why I've been reluctant to make the leap from my trusty old film camera to digital technology.

I've used digital cameras for shooting newspaper photos, and have to admit it's quicker, easier and the end result is probably as good. But how do you pack away a 25-year-old camera that's almost become an extra appendage through the years?

My Canon AE-1 was the first thing I ever bought on credit. Fresh out of college, I got a Sears charge card in 1979 and bought the camera for my first reporter job back in Minnesota. It's followed me everywhere since then.

The memories of where my camera and I have been are as clear and rich in detail as the subjects I've photographed.

I remember waiting in a field near Waubun, Minn. on a crisp February morning until the sun got just right to back-light a tattered snow fence. That picture won an award.

I remember shooting pictures of an 80-year-old woman named Millie at a nursing home, using available sunlight to create a pensive mood. She called me and said she hated the picture, said she should have been smiling.

My AE-1 followed me to the Williston Basin in North Dakota, where I was a reporter for an oilfield publication. When my zealous editor told me to go get photographs of a huge oilwell fire near Watford City — "and don't come back without pictures" — I strapped on my camera and hiked across a couple of miles of badlands after I found out they had closed the only road into the well location. At one point, I and my AE-1 tumbled down a cactus-infested slope on that quest for exclusive photos. My camera bounced off a rock, but held sound, and we got the first pictures…we got the scoop.

A few years later, my trusty camera was there to take the first photos of our newborn daughter. It tracked her life until our second daughter was born two years later. Then hundreds of rolls of film would mark every significant event in their lives and ours.

While it's been there for new life, it's also been there for death, when duty has called to the scene of a fatal accident.

My AE-1 has been to Europe and South America. It's been to the Caribbean islands and through much of the U.S. It's broken a couple of times along the way, but never anything too drastic. It's solid as a rock.

But more and more, the weary Canon languishes in my camera bag, as I reach for a digital equivalent to shoot the photos needed for my newspaper stories. Now I've gone so far as to write down the make and model number of a digital camera I'd like to replace the AE-1. It's a snappy little number, lightweight and compact, about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

It feels like blatant betrayal, especially since my old film camera still takes perfectly good photographs. For work, it's cumbersome, though, because the negatives require extra labor. With a digital, the tiny card is simply slipped into the computer, and presto — instant pictures.

Even though I'm about to enter the digital age, I'll keep my AE-1 around as long as it's still able to do the job. We've been through a lot together. It will remain my camera of choice for those snapshots, those special moments yet to come in my life.

Lynnette Hintze is the editor of the Whitefish Pilot.