Thoughts about image quality

I was looking through some old Nikon D70 photos for some good examples of digital noise. I found lots! I also found that many photos I remember as good are pretty blurry - not very sharp at all. Actually they are pretty terrible truth be told.

I was telling Christina on the phone about my blurry, crap photos and she was saying she finds the same thing. We were reminiscing about cameras like the D1X and the D70 that we thought were so great when we first got them. Even comparing the first digital cameras we had to the Nikon F5. It seems like every generation of camera seemed like a great improvement at the time but in hindsight the images from the D1X other obsolete bodies look terrible now.

We've gotten so picky about image quality. Having been early adopters of cameras like the D2X and Mark III that had focusing problems has made us focusing freaks who overanalyze the files looking for signs of camera malfuntions. Its absurd really because even those crappy old D70 files (at least the good ones) print up very nicely.

So, does that mean our image libraries become sort of obsolete as technology marches on? In one wya, yes. But I have many old pictures of dogs that have gone to heaven and kids that have grown up that I wouldn't trade for the most technically perfect 21 megapixel image in the world. All of which reminds me of one of the most real values of a photograph which are the memories it captures and preserves.