When I was young and took my first driving lesson, the instructor explained to me what was happening with the gearbox and engine when I changed gear, and how what I did controlled the vehicle’s speed. I learned in a manual (stick shift) car. We all did back then in the UK.
I learned things like the importance of changing to a lower gear when going down a hill, to avoid using brakes. This gave me more control of the vehicle and therefore was safer too. Years later, automatic gearboxes became more popular and took away some of the effort required to drive. Jump forward to the present—cars are so full of technology they can drive themselves, and you don’t have to do much. We’ve got to the point where people have no idea what the car is actually doing and don’t know how to control it when they run into a problem. Photography went the same way.
Recently I acquired a collection of cameras and lenses, all from around 2012. A guy had collected them, became ill, and sadly died. His daughter sold them to me. I put them on Facebook Marketplace individually to sell and had hundreds of inquiries. I sold camera and kit lens combos for Canon, Sony, etc., for a very reasonable price. They were bought by people on a budget looking to get into photography.
The huge realization—from talking to so many people—was no one knew anything about photography, and they didn’t want to know. They just wanted to press the shutter and get a photo. I was asked by numerous people if I would teach them. Not teach them photography—just how to use the camera to get a result.
With modern cameras, you don’t need to understand the principles of photography. And this, I believe, is a huge problem for beginners. A camera with AI scene detection, smart exposure algorithms, subject tracking, and autofocus modes does the shooting for you.
Modern cameras are too complicated. I don’t use 90% of the technology in my cameras or even understand how it works. Do you? But I understand photography. I know what different shutter speeds and apertures can do for me. I know where to focus and how to focus for different situations. I’m in complete control, using my camera in manual mode, often with manual focus too. Everything I do with my camera is centered around my creativity. What if a beginner wants to intentionally shoot something in silhouette or use a motion blur technique? A beginner has no knowledge in order to be in control, so can’t improve his or her photography through creative experimentation, which is a huge disability.
The Solution
It’s pretty simple. Get an old film camera and learn how to use it.
If you want to become a pilot, you learn in a simple Cessna 172 Skyhawk, not a technologically laden Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.
I learned photography on a Nikon EL2, which was made in the late 1970s, and I bought it secondhand. I put the film in and set the ISO. From there, I turned a dial to change the shutter speed and turned the aperture ring to change my depth of field. It was manual focus, so I turned the focus ring to get focus. Easy to grasp. Manually setting those three things became second nature in no time, so from there I didn’t need to think about the camera. I just concentrated on looking for interesting things to photograph and looking for great light. I was in control, and everything was about how to communicate an idea, share a story, and/or create beautiful art.
'The dark side is not stronger; it is quicker, easier, more seductive.'
Wise words from Master Yoda there, and he’s spot-on, because with digital photography today, there are too many quick hacks and easy ways to do things. We’ve become lazy.
Can’t focus properly and your photo is a little soft? Don’t worry about practicing focusing to improve—buy an app to fix it instead!
Photography should be hard. It should require effort to develop skills and years of practice and experimentation, from lighting setups to image editing. If we don’t need to learn anything or develop skills and let technology do it for us, what’s the point?
Also, the technology in all modern cameras does the same thing and gives everyone the same results. That’s why so many photos we see all look the same. We’re just sheep when we let technology do the work for us, stand at the same popular locations that everyone else does, and then apply the same trending color presets too.
For client work, having technology to help me improve my workflow can have its uses. But from a personal perspective, as someone who loves the craft of photography and enjoys the process of being in complete control of my creative vision and the process, I’m at the stage where I’ve dusted off my old film camera and loaded up some HP5+ like the good old days. The fun factor is huge.
There is an impressively large resurgence for an analog experience, and old film cameras that couldn’t be given away a few years ago are in high demand. Despite this, you can still find a perfectly good film camera and lens for less than $100—a great starting point to learn photography.
I encourage anyone new to photography to learn the craft, not the hacks.
You must commit to learn. “Do or do not, there is no try.”
You must believe in your intentions to create. You must have faith in your creative vision and expression. If not, “That is why you fail.”
We will all screw up often, but don’t fear it. “The greatest teacher, failure is.”
I bet you didn’t know Yoda was a photographer.
“Pass on what you have learned.” This is why I write these opinion pieces. Thanks for reading.
Great article ! Many thanks for sharing your thoughts and expertise. Best regards from Italy
👍 Wise words ...
As Voltaire once said: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This is one of those rare articles where I find myself in strong disagreement — almost across the board.
Here’s why I see things differently:
- In my view, it’s not ignorance — it’s transformation. Many people today may not know how a shutter works, but they engage with something else: attention, perception, rhythm. Photography, in my opinion, has shifted from technical craft to a way of thinking. That’s not a loss — it’s a change in direction.
- The core of photography, as I see it, isn’t manual control. Knowing how to set aperture or shutter speed doesn’t automatically create meaningful images. And using auto mode doesn’t mean lack of intention. What matters is not how you got the shot, but what it does to the viewer.
- A camera, in my opinion, shouldn’t be a test of technical knowledge. Yes, technology has made things easier. But maybe that allows photographers to focus more on meaning, composition, presence. Expression doesn’t require friction — it requires clarity.
- I’d argue that photography today doesn’t require less effort — just different effort. In a world oversaturated with images, it takes a different kind of skill to create something that feels intentional, that resonates, that stays. Not technical mastery, but perceptual precision.
So even though I fundamentally disagree with the article, I still found it extremely useful. It helped me clarify and articulate my own thoughts more clearly. And for that, I’m genuinely grateful.
And yes, I’m focusing and shooting mostly manually too.
Thanks for sharing your opinion, its always good to get a different perspective.
I find a simple camera if far from a test of technical knowledge, its something you can learn to master easily, and then move on to picture-taking with much thought about the camera. A modern digital camera is laden with so much technology I know many people find them overwhelming.
Whatever we chose to use as a tool, you are correct, the emphasis should always be on the meaning, composition, and our expression.
Sure, a photographer can learn some aspects of creative photography without mastering the technology.
The loss of knowledge of how photography works among most people taking photos means that they lack the knowledge to unlock a whole range of creative options. Sure, the AI can stack a bunch of photos and take a shot in low light, but it can't understand the creative play of shadow and light, and in fact, it won't even capture that. It aims to make everything clinical.
The fact that most folks today outsource the finishing of the image to an AI. Call it editing or printmaking or whatever, but that's often half of the creative process.
With all these things, enabling novices to get acceptable technical results knowing basically nothing about photography has also eliminated those natural paths to knowledge one used to discover in the effort to get a better result.
A quick example: we often distrust AI in photography, yet we readily praise articles written with its help. Perhaps writers who are intolerant of AI in their own field would happily enjoy AI-generated images.
But I fully agree that without theory, one cannot truly unlock their potential. Yet this is not so much about using the camera as it is about understanding light and shadow, as you rightly pointed out. And for that, it’s worth starting with Caravaggio — and only then moving on to exposure.
More of this please.
Regardless of whether or not I or anyone else agrees with a point of view, it can be interesting and useful to explore how someone else approaches photography.
Two thumbs up, would read again.
Thank you 🙏🏼
This article has one of the highest engagements I’ve seen on Fstoppers in forever.
Engaging (if somewhat controversial) opinion piece > another article about a freebie doodad.
People yearn to read and talk (and argue) about photography. I look forward to more articles from you like this.
Thank you, appreciate you saying this. I am passionate about photography and love chatting about it. It's the reason I joined Fstoppers, to share ideas and opinions.
I'm happy if others don't agree with what I'm saying, or the opinions I have. So long as they can have an intelligent and reasonable discussion, and not be rude. 🙂
More freebiie doodads coming up soon though, so cover your eyes when they appear. 🫣
I completely disagree. The best way to master something isn't to set aside the modern tool that has a fast feedback loop and rewards experimentation, replacing it with something that has a painfully slow feedback loop and punishes experimentation, because every click of the shutter costs money.
If film speaks to you, by all means dive right into it. I have no issue with those who love film. But continuing to push this false narrative that film makes people better photographers, it just sets people up for failure before they even launch.
You are 100% accurate when you quote Yoda saying that the best teacher is failure. Digital technology lets you fail rapidly and repeatedly so that you can learn more quickly.
People don't learn on Cessnas because it makes them a better pilot, they learn on Cessnas because a Cessna is worth a couple hundred grand while an F-35 is worth $80 million. Its just not accessible to learn on the latest tech in that space.
The best tool to train with is the one you actually will use. Modern tech eliminates technical limitations which is great because it means you are free to focus more on creative vision, composition, and storytelling which is what drives great photography, regardless of medium. If one photographer is sitting there for days waiting for his film to be developed or for his rolls of film to be shipped, while the other is out shooting every day with a digital camera, who will progress faster? Who is more likely to take a risk in the name of experimentation? Who is able to try something, look at the result, learn, and try something else in a more rapid cycle?
Back in the film days, almost all photographers were pretty terrible. Photographers were NOT better in the era of film. Like, yes, there were some superstars, just like today, but the vast majority of dudes who owned film cameras would take cheap-looking, low-quality snapshots for their entire career as a photographer. The same is true of today. Not because those people are "bad", but more because those people never invest in trying to improve. Its not the medium. Its the mentality.
I genuinely believe, in spite of the "rose-tinted" glasses belief that certain old film shooters are the undisputed gods of photography, that if you look at things more objectively, the best photographers who have ever lived are at the top of the industry today. They are competing against many more people and are creating work of breathtaking quality. Many of whom have never shot a single roll of film in their entire life.
Agreed.
n/a
I appreciate your input, thank you. I'm not suggesting film photography is better than digital, i'm suggesting using an old film camera is the easiest way to understand the basic principles of photography, without all the mostly unnecessary distractions that modern digital cameras have.
I do agree digital cameras allow us to experiment and shoot more with no cost.
"Back in the film days, almost all photographers were pretty terrible." The same is true today with digital cameras. Maybe more so, because we're led to believe a newer camera with more features, or a sharper lens will help us. We're told the technology makes great photos.
Another factor I'm seeing today is a tendency for younger people to want to run before they can walk.
What is a great photo? How would you explain that to a beginner? How would a beginner describe a great photo? I'm guessing the two perspectives might be different.
I would imagine a beginner would start by saying that a great subject would make a great picture. I recently joined a social media site called Nextdoor, thinking that it might broaden my public exposure for print sales. It didn't take long to realize that the number of hearts or likes or whatever the positive response to a post, is directly related to the subject. In other words, a cute animal or a super saturated sunrise/sunset would easily capture a hundred likes.... even if it was the absolute worst composition or technically flawed image you ever saw. Anything else might as well be invisible.
So to the point that I make in a following comment, learning photography is dependent upon learning to see a photograph, even if we disagree on what is visually appealing. Either way, the choice of camera makes no difference. The "solution" is not found in a film camera, nor is it found in a digital camera. We elevate our photography by studying the work of those photographers whom we admire. We ask "How did they do that?" We seek out critiques from those who we respect. We learn how to create depth from a two-dimensional surface. We learn how secondary elements either complement or distract from the main subject. For someone solely focused on pushing buttons, the choice of one type camera over another will never make a difference. The easiest and most effective way to learn and understand the basic principles of photography is to ignore the camera for a moment and sit in a classroom, or read a few good books on the subject. And that may be a problem for those people too impatient (run before you can walk as you put it), but there are no shortcuts in photography.
"Another factor I'm seeing today is a tendency for younger people to want to run before they can walk."
True. Also there are endless comments online from people obsessed with gear and always wanting what they don't have, always eager for the next camera model. Plenty of these people also act like they need and deserve professional level features which makes you wonder if they really do or it's just they've managed to convince themselves they are that good enough and couldn't possibly work with lesser features. I still use an A7 III and even saying 'still' feels bizarre considering how lots of people now consider it an old camera not able to compete with the latest cameras. That just makes me wonder what people are using their camera's for that absolutely needs the most bleeding edge technology. Always worth bearing in mind there are paid professionals in certain fields still using DSLR's.
I wholeheartedly agree with all you say. Just because we have advanced technology does not mean that we are forced to rely on it. A beginner can have a camera with all of the latest features and still learn the basics. The latest tech does not keep someone from learning the basics unless they allow it to keep them from learning. The fault lies not with the complex, capable cameras, but rather with the decisions and mindsets of the people using them.
I agree with this, but from what I can see—and those I speak with—most people do rely on the technology. Because it's easier. Everyone is looking for shortcuts. Patience is a thing of the past, for the younger generation in particular. The fault lies with the camera companies who are constantly telling us—with the help of influencers—that buying the latest camera with upgraded tech will help us. And we believe it.
Camera companies have always sold the idea that newer technology is better. It's obvious why.
True, although in the 70s and 80s—even 90s—technology wasn't improving nearly as fast as it is today. And people learning photography didn't have influencers constantly pushing the next great thing that you simply must have.
Seems like there are two facts of life that have always existed, and always will. Businesses are in business to make money. And people want more conveniences.
Since the discussion has evolved several times into parallel industries... one of the most significant I can think of is the prepackaged frozen dinner and microwave oven. I'm sure the cooking purists decried the lost art of cooking after a whole generation of moms went back to work and needed to get dinner on the table quick. And it's true, the art of cooking for the most part, like photography, has lost much of its genuine character... but the reality of an impatient and fast paced hectic life demands these sort of innovations.
And you can't blame businesses for catering to that mindset. I haven't moved off of Photoshop CS5, but that hasn't stopped Adobe from convincing the majority of users that they need a constant flow of upgrades to remain relevant. I agree with you that the structure of learning is changing dramatically as technology advances at such a rapid pace. Schools have major questions over how AI integrates into the system. Major upheaval to say the least. The question is... What skills do we want and need to learn, as all of this technology keeps moving forward?
Well, that and there's only one seat in an F-35.
I agree with you. I see where narrative like this comes from, but I also can't stand the fact that many authors and/or photographers seem to look down on digital and AI seeing it as "less than". Surely, it's not the same and it doesn't require the same amount of effort that film does, but it doesn't have to. Photography is available to more people now and imo it's a good thing. You don't need to learn the basics of the basics that you aren't even going to use anyway, starting with modern technologies and understanding them is just as important. I may not know a thing about developing film, but I know my way around Photoworks and it's AI-driven tools, and I'm more or less happy with what I get as a result. Isn't it the purpose, after all? To love what you're doing?
Anyway, the article is still brilliant and raises important questions. Good job, Simon!
100% - loving photography is the most important thing. 🙂
I agree and I've run into this thinking consistently for the last 20 years. There is a prevailing thought among certain people that digital is somehow cheating and inferior. That film is the only true photography, and those who do not learn on film can never be a good photographer. Photographers who are great who worked with film are the greatest who ever lived and no one today can even come close to matching their immortal greatness.
I run into it often, and you are absolutely right that it shows up a lot with authors or from other positions of authority. I have particularly observed it among faculty in photography education, particularly at universities.
Its such a toxic line of thinking. I would never tell someone film is bad or shouldn't be used but I do 100% believe that film does NOT make anyone a better photographer. All it does is make learning harder and slower.
In an earlier career as an exhibiting ceramicist for close on 30 years I also taught Ceramics at Uni & TAFE (technical college) The two were very different - Uni focusing much more on the conceptual aspects and TAFE on the learning of skills and technology...both systems had pluses and minuses - Uni students often had no idea why their works failed or how to go about realising their concepts because they had very little technical knowledge. TAFE students often produced technically sound pieces but with little conceptual strength.
I see parallels with what you are talking about in this article...when someone has a good understanding of technical skills associated with any form of expression they are not as limited in the scope of what they can achieve...they can work quickly without having to stop and research the technical knowledge they need to realise their ideas.
Having said that I think that emerging photographers today can still learn those skills in the digital sphere just as well as on film...and without the cost and delay. They would also be learning the ancillary knowledge of how a digital sensor captures images and on equipment that they will most likely be using.
Great comment, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Edward Weston (1886-1958) taught photography to one of his many romantic relationships, a 29 year-old woman by the name of Sonya Noskowiak. She was initially tasked with spotting negatives, i.e., touching up flaws in negatives. He then gave her a camera and they'd go shoot pictures together, although it was several months before he gave her the film to go with it. Without film, all she could do was practice seeing a photograph.
Learning photography is frustrating enough, without the additional burden of the cost of film and processing. If I were asked to teach someone photography, I'd reflect on the wisdom of Edward Weston, and much of the education would occur before we even touched a camera. Similar to your airplane analogy, you don't get into either one of those planes and touch the controls before serious ground school work. I would teach photography the same way.
As far as your personal interest in film goes, by all means follow wherever your heart leads. I fully appreciate the nostalgia of analog, especially at a time when the planet seems to be spinning faster than we can keep up with. I'd suggest sharing your particular interests with like-minded photographers, or share your experience through your Fstoppers articles (I always enjoying reading other photographer's stories), but I'd never suggest to a novice photographer that they try to learn and improve photography with a film camera... especially if they were the self-taught, or do-it-yourself type. It can take years and thousands of exposures to get beyond the level of snapshots. Film would merely delay the results and cost a fortune.
Great comment, thanks for your input Ed.
I think manual focusing is much easier than working out the complex AI-assisted focusing modes on a modern camera.
In my opinion, there are a lot of people that understand photography, they can be put into different categories...most common...Gear freaks...they can easily explain the clockwork of cameras and photography yet are fairly bad at producing good pictorial results...then there are the very quiet introverted fanatics...for them cameras and photography are just a tool to produce what they perceive the world to be and often the results are excellent, by that I mean no gimmicks in photography, just straight foreward and telling a story...and last but not least are the new modern wanna be artistic photographers who are loathing in AI all over the internet...these modern AI warriors have contributed to photography being a dime a dozen and turning photography into a cheap product...there are many photography websites that I followed and even registered with, and one thing I make essential is that all the photos that I upload contain my EXIF data and where the photograph was taken...on many photography websites I have seen photographic uploads that the communities praise as being pure art and fantastic pictures, so I have asked the " Photographers " many times to please add the EXIF information and when and where this photograph was taken ???...many times to no avail, except angry and even violent responses such as " this is none of your business " or are you implying that my photograph is not real ???...to me, those that refuse this EXIF information are guilty of fraud and deserve to be called out for what they are..." Cheaters "...may I recomment that all of these AI freaks resort back to common sense and read Fstoppers once in a while to regain some basic photography knowledge...
Greetings and may the light be with you
Matthias
A fabulous contribution Matthias, thank you! You touched on some great points, including a favourite of mine: gear freaks. There are many out there who enjoy the technology more than the picture-taking and creating. Their knowledge is impressive but their creative ability is zero. A topic for another article perhaps?
I'm uncomfortable with the word cheaters because in 1993, those of us who were early adopters of Photoshop were called the same thing. Anything mildly exaggerated from the viewers expectations of reality was called fake. I, too, found myself getting sucked into arguments with people over the appropriate level of photo editing, all with people who wanted no more than an academic argument. The people who condemned Photoshop (generally photographers) were never ever gonna be the ones who would buy one of my photographs.
To this day, over 30 years later, nobody who has ever bought my photography has asked anything about my equipment. They never ask what kind of camera I use, or how much editing was performed. And the most annoying of all, no buyer has ever asked if the scene really looked in real life like it did in the picture. Quite simply, they like the picture and want to buy it, or they don't.
So perhaps instead of labeling someone a cheater, maybe a more descriptive title of their work would be better. Computer generated graphics has been legitimately used in the movie industry for decades. Computer imaging has a better ring to it, after all, it's not a crime to use a different tool for the creative process. And ultimately, a picture is just a picture.
Well-written and spot ON! Thanks for this.
I come down on Simon’s side here. I learn a lot of what little I know about photography from using an SRT 101 for several decades. For many of the reasons Simon notes the experience was foundational. I learned to see what I wanted to capture, how the various technical aspects of the craft fit together, and impact each had on the image.
Later in my life I taught introductory statistics to university students. We talked about measures of central tendency, measures of dispersion, and measures of correlation. In each section I forced them to learn to calculate each measure by hand. They hated it. “But SPSS will do it so much more efficiently than I can.”
My response, “that is true. SPSS, SAS, or even excell will give you a number. Say, a standard deviation of .67? What does that mean? Of course it smaller than .88, but so what?”
When you use the formula for these things you see the inner workings of the machine. The result isn’t the product of some hidden deus ex machina but a specific result of the interaction of numbers. It’s not magic.
The same logic applies to photography. Sure, I can set my Z6 up, hand it to my next door neighbor and she can make a perfectly serviceable image. But suppose she wants a blurred background, or to freeze the wings of a hummingbird? She’ll need to know what’s going on under the hood. That’s what differentiates beginning photographers from picture takers.
Nobody is arguing that improving photography skills should always be easy or without basic understanding of camera functions. We're arguing about the best tool for the job.
For your example of blurring the background, would someone totally new to the idea learn more effectively by taking a picture on film (maybe a series of three at different apertures) and waiting days or weeks to see the results... or take as many pictures as necessary and see the results immediately on the back of her digital camera? The idea that film cameras are a better learning tool because they force you to slow down and become more deliberate in your approach seems totally counter productive.
I want a learning strategy that moves the process along quickly. After I've found the right aperture to blur the background, I might want to underexpose slightly, and then change my point of focus to place it on a different part of the subject. Digital technology has the capacity to compress all of those learning points. I suspect working with a macro lens and extremely shallow depth of field would be a nightmare with a film camera. I might get a serviceable picture, but with so many variables, I'm glad to have the freedom with digital to waste as many exposures as I need to get one that I really like. For those people who can previsualize and execute a close-up photo of a flower on one or two pieces of film, I'd tip my hat to them. But it's incredibly difficult to accomplish even with digital. I can spend an hour and make 20 or 30 exposures before getting what I really want... sometimes it never happens. And it's not because I'm ignorant of basic camera functions. It's because it can be difficult seeing the best picture until you can choose from a variety of options. Comparing results is a major part of the educational process, and there's no more efficient way to do that than with digital.
I totally agree with you wanting a process in which learning is accelerated, and that the digital medium is far more conducive to rapid growth and learning that analog is.
I used film cameras from 1982 to 2005, and learned almost nothing at all. I was pretty much the same photographer at age 37 that I had been when I started at age 14. I was terrible at everything, and am not afraid to admit it.
Then when I got my first digital camera in 2006, I started to learn rapidly. By 2009 I got my first magazine cover photo. By 2013 my photos had appeared on over 100 magazine covers. I learned rapidly about light, composition, depth of field, backgrounds, foregrounds, subject posing, detail resolution and rendering, etc.
I honestly think that if digital had not come along, I would still be pretty much the same photographer that I was at age 14 when I first started. Thank God that a medium came along that suits me and the way I use things and the way I see things and the way I learn things.
My path was similar to yours except that I totally gave up trying to excel at photography in the 1990s after a year or so of dreaming that I could be a great photographer. I may have continued to shoot family pictures, but it never in a million years would have evolved into a professional capacity. I absolutely needed that instantaneous digital feedback in order to make any progress at all.
LMAO film camera is not the way for beginners to learn photography
unable to see exposure, no histogram, much to expensive film with far too expensive processing, the beginner back mostly bad photos and exposures for a huge cost
digital provides the instant feedback to actually improve. just take camera off auto mode and learn
You have a point re: digital vs film, but 100% manual is still the way to learn and then use the various auto modes as shortcut/timesavers to use when you understand what they're doing.
Thanks for sharing your opinion.
Unable to see the exposure, and no histogram? How old are you?
HARD DISAGREE.
When the camera can do basic shit like focusing automatically, the user only needs to think about composition and lighting. It lets them experiment more and be creative.
You don't need to know how bayer interpolation works to make good photographs. In fact, I'd argue the opposite. The less technical knoledge, the better, becasue more of your energy is spent on the art, not the technical.
On film, you're blowing $18/roll, spending another $30 processing and scanning it, waiting 2 weeks to get it back, you've forgotten what you did and will be standing there wondering why your exposures look so bad, meanwhile going bankrupt.
BOOMER TAKE.
LOL
Learning how stuff actually works is a "boomer take."
You can't actually practice "the art" if you don't know anything about how it works. You can take pretty pictures with your phone.
Shock spoiler incoming:
Taking pretty pictures isn't "practicing the art."
Kids, eh! 🙄
Bothering to learn some skills, you'll find you "can do basic shit like focusing", without the help of autofocus and lots of computer-aided tech!
Actually, focusing isn't always basic. Do you understand hyper-focal distance and zone focusing? And can your camera do that for you? More importantly, are you happy not understanding what it's doing, and why, while it's creating your "art"?
I'm not saying you can't learn photography on a digital camera, but with a simple film camera, you only need to set your aperture and shutter speed, and focus. This allows you to concentrate on looking for great compositions, without the camera getting in the way to slow you down.
Yes, you can set a digital camera to manual, but all those buttons and dials, and menu options, confuse people. I've seen this first-hand dozens of times, hence my thoughts about staring with absolute basics and film camera.
"The less technical knowledge the better". Interesting concept.
I would argue understanding how different shutter speeds create different results in terms of sharpness and motion, and how different apertures can completely change the photo through depth of field, IS something you should bother to learn, as it will allow YOU to be in control of your art, and not a computer chip.
As for a boomer take. 1 - No need to try and be rude. 2 - I'm not a boomer. 👍
Off-subject here, but, I am a Boomer and I'm glad we had something which defined a generation, and had such a huge impact on the world. Think about all the societal changes that took place then... sex, drugs and rock and roll, for starters. If none of that was your idea of something good, appreciate that single women could not get a credit card of their own until the 1970s. We couldn't even wear blue jeans to school until I was a sophomore in highschool. And how many worldwide conflicts do we get involved with nowadays without comparing it to the potential quagmire of Vietnam. Boomers fought the war, and fought against the war and rigid establishment at home. Government transparency took on a new dimension in the 1960s and 70s because of Boomer's fierce determination for the right to know the truth. The nation took a collective gasp when we found out politicians were liars.
Sorry to disappoint Jon and others who feel like the title Boomer is an insult. I just smile when it happens, embrace it, knowing that every generation since the begining of time has thought their elders were idiots. I'm just now realizing that my parents were much wiser than I ever imagined. I only wish I had taken advantage of it while they were alive and shut up long enough to ask for their opinions.