My foray into digital photography began in 2011 when my wife gave me my first DSLR, a Canon Digital Rebel XSi. While I greatly appreciated the gift, I had some serious reservations about the quality of digital images and was not about to be pulled into the modern era without a fight. Although I was aware of this new digital format, all my photography up to this point had been film-based, and I absolutely knew there was no way a digital sensor could ever be as good as piece of film when it came to capturing an image. As I experimented and became more familiar with my new camera, I began to see the benefits and possibilities of the new digital age, but I remained very hesitant to fully embrace the technology.
The image above was one of the first pictures I took with my new digital camera, and it was the photograph that finally proved to me that a picture captured by a digital sensor could be just as sharp and just as colorful as anything that film could produce. I first noticed this scene one afternoon walking along the Cedar Falls Trail at Petit Jean State Park. What caught my eye was the contrast between the light colored rocks and the darker reflections of the trees in the creek. However, I hadn’t brought my camera with me. I made a mental note of where the area was, went back the next afternoon, this time with my camera, and got the shot that finally convinced me of the legitimacy of digital photography.
Settings: Canon Digital Rebel XSi, 100mm, 1.3 sec, f/8