For over 3 years my film cameras have not joined me for a trip into the great outdoors. They have sat in the cabinet hopping for the attention they so rightly deserved. To its eternal dismay, my beloved EOS 3 has been replaced by a 1D mark II. Cellulose has been replaced by memory cards in my camera bag. Fortunately, my film cameras have moved into nice homes where they have become productive members of loving families.

Every digital photographer can provide a long list of reasons they switched to digital. I am no exception. As a wildlife photographer, there have been plusses and minuses to my digital conversion. On the plus side, I no longer have to carry 100+ rolls of film around with me and I have the opportunity to review my day's results each evening. As a minus, I miss looking at slides on the light table, I am much more dependant on electrical power, and I have the opportunity to review my day's results each evening (can't sleep...must edit...). As the years have passed, I have worked out most of the kinks and developed a workflow that fits my shooting style. Digital has become a familiar friend. So familiar, in fact, that it is easy to forget some of the amazing opportunities digital offer the photographer. During a recent shoot, all my attempts to explain my digital conversion came together in a vivid reminder of the real reason I switched from film to digital. No, this article is not meant to convert the traditional photographers out there. Film is a time tested medium that allows the photographer to record amazing images. It is, however, a reminder of the amazing opportunities that digital offers when it comes to saving a bad shot.

This past weekend, I made my first springtime trip to Bear River NWR in northern Utah. This location is a favorite bird photography haunt of mine and I find myself returning again and again to see what new photographic opportunities await me. Around 5:30 pm, I was sitting in the front seat of my car, waiting for a yellow-headed blackbird to peak out from behind a branch. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. Imagine my surprise when I came face to face with a long-tailed weasel hopping in the grass!

I have been fortunate enough to have seen weasels twice in the wild. The first time I was taking a walk with my three year old daughter when a weasel grabbed a fish out of the lake and run right past us! Of course, this amazing spectacle only happened because my camera was in the car. Now, I found myself with another weasel and my 500mm lens in my hand. This was a picture I did not plan to miss.

As I swung my lens around, the weasel watched my movements before ducked down into the long grass about 10 feet away. Scrambling, I grabbed my extension tubes and attached them for closer focusing. I then waited for the nervous little fellow to poke his head up. After almost ten minutes, he decided to check if everything was OK and stood up to look around. The click of my shutter startled him at first, but he quickly adapted to it. Over a 10 minute period, I caught four frames of my little friend before he decided that he had far better things to do then have his picture taken.

I admit, I would have been happier after I arrived home if I had shot film. With film, processing takes up to a week and I spend that time imagining my perfect shot. Digital removes this nice dream and replaces it with harsh reality. In all four images, the weasel was horribly underexposed. My excitement at photographing a weasel distracted me enough that I completely forgot to check my exposure reading. My previous subject, the yellow-headed blackbird, had been perched in direct sunlight. A 180 degree turn put the weasel in strong backlit conditions. My beautiful weasel shot contained limited detail and heavy contrast between the shaded foreground and the sunlit background.

If I had been shooting slide film, the solution would have been easy. File the image in the circular file (trash can) and hope that I get another opportunity to photograph a weasel in the future. With digital, however, things became more complicated. Deleting the file away was certainly an option, but perhaps I could save the image. Perhaps I could bring out enough detail to save the image.

Surprisingly, Photoshop cleaned up the image without difficulty. My experience has been that digital cameras are remarkably good at recording detail in the shadows. This image certainly confirmed that hypothesis to my satisfaction. Since the original capture was in Canon's RAW file format, I began the optimization process in Capture One by increasing the exposure compensation +1 stop. This lightened the image significantly and revealed detail in even the darkest shadows. From there I converted the image into a TIFF file and imported it into Photoshop. Using layers to preserve image quality, I created two adjustment layers: levels and hue/saturation.

In levels, I moved the black and white sliders toward the center until they each touched the outer edge of the histogram. This adjustment made the darkest parts of the image true black and the lightest parts pure white. I then moved the gamma slider (in the center), lightening the overall image until it looked good. Next, I increased the image saturation through the hue/saturation layer. Using the dialog box's individual color controls, I increased the relevant colors to +15, simulating the rich colors present in Velvia and 100VS. As a final step, I applied the shadow/highlight tool (Image → Adjustments → Shadow/highlight) to the image. Values were adjusted to bring out additional detail in the weasel and to tone down the bright background.

The choice to shoot film or digital is a personal decision. Ask any photographer why he uses a particular camera and he can go on for hours about the reasons his system is the best. I am no different, having a list of reasons as long as my arm about why I shoot digital. For me, however, it really comes down to one thing. Without digital, I would still be waiting for my weasel picture.

Chris Gamel has been an active wildlife photographer for the past 14 years. The combination of his biological research and photographic interests has taken him around the world. In 2001, Chris discovered the joys of digital photography and he hasn't looked back. Chris lives with his wife and daughter in Salt Lake City where he teaches courses at Weber State University and Salt Lake Community College. To see more of Chris's photography, visit his web site at www.Animal-Antics.net.

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