I’ve seen a lot being made out of the fact that President Obama’s new official photo (you know, the one that will be on the wall of every government office and embassy around the world), was shot with a digital camera. This is the first official presidential photo shot with a digital camera, not film. 

     I’m not really all that surprised. The last official presidential photo would have been taken some time in early 2001. At that time, there were NO high quality digital cameras available commercially. Canon, for example, had only recently debuted the D30, a 3 megapixel DSLR. Very few photographers had them, and it would be considered completely inadequate by today’s standards. A vast majority of professional photographers were still shooting film, and in fact would have considered the D30 inadequate for any professional use.

     Fast forward 8 years. There are now dozens of high quality digital cameras available that could do a perfectly adequate job for a portrait. Most digital point & shoot cameras even have enough resolution for the job. Most professional commercial photographers are now shooting mostly digital. I would have been surprised if this new photo had been shot on film. The particular camera used by the official portrait photographer, Pete Souza, is a Canon 5D mk II, which is arguably capable of higher quality photos than could be done with a medium format film camera. 

     The choice to go digital for the official presidential photo isn’t so much an anomaly as a sign of the times. The simple fact is that 8 years ago almost all portrait photography was still shot on film, and today a vast majority of portrait photography is now digital.

     By the way, I am not overly fond of the official photo. It is a pretty bland portrait, which I suppose is par for the course for an official government photo. I’ve seen many other photos of him that show a lot more personality. Also, he is over 6′1″ tall, and the perspective makes him look short.