I do tend to get at least 10 times as many crap photos with digital, blown high lights are a real bug bare for me. I tend to take more photos I know will just not work on the off chance that they will and then end up spending time on a computer trying to fix them.
Oh dear, poor Brad! It sounds as if you're lazy about putting the effort in at the exposure stage. Blown highlights are a common risk which can be mitigated, first by paying attention to exposure, and then occasionally by taking a second image with less exposure. Some people no doubt bracket freely and often? But I'm all for economy both of intent and of means.
Sometimes I blow highlights - I try not to, but I'm not perfect and the pace of life has to be taken into account.
You've noted that there's a problem though, and hinted at its character. So why don't you seem to be addressing it? Cameras have controls! (too many of them, these days, granted, but you don't have to use them all - just the ones that are useful to you).
Talking more generally, it seems that there's an aspect of amateur photography that often manifests, and I wonder if it's connected at root to photography being engaged with primarily as a mode of shopping (equating to fantasy fulfillment)? So you've bought the gear (because you've fantasised / agonised about it) - but then problems arise (more agonising). Did you buy the right one? Might another one be better? And - this can be the secret killer, the orca that hunts under the surface - what to do with it? So better use it. That was a component of the fantasy, after all, wasn't it - that you would? The raison d'être for the spend?
Then might come the often-heard cry, "I've lost my mojo", or "I haven't used my camera for 3 months, and feel that there's something wrong with me".
Why should such a thing matter?
For those of us who are wholly amateurs, shouldn't it be about having (albeit maybe serious) fun engaging with a mode of personal expression? Why stress about it? A psychologist (we won't mention psychiatrists at this point) could have a field day.
Phew!
And film? Digital? They have different, overlapping characters. Embrace what you find useful. Discard the rest. But pay the utmost attention to the results - which'll set up a feedback loop and inform what happens next.
) it doesn't matter how many portraits I shoot on digital, film just always seems to feel better to me - I re-shot most of my portfolio last year on film & it was the best thing I could have done.
