Originally posted by Sidney Porter I think there are more good photographers today than in the day of film. Digital allows instant feedback of what works and what doesn't work.
I did not keep great records back in the film days so I could not always reference what worked and what didn't. There were a lot of rules that people would remember (ie sunny 16) this would get you in the ballpark. But with digital there can be a lot more experimenting. I would think that course spent a lot more time explaining exposure because the impact of messing it up was greater
I very much can attest to this based on personal experience. My first digital camera was a Kodak P&S, no RAW, only 3M pixel, awful jpg compression, but it did have manual aperture and shutter speed options, and most importantly it didn't cost money to take photos beyond the initial purchase price.
Up until that time, I'd used a Pentax SLR, and to be honest, not many of the photos I took were good. With the digital P&S I started taking a lot more photos and started learning from them. Because of the P&S limitations, I still used the SLR, but I found I started taking better photos.
I can remember even my Pentax film SLR had scene modes (just two, action and landscape), so cameras obscuring what's really going on with exposure has been there since long before digital. I understand now that 'action' means high shutter speed, and 'landscape' typically means depth of field, so I'm likely to pick Tv or Av respectively, so that I can control the parameters that matter to me and let the camera set the others.
Of course I have the luxury of multiple metering modes, and instant ISO change that I didn't have with film, so I can theoretically go and shoot a studio portrait and a sports action image within minutes of each other without having to mess around changing film.
When I look at someone else's image, I neither know nor care what technical knowledge they have about photography. What I care about is what impact does the image have on me. If it leaves no positive impression, then I don't care if it was captured with a Hasselblad by someone who recites the exposure triangle in their sleep or an iPhone by someone who thinks shutters are things you put over your windows; it's still a poor image as far as I'm concerned. The inverse is also true.