Back in the day, the 4x5 (medium format film) experience requirement would have filtered out a lot of candidates. It was arty, weird and required expensive gear (Hasselblad or equivalent) and even more expensive film (around $1/exposure).

These days everybody can shoot unlimited high-res imagery for free with the phone in their pocket.

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asdff 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Your phone in your pocket is not sniffing medium format film resolution. It also lacks the latitude of really any negative film stock. Color wise slide film is still supreme to this day.

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decimalenough an hour ago | parent [-]

The realistic digital equivalent resolution of 4x5 film is around 40-50 megapixels, which iPhones have supported out of the box for a couple of years now.

Of course there's a lot more to taking good pictures than the raw sensor, but what I'm saying is that the barrier to entry is way lower than it was in the article's day.

	▲	asdff an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I'm sorry but 48mp on a sensor the size of the end of a pencil is just not the same as even full frame, let alone 4x5.