When I come upon old pictures of historic moments, like Buzz Aldrin’s space selfie, they look so clear and high quality. But I can’t say the same about things I come across from like the late 90s and 2000s.
Honestly, that selfie, if I hadn’t known from the caption/history, I would have assumed it was more recent or from a movie lol.
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Firstly whenever you see historic moments they know it is a historic moment long before they take the shot. Buzz Aldrin was not sent to the Moon with a $10 camera that had been abused for years. NASA knew this was a very historic moment and therefore went to the best of the best camera manufacturers, the Swedish Hasselblad, and asked them to make a custom version of their best camera. That selfie alone cost more then a family home just in camera equipment. And even the historic moments that were not so well planned ahead of time there were usually some news photographer who could show up on short notice with professional gear and set everything up right with the correct lighting and framing for the shot. Some of these moments have even gotten historic because of the photos, without a good photo it is less likely for a moment to become historic.
However in the 90s we got cheap consumer cameras that everyone could use. Small compact cameras that you could carry around in your pocket and just point and shoot. They had horrible lenses, the automatic settings were never quite right, the film was cheap and nobody knew how to frame or light a proper photo. There were still professionals out there with the right gear and training but you got a lot of mediocre to bad photos as the price of photos dropped. However a lot of events which would not have been captured on film normally have become immortal due to these cheap cameras.
The quality of consumer cameras did improve over time, with the exception of the digital camera transition which had much worse image quality but greater convenience. But it is not until now that regular consumer cameras that you wear around in your pocket takes images that can compare to what a professional photographer with all the gear could take back in the 60s.
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