It was in Playboy (May 1983)

https://petapixel.com/2022/07/30/ansel-adamss-interview-with...

“There’s no end in sight. Electronic photography will soon be superior to anything we have now. The first advance will be the exploration of existing negatives. I believe the electronic process will enhance them. I could get superior prints from my negatives using electronics.

“Then the time will come when you will be able to make the entire photograph electronically. With the extremely high resolution and enormous control you can get from electronics, the results will be fantastic. I wish I were young again!”

"I wish I were young again!"

Ah, the oft-repeated refrain of those who never stop learning.

I have only read The Negative, but from it I get the impression that Ansel Adams is really good at boiling things down to fundamentals and understanding the key concepts involved in things (much like I gather Elon Musk can be, I suppose). I'm not surprised he was able to grasp the benefits of digital photography also.

Electronic imaging in terms of television has been around since the 1940s or 50s. We all watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. It was a pretty safe bet that resolution would get better until it exceeded film.

If only Kodak had you around at the time!

Kodak had more patents in digital imaging than any other company. Why they failed is partly because they underestimated how much the overall photography market would decline and what needed to be done to be successful in the 10% that was left.

The winners were electronics companies (notably Sony and Panasonic). The losers were the photographic companies who were really chemical companies. Fujifilm was one of the few that survived because they went into (amongst other things) cosmetics and coating films for LCD screens, both of which leveraged expertise they already.

In early 2000 a lot of photographers were saying that digital photography is not "real", it doesn't have a "soul", it should not be allowed in photo contests and it's just worthless in general.

To be fair, early-2000s digital cameras were ... not great. 4 megapixels if you're lucky (not that megapixels are the only thing that matters, but they do matter, up to at least 20 megapixels).

Hence my surprise that Ansel anticipated it with open arms 40 years ago.

Artists had been saying that photographs had no soul for almost 100 years.

“Nothing changes. Corruption, immorality, chaos.”