Will fast lenses go the way of Kodachrome?

It seems that with each passing year, the need for one to know how to photograph becomes less and less. It is natural progression I suppose. The requirement for having someone be able to paint a lifelike portrait of another person has never recovered from that damn Daguerreotype. But personally I feel we are getting close to the breaking point. Minor edits I accept and welcome with open arms. Contrast adjustments, vignetting, cropping etc. These are all things that have been a part of photography practically since its inception. We have just seen a shift from the darkroom to the desktop. But pushing it one step further and going from the camera to the desktop... that may just be too much.

Nikon has recently announced their latest cameras. The D4 and D800. Which are $6000 workhorses. But this speaks more to the technology trickling down. Canons $3500 5D MKiii has an expandable ISO into the 100,000s, as does Fujis $1700 X-Pro 1. These are usable ISO numbers higher than we have ever seen before. Turning the darkest of scenes into a bright sunny day at the beach. You can now use that f/4 lens at acceptable shutter speeds, get rid of that flash you've been lugging around everywhere. Who needs it right? Just crank the ISO!

Well there is still one thing that fast lenses were exceptionally good at. Creating a shallow depth of field, isolating your subject from the background and directing the eye right at it. But with Photoshops latest version (CS6) they have introduced new features that allow an accurate reproduction of out of focus highlights. Better known as bokeh. One of the biggest complaints I hear about lenses in reviews today is their bokeh quality. 5 bladed apertures are deemed as being unsatisfactory and generate a harsh, ugly bokeh. None of that will matter now though if it is all done in post production.

From Gizmodo.com:

"Properly faking a shallow depth of field usually involves creating and strategically masking multiple layers with various levels of blur on each of them. But in Photoshop CS6 you just specify what in your image you want kept in focus, and adjust the shape and size of the area around it that's not blurred. That's it. Just a few clicks takes you from an amateur photog to a fake Ansel Adams."

Ok, lets ignore the fact that Ansel Adams wasn't exactly the biggest advocator of a shallow depth of field and focus more on the fact that, fast lenses. Like most other things in photography are being phased out. What are the two things that fast lenses do really well?

1 - allow you to shoot at reasonable shutter speeds in low light
2 - provide pleasing out of focus highlights.

Photography is quickly evolving into desktography or as Dan calls it "Bullshit". Everything is done on the computer now. Capturing the image as it is supposed to be captured the first time is a thing of the past. I was on a photoshoot the other week, I mentioned something after looking at the Polaroid I took to test light that I wasn't overly excited about how the light was treating us that day. The model quickly replied with:

"Well you can just photoshop it"

Sure I could, but why would I want to? I shoot film because it means less time I have to spend working in front of a monitor, and please, keep the jokes about time wasted on the internet to yourself. So if the needs of having a fast lens are being abandoned, I fear that soon many other staples of photography will go the way of Kodachrome as well. I just hope that Kodak doesn't discontinue their other E-6 films anytime soon... oh wait.