Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => But is it Art? => Topic started by: LightCapture on May 27, 2009, 02:26:55 pm
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It's been over a year since my last post: "I Saw the Light... Finally," (here) (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=23009) and the interesting thing I've discovered is that if one simply pays attention, one will continue to "see the light." So what have I learned since then? That it's worse than I first thought: the whole digital craze's fixation with equipment is creating a generation of photographers who can't see.
For what it's worth, I agree with most everything I said in my post a year ago, and particularly--if you care to read the thread--with the few comments I made in response to some of the responses. But things have changed. And let me be clear: contrary to how it may have appeared in my previous post, I had actually used a few different digital SLR's by then, but when I had my little epiphany, I parted company with them. But then, through nothing other than sheer curiosity in the face of temptation, I purchased another SLR--two others, in fact--and began life once again in the instant-gratification world of digital photography. But--and here's the reason for this new post--after my second foray into digital SLR'dom, I realized that something wasn't right. What was it? Was I becoming intimidated with film because I couldn't see the finished product and was forced to take chances? Was I becoming obsessed with how many pixels I had at my disposal? Was I losing precious hours at my computer adjusting white balance and a million other things when I could be with my family? Was I relying too much on "P"? Was I, in short, becoming a worse photographer because the equipment was dumbing the whole process down?
Allow me to explain. (And just so we're clear, I'm talking about fully manual street/travel/candid photography here, not professional action sports photography, studio work, etc.) With film, I was forced to pay really close attention to the image at the moment I was making the shot, and I had to rely on what I'd learned previously about the properties of light passing through glass, the idiosyncracies of a particular lens, the characteristics of a certain type of film, etc. In other words, I was forced to do some guesswork, take some chances, follow some hunches--in short, pay attention. And then, even in the darkroom later, short of completely turning the image inside out and the darkroom upside down, the most I could do is dress the image up in new clothes--that is, if I wanted to. 99% of the time, I didn't. I wanted to know what I'd captured at the "decisive moment." After all, it was that moment, and no other, that I was interested in recording, and I didn't see any point in capturing a moment in time if I was simply going to doll it up as something entirely different later. I wasn't interested in changing history... I wanted to record it. Yes, of course, I wanted to record it from a certain angle using certain equipment, but the art of photography had always been such that, after seeing the shot and framing it, you generally had only three parameters left to work with: the film you chose (I usually used chrome or b&w), the lens you used (I was usually with a Zeiss or Pentax), and the combination of shutter speed and aperture you'd fixed (the camera itself, actually, which wasn't much more than a glorified light trapping device, was always a secondary consideration... and remember, I acknowledge that action photography and studio work is a slightly different beast where the camera one uses can make a significant difference).
Then along came digital. Now, instead of thinking about the image and all the other attendant considerations, I was:
a. letting the camera think for me ("P" mode)
b. doing a little thinking myself but still letting the camera do a lot of thinking for me ("A" or "S" modes)
c. think completely for myself ("M" mode) but still have at my disposal all the post-processing marvels that I could now apply PRE-processing; and I could take a thousand shots of the same image given enough time and battery power and then just make little tweaks here and there until I created the "perfect" image.
And instead of having the power to simply dress the image up in new clothes (burn, dodge, extend/decrease processing time, etc.) in a darkroom later--assuming I wasn't shooting chrome, I now had a plastic surgeon's scalpel in my hand (aka Adobe Photoshop, et al.) and I no longer had to rely too much on the original image itself. In other words, no more having to mess with technique that had been acquired through years of guesswork and trial and error: now I had instant fixes to virtually any problem and could tweak away to my heart's content.
But notice that I said "virtually" any problem. There was one problem that digital could never fix (and herein lies the rub): the ability to see the image in the first place, which is what separates photographers from gearheads, or if you prefer, developing artists from casual snapshooters. But not only could digital not improve one's ability to see--after all, neither could film--but it actually had a deleterious effect on the process. I was starting to fixate on the equipment itself whilst the image slowly became an ancillary issue. I could let myself off the hook now since I knew that the camera would "fix" a lot of problems for me, and there was always Photoshop waiting at home. In other words, the longer I was in pixel world, the less I thought about capturing an image at a particular moment and the more I thought about my equipment and what I could do to whatever image I'd happen to capture. Gone was the decisive moment. Now it was all about the reductive equipment.
Photography had been turned upside down. No more silly talk about decisive moments--how quaint; or for "seeing" the world with an artist's eyes--how elitist; or for capturing a moment in time as closely as possible to the original moment--how idealistic. Now it was all about AWB and Foveon vs Bayer and 10.0 vs. 14.0 and image processing size. Have you noticed? Do yourself a favor. Pick up a photography magazine from ten years ago, or buy a book of photography of the same vintage, and you'll see a glaring difference between then and now. Then, it was almost all about the image--yes, of course the equipment mattered, but check out the ratio between talk of equipment and talk of developing a photographer's eye. And now? It's almost exclusively all about equipment. And do you think the camera companies are complaining??
So what has suffered in the process? Give someone with a photographer's eye my Leica and ten rolls of Tri-X film, and then give any gearhead a Canon Mark-whatever, and set them loose on a weekend family reunion. See who comes up with the better shots; and spare me the nonsense about "what is better?" We all know what's better when we see it--we haven't completely lost the ability to make aesthetic distinctions... yet.
Allow me to indulge you with a parting personal example. Two of the best shots I've ever taken were of Annie and Rosebud, my two dogs who did a lot of living and traveling with me before they both passed away a few years ago. Each shot, both subsequently enlarged to 48"x24" poster-size and mounted, captures the personality of the two dogs perfectly: playful and spontaneous Annie the white English Setter howling for sheer pleasure, nose pointing at the moon; and brooding, serious Rosebud the black Australian Cattle Dog staring back straight at the camera with head cocked sideways, sitting on a bed of red maple leaves after an October rain, thinking long and hard about what I was doing and saying to her at that moment. The pictures say it all, and you can take out a magnifying glass to the enlargements and not find a single "pixel" (aka grain) from frame to frame. And yes, I shot chrome almost exclusively for the very purpose of forcing myself to rely on the moment of the shot. And what was my equipment? A Ricoh XR-M with the kit Rikenon 35-70mm zoom and a roll of Kodachrome.
In the end, all my work--trial and error, and a lot of error at that--got me to the point where I didn't need a light meter. So what if a battery went dead? I'd finally reached the point where I was starting to understand light. And then along came digital, and the broad primrose path it lead to was not a good place. Will I some day have to go exclusively digital? I'm sure I will--it's amazing how few color processing labs are left. I'll still shoot mainly b&w and do much of my own darkroom work in the meantime, and when I want to go color, I'll either send my film into A&I here in Los Angeles for processing or--that's right--use my digital SLR with an M42 adapter and a fully manual lens, put the camera in manual mode, turn off preview, and start shooting.
The point I guess I'm making is this: in the world of photography, I've come to learn that less is actually more. And vice-versa.
The reason I got into photography in the first place was because of some rolls I'd taken as a college student on a trip to Europe with my girlfriend back in 1987 using her father's Minolta XD-11. People told me that the shots I'd taken showed some photographic promise, whereas I was just taken with the fact that they allowed me to remember things and people I would've forgotten by now. After a few subsequent trips to Africa and Asia, and then the above-mentioned Ricoh as a graduation gift, I fell in love with the process of developing an eye to see the world in a new way. And this is where the liabilities of the current digital obsession with pixels and processors comes in. It's producing a generation of photographers who don't actually know the first thing about photography. Perhaps we should coin a new term for this new hobby, Adographers: people who spend an inordinate amount of time at their computers in Adobe Photoshop (et al.) manipulating images and adjusting contrast and shadow detail along with a dozen other fixes and getting on discussion forums to wax eloquent about the virtues of this or that technology, whilst Photographers are out there taking shots, getting wet and dirty, waking up early, analyzing the vagaries of light and letting nature run her course while trying to capture her in the act of doing so.
Speaking of which, I've gotta run while there's still some morning light left. Caught a shot of a ruby-throated hummingbird perched on a gorgeous, large white cactus bloom yesterday afternoon (need to find out what kind of plant that is) while hiking on the trail through the chaparral behind my house. And now in the late morning light with a little thin cloud cover?
Matilda, grab your leash.
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I definitely feel similar. I feel a lot of the passion that I had for photography is hard to recapture with digital. Not that I don't love doing photography...but i've lost the passion for the touch. These new cameras just feel lifeless. I feel somewhat disconnected with all of the circuitry and menus, etc...
I shoot primarily with a 5DmkII and a 5D. A 5DmkII with a 70-200, Brightscreen magnifier eyepiece and RRS L-plate is a hefty piece of gear. In fact, its huge. (Let me not even bring up the 1DsmkIII here.) It's just not fun to carry around when exploring or going somewhere new. I really miss the feel of my Pentax KX and similar cameras. Small, light weight, nice viewfinders, and no huge hand grips. (handgrips are overrated...i support from my left hand on the lens anyways...)
My 5D is a beast of a camera next to those old film bodies with a small lens on there. Lens size has grown too! 82 front thread on some lenses!!! 85 1.2?!?!?! MASSIVE!!!!!
Point an shoots just don't have the detail, quality, and allure of the process that I like.
So, recently in trying to rekindle the feel of what photography used to be for me...i thought i would try something...
I took my 5D body (which I use as a second body most of the time anyways) and gaffers taped it up. No logos visible. I also taped the mode knob so it cant be seen or adjusted. I left the camera in Manual mode. I stuck a 50 1.4 lens on there. I took off the L-plates, and put the original eyepiece back on. The camera is a lot lighter, and the tape makes it look smaller visually. Nothing to distract the eye.
I have been carrying that around here and there without a case. Just a strap. I feel a little more connected again. Its definitely not as cumbersome to carry. I thought about an Olympus E-420 with a 25mm pancake lens...but honestly I didn't like the quality. I never had to worry about that with film. The camera body didn't contribute to the quality. Only the film and the film size made the real difference.
I will say adjustable ISO has been very spoiling and the one feature I really miss when I shoot film...but oh well.
Hopefully one day they will release a digital that has the feel of yesterday.
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I love what you did with your Canon, ACP! Very creative. If only more people got the duct tape out, they might actually become better photographers. Cheers to you, and happy shooting! It hasn't all become a commodity yet...
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LightCapture,
In spite of the fact that I agree with everythng you've said, I find myself wanting to respond, not antagonistically, but with some kind of yes, but....
Digital photography undoubtedly offers instant gratification and we all know what instant gratification has done to our economy (and, if I may, our souls). Digital photograhy has also opened the door to many who otherwise would have found no interest in image making. There are a lot of beginners out there clicking away. (And kudos to them all.) I would venture to say that the proportion between those who shoot with the decisive moment in mind and those who are absorbed by equipment fashion is probably not that different from twenty years ago.
I am amongst those who began shooting images in the 1960's and followed along as the technology developed to include the digital industry. Because I am who I am I struggle with the waiting period between the shutter tripped and the image returned, positive or negative. I don't seem to have the capacity to take good field notes to apply to the eventually developed film. My enthusiasm is for image making, not note talking. And often times my memory of a decisive moment is of what I had hoped for rather than what was actually present when I fired the shutter. Anyway, two points.
Firstly, there is a difference between instant gratification and instant feedback. I will not even try to explain the parameters of instant gratification and all it entails to me. Instant feedback is wonderful as a learning tool. I snap the shutter, I instantly refer to the image and my learnng process immediately begins. I say to myself that if I had lowered the camera six inches and moved two feet to the left my composition would improve. I try it and it's still not quite right but I like it better. I think if I stepped forward a little to enlarge the foreground object the compositional harmony would improve. I try it and get instant feedback. And on and on it goes. With depth of field, with exposure, etc. I am engaged in the process. My dissatisfactions with each image challenges the photographer in me and I think and feel furthur into the subject and my motivations for shooting it. I find myself exploring more deeply than ever what photograpy means to me, what kind of decisive moments I want to spend my time stalking, what kind of light I want to inhabit.
Secondly, decisive moments are different for everyone. I've seen astonishing images born of camera which ultimately have less to do with photography than with post processing. Nothing wrong with that. The "photographer" can be less concerned with the decisive reality before her eyes and more concerned with gathering via camera the various components of a vision that will eventually find their culmination in photoshop in a decisive moment when she executes the last decision in creative manipulation. Photography has long included images that depend to a greater or lesser degree on what's before the shutter at the moment it is tripped. Darkroom skills can be applied to outer vision and they can be applied to inner vision as well. The decisive moment regarding any finalized image can come long before or long after the shutter has been tripped.
bluekorn
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I got tired of the darkroom, so gave up B&W processing. It was becoming too tedious - too much like a hobby, and hobbies to me are repetitive. I got a Leica M4-2, then M6 for color photography, but quit using them after a year or so - again, it seemed tedious and unnecessarily expensive to keep running to the dealer for processing and prints. Then came digital. What an absolute godsend. I can print my own, and get the prints *right*. I can shoot all I want to for free, and shooting is what I like to do best. This is so perfect - no agonizing over how much each shot is costing, no reloadng of film (NOTE: reloading film is obsessing over equipment instead of photography), no worries about perfect composition. Instead of obsessing over all kinds of digital manipulation in Photoshop, I just don't use Photoshop, so I instead just do the minimum amount of fixing to make the keeper images as perfect as they would be if I obsessed over composition and other such frippery. Note #2: Manipulating dials and settings all the time is also obsessing over equipment instead of photography.
So now I'm free, and I can say that with digital, thank God, we're free at last.
And that's just the camera and editing end. I can put tens of thousands of digital images on a fingernail-size chip, and they never deteriorate. So my advice is this - if you can get yourself out of camera hobby mode and think just about photography - capturing the images you like and displaying and printing them, then you'll enjoy the sport a lot more.
Another suggestion that can improve your enjoyment of photography is sharing your images. Not just on a photo forum, but in places where few if any other photographers share theirs. Get an iPod or a PDA-phone with a large (~3") screen, and add your current images to it, then when you walk around photographing and talk to other people, you can pull out the photos and show other folks what you're doing with your cameras. On weekends in the state parks, I encounter a lot of people who are interested in nature, and like to talk about what they've seen, or are looking for, etc. I frequently show a few images of birds, flowers, and other items, and I get a lot of responses like "how'd you do that?", or "what camera did you use for that?"
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Bluekorn, I agree with most everything you say, as well. Where we part ways, I think, is in our understanding of the decisive moment and the idea that the proportion of those who shoot with the decisive moment in mind and those who are absorbed by equipment fashion is probably not that different from twenty years ago. I respectfully disagree, and all it takes is a simple comparison of articles in any photog journal from twenty years ago as opposed to today--you will see the stark difference. Also, the very nature of the decisive moment as defined by Cartier-Bresson, whose work I think is astounding, is, as he says, "to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes." By that definition, the decisive moment can't happen before or after the picture is taken. It's all about that moment and, given the minimal parameters of shutter speed and aperture, what your lens can capture with the decisions you make at that moment.
That said, I do agree that there are a lot of people out there who are interested in photography who might not otherwise have been interested at all, and that can be a good thing. On the other hand, the fact that they're coming at photography from the back end, and all the talk on forums seems to be about the post-processing and not so much about the artistry of the shot, makes me wonder if the whole nature of photography isn't changing for the worse. Digital, I'm fairly certain, hasn't made for better photogs in most cases. You appear to be the exception, and I know why--because you understand and appreciate the subtleties of light, proper framing, etc. I'm perfectly well aware that this kind of talk can sound quaint to the jaundiced ear, but it is, in fact, what folks like Cartier-Bresson, et al. were concerned with.
And dalethorn, I say more power to you that you don't obsess over Photoshop--I wish more people had the same attitude--but your notion that worrying over composition is "frippery," if I understand what you mean by that word, is where we part company. But given your responses to my post last year, I can't say I'm surprised that you feel the way you do. As for your idea that "manipulating dials and settings all the time is also obsessing over equipment instead of photography."... well then, I'm guilty as charged. But of course, I don't agree with you at all. I suppose picking up a camera and turning it on is obsessing, too? Where does it end?
And your kind advice: "if you can get yourself out of camera hobby mode and think just about photography - capturing the images you like and displaying and printing them, then you'll enjoy the sport a lot more" tells me that you didn't read my post carefully enough to see what I was actually saying. I love photography, and I think I enjoy it as much or more than the next guy--I just don't think all of this current obsession over post-processing is the point. Never has been--not for me, and not for a lot of folks whose work I respect. I do, however, applaud your idea about getting an iPod and showing your pics to folks. I think that's a great idea. I've thought of getting an iPhone or iPod for just such a purpose, but then when I realize that I'm showing my pics on a 3" screen, I shake myself out of my stupor and realize that it's not all that it's cracked up to be. I myself put most of my pics in albums and share them with friends when they come over, or I email them to family.
I know for sure that there are many people out there who won't agree with ideas about the decline of photography as an art due to the digital mania over pixels and such. Call me a purist. But in the end, like music or any other art form, I want to go as low to the ground as possible, have as little between me and the art form as I can, and start learning about how to see my world in a different light and record that vision for my enjoyment and the enjoyment of others. That, to me, is the whole ball of wax.
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....but your notion that worrying over composition is "frippery," if I understand what you mean by that word, is where we part company. But given your responses to my post last year, I can't say I'm surprised that you feel the way you do. As for your idea that "manipulating dials and settings all the time is also obsessing over equipment instead of photography."... well then, I'm guilty as charged. But of course, I don't agree with you at all. I suppose picking up a camera and turning it on is obsessing, too? Where does it end?
....I do, however, applaud your idea about getting an iPod and showing your pics to folks.
I know for sure that there are many people out there who won't agree with ideas about the decline of photography as an art due to the digital mania over pixels and such.
I doubt we're that far apart on anything except personal tastes, and perhaps the variables of language limiting accurate descriptions of our thoughts. The frippery comment is apt given a long recent thread obsessing over how composition just *has* to be done right in camera, not compensated later. Only you can decide whether you're obsessing or not, but you certainly seem to have some anxieties about photo issues that should have been resolved long ago. As far as the mania over pixels goes, here are some valid points: 1) At the end of the day, all you have is pixels. Period. Now that's important. And given the prices of MF and LF that some are willing to pay, and the proven resolution they offer, I rest my case on pixels. People can argue about the quality of pixels on small sensors etc. Why bother? There are good small cameras out there - just use one. As to the decline of photography, I don't see it here. I don't post on any of the major "picture" sites, so I may be missing the joys of rubbing virtual elbows with the hoi polloi. I don't know if what I see here will last forever, but something comparable will somewhere, and that's good enough. What I see here is a lot of vigorous and healthy photographic activity, not a decline, unless I expected more Henri C.B. type work here and less of the, er, amateurish stuff. I'm the same way with music. Even Le Tigre is too commercial for me - I prefer the raw stuff from unsigned bands, or in the case of established musicians like Branford Marsalis, live recordings with the coughs and missed notes.
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Something to add about the digital aspect of all this:
Photoshop is a tool like any other. I don't remember off the top of my head developing times anymore. I would be worthless in a dark room today. However, having part of my career require graphic design, I learned photoshop extremely well. Daily use for 8 years does that.
I can say if people were to spend sometime understanding the software, especially raw conversion software...they would not need to spend the time in photoshop or in any software. When you can understand you tool, its used intuitively. You see the photo even in the field. When you load to the computer you instantly adjust what is "needed" and move on. As a DNG file you don't need to go into photoshop and save new files, etc... like you do with JPG.
White balance takes two seconds. Recapturing highlights only takes a second. Become intuitive with these things and they will not be the burden so many make them out to be.
The only time I enter photoshop lately with an image file is when I want to create further derivative artwork from it, or I need to do some special processing for my output goal. Even then, droping a few layers and painting with a tablet still feels very "manual." I think the tablet saved the day in this respect...and my wrist! (mice are no fun!)
I think people get caught up in the options and adjustments, and everything is so overwhelming. Especially in raw converters like lightroom or ACR where its all laid out. People don't understand what they are trying to achieve. Or they do but don't know where to start to get there.
I think this all comes back to the classical knowledge of photography that is getting lost or pushed further back as people try to describe how to work with the software and not why.
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I think that if we get back to the OP, do a little fierce editing, we come to the conclusion that what is being said is the basic truth: photography in the days of film was relatively honest, simple and absolutely democratic (if that is worth much, which it might not be) because the entry point was far easier to reach. I speak of photography and not snapping. I see a difference.
It has been my contention in this space, for a longish while, that digital and film attract different mindsets; that both ways result in a fairly similar image is perhaps unfortunate.
The attractions of film photography came to me via the allure of the exquisite machinery that I could not then afford. Nothing looked more beautiful than those Leica lllGs! (Never ever owned any Leica, but a variety of top-end 35mm slr and 6x6 slr stuff instead.) The other and more important component was the need to find a way that I could use to put ideas down on paper better than I could with pencil or paints: the camera provided that way.
The photographic process never seemed to me to be difficult; if anything, it was very straighforward if only because I followed the belief that the abilty to repeat the process exactly, each and every time I processed what turned out to be thousands of films over a career, removed yet one more variable from the equation and made success that little bit more likely. My entire b/w career was built around D76 1+1. I found no need for extended development nor for the opposite. Colour was almost always dealt with via Kodachrome and Ektachrome - colour printing seldom raised its ugly head even though I had spent much time before going solo doing just that. Come to think of it, perhaps that´s one of the reasons I don´t do much colour digital: I do not find it very interesting and even when via the wet, it boiled down to testing, testing and testing unitl you ran through the educated steps and knew there was nowhere else to go. So damn boring. A process and not a particularly instinctual one at that. But hardly as boring and unnatural as I find computers to be, even if they provide a means to an end.
In pursuit of that end, and perhaps applying some of the fierce editing I suggested where I came in, I conclude yet again that the most pure form of photography has to be black and white and shot on film. I see no virtue in the archaic ´alternative´ processes that some espouse and believe that the scope available with b/w film, a good scanner and a decent printer is all one could ever wish. The limitations lie in our imagination at the time of clicking that shutter. You don´t need a darkroom to process a film, just a toilet; I would not like to return to the darkroom for producing prints, even if they were always pretty easy for me to do. The sour note has to be the too high cost of dedicated 120 format scanners; would have enjoyed working that format again...
Rob C
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I got tired of the darkroom, so gave up B&W processing. It was becoming too tedious - too much like a hobby, and hobbies to me are repetitive. I got a Leica M4-2, then M6 for color photography, but quit using them after a year or so - again, it seemed tedious and unnecessarily expensive to keep running to the dealer for processing and prints. Then came digital. What an absolute godsend. I can print my own, and get the prints *right*. I can shoot all I want to for free, and shooting is what I like to do best. This is so perfect - no agonizing over how much each shot is costing, no reloadng of film (NOTE: reloading film is obsessing over equipment instead of photography), no worries about perfect composition. Instead of obsessing over all kinds of digital manipulation in Photoshop, I just don't use Photoshop, so I instead just do the minimum amount of fixing to make the keeper images as perfect as they would be if I obsessed over composition and other such frippery. Note #2: Manipulating dials and settings all the time is also obsessing over equipment instead of photography.
So now I'm free, and I can say that with digital, thank God, we're free at last.
And that's just the camera and editing end. I can put tens of thousands of digital images on a fingernail-size chip, and they never deteriorate. So my advice is this - if you can get yourself out of camera hobby mode and think just about photography - capturing the images you like and displaying and printing them, then you'll enjoy the sport a lot more.
Another suggestion that can improve your enjoyment of photography is sharing your images. Not just on a photo forum, but in places where few if any other photographers share theirs. Get an iPod or a PDA-phone with a large (~3") screen, and add your current images to it, then when you walk around photographing and talk to other people, you can pull out the photos and show other folks what you're doing with your cameras. On weekends in the state parks, I encounter a lot of people who are interested in nature, and like to talk about what they've seen, or are looking for, etc. I frequently show a few images of birds, flowers, and other items, and I get a lot of responses like "how'd you do that?", or "what camera did you use for that?"
Dale, That's a lot of advice, but if you're going to give out advice like this you really ought to post your best pictures on your web so we can see the results of the advice you claim to follow. I'd suggest you might think more about your lack of worries about composition and your lack of manipulation in Photoshop. You're correct: if you get your composition and exposures right in the first place, about all you need out of Photoshop is a little bit of sharpening, but if, as you say, you're not worried about composition, etc. on the camera then you'd better become pretty familiar with Photoshop.
If photography actually is going downhill, and I'm not sure I agree that it is, it's because a lot of photographers have become snap-shooters, not worrying about composition, etc. when they trip the shutter because they figure they can fix it all later.
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Sharing your pictures.
Hmmm, I´m not sure that I agree with this. In fact, the more I think about it, the less a good idea it sounds. Have you never enjoyed the agony of sitting down in somebody´s home whilst they proudly thrust their album at you? Do you not remember the rigor mortis of your smile?
In fact, the more I think about it, I am now pretty sure that a display of photography should never be done under the guise of sharing. If you think you (not you in particular, I mean anyone) are good enough, hang the mothers on the wall. Then they will either be commented upon by virtue of their own wondrousness or studiously ignored without the social damage of forced response. The thought of having a complete stranger stick an electronic gallery in my face and invite comment is horrific! What on Earth could one say? (I notice that I tend to write it Earth, as in the planet, whilst mostly I read it earth, as in the soil; I wonder which is correct? I´ll have to ask the kids.)
Another thing that strikes me as unusual is the concept of making pictures and talking to other people - at the same time. It has always been my belief that photography sans model is one of the most onanistic of adventures; why spoil it? Like walking: why complicate it with clubs?
There was a time when I looked at the images published on this site under the threads dedicated to such adventures; I abandoned the practice some months ago when I realised that comment had to be positive or it was deemed insulting. There is no future to something that works on that principle and since communication is the main purpose of this site (I think?) there remained little point in visiting, so really, nobody is losing out on the deal. Why recreate the problem on a personal, real-life level and with your own pictures?
RSL writes that if photography is going downhill, not necessarily his view, perhaps it´s because a lot of photographers have become snapshooters, not worrying about composition et al because they can fix it later. Maybe that´s got it the wrong way around: could it be that the entire point of photography today is to emulate the zeitgeist, in which case, they have got it exactly right! Ask any politician.
Rob C
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... the basic truth: photography in the days of film was relatively honest, simple and absolutely democratic
I can't agree with this. I attended an art show (Chihuly glass) in the Phoenix botanical gardens recently. Virtually every single visitor (and there were thousands) was shooting with some form of camera. That's photographic democracy. In the past, photographers were a minority. Now, everyone's a photographer.
The Golden Age of Photography is now. Never was it simpler, easier or cheaper to acquire high quality imagery. We are so lucky.
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The Golden Age of Photography is now. Never was it simpler, easier or cheaper to acquire high quality imagery. We are so lucky.
I agree. Look through some dismal old photo annuals from a few decades ago if you think the quality of photography is going downhill. If I filter out snapshots and pictures of Antelope Canyon, there is some really good photography right now today on pbase, photo.net etc.
People are learning to see and share their vision as never before and once in a while some really brilliant work comes out of it. I have finally gotten over the idea that the mastery of arcane photo technology is some sort of initiation into photographic virtue. The ability to see well and think visually leads to photographic virtue. And I have to admit that I sometimes find it intimidating when some guy off the street comes up with imagery as good as my self-admired, experienced best, now that's the worst.
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Dale, That's a lot of advice, but if you're going to give out advice like this you really ought to post your best pictures on your web so we can see the results of the advice you claim to follow. I'd suggest you might think more about your lack of worries about composition and your lack of manipulation in Photoshop. You're correct: if you get your composition and exposures right in the first place, about all you need out of Photoshop is a little bit of sharpening, but if, as you say, you're not worried about composition, etc. on the camera then you'd better become pretty familiar with Photoshop.
If photography actually is going downhill, and I'm not sure I agree that it is, it's because a lot of photographers have become snap-shooters, not worrying about composition, etc. when they trip the shutter because they figure they can fix it all later.
I'm not concerned about your idea of composition, just mine. And mine is fine. And I don't post my best - ego is not the point, the point is getting a critique on problem or difficult images. And photographers don't become snap-shooters, it's the other way around.
If you really are so big on learning, you should study Minnesota Fats. There you could learn something.
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Rob, Couldn't agree with you more about shoving pics in front of a complete stranger and essentially pleading with them to take a look. No thanks, no way. But getting together with some friends and a bottle of wine and oogling over an album of, say, a summer road trip... now that I miss. These days, people either don't print the shots they take and insist on subjecting their hapless friends to gather all around a computer screen and hunch over to look at a slide show, or they show them off to strangers on a 3" screen. And don't get me wrong: I'm very selective about who I invite to look at pictures. Some people, I know, couldn't care less. There are others, however, who love to look at pictures, and they're generally the same people whose albums I'm eager to see when I go to visit them. It all depends on one's friends. And for what it's worth, I do tend to mount and hang my best shots. Listen, photography isn't some lonely hearts club, here. The medium is meant to be shared. That's half the fun. As for emulating the zeitgeist... be my guest. I, for one, don't think there's much of a zeitgeist to emulate, and what z. there is isn't worth emulating.
Peter, I understand your enthusiasm about everyone having a camera to take pictures with. To a certain extent, that's good. But I'm not sure I buy your premise: that just because more people are doing it, that makes it more democratic. Democracy has more to do with freedom than conformity. Just because everyone's walking around with cell phones doesn't mean we've gotten better at communication, or that because everyone is walking around listening to music on their iPods that we've all become better musicians or learned anything more about music. Just because more people are doing something doesn't mean they aren't doing it badly. The Golden Age of Photography? I think not.
And Bill, I quite agree that "the ability to see well and think visually leads to photographic virtue." But those qualities come with deliberate effort and much trial and error. The digital age takes a lot of guesswork out of the process and as a result, I don't see many people concerned nearly as much with the picture they're actually taking than with what they can do to it afterward. That, to me, takes much of the artistry out of the whole enterprise. But don't get me wrong... more snapshooters and post-processing geeks isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just isn't what I've always understood photography to be: mastering the art of capturing a moment in time without feeling the compulsion to fictionalize it later with deeper blues or sharper contrasts.
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I'm not concerned about your idea of composition, just mine. And mine is fine. And I don't post my best - ego is not the point, the point is getting a critique on problem or difficult images. And photographers don't become snap-shooters, it's the other way around.
If you want to give advice it's only fair to the people to whom you're giving advice to let them see the results of your advice. That has nothing to do with ego. If your idea of composition is "fine," then you shouldn't be afraid to demonstrate that idea with examples.
If you really are so big on learning, you should study Minnesota Fats. There you could learn something.
Well, I knew Fats was a pool hustler but I wasn't aware he was a photographer. I guess you learn something new every day. Where can I see his pics? Does he have a web?
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Well, I knew Fats was a pool hustler but I wasn't aware he was a photographer. I guess you learn something new every day. Where can I see his pics? Does he have a web?
When you ask the wrong questions you get the wrong answers, or no answers at all. Lucky you - you don't have to contend with that pesky learning curve.
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When you ask the wrong questions you get the wrong answers, or no answers at all. Lucky you - you don't have to contend with that pesky learning curve.
Dale, You didn't tell me where I can see Fats's pictures. But I guess he's another "dead dude," so his photographs really don't matter anyway. Right?
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Dale, You didn't tell me where I can see Fats's pictures. But I guess he's another "dead dude," so his photographs really don't matter anyway. Right?
As I said in the last post, you're talking a lot but not listening. Once you decide to listen and learn, I'll explain about Minnesota Fats. Vince Lombardi also had some things to say about winners and losers, which you could also learn from. And it has everything to do with photography - separating the photographers/winners from the fanboys/losers.
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As I said in the last post, you're talking a lot but not listening. Once you decide to listen and learn, I'll explain about Minnesota Fats. Vince Lombardi also had some things to say about winners and losers, which you could also learn from. And it has everything to do with photography - separating the photographers/winners from the fanboys/losers.
Interesting. I never realized that photography was a contest with winners and losers. Who are some of the winners? Can you name some of the losers?
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Interesting. I never realized that photography was a contest with winners and losers. Who are some of the winners? Can you name some of the losers?
Winners: me, losers: dead dudes, and their fanboys.
Apologies for sounding so harsh. Perhaps Meg Ryan said it best in the fairy tale "Joe -vs- The Volcano" :
"....Almost the whole world is asleep, and only a few people are awake - those that are awake live in a state of constant, total amazement."
So, what new things are amazing you?
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Word of advice, RSL: take a step back. Dale likes to be provocative in his comments -- exhausting, isn't it? There are no winners and losers in photography... or life. Just cynics and generous-hearted people. That's the only distinction that matters to me -- and the only one that actually means anything in the end.
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Winners: me, losers: dead dudes, and their fanboys.
So, what new things are amazing you?
Well, you're amazing me for one thing.
How does one determine who's winning and who's losing in this photography contest? You say you're a winner? Why is that? What have you done to win? Since we're talking about photography I'd have to assume there are pictures somewhere that make you a winner. Where can I see them? Since Minnesota Fats is a "dead dude" is he a loser? Since you seem to be a "fanboy" of Fats, who's a "dead dude," doesn't that make you a loser?
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Well, you're amazing me for one thing.
How does one determine who's winning and who's losing in this photography contest? You say you're a winner? Why is that? What have you done to win? Since we're talking about photography I'd have to assume there are pictures somewhere that make you a winner. Where can I see them? Since Minnesota Fats is a "dead dude" is he a loser? Since you seem to be a "fanboy" of Fats, who's a "dead dude," doesn't that make you a loser?
No, I'm a winner because I'm not a fan of Fats, I merely report what I learned from him, which doesn't seem to interest you. If you spent more of your time and words describing what you've learned from your heroes, and posted your result photos here, we could have a guess at your winning potential.
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No, I'm a winner because I'm not a fan of Fats, I merely report what I learned from him, which doesn't seem to interest you. If you spent more of your time and words describing what you've learned from your heroes, and posted your result photos here, we could have a guess at your winning potential.
Dale, I'm sure you've examined my web at length. Where are your photographs? Are yours the shots of sitting birds and flowers you've posted occasionally on User Critiques?
But you haven't answered my questions: I asked what basis you use to judge a winner and a loser? You said you were a winner and "dead dudes" and their "fanboys" are losers, but when I asked if Minnesota Fats is a loser since he's a "dead dude" you didn't answer the question but said you learned something from him. What did you learn, and doesn't that make you a "fanboy," and therefore a loser under your earlier criterion? You seem confused.
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Dale, I'm sure you've examined my web at length. Where are your photographs? Are yours the shots of sitting birds and flowers you've posted occasionally on User Critiques?
But you haven't answered my questions: I asked what basis you use to judge a winner and a loser? You said you were a winner and "dead dudes" and their "fanboys" are losers, but when I asked if Minnesota Fats is a loser since he's a "dead dude" you didn't answer the question but said you learned something from him. What did you learn, and doesn't that make you a "fanboy," and therefore a loser under your earlier criterion? You seem confused.
I don't know if anything less than a message from god would satisfy you, but since I'm in a good mood, being a winner and all, here's a few crumbs to whet your appetite:
Fats represented two principles, which may overlap some:
One, he was willing to appear on national TV, or other public venues, as a pool player of limited skill, and also appear as a sore loser and braggart for saying that (to name one example) he could beat Willie Mosconi any time in an unlimited straight pool match. This, after losing rather badly to Mosconi on television. Now I know for a fact that virtually everyone who watched these matches agreed that Fats was lousy, or at best no match for Mosconi. Most erstwhile intelligent adults could not comprehend that a man would be so devoid of ego that he'd be willing to sacrifice his reputation and honor just to make a buck. And make a buck he did. The story of how he cleaned out the world billiards champ in Atlantic City is the stuff of legend, as well as Fats' incredible skill in making tough shots. This was illustrated in The Color Of Money, although I don't think it was connected to Fats, or even that they mentioned his name in that film.
The second principle is the chess -vs- checkers example. Chess is played to win. Checkers is played (by the experts) for a draw. Always for a draw. You wait for your opponent to make a mistake, even if it takes 50 or 100 games, and then you nail him. That's the way it works. Patience is the companion of wisdom.
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Dale, I'm sure you've examined my web at length.
Oops - forgot - no I haven't. Been busy taking photos and other stuff. Maybe someday. Thanks for mentioning it, though.
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I don't know if anything less than a message from god would satisfy you, but since I'm in a good mood, being a winner and all, here's a few crumbs to whet your appetite:
Fats represented two principles, which may overlap some:
One, he was willing to appear on national TV, or other public venues, as a pool player of limited skill, and also appear as a sore loser and braggart for saying that (to name one example) he could beat Willie Mosconi any time in an unlimited straight pool match. This, after losing rather badly to Mosconi on television. Now I know for a fact that virtually everyone who watched these matches agreed that Fats was lousy, or at best no match for Mosconi. Most erstwhile intelligent adults could not comprehend that a man would be so devoid of ego that he'd be willing to sacrifice his reputation and honor just to make a buck. And make a buck he did. The story of how he cleaned out the world billiards champ in Atlantic City is the stuff of legend, as well as Fats' incredible skill in making tough shots. This was illustrated in The Color Of Money, although I don't think it was connected to Fats, or even that they mentioned his name in that film.
The second principle is the chess -vs- checkers example. Chess is played to win. Checkers is played (by the experts) for a draw. Always for a draw. You wait for your opponent to make a mistake, even if it takes 50 or 100 games, and then you nail him. That's the way it works. Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Dale, You've finally convinced me. You're right; you wouldn't be able to learn anything from those "dead dudes."
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Dale, You've finally convinced me. You're right; you wouldn't be able to learn anything from those "dead dudes."
FYI the running gag was taken from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
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FYI the running gag was taken from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
Afraid I"ll have to admit I haven't the foggiest idea what you're trying to say, Dale, but I gather the statement was intended to be "provocative." It did provoke laughter, if that's any consolation.
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Afraid I"ll have to admit I haven't the foggiest idea what you're trying to say, Dale, but I gather the statement was intended to be "provocative." It did provoke laughter, if that's any consolation.
I have heard the laughter of the ignorant many times. Usually it's teenage wannabe vals at the mall, laughing at something they don't understand that seems slightly threatening to them. You have my sympathy.
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Do you two kids mind? You've turned my topic post into your own private little pissing match. Dalethorn, it's quite clear that you have a preternatural ability to morph otherwise good conversations into banal little tiffs over nothing important. I checked your other posts to see if you just had something against me personally, which would explain why you ruined my post from last year and managed to do it again, but it appears you're an equal opportunity topic buster since you are currently involved in at least three on-going little tiffs with three other members. Is your ego that fragile? You've got more opinions and advice than Ann Landers, from the causes of the Civil War to the subtleties of modern acoustics, and this from the person who wrote, "But I strongly resist dogma." Hilarious. I've never seen someone with more dogmatic assertions. I mean, you've got almost 1200 posts on LL. Clearly you've got way too much time on your hands.
Do us all a favor and refrain from using this forum as your on-line primal scream therapy. And RTS, you didn't heed my warning, and now look what he managed to drag you into? Please allow this to be what it was intended to be: a forum about photography.
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Ahem... Take a deep breath and some moderation - puhleeze.
Try to avoid personal attacks or risk the Fickle Finger of Moderation.
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Dalethorn, it's quite clear that..... I checked your other posts to see if..... which would explain why you ruined.....
Is your ego that fragile?
.....from the causes of the Civil War to the subtleties of modern acoustics
I don't remember initiating a conversation on the Civil War.
I do remember in some cases clearing up misstatements about that topic among others.
I made it clear in the post regarding Minnesota Fats that ego is not an issue.
I see from the tone of this that either you abhor rational discussion, or, you need one person to blame for extraneous posts in your area, or, you just don't like my personality. That last part is OK with me. If you want to point to who started veering off topic, and where I posted something out of line, I'd be glad to take a minute out of my busy day to explain in a friendly and rational way exactly what I intended and why. I don't waste my time on idle chit-chat. We shouldn't make broad accusations here - it's a mob mentality to do so.
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Ahem... Take a deep breath and some moderation - puhleeze.
Try to avoid personal attacks or risk the Fickle Finger of Moderation.
Chris, I don't mean to make any personal attacks, but if you'd kindly check out the various posts of Dalethorn on both this and other topics, I think you'll see that he's quite the provocateur who ends up derailing many a good discussion because of his need to belittle and make personal attacks on others. I was trying to exercise restraint with him, but after once again derailing an otherwise good discussion thread, I'd had it. Nothing appears to get through to him. I simply invite you to check out his history with posts. He calls people ignorant, belittles their opinions, makes personal attacks, derails civil conversations. To that end, I'm a bit surprised to get a warning while he goes go on and on casting aspersion on other people. To wit, here are a few recent samples of his vitriol:
"Truly profound ignorance on a global scale."
"This is mind-boggling. A total disregard for reason and logic. Strip-mining mentality on a rampage."
"Here's a *very* simple thought you *might* be able to grasp."
"It's a shame to rant like that just to expound a common academic (yawn) point of view."
"I have heard the laughter of the ignorant many times."
And that's just in the last week! Every reference to ignorance in the above examples, btw, are directed at the people he's responding to. He apparently doesn't have the requisite self-control to keep his venom in check, and I was just responding to him in kind ~ which was my mistake. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the discussions here... it's just Dalethorn makes it more tedious.
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Chris, I don't mean to make any personal attacks, but if you'd kindly check out the various posts of Dalethorn on both this and other topics, I think you'll see that he's quite the provocateur who ends up derailing many a good discussion because of his need to belittle and make personal attacks on others. I was trying to exercise restraint with him, but after once again derailing an otherwise good discussion thread, I'd had it. Nothing appears to get through to him. I simply invite you to check out his history with posts. He calls people ignorant, belittles their opinions, makes personal attacks, derails civil conversations. To that end, I'm a bit surprised to get a warning while he goes go on and on casting aspersion on other people. To wit, here are a few recent samples of his vitriol:
"Truly profound ignorance on a global scale."
"This is mind-boggling. A total disregard for reason and logic. Strip-mining mentality on a rampage."
"Here's a *very* simple thought you *might* be able to grasp."
"It's a shame to rant like that just to expound a common academic (yawn) point of view."
"I have heard the laughter of the ignorant many times."
And that's just in the last week! Every reference to ignorance in the above examples, btw, are directed at the people he's responding to. He apparently doesn't have the requisite self-control to keep his venom in check, and I was just responding to him in kind ~ which was my mistake. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the discussions here... it's just Dalethorn makes it more tedious.
If this isn't a personal attack, then apparently there's no such thing. I've never directed any venom toward LightCapture, but he sure has it in for me.
When I expressed a negative comment toward the LaRouchie poster, Mr. Malthusian, I think most reasonable people would know where that's coming from.
On the Civil War thing LightCapture is so incensed about, when a person extolls the virtue of their personal favorite tyrant, i.e. Lincoln, they should get a second opinion. Mr. LightCapture would like to restrain that second opinion.
But I doubt Mr. LightCapture is expressing honest grief. This sort of grandiose attack doesn't just happen, it's planned, and his list bears that out.
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Chris, I don't mean to make any personal attacks, but if you'd kindly check out the various posts of Dalethorn on both this and other topics, I think you'll see that he's quite the provocateur who ends up derailing many a good discussion because of his need to belittle and make personal attacks on others. I was trying to exercise restraint with him, but after once again derailing an otherwise good discussion thread, I'd had it. Nothing appears to get through to him. I simply invite you to check out his history with posts. He calls people ignorant, belittles their opinions, makes personal attacks, derails civil conversations. To that end, I'm a bit surprised to get a warning while he goes go on and on casting aspersion on other people. To wit, here are a few recent samples of his vitriol:
"Truly profound ignorance on a global scale."
"This is mind-boggling. A total disregard for reason and logic. Strip-mining mentality on a rampage."
"Here's a *very* simple thought you *might* be able to grasp."
"It's a shame to rant like that just to expound a common academic (yawn) point of view."
"I have heard the laughter of the ignorant many times."
And that's just in the last week! Every reference to ignorance in the above examples, btw, are directed at the people he's responding to. He apparently doesn't have the requisite self-control to keep his venom in check, and I was just responding to him in kind ~ which was my mistake. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the discussions here... it's just Dalethorn makes it more tedious.
Light, You're wasting your time. Every forum has at least one regular who will pontificate insultingly on any subject, especially subjects he knows nothing about. All you can do with someone like that is toss his logic back at him and get him to demonstrate his ignorance to everyone in sight so people stop paying attention to him. The responses you get from this kind of guy almost always are funnier than what you'd get from a stand-up comic. I'm sorry the thread took a turn for the worse and got away from your original statement. But look at it this way: some of these diversions add a spot of levity to the forum.
Regarding your original statement: Since the early fifties I've owned and worked with every imaginable kind of camera from view cameras to Rolleis, to Canons, to Leicas, to digital point-and-shoots, through several Nikon pro digitals to what I use now, a D3. I also sometimes work the street with an Epson R-D1. I think that everything depends on the photographer and his willingness to learn and his ability to look. Equipment doesn't change a thing. Either you look or you don't. Photographing, itself, is still nothing and looking is still everything. If your focus has turned away from photographs to equipment it's not because of the equipment. I do agree that we've created a world full of people with point-and-shoots, cell phones, etc., who haven't a clue what they're doing. On the other hand that sometimes helps. When I shoot on the street and awful lot of people don't realize I've made an exposure since they didn't see a flash.
Glad to hear that you got the personality-capturing shots of your dogs before they passed on. I have some of a long gone Dobe and a black lab that I treasure in the same way.
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Just as I suspected...
http://www.dalethorn.com/ (http://www.dalethorn.com/)
A whole lot of nothing going on there...after reading this entire thread, I somehow expected more.
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Light, You're wasting your time. Every forum has at least one regular who will pontificate insultingly on any subject, especially subjects he knows nothing about. All you can do with someone like that is toss his logic back at him and get him to demonstrate his ignorance to everyone in sight so people stop paying attention to him. The responses you get from this kind of guy almost always are funnier than what you'd get from a stand-up comic. I'm sorry the thread took a turn for the worse and got away from your original statement. But look at it this way: some of these diversions add a spot of levity to the forum.
Regarding your original statement: Since the early fifties I've owned and worked with every imaginable kind of camera from view cameras to Rolleis, to Canons, to Leicas, to digital point-and-shoots, through several Nikon pro digitals to what I use now, a D3. I also sometimes work the street with an Epson R-D1. I think that everything depends on the photographer and his willingness to learn and his ability to look. Equipment doesn't change a thing. Either you look or you don't. Photographing, itself, is still nothing and looking is still everything. If your focus has turned away from photographs to equipment it's not because of the equipment. I do agree that we've created a world full of people with point-and-shoots, cell phones, etc., who haven't a clue what they're doing. On the other hand that sometimes helps. When I shoot on the street and awful lot of people don't realize I've made an exposure since they didn't see a flash.
Glad to hear that you got the personality-capturing shots of your dogs before they passed on. I have some of a long gone Dobe and a black lab that I treasure in the same way.
Blind leading the blind. In case (!) y'all missed it, this person was the one who turned the thread into a personal issue. Go back and read.
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Just as I suspected...
http://www.dalethorn.com/ (http://www.dalethorn.com/)
A whole lot of nothing going on there...after reading this entire thread, I somehow expected more.
I haven't posted anything on that site. It's currently being managed by someone else. So why you would make an issue of it demonstrates a lack of something in yourself.
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A whole lot of nothing going on there...
In more ways than one.
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I haven't posted anything on that site. It's currently being managed by someone else. So why you would make an issue of it demonstrates a lack of something in yourself.
Sounds like an excuse to me, bud. And you know what they say about excuses. Something definitely stinks around here.
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Sounds like an excuse to me, bud. And you know what they say about excuses. Something definitely stinks around here.
If it stinks then you should get off of the pot. What I post or don't post on dalethorn.com is none of your business.
Exactly who do you think you are to say such a thing?
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In more ways than one.
Looks like you don't intend to let go. Since you're the one who began the personal attacks on this thread, maybe you could be gracious enough to close this whole thing with an apology and a pledge to not do it again.
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If it stinks then you should get off of the pot. What I post or don't post on dalethorn.com is none of your business.
Exactly who do you think you are to say such a thing?
You claim to be a winner yet have nothing to show for it. An interesting if not delusional method of justifying your existence, wouldn't you say?
Who am I? Who are you, besides a king-sized pain in the ass stuck in godforsaken Akron, Ohio twiddling with computers and taking pictures of goddamned squirrels on fence posts?
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You claim to be a winner yet have nothing to show for it. An interesting if not delusional method of justifying your existence, wouldn't you say?
Who am I? Who are you, besides a king-sized pain in the ass stuck in godforsaken Akron, Ohio twiddling with computers and taking pictures of goddamned squirrels on fence posts?
Judging by your bigotry toward Akron Ohio and your use of extreme profanity, I'd say you have a serious mental illness. I'm sorry that I can't help you with that, but there are people who can. Please don't be discouraged, and cheer up.
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RSL and TimG: What we have here is an example of a psychological black hole. The closer you get to it, the more its anti-matter gravitational pull sucks you in. I'd suggest--trying to heed my own advice here--that you steer as clear as possible.
So now... where were we?
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Light, You're wasting your time. Every forum has at least one regular who will pontificate insultingly on any subject, especially subjects he knows nothing about. All you can do with someone like that is toss his logic back at him and get him to demonstrate his ignorance to everyone in sight so people stop paying attention to him. The responses you get from this kind of guy almost always are funnier than what you'd get from a stand-up comic. I'm sorry the thread took a turn for the worse and got away from your original statement. But look at it this way: some of these diversions add a spot of levity to the forum.
Regarding your original statement: Since the early fifties I've owned and worked with every imaginable kind of camera from view cameras to Rolleis, to Canons, to Leicas, to digital point-and-shoots, through several Nikon pro digitals to what I use now, a D3. I also sometimes work the street with an Epson R-D1. I think that everything depends on the photographer and his willingness to learn and his ability to look. Equipment doesn't change a thing. Either you look or you don't. Photographing, itself, is still nothing and looking is still everything. If your focus has turned away from photographs to equipment it's not because of the equipment. I do agree that we've created a world full of people with point-and-shoots, cell phones, etc., who haven't a clue what they're doing. On the other hand that sometimes helps. When I shoot on the street and awful lot of people don't realize I've made an exposure since they didn't see a flash.
Glad to hear that you got the personality-capturing shots of your dogs before they passed on. I have some of a long gone Dobe and a black lab that I treasure in the same way.
Well said, RSL. Now, on to your more pressing point...
I completely agree: "Everything does depend on the photographer and his willingness and his ability to look." My only concern is that SLR's today make the process of snapping a shot too easy, which affects one's willingness to look... and if you make something too easy, it eventually assays over into one's ability. To wit, I just received a new used Oly e510... have wanted to try one out for awhile and found a good deal on eBay. Pulled it out of the box and started clicking just to see what kind of interpolating it does... and you know, the whole process is just so damn easy. I can see some photographic green horn doing the same thing and make-believe he knows what he's doing just because he's got an SLR in his hands. Sigh... listen, I'm all for the democratization of snap-shooting. Bring it on. But I fear that all the bells and whistles of modern digital SLR's are actually discouraging, and not encouraging, the development of a photographer's eye.
I've also been using an SD14 for some time... reminds me of the Billy Joel song, "She's Always a Woman to Me." Definitely a quirky little gadget... but with a little work...
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Well said, RSL. Now, on to your more pressing point...
I completely agree: "Everything does depend on the photographer and his willingness and his ability to look." My only concern is that SLR's today make the process of snapping a shot too easy, which affects one's willingness to look... and if you make something too easy, it eventually assays over into one's ability. To wit, I just received a new used Oly e510... have wanted to try one out for awhile and found a good deal on eBay. Pulled it out of the box and started clicking just to see what kind of interpolating it does... and you know, the whole process is just so damn easy. I can see some photographic green horn doing the same thing and make-believe he knows what he's doing just because he's got an SLR in his hands. Sigh... listen, I'm all for the democratization of snap-shooting. Bring it on. But I fear that all the bells and whistles of modern digital SLR's are actually discouraging, and not encouraging, the development of a photographer's eye.
I've also been using an SD14 for some time... reminds me of the Billy Joel song, "She's Always a Woman to Me." Definitely a quirky little gadget... but with a little work...
Modern digital cameras are a boon as far as developing a photographers eye. Instant feedback helps you to see what is happening with exposures. Cheap digital storage means that you can bracket shots or use exposure compensation. I couldn't afford to do that with film.
The real advantage with digital is that it allows you to experiment. You can take shots that would never have taken before. Quite often after taking the obvious shots in a landscape I will then look for unusual or eccentric images. This type of photography stretches your abilities and improves your eye.
A recent case was when I was taking photos recently on the South Coast. I was taking shots on the beach of waves crashing over rocks. The scene was very low key with a light sky, foamy white waves and a sandy beach in front. The only dark part of the images was the dark coloured rocks. Basically it was light disturbed by dark. As the light was fading I thought could I get dark disturbed by light images? I wandered down the beach and found some dark rocks that let parts of the sea and sky peek through. With digital I bumped up the ISO and started taking photos. Instant feedback meant that I could adjust my exposures so that the rocks weren't too light. The result was that I got some very interesting shots that I would never have got with a traditional approach.
At the heart of it is that digital cameras give you the ability to experiment with image making. The ability to view those images on a large monitor gives you feedback as to what works and what doesn't. Using digital techniques you can gain experience that would have taken much longer to gain with slow and reasoned techniques.
Hopefully the upside of this is with this experience you can avoid taking those shots that are never going to work and concentrate on getting better images. Hopefully by being able to experiment you can achieve a variety of images instead of taking safe and predictable shots.
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Modern digital cameras are a boon as far as developing a photographers eye. Instant feedback helps you to see what is happening with exposures. Cheap digital storage means that you can bracket shots or use exposure compensation. I couldn't afford to do that with film.
The real advantage with digital is that it allows you to experiment. You can take shots that would never have taken before. Quite often after taking the obvious shots in a landscape I will then look for unusual or eccentric images. This type of photography stretches your abilities and improves your eye.
A recent case was when I was taking photos recently on the South Coast. I was taking shots on the beach of waves crashing over rocks. The scene was very low key with a light sky, foamy white waves and a sandy beach in front. The only dark part of the images was the dark coloured rocks. Basically it was light disturbed by dark. As the light was fading I thought could I get dark disturbed by light images? I wandered down the beach and found some dark rocks that let parts of the sea and sky peek through. With digital I bumped up the ISO and started taking photos. Instant feedback meant that I could adjust my exposures so that the rocks weren't too light. The result was that I got some very interesting shots that I would never have got with a traditional approach.
At the heart of it is that digital cameras give you the ability to experiment with image making. The ability to view those images on a large monitor gives you feedback as to what works and what doesn't. Using digital techniques you can gain experience that would have taken much longer to gain with slow and reasoned techniques.
Hopefully the upside of this is with this experience you can avoid taking those shots that are never going to work and concentrate on getting better images. Hopefully by being able to experiment you can achieve a variety of images instead of taking safe and predictable shots.
You're absolutely right that the digital medium affords someone many more chances to get it right. In fact, an infinite number of chances given enough time. But I'm not sure that necessarily makes for a better photographer. I wonder just how many people have done a similar thing--adjusted and tweaked until they got the perfect shot, but then, had absolutely no idea either:
a) what the final shooting parameters were (A/S/etc.), and
b) more importantly, *why* that last shot actually worked.
It's very easy to be lazy about shooting with instant feedback, and I'd be willing to bet the bank that the vast majority of digital shooters today either tweak the parameters (ISO,f/stop,speed,WB,etc) until they get it right but if you asked them what the final parameters were they wouldn't have a clue; and/or they just shoot away and make all the necessary changes at their computer later. I find that with film, you *have* be more intentional and deliberate in your shooting and keep notes of what you did precisely because you don't have instant feedback. The process, in other words, is more exacting because you have fewer chances to get it right.
Who knows, you may be right, Tom, that digital makes for better photographers. But from what I've seen of the pics of friends who have taken up the hobby lately and also from the photog sites ubiquitous on the Net, I find a lot less attention devoted to photographic skill and a lot more devoted to either before-or- after-the-fact adjustments with no learning curve in the process. There's a reason the world's great photographers learned on film, and why virtually any photog class in the country worth its salt makes sure the students start with film before moving to digital.
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Well said, RSL. Now, on to your more pressing point...
I completely agree: "Everything does depend on the photographer and his willingness and his ability to look." My only concern is that SLR's today make the process of snapping a shot too easy, which affects one's willingness to look... and if you make something too easy, it eventually assays over into one's ability. To wit, I just received a new used Oly e510... have wanted to try one out for awhile and found a good deal on eBay. Pulled it out of the box and started clicking just to see what kind of interpolating it does... and you know, the whole process is just so damn easy. I can see some photographic green horn doing the same thing and make-believe he knows what he's doing just because he's got an SLR in his hands. Sigh... listen, I'm all for the democratization of snap-shooting. Bring it on. But I fear that all the bells and whistles of modern digital SLR's are actually discouraging, and not encouraging, the development of a photographer's eye.
I've also been using an SD14 for some time... reminds me of the Billy Joel song, "She's Always a Woman to Me." Definitely a quirky little gadget... but with a little work...
I do think there's a difference in approach between a stand camera and a hand-held camera. With a view camera you have to set things up and focus and compose on the ground glass -- upside down -- usually under a cloth, then push in the film holder and draw the slide before you snap the shutter. It's a slow, contemplative process. But I can't see much difference between film and digital with a hand camera. When I was walking the street with a Leica the camera didn't seem any less easy to work with than my digitals have felt. I learned to judge light without a meter and I could almost always guess within a stop. I guess what I'm saying is that you need to become so familiar with your camera that you don't think about it any longer when you shoot a picture. You're right that it takes less time to do that with digital than it does with a non point-and-shoot film camera.
I find I make few if any more shots with digital than I did with film. Of course, I was loading my B&W cassettes from hundred foot rolls, so the cost of film wasn't too serious. But I think Tom made a good point about experimentation. The flexibility of digital lets you try things you couldn't have tried with film unless you were carrying several cameras.
I loved film, but I love the most recent evolution of digital too, and I'll never go back to film.
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I wonder just how many people have done a similar thing--adjusted and tweaked until they got the perfect shot, but then, had absolutely no idea either:
a) what the final shooting parameters were (A/S/etc.), and
more importantly, *why* that last shot actually worked.
I think you're overlooking one of the huge advantages digital has over film for learning and figuring out what works: EXIF. With digital I can evaluate my shots, compare them to each other, and take note of how exposure and other settings affected the outcome.
I have to wonder how many students learning with film will actually go through the painstaking process of manually recording all the exposure settings for each and every shot so that they can use that information to evaluate the developed film/prints. That just sounds way too tedious (not to mention error-prone) to me.
I just really don't get the argument that 'harder is better' when it comes to learning. In fact I would say that the ease of digital means users can focus more on photography and less on the technical craft of camera-work if they so desire. If getting the right exposure requires less effort, that just means more focus can be put on things like composition and perspective.
But for those who do want to hone their technical skills, digital is still a great learning tool. Maybe some people like digital so they can be lazy, but for others it's about efficiency, not laziness. I care about exposure, focus, etc, and feel I have a pretty good mastery of these issues despite not having learned on film. The efficiency of digital has helped me become a better photographer, not made me lazy.
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I think you're overlooking one of the huge advantages digital has over film for learning and figuring out what works: EXIF. With digital I can evaluate my shots, compare them to each other, and take note of how exposure and other settings affected the outcome.
I have to wonder how many students learning with film will actually go through the painstaking process of manually recording all the exposure settings for each and every shot so that they can use that information to evaluate the developed film/prints. That just sounds way too tedious (not to mention error-prone) to me.
I just really don't get the argument that 'harder is better' when it comes to learning. In fact I would say that the ease of digital means users can focus more on photography and less on the technical craft of camera-work if they so desire. If getting the right exposure requires less effort, that just means more focus can be put on things like composition and perspective.
But for those who do want to hone their technical skills, digital is still a great learning tool. Maybe some people like digital so they can be lazy, but for others it's about efficiency, not laziness. I care about exposure, focus, etc, and feel I have a pretty good mastery of these issues despite not having learned on film. The efficiency of digital has helped me become a better photographer, not made me lazy.
I think all these good comments from you and others on this forum about the benefits of digital begs an obvious question: what makes you and the others different from the vast majority of digital shooters? Well, for one thing, you're on this forum (and probably others like it), which means that you're more serious about the process of photography. The fact that you evaluate your shots, compare them to each other, take note, etc., already tells me you do far more than most. And if you're right about students learning with film who wouldn't bother going through the painstaking process of note-taking, then I wonder why so many photog schools (like the Pasadena Art Center College of Design, for example) have their students learn with film first? Tedium is not always a bad thing, which gets to your point about not buying the "harder is better" argument. If harder weren't better, then there would be a lot more great athletes, artists, and students in the world. But the fact is, hard is good--almost nothing in life worth having comes without hard work. And I don't think for a minute that "getting the right exposure" comports with "the technical craft of camera-work." Getting the right exposure is, as any photog worth his/her salt would tell you, more than half the entire battle. That's precisely where much of the skill lies. So you're comment, actually, goes a long way to making my point.
Yes, digital *can* be a good learning tool for the likes of you--but then, as I said before, you're on sites like this, which makes you the exception right out of the gate. Happy shooting!
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I do think there's a difference in approach between a stand camera and a hand-held camera. With a view camera you have to set things up and focus and compose on the ground glass -- upside down -- usually under a cloth, then push in the film holder and draw the slide before you snap the shutter. It's a slow, contemplative process. But I can't see much difference between film and digital with a hand camera. When I was walking the street with a Leica the camera didn't seem any less easy to work with than my digitals have felt. I learned to judge light without a meter and I could almost always guess within a stop. I guess what I'm saying is that you need to become so familiar with your camera that you don't think about it any longer when you shoot a picture. You're right that it takes less time to do that with digital than it does with a non point-and-shoot film camera.
I find I make few if any more shots with digital than I did with film. Of course, I was loading my B&W cassettes from hundred foot rolls, so the cost of film wasn't too serious. But I think Tom made a good point about experimentation. The flexibility of digital lets you try things you couldn't have tried with film unless you were carrying several cameras.
I loved film, but I love the most recent evolution of digital too, and I'll never go back to film.
All good points, RSL. And my only response is that you, like Jeff and Tom, are certainly the exceptions, based on nothing less obvious than that you're on a forum like this--while 99% of other SLR digital shooters are not. Folks like you, in other words, are the exception that proves the rule.
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Looking back I think that reason why I like digital is that the way I used film lacked points that you can get serious feedback.
With B&W I would load my own film, shoot, develop and then make proof sheets. I would then select shots that looked properly exposed and print them. My darkrooms included a outside toilet, basement and spare rooms all used late at night. Not many people can afford a dedicated darkroom. Any problems with the negative would be corrected principally through dodging and burning and paper selection. This was seen to be part of the craft.
The problem with this approach is that most of the shots are only ever seen in a 35x24mm rectangle on a proof sheet. Compare that to seeing every digital shot you have taken on a 20" screen with the ability to look at a 100% view of the image. Now I can see much more clearly lens problems such as pincushioning, barrel distortion and fringing. I can see where highlights have blown out and where shadows are blocked and I have much more control in fixing problems. However now that is not seen as a craft but as manipulation.
The other problem is that the other shots on the proof sheet aren't ruminated over but neglected as you try to get the best out of the handful of shots that are the 'best'. Getting feedback from these 35x24mm rectangles is very difficult. There is no data to tell you that you forgot to turn off exposure compensation for 6 shots, there is no data at all.
Shooting with colour film was no better. I would take my shots and get them processed into 6x4s. The lab would correct the prints for exposure and colour casts. Not really good for getting feedback about your original exposure. Transparencies were potentially better for feedback but as I only shot them for travel, once again the process got in the way. That is, cull the best, stick them in a tray and view them on a projector with a few white wines after dinner.
Unless you are working full-time with a limited range of film stock so that you can get to know it, digital wins hands down as a learning tool.
Did I enjoy using my film cameras? The answer is yes but I enjoy photography much more in the digital age and I think that I have learned much more in the past 7 years than I have in the previous 25 years thanks to digital technologies.
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Looking back I think that reason why I like digital is that the way I used film lacked points that you can get serious feedback.
With B&W I would load my own film, shoot, develop and then make proof sheets. I would then select shots that looked properly exposed and print them. My darkrooms included a outside toilet, basement and spare rooms all used late at night. Not many people can afford a dedicated darkroom. Any problems with the negative would be corrected principally through dodging and burning and paper selection. This was seen to be part of the craft.
The problem with this approach is that most of the shots are only ever seen in a 35x24mm rectangle on a proof sheet. Compare that to seeing every digital shot you have taken on a 20" screen with the ability to look at a 100% view of the image. Now I can see much more clearly lens problems such as pincushioning, barrel distortion and fringing. I can see where highlights have blown out and where shadows are blocked and I have much more control in fixing problems. However now that is not seen as a craft but as manipulation.
The other problem is that the other shots on the proof sheet aren't ruminated over but neglected as you try to get the best out of the handful of shots that are the 'best'. Getting feedback from these 35x24mm rectangles is very difficult. There is no data to tell you that you forgot to turn off exposure compensation for 6 shots, there is no data at all.
Shooting with colour film was no better. I would take my shots and get them processed into 6x4s. The lab would correct the prints for exposure and colour casts. Not really good for getting feedback about your original exposure. Transparencies were potentially better for feedback but as I only shot them for travel, once again the process got in the way. That is, cull the best, stick them in a tray and view them on a projector with a few white wines after dinner.
Unless you are working full-time with a limited range of film stock so that you can get to know it, digital wins hands down as a learning tool.
Did I enjoy using my film cameras? The answer is yes but I enjoy photography much more in the digital age and I think that I have learned much more in the past 7 years than I have in the previous 25 years thanks to digital technologies.
I can only say that your experience with film and mine were quite different. When shooting color, I almost always shoot chrome for two simple reasons: I have greater control over the final output, and I know I'll have to cull anyway and it thus almost always ends up being cheaper than film. In particularly difficult lighting situations, I'll bracket incrementally from small to large (f/stop or ss or both) so that I always have a relatively good idea of what I've shot on any give frame. As for B&W, which is my favorite medium to shoot with, I try to do as little as possible in the dark room when I do my own processing. But even when I do dodge and burn or alter the chemical times, that's about all I'd do, which is a darn sight less than what you can do with photo software these days. And seeing a proof sheet with a loupe is more than enough for me to catch where "highlights had blown out and shadows were blocked." And dark room work is called an art form because it takes skill, knowledge, and time to learn how to do well. But with today's software, anyone can move their cursor up or down any number of gradients to tweak a shot to their heart's content without knowing the first thing about photography. And furthermore, digital technology hasn't figured out how to render b&w well enough to even get close to comparing to film. Show me two images of a scene, one shot with professional film and the other with the most expensive digital camera, and I or anyone else experienced in b&w photography will be able to distinguish between them in a country minute.
You write, "There is no data to tell you that you forgot to turn off exposure compensation for 6 shots..." Come again? Exposure compensation?? Ya see... you write as if that's a given, and when you're not told that it's "on" or "off," you interpret that to be a glitch. But here again, you've let a computer do the work of a trained eye. Where does it end? How about shooting with no compensation at all? In full manual mode. With no need for a light meter. Or better yet... a dead battery.
In the end, the computer age may be an equalizing force in the post-modern world when it comes to communication, information retrieval, art, and the like, but just because more people are doing something or have greater access to it, or it's easier to do, doesn't mean it's being done better--or even well, for that matter. We certainly have many more means to communicate with each other 24/7... but it seems to me we have less and less to say (present exchange excluded, of course). And just because my college students can "Google" just about anything they want to know doesn't mean that they're any smarter. In fact, talk to any teacher who's taught for the last 10-20 years and s/he will tell you that just the opposite has happened. So just because digital cameras make it easier to manipulate data doesn't mean that it's been a boon to the art of photography. A boon to camera and lens companies? You bet, because they can make cheaper quality stuff and a lot more of it. But like any art form, dumb it down enough and you'll eventually turn it into a pastime.
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"Digital imaging calls all the previous limitations into question. There are fewer limits and more possibilities. That means we can produce photographs in many more ways. And this in turn means we can make many more kinds of photographic statements. There’s never been a better time for a discussion of photographic composition."
Paul Caponigro From today's "What's New" offering
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"Digital imaging calls all the previous limitations into question. There are fewer limits and more possibilities. That means we can produce photographs in many more ways. And this in turn means we can make many more kinds of photographic statements. There’s never been a better time for a discussion of photographic composition."
Paul Caponigro From today's "What's New" offering
If "there's never been a better time for a discussion of photographic composition," then why have virtually all photo magazines become nothing more than a glorified advertisement for the latest gadget? And if that doesn't convince you--and it should--then take a look at this site. Under "Raw & Post Processing, Printing" there are currently about 10,000 topic posts with 75,000 replies; under "Equipment & Techniques" there are 16,000 topic posts with about 143,000 replies; but under "The Art of Photography" there are only 1700 topic posts with 13,300 replies, of which approximately 3,600 replies are in the "Coffee Corner" which is committed to any topic under the sun including things that have nothing to do with photography. In other words, on the very site where you would expect a lot of "discussion of photographic composition," less than 5% of topic posts and replies are actually committed to that discussion. You do the math.
The plain fact is, we've become obsessed with the latest gadgetry and confused all this interest with a resurgence in photography. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Emperor has no clothes, folks. This is just another digital craze in the inexorable race for more bells and whistles, of which each bell and whistle dumbs the process down just a smidgen. And though more people may be taking glorified snapshots, the fact remains that interest in composition, the vagaries of lighting, etc. are being lost in the ether.
The Sigma SD14 is the canary in the coal mine. It's been panned from one reviewer to the next. Why? Because of its output and image quality? On the contrary. Pretty much every reviewer, including those who have panned it, recognize that it takes better pictures than just about any digital camera out there. It's panned because it doesn't have all these ridiculous little "helps" that the most advanced SLR's are apparently supposed to have. Fact is, the SD14 is for serious photographers who don't want/need any of those silly add-ons. Virtually every photographer I know who uses one puts it on Manual/RAW and never looks back. Can the same be said for any other camera out there? I don't think so.
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I have avoided writing here because I feel that there is a difference of minds polarizing into a position where whatever is said by one side is instantly refuted by the other as if a matter of principle.
Okay, since I´m here, what do I find?
Remember I´m retired after a long career as a photographer. By definition, all of that was spent with film, both b/w and colour tran and neg, with much experience of printing from all, including trannies. That´s my point of departure.
Since I retired I have shot very little film and, were it not for digital, might well have given up photography altogether. However, I have come to the conclusion that the best part of digital lies in the printing of film originals, and that Kodachrome has magically turned into as close to being a perfect colour/b and w material as ever existed. I am repeatedly informed that you can´t scan Kodachrome: surprising, to say the least; most everything I have printed has started as big K! Can only CanoScan scan K?
So what do I get out of my digital camera? So far, and it might only be limited by opportunity, a few b/w landscapes that I like - some skies that seem to be quite nice for grafting onto existing film shots and some pleasing (to me) shots of paint. I have not shot any people in a serious way and can´t say that I have been impressed with the casual shots that I have made. There seems to be something phoney-looking about skin.
How has it affected my technique? Very seriuosly. With film, there was never a time I guessed exposure: I always hand metered. Now, with film, faced with tricky outdoor lighting, I´d probably be quite unsure about how to use my meter. I have become so damn dependent on the histogram that it has destroyed the confidence I had with a meter and film. In other words, it´s right where an earlier posted said it was: you become stuck on what the camera says or MIGHT be saying. Take the case of incident light metering with transparency. You took a reading which told you exactly where you could go to avoid getting clear film, the other colours/tones falling into place behind that highlight point.
Is the histogram the same? The hell it is. I cite my paint pics as an example. If one has a lot of white in it, then the histogram tells me one thing as I try to ETTR. In the same light, if I were to paint over that white with another colour already in the picture, why should that force a different setting on the digital camera, as it would? With transparency film in the same light, the same exposure would be correct in both cases. Digital is an improvement? It takes me a darn sight longer to expose correctly than film ever did. The digital camera´s metering system is defeated by the ETTR ethic. I follow ETTR because I think it might be correct, but with film I KNEW that the meter called the answer correctly. Looking at the meter reading in the camera, it goes all over the place when trying to use ETTR - it becomes as good as useless. And I used to think that Nikon´s Matrix was really accurate when all I did with the camera was street scenes or other open, general shots with all the tones and colour in the world. I suppose that that´s what the camera metering systems are designed to handle: "average" scenes.
So, I think that digital photography (capture) has created a far more complicated and awkward way of doing things; I think that many of the wonder toys that are being introduced into MF digital are, in reality, nothing more than efforts to compensate for failures that film did not have. It has become a new wild west with the biggest and strongest running the others right out of town. The population didn´t do very well out of that scenario then, I doubt today will show a different result.
So, in my own case, and this is all it is, I find it a very mixed bag of pretty expensive tricks. When I wanted to shoot some slides, I didn´t need to buy a computer to do it! Nor to store them nor edit them. But then, perhaps that´s where some find the photographic pleasure today, as in the other poster´s reference to photo magazines. It ain´t about the pics so much, more about the talking about the pics and the tools used to make them, perhaps?
Rob C
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Well said, Rob. Couldn't agree more.
But why do I get the impression that in spite of it all, we're standing on the deck of a Photo-Titanic? What is that sound I hear rumbling in the lower decks? Is that North Atlantic water pouring into the hull (i.e. film developers closing up shop)? And what about all this hullabaloo on deck about grabbing the nearest lifeboat (i.e. digital cameras and all their attendant paraphernalia)? Are we who refuse to jump ship condemned to go down with it? I think so. Ten years from now and I wouldn't be surprised if photo-chemicals are a thing of a bygone era--and I suppose all the better environmentally speaking. But perhaps by then, we won't be limited to pixels that are the necessary stepchild of binary architecture. Maybe there's some promise in P-RAM or magnetic memories, polymers, or carbon nanotubes, but then what would be the purpose of all this photo technology (and this is where one can only <sigh>)? To emulate the luster and caste of liquid Kodachrome. And then we'll have ended where we began, and T.S. Eliot will have been correct where he wrote in Little Gidding:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
In the meantime, I say rage against the machine and keep the little photo developers in business for as long as possible. Who knows? Maybe the Navy will develop an anti-magnetic cluster bomb that somehow accidentally detonates over the Nevada desert and makes all electrical currents inoperable in North America. Then sit back and watch the skyrocketing price of a Pentax K1000 on eBay. Oh, wait a minute... eBay would cease to exist. Well, it could be worse...
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Judging by your bigotry toward Akron Ohio and your use of extreme profanity, I'd say you have a serious mental illness. I'm sorry that I can't help you with that, but there are people who can.
Oh dear. Pot, Kettle.....
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There's a reason the world's great photographers learned on film
err... the fact that there wasn't any digital cameras available until recently may have had an awful lot to do with it. I learned on film BTW, so I must be better than those poor newbies who get immediate feedback, that can be acted upon and automatic recording of settings to learn from when looking at shots later.
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I think you're overlooking one of the huge advantages digital has over film for learning and figuring out what works: EXIF. With digital I can evaluate my shots, compare them to each other, and take note of how exposure and other settings affected the outcome.
I have to wonder how many students learning with film will actually go through the painstaking process of manually recording all the exposure settings for each and every shot so that they can use that information to evaluate the developed film/prints. That just sounds way too tedious (not to mention error-prone) to me.
Not to mention getting in the way of actually taking photographs.
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I can only say that your experience with film and mine were quite different. When shooting color, I almost always shoot chrome for two simple reasons: I have greater control over the final output, and I know I'll have to cull anyway and it thus almost always ends up being cheaper than film. In particularly difficult lighting situations, I'll bracket incrementally from small to large (f/stop or ss or both) so that I always have a relatively good idea of what I've shot on any give frame. As for B&W, which is my favorite medium to shoot with, I try to do as little as possible in the dark room when I do my own processing. But even when I do dodge and burn or alter the chemical times, that's about all I'd do, which is a darn sight less than what you can do with photo software these days. And seeing a proof sheet with a loupe is more than enough for me to catch where "highlights had blown out and shadows were blocked." And dark room work is called an art form because it takes skill, knowledge, and time to learn how to do well. But with today's software, anyone can move their cursor up or down any number of gradients to tweak a shot to their heart's content without knowing the first thing about photography. And furthermore, digital technology hasn't figured out how to render b&w well enough to even get close to comparing to film. Show me two images of a scene, one shot with professional film and the other with the most expensive digital camera, and I or anyone else experienced in b&w photography will be able to distinguish between them in a country minute.
I loved the darkroom, but after getting my first computer in 1994 and PS 3.5 [IIRC] I never went in the darkroom again, my DeVere is gathering dust in a friend's warehouse. I've also seen stunning B+W prints, that have never been anywhere near a smelly darkroom and the control you have compared to waving a bit of card on a wire makes for greater creativity and control.
BTW, it takes as much skill to use PS well as it does the traditional darkroom, though I acknowledge that my darkroom abilitiess underpin my computer skills.
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I loved the darkroom, but after getting my first computer in 1994 and PS 3.5 [IIRC] I never went in the darkroom again, my DeVere is gathering dust in a friend's warehouse. I've also seen stunning B+W prints, that have never been anywhere near a smelly darkroom and the control you have compared to waving a bit of card on a wire makes for greater creativity and control.
BTW, it takes as much skill to use PS well as it does the traditional darkroom, though I acknowledge that my darkroom abilitiess underpin my computer skills.
My Durst was donated to a local school; my black/whites from a HewPak B 9180 are lovely to behold when in a crystal sleeve, but not so wonderful when Hahne Photo Rag is seen naked. In the wet, I hated matt and only used WSG single grades - never liked Multigrade and only used it after leaving the UK, but as the water shortages were too severe here I couldn´t force myself to abuse the supply, even if horrid plastic papers used minimal wash... Now, if HP could only make pigment inks that worked on glossy surfaces, it would be heaven on Earth.
But, like your experience, my own is that a wet background provides the eye to judge what should be possible. Frankly, I wonder sometimes what those unaquainted with wet printing use as their yardstick of what can be done. How do they know how it could look? What I miss most about wet b/w printing is the ease with which you could do broad shading of something like a sky tone, for example. It all takes so long in PS, though to make up for that, there´s no argument but that the tiny areas of local control are beyond what I´d have ever thought of trying in the trad manner.
As I have mentioned before, I think the best part of digital (for me) lies post capture. The magic is in the printing possibilities.
Rob C
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Not to mention getting in the way of actually taking photographs.
jjj, you´re reciting my problems with digital capture where ETTR competes/conflicts with the Matrix meter. If that doesn´t get in the way of actually taking photographs, my personal experience of the situation, then what in blazes does? There is something retrograde about having to chimp where a simple Minolta or Weston would have been accurate first pop, regardless of colours! And in places with sunshine, all a rear screen is any good for is making out the vaguest of histograms. My D200, along with all the rest of them, allows you to crop in and in and ever further in to check focus: how can you do that when you are blinded by the available light and using a cloth to cover your bonce means waiting minutes for your poor old eyes to adjust and then supreme irony, all you get´s a bloody jpeg! And you have already set the camera to avoid any sharpening... useful, non?
I wonder how it works out in a studio with flash; using film and my Minolta Flash lll it was simple. If exposure with digi now also depends on the colours present in the shot and nothing to do with aiming for a white, no wonder they need to work tied! As I have said often - to the level of boring anyone who reads - I honestly believe that digi started life as a solution looking for a problem, was adopted by some makers, and ended up as their suicide mission. I think if you look around at the photo cemetery you have to conclude I have a point! And, I also think that its popularity within the profession has been driven by clients, not by photographers, who, by and large, did quite well with their tools prior to the change!
Rob C
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err... the fact that there wasn't any digital cameras available until recently may have had an awful lot to do with it. I learned on film BTW, so I must be better than those poor newbies who get immediate feedback, that can be acted upon and automatic recording of settings to learn from when looking at shots later.
jjj, indeed, the fact that there weren't digital cameras until recently does have a lot to do with why virtually all great photographers learned on film. But this is a perfect example of a necessity that's become a virtue. Before word-processing grammar and spell-check software came along, there was a much higher proportion of good writers and spellers for the simple reason that you actually had to learn about grammar rather than rely on a computer to correct your mistakes. I should know, I'm a college English professor. The general quality of writing and basic grammar skills has taken a nose-dive in the last 10-20 years, and it's shameful. Ask any English teacher, and you'll hear the same thing. Likewise, the digital age of photography dumbs down the process of photography because it affords way too many "helps," and human nature is such that if you give us the chance to take shortcuts, we almost always will. It's called the Path of Least Resistance. Turns out, the easier a skill becomes through technology, the worse we become at it. Look at what's happened to the music industry. Now any tart with blond hair and a smile can land a recording contract as long as she's "managed" correctly.
And why do you and all your cohorts insist on constantly using the exception to prove the rule? Yes, the newbies can get immediate feedback and can act upon that and mull over the recorded settings when they look at their shots later. But honestly, how many SLR users do you think actually do that? You don't need a weatherman to know the way the wind blows there. And as far as that goes, I have no idea if you're better than the newbies because you learned on film, but the chances are good that it's true simply because film allowed you fewer parameters to screw up. If you were going to stay in photography with any reasonable chance of success and enjoyment, you had to learn about lighting and composition, etc. Now you don't need to know the first thing about it, since you have a practically infinite number of ways to correct the damage after the shot has been taken by simply sliding a guide up and down a scale.
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When I read about the degradation of photography caused by the coming of digital, I hark back (figuratively) to the late 1800s when George Eastman came out with: "You push the button. We do the rest." At that point photography branched. Atget was still doing his thing in Paris, and Stieglitz was still doing his in New York, but an awful lot of the people in the world started pushing that button and producing the kind of result we've been denigrating in this thread. As Yogi said, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it," and that's what everyone in photography did. There may be more bad photography today than ever before, but as near as I can tell, there's also more good photography. I suspect the proportion hasn't changed all that much since George came up with his little box.
Which leads me to a related point: I keep seeing remarks about what the "pros" do. Seems to me that when we mention "pros" we need to specify what kind of "pros" we're talking about. I have a couple of friends who are wedding photographers. They're "pros" because they make their living shooting pictures of events such as weddings. But asking one of them questions about photography as an artform is like asking a house painter questions about painting pictures on a canvas. These guys are very good at what they do, but they can't afford to do art photography. It doesn't pay. Most fine art photography (if there is such a thing) is done by amateurs -- in the original (French) meaning of the word. Of course there also are people like Elliott Erwitt who, after he finished his "professional" work on assignment, would pick up his M4 and take a busman's holiday shooting what he felt like shooting -- and producing what I consider fine art.
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When I read about the degradation of photography caused by the coming of digital, I hark back (figuratively) to the late 1800s when George Eastman came out with: "You push the button. We do the rest." At that point photography branched. Atget was still doing his thing in Paris, and Stieglitz was still doing his in New York, but an awful lot of the people in the world started pushing that button and producing the kind of result we've been denigrating in this thread. As Yogi said, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it," and that's what everyone in photography did. There may be more bad photography today than ever before, but as near as I can tell, there's also more good photography. I suspect the proportion hasn't changed all that much since George came up with his little box.
Which leads me to a related point: I keep seeing remarks about what the "pros" do. Seems to me that when we mention "pros" we need to specify what kind of "pros" we're talking about. I have a couple of friends who are wedding photographers. They're "pros" because they make their living shooting pictures of events such as weddings. But asking one of them questions about photography as an artform is like asking a house painter questions about painting pictures on a canvas. These guys are very good at what they do, but they can't afford to do art photography. It doesn't pay. Most fine art photography (if there is such a thing) is done by amateurs -- in the original (French) meaning of the word. Of course there also are people like Elliott Erwitt who, after he finished his "professional" work on assignment, would pick up his M4 and take a busman's holiday shooting what he felt like shooting -- and producing what I consider fine art.
The invention of the Kodak camera (and the Brownie at the turn of the century, which made photography available to the masses) had as little to do with advancing the art of photography as the invention of the digital camera has. That's precisely my point. Just because more people are able to do something (which, in the case of snapshooting, is perfectly fine ~ the more the merrier) doesn't mean, however, that it (photography) is being done any better. On the contrary, the basic law of returns says that if making a process easier is what allows more untrained people to do something, then it stands to reason that the easier something becomes, the larger the propensity for prosaic outcomes. Throughout most of the last century, those who understood photography as a medium of artistic expression -- with its unique ability to capture a moment in time -- were close enough to the actual process of capturing an image (understanding that the fewer things between your eyes and the image, the closer you are) that they could actually claim to understand the vagaries of light capture and the importance of composition, etc., which is precisely what has traditionally been understood to make up the basic elements of "photography." To wit: the Leica 1, introduced in 1925, utilizes the same technology to capture a b&w image as does my Contax N1. The process has not changed, and I'll go to the darkroom with the same essential materials as my great grandfather would have. In other words, we've been working with the same tools and using the same techniques for close to 100 years, and as a result, the focus (pun intended) could be on the art form of capturing an image (as traditionally understood) and less so on the incidentals of this or that particular medium.
Which gets me to your second point. Aside from the fact that wedding photographers are a real lousy control group for understanding what is meant by the artistry involved in photography (I've known too many hacks particularly in the last few years who thought they could get into the business because they'd purchased an expensive digital camera), you inexplicably make a connection between them and "art photography" and "fine art photography" to prove the point (I think) that professional photographers are as removed from the artistry of photography as professional house painters are from Botticelli. Well, kind of... but since professional photogs ostensibly use the same medium (read "canvas") as any fine art photographer does, so the comparison sort of breaks down right out of the gates. After all, we're not talking about a difference between clapboards and calf skins, are we?
But the larger point is that the artistry traditionally involved in "amateur" or "enthusiast" photography has very little do with "art" or "fine art" photography to begin with. The point, seems to me, of all the photography books written and classes offered in the pre-digital age were about the same essential three ingredients: 1. developing an eye to see the world (and an image) in a way one hadn't seen it before; 2. understanding the relationship between shutter speed and aperture; and 3. knowing your equipment (which was largely about lenses and film types). But this has been exactly reversed, and all the rage now is about the equipment -- and even then, you don't really need to know much about it beyond the "Quick Start" guides and tutorials you read on dpreview.com or get from your local Target salesperson -- and conversation about developing an eye and the techniques of composition have all but been drowned out (note my earlier post about this site). I encourage you once again to look at the latest Photography magazine and compare how many articles are devoted to the manipulation of software and how many are devoted to developing photographic skills. Why have great photography magazines like DoubleTake and Aperture gone by the wayside? Because they were devoted to the art of photography. Alas, now even claiming that there is such a thing runs the risk of sounding elitist.
<sigh>
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Light, Maybe my ability to read accurately has broken down, but as near as I can tell, your response agreed almost precisely with what I said in that post and in many others. I've said over and over again that I can't see that equipment has anything to do with the quality of the work good photographers do. Again: From HCB: "Photographing is nothing. Looking is everything." Another (I don't remember the exact quote, but this is close enough): When asked to teach photography, Elliott Erwitt said, "What is there to teach?" Meaning: good photography is based on your ability to see. You can learn about your equipment by RTFI (an Air Force acronym for "read the instructions."
Yes, I agree, house painters and art painters paint on different materials.
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Rob, plenty of folks get by just fine with ETTR and digital. Maybe you shouldn't rely on matrix metering though, if you really want to ETTR. Most decent DSLR's have a TTL spot-meter, and there are ways to load custom white balances to give you a accurate representation of the actual exposure for each color channel.
But you know what, if you really miss using your hand-held meter, there's no reason you can't use it with digital. They still work the same way. You'll have to watch your highlights in high-contrast scenes, since an incident meter only tells you where mid-tones should be and not where the highlights will end up. But that would be true with film as well (especially in the case of slide film which, has even less dynamic range than digital).
I actually bought a high-end Sekonic spot/incident meter, because so many experienced photographers swore that was the only way to really take control of exposure. I don't use it all that often though, because I've found it's faster to use the camera's spot meter - and just as accurate (more so in some cases).
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jjj, indeed, the fact that there weren't digital cameras until recently does have a lot to do with why virtually all great photographers learned on film. But this is a perfect example of a necessity that's become a virtue. Before word-processing grammar and spell-check software came along, there was a much higher proportion of good writers and spellers for the simple reason that you actually had to learn about grammar rather than rely on a computer to correct your mistakes. I should know, I'm a college English professor. The general quality of writing and basic grammar skills has taken a nose-dive in the last 10-20 years, and it's shameful. Ask any English teacher, and you'll hear the same thing.
And that issue occurred before computers became the norm, so I would blame the education system not the technology for that particular problem. Also in the UK you will hear academics complain about the poor standard of English,Maths etc amongst the current student intake, but then as the the qualifying Exams have become easier and you no longer have just the academic elite going to University, that is to be expected. It used to be the top 3-5% went to Uni, now they are trying to get 25% of people into higher education. So unless everyone suddenly got smarter, student standards had to take a serious nosedive.
BTW I was never formally taught any grammar as far as I recall and it never caused me any problems. I also believe the grammar centric teaching of foreign languages is a major reason why people struggle to learn them at school, despite the fact that learning to speak languages is a natural aptitude we all have.
You may be an English professor, but it seems your ability at statistical analysis and causuality is as bad as the English of the students you teach.
Likewise, the digital age of photography dumbs down the process of photography because it affords way too many "helps," and human nature is such that if you give us the chance to take shortcuts, we almost always will. It's called the Path of Least Resistance. Turns out, the easier a skill becomes through technology, the worse we become at it. Look at what's happened to the music industry. Now any tart with blond hair and a smile can land a recording contract as long as she's "managed" correctly.
How to sound like an old fogey in one short sentence. You only get a music career if you have the tunes to sell. Just like it's always been. Besides pretty, but talentless faces have always been a part of the music industry. Milli Vanilli are probably the most famous example of that.
And why do you and all your cohorts insist on constantly using the exception to prove the rule? Yes, the newbies can get immediate feedback and can act upon that and mull over the recorded settings when they look at their shots later. But honestly, how many SLR users do you think actually do that?
Most people chimp their images and if it hasn't worked they take another shot, whether they have the nous to work out why is another matter. The percentage that use cameras and have actual talent won't have changed. And will not.
You don't need a weatherman to know the way the wind blows there. And as far as that goes, I have no idea if you're better than the newbies because you learned on film, but the chances are good that it's true simply because film allowed you fewer parameters to screw up. If you were going to stay in photography with any reasonable chance of success and enjoyment, you had to learn about lighting and composition, etc.
And you still do. Duh! Plus ça change.
Now you don't need to know the first thing about it, since you have a practically infinite number of ways to correct the damage after the shot has been taken by simply sliding a guide up and down a scale.
More very naive nonsense, there is no slider for better composition and using the computer is no different from spending time in the darkroom, dodging and burning prints. Except it's a lotless smelly
And I'd wager that you do not or are not very good at post processing images using software, as every time I hear this silly argument it's from someone who cannot or will not use PS/Lightroom etc. I've taught people how to use cameras both digital and film, yet teaching film was actually much easier as it was much less complicated in so many ways. You 'simply' exposed correctly,dropped it off at lab and got great looking images. Now you have to know about computers, colour spaces, colour management, RAW processing and a whole host of other techy crap to get an image to look nice. Most film, particularly slide looked good straight back from the lab and to anyone you showed it to. Now you have to have some serious technical expertise to just to get that very basic part right and you have to hope other people's monitors are calibrated correctly, so the images look good to them too .
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I have avoided writing here because I feel that there is a difference of minds polarizing into a position where whatever is said by one side is instantly refuted by the other as if a matter of principle.
Okay, since I´m here, what do I find?
Remember I´m retired after a long career as a photographer. By definition, all of that was spent with film, both b/w and colour tran and neg, with much experience of printing from all, including trannies. That´s my point of departure.
Since I retired I have shot very little film and, were it not for digital, might well have given up photography altogether. However, I have come to the conclusion that the best part of digital lies in the printing of film originals, and that Kodachrome has magically turned into as close to being a perfect colour/b and w material as ever existed. I am repeatedly informed that you can´t scan Kodachrome: surprising, to say the least; most everything I have printed has started as big K! Can only CanoScan scan K?
You cannot use ICE or what ever it is called with Kodachrome, not that you cannot scan Kodakchrome. You get weird artifacting if you use auoto dust removal with Chrome.
So what do I get out of my digital camera? So far, and it might only be limited by opportunity, a few b/w landscapes that I like - some skies that seem to be quite nice for grafting onto existing film shots and some pleasing (to me) shots of paint. I have not shot any people in a serious way and can´t say that I have been impressed with the casual shots that I have made. There seems to be something phoney-looking about skin.
Digital skin texture - yeuch. Making skin look nice is much harder with digital. I use PS to emulate film feel.
How has it affected my technique? Very seriuosly. With film, there was never a time I guessed exposure: I always hand metered. Now, with film, faced with tricky outdoor lighting, I´d probably be quite unsure about how to use my meter. I have become so damn dependent on the histogram that it has destroyed the confidence I had with a meter and film. In other words, it´s right where an earlier posted said it was: you become stuck on what the camera says or MIGHT be saying. Take the case of incident light metering with transparency. You took a reading which told you exactly where you could go to avoid getting clear film, the other colours/tones falling into place behind that highlight point.
Is the histogram the same? The hell it is. I cite my paint pics as an example. If one has a lot of white in it, then the histogram tells me one thing as I try to ETTR. In the same light, if I were to paint over that white with another colour already in the picture, why should that force a different setting on the digital camera, as it would? With transparency film in the same light, the same exposure would be correct in both cases. Digital is an improvement? It takes me a darn sight longer to expose correctly than film ever did. The digital camera´s metering system is defeated by the ETTR ethic. I follow ETTR because I think it might be correct, but with film I KNEW that the meter called the answer correctly. Looking at the meter reading in the camera, it goes all over the place when trying to use ETTR - it becomes as good as useless. And I used to think that Nikon´s Matrix was really accurate when all I did with the camera was street scenes or other open, general shots with all the tones and colour in the world. I suppose that that´s what the camera metering systems are designed to handle: "average" scenes.
The short answer is - use a handheld meter/camerameter/eye and learn your sensor characteristics, just like you learned a particular film character and expose appropriately, it's just the same, but slightly different. If you catch my drift.
The problem with using the histogram on back of camera is that it's for the camera generated JPEG, not the RAW file where you would use ETTR. If you meter like with film, then your in camera jpegs should look just fine. ETTR is for getting the max info out of file. It is not the 'correct' exposure as such,anymore than there was a 'correct' exposure for film. Colour Negative was [apparently] better if overexposed a tad and slide was nicer slightly underexposed - for my taste anyway.
So, I think that digital photography (capture) has created a far more complicated and awkward way of doing things; I think that many of the wonder toys that are being introduced into MF digital are, in reality, nothing more than efforts to compensate for failures that film did not have. It has become a new wild west with the biggest and strongest running the others right out of town. The population didn´t do very well out of that scenario then, I doubt today will show a different result.
So, in my own case, and this is all it is, I find it a very mixed bag of pretty expensive tricks. When I wanted to shoot some slides, I didn´t need to buy a computer to do it! Nor to store them nor edit them. But then, perhaps that´s where some find the photographic pleasure today, as in the other poster´s reference to photo magazines. It ain´t about the pics so much, more about the talking about the pics and the tools used to make them, perhaps?
Rob C
Camera mags have always been full of ads for gear [it's how they pay the bills] and camera clubs and now forums too are where people like to talk about kit. But as I said above, digital may be more immediate, bit it's not easier/simpler. Everything is way more techy than it used to be.
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If "there's never been a better time for a discussion of photographic composition," then why have virtually all photo magazines become nothing more than a glorified advertisement for the latest gadget?
They always have been. With very few exceptions.
And if that doesn't convince you--and it should--then take a look at this site. Under "Raw & Post Processing, Printing" there are currently about 10,000 topic posts with 75,000 replies; under "Equipment & Techniques" there are 16,000 topic posts with about 143,000 replies; but under "The Art of Photography" there are only 1700 topic posts with 13,300 replies, of which approximately 3,600 replies are in the "Coffee Corner" which is committed to any topic under the sun including things that have nothing to do with photography. In other words, on the very site where you would expect a lot of "discussion of photographic composition," less than 5% of topic posts and replies are actually committed to that discussion. You do the math.
A little bit of thought explains the math. It's easier to ask/talk about/get info on technical aspects than it is to talk about vagaries like composition and it it art as that side of things is so subjective and lacking in actual facts. Plus once you solve the techy stuff [and there's an awful lot with digital], like how does my camera work, then you can simply take photos. Besides some of the most popular threads in the equipment section are the ones with photos in.
You can teach anyone how to use a camera, you cannot teach how or when to take a photograph,that's something, you either have or you don't have.
The Sigma SD14 is the canary in the coal mine. It's been panned from one reviewer to the next. Why? Because of its output and image quality? On the contrary. Pretty much every reviewer, including those who have panned it, recognize that it takes better pictures than just about any digital camera out there. It's panned because it doesn't have all these ridiculous little "helps" that the most advanced SLR's are apparently supposed to have. Fact is, the SD14 is for serious photographers who don't want/need any of those silly add-ons. Virtually every photographer I know who uses one puts it on Manual/RAW and never looks back. Can the same be said for any other camera out there? I don't think so.
I have a Canon and use it on manual/raw like most serious photographers do, regardless of camera brand/sensor.
Plus a good sensor is simply not enough. The same sensor is in the DP1, yet it is such a crap camera to use you are very likely to miss the shot,
as the camera is so slow and difficult to use. I would have bought one in a flash if that hadn't been the case. The new version is apparently less awful.
Camera ergonomics/features are extremely important and not a trivial thing at all. If say you need a high sync speed to get the exposure settings you need/prefer to use with flash and your camera doesn't have it, then you are compromised/limited by your camera and it may be of limited use to you no matter how good anything else may be.
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jjj, you´re reciting my problems with digital capture where ETTR competes/conflicts with the Matrix meter. If that doesn´t get in the way of actually taking photographs, my personal experience of the situation, then what in blazes does?
Never found it an issue or any different to a handheld meter in that sense.
I wonder how it works out in a studio with flash; using film and my Minolta Flash lll it was simple. If exposure with digi now also depends on the colours present in the shot and nothing to do with aiming for a white, no wonder they need to work tied! As I have said often - to the level of boring anyone who reads - I honestly believe that digi started life as a solution looking for a problem, was adopted by some makers, and ended up as their suicide mission. I think if you look around at the photo cemetery you have to conclude I have a point!
If talking about MF, many died as for most people DSLRs were good enough and more affordable. MF film cameras were affordable by most people. MF digital backs were certainly not and also the manufacturing skills needed went from mechanical to cutting edge electronics. So no surprises at the demise of established names when there is a major change in the business paradigm - only to be expected.
And, I also think that its popularity within the profession has been driven by clients, not by photographers, who, by and large, did quite well with their tools prior to the change!
The only time I've had a client express a preference for how I shoot wanted me to use film. I showed him comparisons of both and he admitted digital was quite good. I shot with both and only the digital was used. Most photographers chose digital as instant feedback is very, very, very useful for pros and much better than Polaroid for so many reasons. Not to mention no unbelievably tedious and crappy scanning involved. I used a computer for ten years before I shot digitally and I work better and more capably with digital than I did with film. A major chunk of work I've done over last few years, would not have been very practical with film - working for long periods in rural locations with no E6 labs to hand. Not to mention some work becomes waaaaay cheaper if not using film. Even accounting for all the other costs, like hard drives, cameras etc. On the other hand if working very remotely with no power sources, then film is better and lighter. Though I do not miss arguing with airport staff about not X-raying my [often high ISO] film.
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Oh dear. Pot, Kettle.....
Gosh, I had you on ignore for so long I forgot what a piece of crap you were. Too bad they deleted your clown postings - really embarrassing for LLVJ to have 1,000-plus people read those. I understand the admins here like you. Crap really gets around.
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But you know what, if you really miss using your hand-held meter, there's no reason you can't use it with digital. They still work the same way. You'll have to watch your highlights in high-contrast scenes, since an incident meter only tells you where mid-tones should be and not where the highlights will end up. But that would be true with film as well (especially in the case of slide film which, has even less dynamic range than digital).
I actually bought a high-end Sekonic spot/incident meter, because so many experienced photographers swore that was the only way to really take control of exposure. I don't use it all that often though, because I've found it's faster to use the camera's spot meter - and just as accurate (more so in some cases).
Jeff
I don´t follow your line of thought about incident light metering. It was mainly useful with colour transparency because it tied exposure very accurately to the HIGHLIGHT end of the subject, not the mid-tones at all: it gave a reading designed to make white (in the subject matter) just this side of clear film, and everything else fell into line behind that.
Reflected light metering, on the other hand, was designed to measure what would represent a mid-grey. In other words, if you reflected-light measured a black, it would tell you to expose at a setting that would render that black a mid-grey, and ditto if you measured white by reflected light. That´s also the problem using a spot meter. Being just a reflected light meter with about a 1 degree angle, you have to know exactly which tone to measure that you want to reproduce as the ideal mid-tone, which could mean a mid-blue tone, a mid-red tone, a mid-anything tone. Using a spot meter can be quite tricky just because it does depend on your ability to know what exactly constitutes a mid-tone. For example, if you spot read a human face (Caucasian) then you should open up a little bit to increase the exposure because otherwise, the skin will be reproduced much darker than you intend. If, instead of a face, there is something in the shot that is white, read that with the spot meter and open up about one-and-a-half stops and you will be pretty bang-on with your exposure. I am speaking about FILM here!
I used to have a Nikon F4s which had a so-called spot; well, it was far too wide an acceptance angle to be one, but it was still pretty useful and I could get it to work if I found myself somewhere where I couldn´t take an incident light reading in the same lighting as was the subject. When I first got my D200 I thought I´d try the spot metering in that, but it didn´t work in the same way and I gave up on it pretty quickly. I found the Matrix pretty good, but even then, there were times when a few minor highlights would lose all detail.
To continue this chat and bringing in some of jjj´s points, yes, there are very accurate answers to metering with digi capture, but all I think I was trying to say is that it is a much longer route to getting to the same place. Using the Minolta (or any incident light meter for that matter) and tranny film, once you measured the basic level it was suited to all shots in that same lighting and you didn´t have to re-meter because the subject colour might have been altered, which is exactly what I have discovered I DO have to do with my painting shots. I repeat, yes, it can be done very well on digi capture but it takes longer and requires a lot more attention to subject matter from an exposure point of view, not any advantage in my book.
But, had I never used film, I´m sure I´d be wondering where the problem lies, if not just in the photographer´s head.
Rob C
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And that issue occurred before computers became the norm, so I would blame the education system not the technology for that particular problem. Also in the UK you will hear academics complain about the poor standard of English,Maths etc amongst the current student intake, but then as the the qualifying Exams have become easier and you no longer have just the academic elite going to University, that is to be expected. It used to be the top 3-5% went to Uni, now they are trying to get 25% of people into higher education. So unless everyone suddenly got smarter, student standards had to take a serious nosedive.
BTW I was never formally taught any grammar as far as I recall and it never caused me any problems. I also believe the grammar centric teaching of foreign languages is a major reason why people struggle to learn them at school, despite the fact that learning to speak languages is a natural aptitude we all have.
You may be an English professor, but it seems your ability at statistical analysis and causuality is as bad as the English of the students you teach.
Ahh, well, if you can't win on logic, use ad hominem. I'll stick to the points of the debate myself. The precipitous decline in writing standards and grammar that I'm referring to is actually a post-computer phenomenon. It's been documented ad nauseum. Check it out for yourself. As for the UK qualifying exams, I'm grateful you use an argument to prove my point. Easier qualifying exams leads to poorer standards in English. Precisely. And all I've said about digital SLR photography is that the more you lower the barrier to entry, the lower the overall output will invariably be. Any fool can go into a camera store today, turn a camera to the "On" position, take off the lens cap, and start firing away with virtually zero risk of bad exposure. That's called lowering the bar. Try doing that with a K-1000 or an M3. As for your never having been taught grammar in school not causing you any problems, I simply defer to your last sentence above: the word is "causality," not "causuality." I'm surprised your spell-checker didn't catch that. I refer you to the Dunning-Kruger effect, which you can access here: http://www.englishrules.com/archives/2007/...idol-effect.php (http://www.englishrules.com/archives/2007/the-american-idol-effect.php). Fun little article, actually, that brings in the whole notion of grammar, too.
How to sound like an old fogey in one short sentence. You only get a music career if you have the tunes to sell. Just like it's always been. Besides pretty, but talentless faces have always been a part of the music industry. Milli Vanilli are probably the most famous example of that.
Is that why the entertainment biz here in Hollywood has been all a-twitter about how shows like American Idol have changed the music landscape to the point that managing someone is now more crucial that any actual talent they may have? Yes, of course this sort of thing has happened since the beginning, but not at the rate it's happening now.
Most people chimp their images and if it hasn't worked they take another shot, whether they have the nous to work out why is another matter. The percentage that use cameras and have actual talent won't have changed. And will not.
"Whether they have the nous to work out why" is exactly the point. And the percentage of people who use cameras has skyrocketed. Clearly you're not denying that, are you? As for talent, who knows what the percentage is.
And you still do. Duh! Plus ça change.
Actually, you don't. Hence my point below.
More very naive nonsense, there is no slider for better composition and using the computer is no different from spending time in the darkroom, dodging and burning prints. Except it's a lotless smelly
And I'd wager that you do not or are not very good at post processing images using software, as every time I hear this silly argument it's from someone who cannot or will not use PS/Lightroom etc. I've taught people how to use cameras both digital and film, yet teaching film was actually much easier as it was much less complicated in so many ways. You 'simply' exposed correctly,dropped it off at lab and got great looking images. Now you have to know about computers, colour spaces, colour management, RAW processing and a whole host of other techy crap to get an image to look nice. Most film, particularly slide looked good straight back from the lab and to anyone you showed it to. Now you have to have some serious technical expertise to just to get that very basic part right and you have to hope other people's monitors are calibrated correctly, so the images look good to them too .
Let me take your last point first. If a slide looked good straight back from the lab to anyone you showed it to, why on earth would someone prefer to need "some serious technical expertise to just get that very basic part right and...hope that other people's monitors are calibrated correctly." Sounds exhausting.
As for your other points: I never said there was a slider for composition. But there are sliders for everything else. And no problem there, if you're simply interested in doctoring your images up after the fact. Which takes me to the final (and very telling) statement of yours: "Now you have to know about computers, colour spaces, colour management, RAW processing and a whole host of other techy crap to get an image to look nice." I couldn't have said it better myself. It's obvious that your definition of "To get an image to look nice" means what you do after you take the shot and is mainly preoccupied with things like color representation. In traditional photography, however, getting an image to look nice involved things like proper composition, lighting, and framing... in other words, what you did before the shot was taken, not after. It's called "the decisive moment." Which was the original point of this post.
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I don´t follow your line of thought about incident light metering. It was mainly useful with colour transparency because it tied exposure very accurately to the HIGHLIGHT end of the subject, not the mid-tones at all: it gave a reading designed to make white (in the subject matter) just this side of clear film, and everything else fell into line behind that.
An incident meter measures the light falling on the scene, and will render midtones as midtones, exposing the scene pretty much as the eye sees it. But that's no guarantee that your highlights won't be over-exposed; it depends on the contrast range of the scene (eg how bright are the whites). In a studio where you have control over the lighting ratios (and hence contrast), this might seem like a moot point. But for outdoor nature/landscape photography it's very much an issue, and is why most photographers tend to favor spot metering for high-contrast scenes.
To continue this chat and bringing in some of jjj´s points, yes, there are very accurate answers to metering with digi capture, but all I think I was trying to say is that it is a much longer route to getting to the same place. Using the Minolta (or any incident light meter for that matter) and tranny film, once you measured the basic level it was suited to all shots in that same lighting and you didn´t have to re-meter because the subject colour might have been altered, which is exactly what I have discovered I DO have to do with my painting shots.
All I was trying to say is that it doesn't have to be complicated. There's nothing inherent in digital capture that requires different colors to be exposed differently. You could just as easily take an incident reading and use that to shoot digital. In fact digital would be a little more forgiving than chromes, because of the greater dynamic range.
You wouldn't be exposing to the right, but ETTR is not a requisite for digital capture; all ETTR really does is give you cleaner shadows, but depending on what you're shooting it may not be worth the extra hassle. And if you're going to use ETTR, you probably shouldn't use matrix metering and definitely should not use Auto White Balance. The matrix meter may choose different exposures based on your composition and the color balance of the scene, which is what makes it unpredictable. And AWB will mis-represent the true exposure of each channel in the camera's histogram.
My suggestion, if you don't want to bother with the nitty gritty technical stuff, just ditch ETTR and go back to your old way of metering. It should work just fine.
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An incident meter measures the light falling on the scene, and will render midtones as midtones, exposing the scene pretty much as the eye sees it. But that's no guarantee that your highlights won't be over-exposed; it depends on the contrast range of the scene (eg how bright are the whites).
Jeff
I´m sorry, I can´t agree with your definition of how an incident light meter works. It bases its reading on reproducing brightest white just safe of a burn-out. That´s why you us it: it NEVER allows you to over-expose white, the brightest highlight. If you set the camera as it says. At least, that´s how it has worked for the years between ´55 and now! For me. Of course mid-tones will be correctly exposed, simply because they follow along in the band of levels below that top white, not because they are what´s being measured by the incident light meter. Why else would one use it instead of a reflected light meter, or, in fact, why would anyone use a reflected light meter instead if both tried for the same mid-tone goal? Two types to achieve one goal woud be pointless.
Transparency material is totally dependent on saving the highlight presented by a brightest white. That doesn´t mean that shooting into sunlight reflections on the sea, for example will follow the rule, because they are not white, they are more or less the same as shooting into the sun and if you try to save them, will remain overexposed for many stops beyond what the rest of the scene can handle.
I´m happy to have you think otherwise, but that´s up to you. I think I have shot enough transparency material in my career to know how it and measuring exposure for it goes. That it used to be common practice to underexpose transparency material intended for reproduction in print by a small degree was not to make the tranny look better, which it did not, it was to give the repro house a chance to hold detail more easily; but you still had to know what correct exposure was to get there, and the incident meter told you that. I´m not about to follow a new religion now!
Your later points regarding digital exposure setting are more or less the same observations as I made regarding my own problems doing that - it seems only in the definition of how an incident light meter functions that we differ, and that might not even mean we would use one differently, we just seem to have a different interpretation of what it´s doing. But as I think I mentioned, in a shot where I have used white paint in a picture along with other colours/tones, using an incident light meter was exactly right and agreed with the ETTR system of measuring. Only when there was no white did the metering problems begin, as one could expect, there being no subject white highlights to occur naturally at the right end of the histogram. Hence the trouble with that rule - forcing more exposure than would have been required to cover the same tones if white had been present too. Maybe it´s the ETTR rule that´s not so damn hot after all!
In a way, I wonder if this isn´t the result/penalty of reading too darn much about digi exposure theory: one gets to be offered too many routes to the same place. In the end, if we have to consult that damn rear screen, perhaps the blinking highlight thing is as good a measure as any. Not that it makes using these screens in daylight any better nor does it avoid the need to consult them rather than have blind faith in the hand-held meter which, sadly, is where we came in, and why I think digital capture a lot less user-friendly that film, especially transparency!
I´m exhausted- off to bed.
Rob C
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Maybe it´s the ETTR rule that´s not so damn hot after all!
In a way, I wonder if this isn´t the result/penalty of reading too darn much about digi exposure theory: one gets to be offered too many routes to the same place. In the end, if we have to consult that damn rear screen, perhaps the blinking highlight thing is as good a measure as any. Not that it makes using these screens in daylight any better nor does it avoid the need to consult them rather than have blind faith in the hand-held meter which, sadly, is where we came in, and why I think digital capture a lot less user-friendly that film, especially transparency!
All I can add to this discussion is that ETTR is helpful as a guide for certain shots, but in some cases, you don't want to use ETTR at all. It's very useful if you understand its limitations.
As far as I'm concerned, light meters (incidental or otherwise) should be a help but not a necessity (with very few exceptions). There's no substitute for understanding how light works (the properties of refraction and luminosity mainly) at an intuitive level and then bracketing for exposure to cover your bases. After all, we were born with two pretty perfect cameras in our heads, and we've been using them all of our lives. We need to learn how to minimize the barriers that stand between our eyes and the image. Hence the point of this post: Less is More (and vice-versa).
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>>> So what have I learned since then? That it's worse than I first thought: the whole digital craze's fixation with equipment is creating a generation of photographers who can't see.
I don't think you've learned anything. I've just read every post on both threads.
You seem overly concerned with what other people think and do. Just live your life and let others live theirs. Both threads are arrogant attacks on basic human freedom. You want everyone to see the world as you do. What a boring world that would be. Even you would hate it.
I've been taking photographs for 30 years. I cut my teeth in a B&W darkroom. Thank god those days are gone. Today's tools allow me to achieve a level of technical excellence in my images I could only dream of as a young man with my Tri-X and stinky trays. Am I a better photographer for it? Actually, yes ... the ability to expose the flaws in my technique at 100% magnification has shown me ways to improve my work in the digital era that I would have never seen on film. Photography is and always has been the intersection of art and technology. Of course you still need an "eye" ... but you also need technique and technology.
I think you should take another walk with your dog and ponder why you care so much about what camera I choose to use and how much I choose to understand its inner workings.
Do you know what a luddite is?
EDIT ... P.S.
You do realize that Program, Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority "exposure modes" did not arrive with digital and were featured on film camera long before the "awful" digital era, right?
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In traditional photography, however, getting an image to look nice involved things like proper composition, lighting, and framing... in other words, what you did before the shot was taken, not after. It's called "the decisive moment."
It still does. And always will.
Moving a slider in software is NO DIFFERENT from turning dial on enlarger timer to alter exposure time.
Whether you alter parameters by use of slider, dials, knobs, temperature, amount of agitation, bits of cardboard on wire is utterly irrelevant. You develop RAW files just like you developed film - there's no fundamental difference really when it comes to the photography, I've done both darkroom + computer work extensively and the real difference is more control and better quality with digital and best of all, no smelly chemicals. No-one but a buffoon cares how you got to your end point of the finished image, all that is important is how good the photo is. Some people with similar quaint views [it may have even been you, hiding behind another name] came out with some similar nonsense about how much better film was and how digital couldn't look as 'good'. I posted some shots, which they then used as examples of the superiority of film and yet not only were the shots done digitally, but would have been impossible to take with a film camera.
And people who use a typos to bolster their argument are simply pathetic. Which is not an ad hominem comment like you suggested above. Like above comment, simply descriptive of you and your inability to debate logically.
You have a somewhat crazy point of view, which you are trying to prove through all sorts of very dippy reasoning. Such as a dip in the standard of English prior to PCs even becoming common as proof of computers making us stupid. And using typos to illustrate my bad grammar certainly makes me doubt your claim to be an English Professor.
Also there's no evidence you are even a photographer, let alone a good one. You hide behind a pseudonym and have no links to any work that may be yours. Are you simply trolling with a contentious postings?
As for the UK qualifying exams, I'm grateful you use an argument to prove my point. Easier qualifying exams leads to poorer standards in English. Precisely.
No it lets less capable people into University, reducing average capability, compared to when less able were not allowed in. The standard of English in entire population need not have changed one iota and yet those in Academia will see a drop in standards, only as the sampling has changed. Basic statistics.
Plus, you've not quite grasped the difference between selection criteria being lowered for academic ability testing and cameras being more or less hard to use. As ease of use of camera/software has no bearing on one's ability to be able to see images/take good photos. Different skillset entirely. Similarly in sport - where the entry barriers for participating are reduced, i.e. the sport is popular/has facilities available to many/supported in the media etc, you tend to get more high level athletes in those sports than countries where the barriers to taking part are higher. Not a lower level as you are arguing. As lowering barriers to people trying things leads to a greater no. of talented people being discovered.
The amazing tally of medals by the British Track cyclists is a case in point. Money, new facilities and good coaching was poured into the sport reducing barriers and making life much easier for those wanting to compete and now we are the best in the world. The exact opposite of what you claim will happen.
I think this idea that easier to use cameras, more ergonomic software is somehow dumbing us down is foolish macho reasoning. Harder is better!
Making exams harder to sort wheat from the chaff is a very different thing - in fact the point of exams is to differentiate people, so you can tell who is best at what. They should be discriminatory in order to be effective.
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Gosh, I had you on ignore for so long I forgot what a piece of crap you were. Too bad they deleted your clown postings - really embarrassing for LLVJ to have 1,000-plus people read those. I understand the admins here like you. Crap really gets around.
The clown I was posting about was you, remember. Just before you were asked to take a holiday for behaving very bizarrely. My posts stayed online IIRC, unless your absence from LL resulted in entire thread vanishing. I liked the clown post, made me laugh.
Calling the admins crap and similar is why you made yourself so many 'friends' before. Please try and stay polite and civil this time.
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Rob C - just learn how your sensor needs to be exposed, for how you like your image and you're done.
It may be a reading off palm of hand and +1 stop or whatever. That's what I always did with slide, just find your own tweak for digital and your all set.
Nice to see you posting images BTW.
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>>> So what have I learned since then? That it's worse than I first thought: the whole digital craze's fixation with equipment is creating a generation of photographers who can't see.
I don't think you've learned anything. I've just read every post on both threads.
You seem overly concerned with what other people think and do. Just live your life and let others live theirs. Both threads are arrogant attacks on basic human freedom. You want everyone to see the world as you do. What a boring world that would be. Even you would hate it.
I've been taking photographs for 30 years. I cut my teeth in a B&W darkroom. Thank god those days are gone. Today's tools allow me to achieve a level of technical excellence in my images I could only dream of as a young man with my Tri-X and stinky trays. Am I a better photographer for it? Actually, yes ... the ability to expose the flaws in my technique at 100% magnification has shown me ways to improve my work in the digital era that I would have never seen on film. Photography is and always has been the intersection of art and technology. Of course you still need an "eye" ... but you also need technique and technology.
I think you should take another walk with your dog and ponder why you care so much about what camera I choose to use and how much I choose to understand its inner workings.
Do you know what a luddite is?
EDIT ... P.S.
You do realize that Program, Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority "exposure modes" did not arrive with digital and were featured on film camera long before the "awful" digital era, right?
Clearly I hit a nerve, Jeremy. Don't know what to say except that I could care less what camera you use, and if anyone is overly concerned with what people think, it sounds like you are. I'm not telling anyone what camera they should use, but only that the advent of digital cameras has dumbed the process down for the majority of people to the point where they're glorified post-processors. There are always exceptions, as I've said a few times on this post, which of course you know about since you've read the entire thread -- poor thing. And the people who tend to be on sites like this are generally the exceptions. I'm sure you have learned a lot using digital, and that you're happy to see film go by the wayside. Bully for you.
Ha ha. Yes, a Luddite. Well, that would be strange since I love modern technology for what it can do. And yes, I even have a digital camera (perish the thought!) But I prefer film for a host of different reasons (all stated elsewhere), and now with transparency scanners and the like (what? He uses modern technology?!) I can download my pics on to my computer (*and* he uses a computer?!?).
Don't worry, Jeremy. It's all good.
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It still does. And always will.
Moving a slider in software is NO DIFFERENT from turning dial on enlarger timer to alter exposure time.
Whether you alter parameters by use of slider, dials, knobs, temperature, amount of agitation, bits of cardboard on wire is utterly irrelevant. You develop RAW files just like you developed film - there's no fundamental difference really when it comes to the photography, I've done both darkroom + computer work extensively and the real difference is more control and better quality with digital and best of all, no smelly chemicals. No-one but a buffoon cares how you got to your end point of the finished image, all that is important is how good the photo is. Some people with similar quaint views [it may have even been you, hiding behind another name] came out with some similar nonsense about how much better film was and how digital couldn't look as 'good'. I posted some shots, which they then used as examples of the superiority of film and yet not only were the shots done digitally, but would have been impossible to take with a film camera.
And people who use a typos to bolster their argument are simply pathetic. Which is not an ad hominem comment like you suggested above. Like above comment, simply descriptive of you and your inability to debate logically.
You have a somewhat crazy point of view, which you are trying to prove through all sorts of very dippy reasoning. Such as a dip in the standard of English prior to PCs even becoming common as proof of computers making us stupid. And using typos to illustrate my bad grammar certainly makes me doubt your claim to be an English Professor.
Also there's no evidence you are even a photographer, let alone a good one. You hide behind a pseudonym and have no links to any work that may be yours. Are you simply trolling with a contentious postings?
No it lets less capable people into University, reducing average capability, compared to when less able were not allowed in. The standard of English in entire population need not have changed one iota and yet those in Academia will see a drop in standards, only as the sampling has changed. Basic statistics.
Plus, you've not quite grasped the difference between selection criteria being lowered for academic ability testing and cameras being more or less hard to use. As ease of use of camera/software has no bearing on one's ability to be able to see images/take good photos. Different skillset entirely. Similarly in sport - where the entry barriers for participating are reduced, i.e. the sport is popular/has facilities available to many/supported in the media etc, you tend to get more high level athletes in those sports than countries where the barriers to taking part are higher. Not a lower level as you are arguing. As lowering barriers to people trying things leads to a greater no. of talented people being discovered.
The amazing tally of medals by the British Track cyclists is a case in point. Money, new facilities and good coaching was poured into the sport reducing barriers and making life much easier for those wanting to compete and now we are the best in the world. The exact opposite of what you claim will happen.
I think this idea that easier to use cameras, more ergonomic software is somehow dumbing us down is foolish macho reasoning. Harder is better!
Making exams harder to sort wheat from the chaff is a very different thing - in fact the point of exams is to differentiate people, so you can tell who is best at what. They should be discriminatory in order to be effective.
If it still does and always will, then why didn't you say that the first time? As for computers dumbing us down, let me refer you to the cover article of The Atlantic magazine last summer, "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?" If I can't convince you, maybe they can.
And of course the sampling has changed, jjj. I never said it didn't. But easier qualifying exams does eventually lead to lower standards in English. Why? Because if you lower the bar for qualifying exams, then what's considered average will go down proportionately. Talk about dippy reasoning. And hey, as for your so-called typo, I just thought it was hilarious that in the very sentence where you're chastising me about grammar and causality, you misspell causality. Surely you can see the humor in that. And no, I haven't been hiding under a different name -- why would I? Besides, I'm not surprised that others share my point of view. It's not as unique as you might think.
And yes, often harder is better. That's how people become great athletes, for example, like your British Track cyclists you mention. Do you think they made it to where they are because they rode their bicycles to the cafe every morning for some tea and crumpets? They'll be the first ones to tell you that they would never want to be a part of a team that didn't think hard was good. The harder you work, the better you get. That's not exactly news.
And you're right when you say that "ease of use of camera/software has no bearing on one's ability to be able to see images/take good photos." But it does have a bearing on one's ability to learn how to see images/take good photos. You can throw invective at me all day long, but I still don't think what I'm saying is that radical. Fine, shoot with digital and sing its praises. No argument here. I'm just saying--and have been trying to say all along--that as a medium for teaching people about photography, it offers too many shortcuts for people who have far less incentive to learn. And why hasn't anyone addressed a point I've made here a few times: namely, that most photography programs in the country have people start out with film. Why? To learn about lighting, f/stop+shutter speed, composition, etc. Is that really that radical of an idea? I hardly think so.
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And yes, often harder is better. That's how people become great athletes, for example, like your British Track cyclists you mention. Do you think they made it to where they are because they rode their bicycles to the cafe every morning for some tea and crumpets? They'll be the first ones to tell you that they would never want to be a part of a team that didn't think hard was good. The harder you work, the better you get. That's not exactly news.
I do not think JJJ meant it was easier for the cyclists to achieve success, just that the extra money poured into the team meant facilities and coaching gives an opportunity to cyclists who could not previously get into the elite level. Once there, the standard is ever improving.
The whole idea that digital has somehow 'dumbed down' photography is meaningless really. I too was bought up with film, processing it, printing in my darkroom. It was fun. But I am sure that the earlier generation of photographers who had to make their own chemicals from raw materials, then coat their own plates and paper, would have seen me buying a box of paper off the shelf as having an easy life.
Understanding the fundamentals of photography is a huge benefit whatever recording system used, but it is not the be-all these days. We have a friend who took up photography a few years ago. He bought a basic bridge-type digital camera, then took it on his daily walks in the Forest. The pictures he came back with were very creative, though not always technically good. Eventually he acquired a Canon 5D and learned a bit more about Photoshop. Now he is gradually learning more about the technical aspects of photography. His pictures have a level of creativity that I have not seen before amongst my photographer friends. This guy would probably never have taken up photography or progressed without digital. He needed the instant feedback from the camera screen. He has a very creative eye, but just finds all the technical stuff boring. If the final picture is the important thing, there is really no need to make it harder than it needs to be.
Admittedly digital has bought a huge number of people into photography, and a large number of them take pretty bad pictures, partly because of ingnorance of the photographic process. But it has also bought in a number of very talented people.
Let's face it. Most great photographs are made by people who combine good visual awareness with a degree of technical competence. The means and equipment used are really secondary.
Jim
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If it still does and always will, then why didn't you say that the first time? As for computers dumbing us down, let me refer you to the cover article of The Atlantic magazine last summer, "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?" If I can't convince you, maybe they can.
And of course the sampling has changed, jjj. I never said it didn't. But easier qualifying exams does eventually lead to lower standards in English. Why? Because if you lower the bar for qualifying exams, then what's considered average will go down proportionately. Talk about dippy reasoning. And hey, as for your so-called typo, I just thought it was hilarious that in the very sentence where you're chastising me about grammar and causality, you misspell causality. Surely you can see the humor in that. And no, I haven't been hiding under a different name -- why would I? Besides, I'm not surprised that others share my point of view. It's not as unique as you might think.
And yes, often harder is better. That's how people become great athletes, for example, like your British Track cyclists you mention. Do you think they made it to where they are because they rode their bicycles to the cafe every morning for some tea and crumpets? They'll be the first ones to tell you that they would never want to be a part of a team that didn't think hard was good. The harder you work, the better you get. That's not exactly news.
And you're right when you say that "ease of use of camera/software has no bearing on one's ability to be able to see images/take good photos." But it does have a bearing on one's ability to learn how to see images/take good photos. You can throw invective at me all day long, but I still don't think what I'm saying is that radical. Fine, shoot with digital and sing its praises. No argument here. I'm just saying--and have been trying to say all along--that as a medium for teaching people about photography, it offers too many shortcuts for people who have far less incentive to learn.
My only response to your witterings is to quote my old signature. "Please read all the words in my post, not just the ones you like and preferably in the same order as written."
English Professor my arse! I doubt you you could parse wind, let alone a complete sentence!
And why hasn't anyone addressed a point I've made here a few times: namely, that most photography programs in the country have people start out with film. Why? To learn about lighting, f/stop+shutter speed, composition, etc. Is that really that radical of an idea? I hardly think so.
You can do exactly the same with digital, God knows why you think otherwise and far better too. Once of the best teaching aids is feedback and digital gives immediate feedback, so you can spot mistakes whilst you have time to correct them, unlike with film.
Or maybe it's still done because the old fogeys wearing courdroy and running the courses are as daft as you are.
Or still have rooms full of film kit.
Or film kit is there simply to give people the option.
Or for a historical perspective.
Lots of possible reasons. But I bet none do so for the reason you say.
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I do not think JJJ meant it was easier for the cyclists to achieve success, just that the extra money poured into the team meant facilities and coaching gives an opportunity to cyclists who could not previously get into the elite level. Once there, the standard is ever improving.
Exactly. It was made much easier for people to train better and smarter, not just harder. An example of Smart training - One World mountain bike champion [Ned Overend] said sitting on couch watching TV was one of his best training aides - as it allowed his body to recover properly from the day before. It worked, as even when he was 'too old' to compete, he became world champion. Way too many athletes think more/harder is better when it comes to training.
Unlike Professor LightCapture [who interestingly cites consumer opinion pieces as evidence, not academic studies], most people here people can read and comprehend posts, without twisting sentences to mean something entirely different.
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And why hasn't anyone addressed a point I've made here a few times: namely, that most photography programs in the country have people start out with film. Why? To learn about lighting, f/stop+shutter speed, composition, etc. Is that really that radical of an idea? I hardly think so.
That's not radical - that's simply an illogical opinion of yours born of self-satisfied myopia. You are full of them.
I didn't start the self-aggrandizing rant ... you did ... twice.
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The clown I was posting about was you, remember. Just before you were asked to take a holiday for behaving very bizarrely. My posts stayed online IIRC, unless your absence from LL resulted in entire thread vanishing. I liked the clown post, made me laugh.
You are still as out of touch with reality as ever. Point #1: The thread was deleted by the admins a few days *after* I was on suspenson, hence their doing, not mine. Point #2: My posts on that thread were completely civil (all complaints to the admins about you), while all of your posts were clown posts, complete with clown photos to prove the point. You can prattle on about whatever you like, but you are still unfortunately you, a sociopath in need of a human personality.
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I do not think JJJ meant it was easier for the cyclists to achieve success, just that the extra money poured into the team meant facilities and coaching gives an opportunity to cyclists who could not previously get into the elite level. Once there, the standard is ever improving.
The whole idea that digital has somehow 'dumbed down' photography is meaningless really. I too was bought up with film, processing it, printing in my darkroom. It was fun. But I am sure that the earlier generation of photographers who had to make their own chemicals from raw materials, then coat their own plates and paper, would have seen me buying a box of paper off the shelf as having an easy life.
Understanding the fundamentals of photography is a huge benefit whatever recording system used, but it is not the be-all these days. We have a friend who took up photography a few years ago. He bought a basic bridge-type digital camera, then took it on his daily walks in the Forest. The pictures he came back with were very creative, though not always technically good. Eventually he acquired a Canon 5D and learned a bit more about Photoshop. Now he is gradually learning more about the technical aspects of photography. His pictures have a level of creativity that I have not seen before amongst my photographer friends. This guy would probably never have taken up photography or progressed without digital. He needed the instant feedback from the camera screen. He has a very creative eye, but just finds all the technical stuff boring. If the final picture is the important thing, there is really no need to make it harder than it needs to be.
Admittedly digital has bought a huge number of people into photography, and a large number of them take pretty bad pictures, partly because of ingnorance of the photographic process. But it has also bought in a number of very talented people.
Let's face it. Most great photographs are made by people who combine good visual awareness with a degree of technical competence. The means and equipment used are really secondary.
Jim
I agree, Jim. The advent of digital photography has absolutely gotten more people into photography. My only claim from the beginning, however, is that digital technology has provided so many shortcuts to these newcomers that they haven't had to learn much about "visual awareness," as you put it, but instead have beguiled people into post-processing mania. Again, I point to this website and others like it as proof of this very thing. And when I suggest that harder is better, I only mean this for the purposes of learning. Once someone has learned, as long as they continue to try to learn, digital can be a help. But I believe those people are the exception, not the rule. And yes, the person who had to process his own chemicals may have turned his nose up and your being able to buy papers, but again, the buying of papers and making of chemicals is more related to the processing and developing end of things, and not the decisive moment itself, which was the original point of this post.
And as for jjj's point about the British cyclists, my only point in responding to that is that he brought up the world of sport, and athletes, perhaps more than any other demographic, understand the benefits of hard work without shortcuts. Your friend you talk about clearly has a natural talent, but again, as you even admit, he's the exception.
Your last statement is 100% correct. And I think if you look back at my posts, you'll see that that's precisely what I've been saying all along: the means and equipment are secondary to developing a good eye.
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Way back at the beginning Rob made a comment about B&W: "I conclude yet again that the most pure form of photography has to be black and white and shot on film." I'm surprised I didn't see more discussion on that point. I don't agree that B&W has to be shot on film to be useful, but if I were teaching photography my students would shoot black and white -- probably on digital -- for the first year. Shooting in B&W is the best way to learn about the distribution of graphic values; what HCB called "a rigorous organization of the interplay of surfaces, lines, and values." Color -- doesn't matter whether it's color with film or with digital -- tends to throw off one's awareness of that graphic balance. I think an important part of visualization is to be able to see the scene -- in your mind -- in black and white. That takes practice.
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That's not radical - that's simply an illogical opinion of yours born of self-satisfied myopia. You are full of them.
I didn't start the self-aggrandizing rant ... you did ... twice.
The fact that most photography programs in the country start their students on film is "an illogical opinion...born of self-satisfied myopia"? Huh... I thought it was actually true.
As for self-aggrandizing rants, weren't you the one that came on with a flash a couple of days ago and instantly made it personal, as you've once again just done above, with comments about Luddites self-satisfied myopia and dispensing with more advice than a gossip column.Relax, Jeremy. You don't have to agree with me, but you don't need to belittle your opponent in the meantime. I've tried to keep it above board here, and the only time I took a little jab was when I was repeating what someone said to me. I have no bone to pick with you... I just don'thappen to agree with you, and I also think you've managed to misconstrue what I've said. Either way, let's keep this civil, shall we?
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You are still as out of touch with reality as ever. Point #1: The thread was deleted by the admins a few days *after* I was on suspenson, hence their doing, not mine.
Because of your rabid posts. Of course you cannot delete threads/posts, you're not admin. Duh!
Point #2: My posts on that thread were completely civil (all complaints to the admins about you), while all of your posts were clown posts, complete with clown photos to prove the point. You can prattle on about whatever you like, but you are still unfortunately you, a sociopath in need of a human personality.
More civility I see.
I can post the picture of the clown again if you want.
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Because of your rabid posts. Of course you cannot delete threads/posts, you're not admin. Duh!
More civility I see.
I can post the picture of the clown again if you want.
You say rabid because that's what you are. A psychopath. Somebody has a copy of that thread, and too bad it's not here for everyone to see. That's why they deleted it - embarrassing for people to see that your clown postings were actually approved of here.
I can't make anybody do the right thing - the fact that you, a psychopath, are popular here, is just one of life's mysteries.
And you can post anything you want. I post beautiful photos, and you post clown pictures. Why should anyone be surprised at that?
I know you won't give it up, because you're a psychopath. Those are quite common, BTW, so you're not special, just an unfunny clown.
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And as for jjj's point about the British cyclists, my only point in responding to that is that he brought up the world of sport, and athletes, perhaps more than any other demographic, understand the benefits of hard work without shortcuts.
You still do not understand the point about sport at all. The less barriers there to get into a sport i.e. the easier it is to do, the more likely a country is to produce Gold medalists in that sport. That was the point.
To illustrate - A very simply barrier to becoming a good skier is to live in a country without snow or mountains. If a big percentage of the population can ski on a frequent basis, due to lots of snow and hills, then you get more good people discovering their talent, just like with the increased ownership and usage of cameras since digital, means you will find more good photographers overall [and more bad]. The perecentage of talented people may never change but the no.s actually doing so will.
Increase the funding to support and coach potential athletes and again it's easier for them to train well. Make it even easier, fund them directly so they do not have to fit training in and around a day job and again you will see an increase in performance by expending less effort. In fact training less, can improve many people's performance as overtraining is a very common problem.
Things got easier for a friend of mine in an unusual way. He had an injury which prevented him working [broken wrist] at the day job and so he was able to rest and recover whilst still training on a stationary bike and he then became UK champion for the first time 6 weeks after his injury, beating his opponents by a much bigger margin than he ever had previously. He worked less hard and did better, he said he was far less tired as a result of not doing the day job. He never went back to working outside cycling again.
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My only response to your witterings is to quote my old signature. "Please read all the words in my post, not just the ones you like and preferably in the same order as written."
English Professor my arse! I doubt you you could parse wind, let alone a complete sentence!
You can do exactly the same with digital, God knows why you think otherwise and far better too. Once of the best teaching aids is feedback and digital gives immediate feedback, so you can spot mistakes whilst you have time to correct them, unlike with film.
Or maybe it's still done because the old fogeys wearing courdroy and running the courses are as daft as you are.
Or still have rooms full of film kit.
Or film kit is there simply to give people the option.
Or for a historical perspective.
Lots of possible reasons. But I bet none do so for the reason you say.
What a surprise, jjj, that you've been embroiled in controversy here before. Weird.
Of course the oldest trick in the book is to accuse someone of twisting your words when that person doesn't agree with you. All someone has to do is re-read our posts... it's all right there. If someone’s life is actually that boring.
Be that as it may, apparently you can't enter into a debate without stumbling into little emoticon-filled hissy fits, and your tantrums are clouding your judgment. Alas..
My only point about "harder is better" was simply to argue the benefits of actually having to learn about basic photographic skills before getting so obsessed with what you do after the shot. It’s all about the context. The fewer impediments to that organic process, the better, because then the hard work of learning "visual awareness" can begin. And yes, of course you can check lighting, etc., with digital, but the point RSL has been making (I think it was RSL) is that doing this with digital isn't nearly as organic because there are so many more things standing between you and the actual image (as you yourself pointed out in one of your previous posts) than there ever was with film.
Take two inexperienced students of photography at some photography school and hand them each a box, one with a Pentax K10d and kit lens, the other with a Pentax LX and kit lens, and tell them that when their cameras are ready, to meet you outside for the first lesson. But then, what would the K-1000 person do for a few hours while the K10d person pulled everything out of the box and, after dealing with temporary vertigo, began the process of opening the 100-page manual to see where to begin, learn how to charge the battery, what cables went to what and where, etc., etc., etc. I guess go out and start shooting. Let’s assume the LX person has figured out how to turn the camera on, and after you've shown him where the aperture ring on the lens and shutter speed dial on the top deck are, you tell him to look through the viewfinder so that he can see how to over- or under-expose a shot. Of course, if we really wanted to start at the beginning, we'd have him shoot with no battery at all, but then, that isn't possible with the K10d. <sigh>
So let’s just skip to the actual lessons. Now, because this is about photography, which presumably involves learning how to take pictures, we have to tell the K10d person to switch the camera to "M." And turn the auto-focus off. And turn Raw capture on. And adjust white balance… —where’s that gray card anyway? But of course, to do that requires he’s learned about how the menus work. Oh bother...
Half an our later, K10d guy is finally ready. Well hang it all, alright, so we also have to teach him how to work the dials to adjust f/stop and shutter speed. But wait a minute... how will he know if the exposure is correct? So we tell him to look inside the viewfinder and we take him through a short course on how to interpret all the data flashing in front of his eyes. But of course, while we're doing this, LX guy is almost done with a roll of black and white, all the while adjusting his aperture and shutter dial and learning how that relates to exposure. And while he’s shooting, each time with a slightly different exposure setting, and because he’s not a Luddite, he records his settings into in his little pocket recorder stashed in his shirt pocket so that he doesn’t have to take his eyes off his work. And he goes through three rolls, all the while learning about composition, different lighting conditions, depth-of-field, etc.
Meanwhile, K10d guy has gotten his gray card, adjusted his white balance, and now he starts to shoot. But hold on… should we use a histogram, since that has its limitations? And how do you interpret the histogram? Just tell the student to ETTR? Well, anyway, after another short lesson in that, K10d guy starts to shoot, and wonder of wonders(!) because of modern technology, he pops off 500 shots in less than an hour! But dang it, now his battery is running low, so he’s going to have to take a break while it re-charges and in the meantime, he can peruse the Russian-novel length manual and… oh, you’ve got to be kidding? Now he has to learn how to use the photo-processing software that came with the camera?! Luckily, the instructor has Lightroom, which k10d guy installs illegally on his desktop, and after downloading the 500 RAW shots – another frustratingly long chunk of time – and then doing software installation, the instruction begins on how to use Lightroom. But talk about information overload! K10d guy’s brain is about to explode. My goodness, he never knew there were so many technical details! Can’t he just learn about the basics first, before going on to another lesson in software? After all, he hasn’t even had the chance to really see his pictures, except on a 3” digital screen, which hardly does it justice, and he wants to see what they look like printed out. The instructor gently placates k10d guy and assures him that all this technical stuff is for his benefit and convenience, and when he finally learns what he should, he promises k10d he’ll actually learn about how to do photography. So the Lightroom tutorial begins.
Back in the darkroom, LX guy has watched his instructor process and develop the film (oh, how he hates all those stinky chemicals. But that’s okay, since they’re listening to some great jazz and talking about the instructor’s photography experience) and now, an hour or so later, they’re holding the first roll of photos in their hands!
Hey, k10d guy says, I want to hold the pictures in my hands, too! Instructor tells him to settle down. That will come when they connect to the printer—assuming they have the right driver installed. In the meantime, patience, k10d guy. Patience. For now, look at all the ways you can manipulate your image… an infinite number of ways, in fact! But, k10d guy thinks to himself, I don’t want to manipulate the image… I just want to see what the image actually looked like.
All the while, LX guy and other instructor continue to talk about composition, lighting, DOF, shooting techniques, and while K10d guy was learning just how mechanical photography is, K-1000 guy was learning how fun photography could be. In the end, it seems, k10d guy just became enamored with all the fun ways he could doctor up his shot, while k-1000 guy had learned about the decisive moment and the patience and work involved in learning how to draw a picture with light… wait a minute, the student thought to himself. Isn’t that what photography actually means?
Months later, k10d guy was no longer k10d guy because he was no longer satisfied with the measly 10mp’s the camera could bring and just had, had, had to get the k20d 14mp behemoth. So he became k20d guy. But then the K-7 came along…
Meanwhile, k1000 guy was out shooting and learning more about actual photography. Oh yes, he did buy a Canon G10 for that instant gratification he craved from time to time, and he purchased a slide scanner so that he could email his chrome shots to friends, but whenever he had the itch to go out and shoot, he just grabbed his camera and went out the door. Meanwhile, k-7 guy (yes, he had succumbed—and taken out a second mortgage) was busy sitting in front of his computer screen screaming invective at some “old fogey” who dared to question his new lifestyle of mechanical photography and instant gratification and hours upon hours in a dark room (ironic, isn’t it?) sitting in front of a pixel screen making the skies just a little bluer, and the grass just a little greener, and… and… and…
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What a surprise, jjj, that you've been embroiled in controversy here before. Weird.
Of course the oldest trick in the book is to accuse someone of twisting your words when that person doesn't agree with you. All someone has to do is re-read our posts... it's all right there. If someone’s life is actually that boring.
Be that as it may, apparently you can't enter into a debate without stumbling into little emoticon-filled hissy fits, and your tantrums are clouding your judgment. Alas..
My only point about "harder is better" was simply to argue the benefits of actually having to learn about basic photographic skills before getting so obsessed with what you do after the shot. It’s all about the context. The fewer impediments to that organic process, the better, because then the hard work of learning "visual awareness" can begin. And yes, of course you can check lighting, etc., with digital, but the point RSL has been making (I think it was RSL) is that doing this with digital isn't nearly as organic because there are so many more things standing between you and the actual image (as you yourself pointed out in one of your previous posts) than there ever was with film.
Take two inexperienced students of photography at some photography school and hand them each a box, one with a Pentax K10d and kit lens, the other with a Pentax LX and kit lens, and tell them that when their cameras are ready, to meet you outside for the first lesson. But then, what would the K-1000 person do for a few hours while the K10d person pulled everything out of the box and, after dealing with temporary vertigo, began the process of opening the 100-page manual to see where to begin, learn how to charge the battery, what cables went to what and where, etc., etc., etc. I guess go out and start shooting. Let’s assume the LX person has figured out how to turn the camera on, and after you've shown him where the aperture ring on the lens and shutter speed dial on the top deck are, you tell him to look through the viewfinder so that he can see how to over- or under-expose a shot. Of course, if we really wanted to start at the beginning, we'd have him shoot with no battery at all, but then, that isn't possible with the K10d. <sigh>
So let’s just skip to the actual lessons. Now, because this is about photography, which presumably involves learning how to take pictures, we have to tell the K10d person to switch the camera to "M." And turn the auto-focus off. And turn Raw capture on. And adjust white balance… —where’s that gray card anyway? But of course, to do that requires he’s learned about how the menus work. Oh bother...
Half an our later, K10d guy is finally ready. Well hang it all, alright, so we also have to teach him how to work the dials to adjust f/stop and shutter speed. But wait a minute... how will he know if the exposure is correct? So we tell him to look inside the viewfinder and we take him through a short course on how to interpret all the data flashing in front of his eyes. But of course, while we're doing this, LX guy is almost done with a roll of black and white, all the while adjusting his aperture and shutter dial and learning how that relates to exposure. And while he’s shooting, each time with a slightly different exposure setting, and because he’s not a Luddite, he records his settings into in his little pocket recorder stashed in his shirt pocket so that he doesn’t have to take his eyes off his work. And he goes through three rolls, all the while learning about composition, different lighting conditions, depth-of-field, etc.
Meanwhile, K10d guy has gotten his gray card, adjusted his white balance, and now he starts to shoot. But hold on… should we use a histogram, since that has its limitations? And how do you interpret the histogram? Just tell the student to ETTR? Well, anyway, after another short lesson in that, K10d guy starts to shoot, and wonder of wonders(!) because of modern technology, he pops off 500 shots in less than an hour! But dang it, now his battery is running low, so he’s going to have to take a break while it re-charges and in the meantime, he can peruse the Russian-novel length manual and… oh, you’ve got to be kidding? Now he has to learn how to use the photo-processing software that came with the camera?! Luckily, the instructor has Lightroom, which k10d guy installs illegally on his desktop, and after downloading the 500 RAW shots – another frustratingly long chunk of time – and then doing software installation, the instruction begins on how to use Lightroom. But talk about information overload! K10d guy’s brain is about to explode. My goodness, he never knew there were so many technical details! Can’t he just learn about the basics first, before going on to another lesson in software? After all, he hasn’t even had the chance to really see his pictures, except on a 3” digital screen, which hardly does it justice, and he wants to see what they look like printed out. The instructor gently placates k10d guy and assures him that all this technical stuff is for his benefit and convenience, and when he finally learns what he should, he promises k10d he’ll actually learn about how to do photography. So the Lightroom tutorial begins.
Back in the darkroom, LX guy has watched his instructor process and develop the film (oh, how he hates all those stinky chemicals. But that’s okay, since they’re listening to some great jazz and talking about the instructor’s photography experience) and now, an hour or so later, they’re holding the first roll of photos in their hands!
Hey, k10d guy says, I want to hold the pictures in my hands, too! Instructor tells him to settle down. That will come when they connect to the printer—assuming they have the right driver installed. In the meantime, patience, k10d guy. Patience. For now, look at all the ways you can manipulate your image… an infinite number of ways, in fact! But, k10d guy thinks to himself, I don’t want to manipulate the image… I just want to see what the image actually looked like.
All the while, LX guy and other instructor continue to talk about composition, lighting, DOF, shooting techniques, and while K10d guy was learning just how mechanical photography is, K-1000 guy was learning how fun photography could be. In the end, it seems, k10d guy just became enamored with all the fun ways he could doctor up his shot, while k-1000 guy had learned about the decisive moment and the patience and work involved in learning how to draw a picture with light… wait a minute, the student thought to himself. Isn’t that what photography actually means?
Months later, k10d guy was no longer k10d guy because he was no longer satisfied with the measly 10mp’s the camera could bring and just had, had, had to get the k20d 14mp behemoth. So he became k20d guy. But then the K-7 came along…
Meanwhile, k1000 guy was out shooting and learning more about actual photography. Oh yes, he did buy a Canon G10 for that instant gratification he craved from time to time, and he purchased a slide scanner so that he could email his chrome shots to friends, but whenever he had the itch to go out and shoot, he just grabbed his camera and went out the door. Meanwhile, k-7 guy (yes, he had succumbed—and taken out a second mortgage) was busy sitting in front of his computer screen screaming invective at some “old fogey” who dared to question his new lifestyle of mechanical photography and instant gratification and hours upon hours in a dark room (ironic, isn’t it?) sitting in front of a pixel screen making the skies just a little bluer, and the grass just a little greener, and… and… and…
Where do you teach photography?
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You still do not understand the point about sport at all. The less barriers there to get into a sport i.e. the easier it is to do, the more likely a country is to produce Gold medalists in that sport. That was the point.
To illustrate - A very simply barrier to becoming a good skier is to live in a country without snow or mountains. If a big percentage of the population can ski on a frequent basis, due to lots of snow and hills, then you get more good people discovering their talent, just like with the increased ownership and usage of cameras since digital, means you will find more good photographers overall [and more bad]. The perecentage of talented people may never change but the no.s actually doing so will.
Increase the funding to support and coach potential athletes and again it's easier for them to train well. Make it even easier, fund them directly so they do not have to fit training in and around a day job and again you will see an increase in performance by expending less effort. In fact training less, can improve many people's performance as overtraining is a very common problem.
Things got easier for a friend of mine in an unusual way. He had an injury which prevented him working [broken wrist] at the day job and so he was able to rest and recover whilst still training on a stationary bike and he then became UK champion for the first time 6 weeks after his injury, beating his opponents by a much bigger margin than he ever had previously. He worked less hard and did better, he said he was far less tired as a result of not doing the day job. He never went back to working outside cycling again.
Apples and oranges. Difficulty and tedium are not the same thing. Pull down barriers for greater entry into something... fine. But to actually learn how to do something well, it takes work and patience. Obviously if you're going to learn how to ski, snow helps. But does that mean we should begin to teach kids math with calculators instead of learning their times tables? The barrier to entry into photography was not lowered with digital cameras that much anyway. Instamatics had been around for a long time, and the "Program" function was nothing new. Nor were 1-hour photo kiosks. It's just that film aids in the learning process because you have far fewer distractions to deal with. I doubt the reason schools across the country still use film is because they have old stock lying around. That's pretty hilarious.
But enough said... I can tell you have that sort of personality that needs to have the last say. So go ahead, scratch that itch. But just remember what your mama taught you... breathe deep and count to three before saying anything. And listen to that person who keeps reminding people on this thread to be civil. Oh, wait a minute... that's <gasp!> you!
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Where do you teach photography?
Never have. I was a student for a number of years. Actually, still am...
As for my little tale, the events depicted in this story are for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to any person living or dead -- or any photography class, for that matter -- is purely coincidental.
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It's just that film aids in the learning process because you have far fewer distractions to deal with.
No, that's the illogical opinion born of myopic and self-satisfied nonsense.
Relax? ... I'm on the beach in St. Croix ... I'm plenty relaxed.
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What a surprise, jjj, that you've been embroiled in controversy here before. Weird.
Of course the oldest trick in the book is to accuse someone of twisting your words when that person doesn't agree with you. All someone has to do is re-read our posts... it's all right there. If someone’s life is actually that boring.
Be that as it may, apparently you can't enter into a debate without stumbling into little emoticon-filled hissy fits, and your tantrums are clouding your judgment. Alas..
My only point about "harder is better" was simply to argue the benefits of actually having to learn about basic photographic skills before getting so obsessed with what you do after the shot. It’s all about the context. The fewer impediments to that organic process, the better, because then the hard work of learning "visual awareness" can begin. And yes, of course you can check lighting, etc., with digital, but the point RSL has been making (I think it was RSL) is that doing this with digital isn't nearly as organic because there are so many more things standing between you and the actual image (as you yourself pointed out in one of your previous posts) than there ever was with film.
Take two inexperienced students of photography at some photography school and hand them each a box, one with a Pentax K10d and kit lens, the other with a Pentax LX and kit lens, and tell them that when their cameras are ready, to meet you outside for the first lesson. But then, what would the K-1000 person do for a few hours while the K10d person pulled everything out of the box and, after dealing with temporary vertigo, began the process of opening the 100-page manual to see where to begin, learn how to charge the battery, what cables went to what and where, etc., etc., etc. I guess go out and start shooting. Let’s assume the LX person has figured out how to turn the camera on, and after you've shown him where the aperture ring on the lens and shutter speed dial on the top deck are, you tell him to look through the viewfinder so that he can see how to over- or under-expose a shot. Of course, if we really wanted to start at the beginning, we'd have him shoot with no battery at all, but then, that isn't possible with the K10d. <sigh>
So let’s just skip to the actual lessons. Now, because this is about photography, which presumably involves learning how to take pictures, we have to tell the K10d person to switch the camera to "M." And turn the auto-focus off. And turn Raw capture on. And adjust white balance… —where’s that gray card anyway? But of course, to do that requires he’s learned about how the menus work. Oh bother...
Half an our later, K10d guy is finally ready. Well hang it all, alright, so we also have to teach him how to work the dials to adjust f/stop and shutter speed. But wait a minute... how will he know if the exposure is correct? So we tell him to look inside the viewfinder and we take him through a short course on how to interpret all the data flashing in front of his eyes. But of course, while we're doing this, LX guy is almost done with a roll of black and white, all the while adjusting his aperture and shutter dial and learning how that relates to exposure. And while he’s shooting, each time with a slightly different exposure setting, and because he’s not a Luddite, he records his settings into in his little pocket recorder stashed in his shirt pocket so that he doesn’t have to take his eyes off his work. And he goes through three rolls, all the while learning about composition, different lighting conditions, depth-of-field, etc.
Meanwhile, K10d guy has gotten his gray card, adjusted his white balance, and now he starts to shoot. But hold on… should we use a histogram, since that has its limitations? And how do you interpret the histogram? Just tell the student to ETTR? Well, anyway, after another short lesson in that, K10d guy starts to shoot, and wonder of wonders(!) because of modern technology, he pops off 500 shots in less than an hour! But dang it, now his battery is running low, so he’s going to have to take a break while it re-charges and in the meantime, he can peruse the Russian-novel length manual and… oh, you’ve got to be kidding? Now he has to learn how to use the photo-processing software that came with the camera?! Luckily, the instructor has Lightroom, which k10d guy installs illegally on his desktop, and after downloading the 500 RAW shots – another frustratingly long chunk of time – and then doing software installation, the instruction begins on how to use Lightroom. But talk about information overload! K10d guy’s brain is about to explode. My goodness, he never knew there were so many technical details! Can’t he just learn about the basics first, before going on to another lesson in software? After all, he hasn’t even had the chance to really see his pictures, except on a 3” digital screen, which hardly does it justice, and he wants to see what they look like printed out. The instructor gently placates k10d guy and assures him that all this technical stuff is for his benefit and convenience, and when he finally learns what he should, he promises k10d he’ll actually learn about how to do photography. So the Lightroom tutorial begins.
Back in the darkroom, LX guy has watched his instructor process and develop the film (oh, how he hates all those stinky chemicals. But that’s okay, since they’re listening to some great jazz and talking about the instructor’s photography experience) and now, an hour or so later, they’re holding the first roll of photos in their hands!
Hey, k10d guy says, I want to hold the pictures in my hands, too! Instructor tells him to settle down. That will come when they connect to the printer—assuming they have the right driver installed. In the meantime, patience, k10d guy. Patience. For now, look at all the ways you can manipulate your image… an infinite number of ways, in fact! But, k10d guy thinks to himself, I don’t want to manipulate the image… I just want to see what the image actually looked like.
All the while, LX guy and other instructor continue to talk about composition, lighting, DOF, shooting techniques, and while K10d guy was learning just how mechanical photography is, K-1000 guy was learning how fun photography could be. In the end, it seems, k10d guy just became enamored with all the fun ways he could doctor up his shot, while k-1000 guy had learned about the decisive moment and the patience and work involved in learning how to draw a picture with light… wait a minute, the student thought to himself. Isn’t that what photography actually means?
Months later, k10d guy was no longer k10d guy because he was no longer satisfied with the measly 10mp’s the camera could bring and just had, had, had to get the k20d 14mp behemoth. So he became k20d guy. But then the K-7 came along…
Meanwhile, k1000 guy was out shooting and learning more about actual photography. Oh yes, he did buy a Canon G10 for that instant gratification he craved from time to time, and he purchased a slide scanner so that he could email his chrome shots to friends, but whenever he had the itch to go out and shoot, he just grabbed his camera and went out the door. Meanwhile, k-7 guy (yes, he had succumbed—and taken out a second mortgage) was busy sitting in front of his computer screen screaming invective at some “old fogey” who dared to question his new lifestyle of mechanical photography and instant gratification and hours upon hours in a dark room (ironic, isn’t it?) sitting in front of a pixel screen making the skies just a little bluer, and the grass just a little greener, and… and… and…
Any chance of seeing some of your photos?
Graeme
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Rob C - just learn how your sensor needs to be exposed, for how you like your image and you're done.
It may be a reading off palm of hand and +1 stop or whatever. That's what I always did with slide, just find your own tweak for digital and your all set.
Nice to see you posting images BTW.
Thanks, jjj, appreciated on many levels.
Rob C
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On dumbing down.
Both my daughter and son-in-law are teachers. They have two children. Both children go to private schools at expense almost too great for the parents to bear. This is because, as professionals and aware, they do not consider the available state offerings are suitable. The parents also mark examination papers and at the start of each season there is a meeting to establish marking levels. These tell their own tale, as does the supply of students to universities where the latter have to start teaching many incomers what they should have already learned in school...
Yes, it exists and is getting more serious every year.
I am currently reading Atlas Shrugged, from an electronic notebook, in periods of about two hours - battery life - as I sit having lunch in a local bar. The stench of political corruption described therein, lo those many years ago, is ever more real as the days move past, reflected ever so clearly in the need my family faces and the reasons for that need existing. I recommend that book. I recommend reading it and watching the news broadcasts with a more acute attention.
Rob C
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On dumbing down.
Both my daughter and son-in-law are teachers. They have two children. Both children go to private schools at expense almost too great for the parents to bear. This is because, as professionals and aware, they do not consider the available state offerings are suitable. The parents also mark examination papers and at the start of each season there is a meeting to establish marking levels. These tell their own tale, as does the supply of students to universities where the latter have to start teaching many incomers what they should have already learned in school...
Rob C
So, Rob, what happens when the kiddies graduate from the private school and encounter all those drunken slackers from public school at the university?
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So, Rob, what happens when the kiddies graduate from the private school and encounter all those drunken slackers from public school at the university?
Form their own group, I suppose, I hope. As the two parents met at the same university, I hope the same ability to select holds sway for another couple of generations, at least. But, sadly, I doubt it.
Why does going to hell in a rickshaw come to mind? Oh, I remember: it´s my current world view. Didn´t use to be.
Rob C
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Form their own group, I suppose, I hope. As the two parents met at the same university, I hope the same ability to select holds sway for another couple of generations, at least. But, sadly, I doubt it.
Why does going to hell in a rickshaw come to mind? Oh, I remember: it´s my current world view. Didn´t use to be.
Rob C
I was teasing slightly. Good thing they have the years they have with a quality education, so when they do get to college, they'll be better equipped to succeed.
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On dumbing down.
Both my daughter and son-in-law are teachers. They have two children. Both children go to private schools at expense almost too great for the parents to bear. This is because, as professionals and aware, they do not consider the available state offerings are suitable. The parents also mark examination papers and at the start of each season there is a meeting to establish marking levels. These tell their own tale, as does the supply of students to universities where the latter have to start teaching many incomers what they should have already learned in school...
Yes, it exists and is getting more serious every year.
I am currently reading Atlas Shrugged, from an electronic notebook, in periods of about two hours - battery life - as I sit having lunch in a local bar. The stench of political corruption described therein, lo those many years ago, is ever more real as the days move past, reflected ever so clearly in the need my family faces and the reasons for that need existing. I recommend that book. I recommend reading it and watching the news broadcasts with a more acute attention.
Rob C
Rob,
As I think I was the first person to use the phrase 'dumbed down' in post 88, I would just like to point out that I used it purely in regard to digital photography. Saying that I did not think digital had dumbed down photography. I quite agree that many other areas of life have been 'dumbed down'.
The point that I, and possibly JJJ are making, is that digital has removed some of the barriers to getting people to the point where they can produce a finished picture of reasonable quality. If those people want to
go on to become accomplished photographers then they will quite quickly realise that they need to apply themselves to learning the craft. The techno mumbo-jumbo we are all compelled to learn in order to
get an image on a piece of paper just gets in the way of making images. A good image maker will see an image before him and pre-visualise how he wants it to look in the final form. Digital is gradually removing the
barriers to getting to that state. The technical knowledge needed means that many potentially talented image makers are deterred from using photography as a medium. This leaves much of photography in the hands
of photographers with lots of technical knowledge, but very little eye for how to make a good image.
I should add that I consider myself technically quite competent, and visually just competent! I do also know that to move my work on, I need to improve both my vision and use of technical skills. Perhaps one day
I will be a true visual artist!
Jim
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I was teasing slightly. Good thing they have the years they have with a quality education, so when they do get to college, they'll be better equipped to succeed.
Off topic: Interestingly, in the UK at least, studies have shown that whilst kids from private schools achieve better grades at school, when they get to University they don't do as well as the kids from the state schools. Seems many have become one-trick ponies - developing as part of a group that is trained to do well at passing exams - whilst at university thinking creatively as an individual and being self-reliant are two of the key ingredients to success (plus hard work of course!) It's here where the kids from the state schools, who have had to put up with overcrowded classrooms, poor equipment, and a generally tougher learning environment, seem to have an advantage.
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Off topic: Interestingly, in the UK at least, studies have shown that whilst kids from private schools achieve better grades at school, when they get to University they don't do as well as the kids from the state schools. Seems many have become one-trick ponies - developing as part of a group that is trained to do well at passing exams - whilst at university thinking creatively as an individual and being self-reliant are two of the key ingredients to success (plus hard work of course!) It's here where the kids from the state schools, who have had to put up with overcrowded classrooms, poor equipment, and a generally tougher learning environment, seem to have an advantage.
The US is waaaaaaaay too large to make generalizations about "public schools" and "private schools" that are meaningful.
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The US is waaaaaaaay too large to make generalizations about "public schools" and "private schools" that are meaningful.
1) Er...that's why I didn't.
2) Your statement is a generalization - which is kind of ironic.
3) As far as the UK was concerned, it certainly wasn't a generalization, it was the finding of peer-reviewed scientific study. I'd imagine educational researchers could (maybe even have) done similar studies in the US. After all, the size of the country doesn't stop all sorts of other reserach - medical, political, social etc. - taking place, does it?
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Off topic: Interestingly, in the UK at least, studies have shown that whilst kids from private schools achieve better grades at school, when they get to University they don't do as well as the kids from the state schools. Seems many have become one-trick ponies - developing as part of a group that is trained to do well at passing exams - whilst at university thinking creatively as an individual and being self-reliant are two of the key ingredients to success (plus hard work of course!) It's here where the kids from the state schools, who have had to put up with overcrowded classrooms, poor equipment, and a generally tougher learning environment, seem to have an advantage.
I can actually believe this, which if true says that simple deductions or projections aren't to be trusted. Which raises two questions for me. One, could the study be biased by a hidden agenda somewhere, and two, if not and the study proves valid, then do we have a study that shows what value we're getting from private schools, on average? Many of us here in photoland seem to be in a private school business of one sort or another.
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1) Er...that's why I didn't.
2) Your statement is a generalization - which is kind of ironic.
3) As far as the UK was concerned, it certainly wasn't a generalization, it was the finding of peer-reviewed scientific study. I'd imagine educational researchers could (maybe even have) done similar studies in the US. After all, the size of the country doesn't stop all sorts of other reserach - medical, political, social etc. - taking place, does it?
I'm not challenging you or disputing what you are saying about the research in the UK.
Of course there is "research" in the US ... but I'm just commenting that no nationwide study would ever categorize the US educational system into those two buckets ... and if one did, it would be meaningless.
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I'm not challenging you or disputing what you are saying about the research in the UK.
Of course there is "research" in the US ... but I'm just commenting that no nationwide study would ever categorize the US educational system into those two buckets ... and if one did, it would be meaningless.
We all have opinions on subjects, but good peer-reviewed and accredited research (or, as you put it for some reason, "research") tries to establish a neutral position from which to collate information, analyse it, and make qualified statements about it. From what you say, if a similar study was undertaken in the US, and the results didn't agree with your personal opinion, then they would be meaningless. How does that work exactly?
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We all have opinions on subjects, but good peer-reviewed and accredited research (or, as you put it for some reason, "research") tries to establish a neutral position from which to collate information, analyse it, and make qualified statements about it. From what you say, if a similar study was undertaken in the US, and the results didn't agree with your personal opinion, then they would be meaningless. How does that work exactly?
If you don't understand my comment, that's fine.
Have a nice day.
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If you don't understand my comment, that's fine.
Does anybody?
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Does anybody?
Yes; I think I do.
You refer to UK public schools as "state schools", which suggests that there is perhaps some set of national standards/policies/whatnot that they generally must adhere to, for better or for worse. In the U.S. there is no such national set of standards. Most of the 50 states that make up the United States do not even have state-level standards of any substance whatever (Texas and California are notable exceptions, at least for textbook purchasing.) "Public schools" in the U.S. are generally contolled by local (i.e., city- or town-level) school boards. Some do a good job and some do a miserable job. The same is true of private schools, which range in quality almost as much as the public schools.
Does this also describe the situation in the U.K.? If not, then it seems reasonable to suppose that any such binary research results in the U.S. would provide a very inaccurate description of reality in most parts of our country.
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Yes; I think I do.
You refer to UK public schools as "state schools", which suggests that there is perhaps some set of national standards/policies/whatnot that they generally must adhere to, for better or for worse. In the U.S. there is no such national set of standards. Most of the 50 states that make up the United States do not even have state-level standards of any substance whatever (Texas and California are notable exceptions, at least for textbook purchasing.) "Public schools" in the U.S. are generally contolled by local (i.e., city- or town-level) school boards. Some do a good job and some do a miserable job. The same is true of private schools, which range in quality almost as much as the public schools.
Does this also describe the situation in the U.K.?
What? A variety of educational institutes providing a range of educational experiences to a diverse population - yup, that's pretty much my experience of the UK educational system. Hey, you're just like us!
If not, then it seems reasonable to suppose that any such binary research results in the U.S. would provide a very inaccurate description of reality in most parts of our country.
Again, opinion - which of course there is nothing wrong with, just so long as you acknowledge it as such. Maybe someone will do similar research in the US (maybe they already have) - you never know, it might save a lot of parents a lot of money. But then again, as a friend of mine who teaches at a private school points out, (perceived) academic excellence is only one reason amongst many that people choose to send their children to these institutions.
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All I can add to this discussion is that ETTR is helpful as a guide for certain shots, but in some cases, you don't want to use ETTR at all. It's very useful if you understand its limitations.
I'm curious about this. I've never found a situation where ETTR (defined as the RAW data for non-specular highlights within 1/3-stop of clipping, but not actually clipped) was not the best digital exposure strategy. Exposing in this way always results in the lowest noise, greatest captured DR, most accurate colors, and greatest processing flexibility. What exception have you discovered?
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I'm curious about this. I've never found a situation where ETTR (defined as the RAW data for non-specular highlights within 1/3-stop of clipping, but not actually clipped) was not the best digital exposure strategy. Exposing in this way always results in the lowest noise, greatest captured DR, most accurate colors, and greatest processing flexibility. What exception have you discovered?
Choosing an ETTR exposure over a shorter exposure won't ever do harm (that I can think of), but sometimes the ETTR exposure may not be long enough to get the best result. Sometimes exposing to the right will leave your subject under-exposed. If the highlights are relatively unimportant and you need to capture the image in one exposure, exposing for the subject might be preferable to ETTR.
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LightCapture,
I have read the thread now and I want to answer directly your first post. First some words about me to allow for consideration of my opinion. Im not a big artist, Im a hobbyist photographer and graphician struggling to connect again with what I once did. Also I cant compare analog with digital, I only shoot digital since 3 years and have a background in 3D Graphic and Animation.
Now regarding the topic: I say, only the result matters. Different medium, different approaches, different outcomes, same people.
Whoever was shooting crap with analog will continue to do so with digital, and the other way around. But wait... I hear someone yelling: "BUT... I KNEW a fried who was shooting crap with his Digicam and as soon as he got that Analog 35mm he got really inspired and becomes now the second Anselm...youre wrong, youre so WROOOOONG!!!"
Well obviously in this case, there must be something in the personality of the person that he is able to develop his talent in the first place. Maybe a different tool can act as a trigger, and a person may prefer one tool over the other because of workflow and results, but AT THE END it is always ME who has to have his own ideas, OR NOT.
And thats what counts in my eyes and not repeated talk about good old times wich where better, and that now its getting worse and worse. Dont mistake me, if you feel with digital it has become worse, I would not argue with you about you feeling, thats perfectly ok. But it cant be a general thing.
And about a generation "who cant see", I would be very reluctant to make such bold statements. Sure, digital is/can be snapshooting, and maybe there is indeed a generation rising wich "cannot see", for whatever reason. But then it must be more than just a digital cam in the hands of these people, that alone would be an explanation all too easy.
Remember, its the vision, not the tool
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Choosing an ETTR exposure over a shorter exposure won't ever do harm (that I can think of), but sometimes the ETTR exposure may not be long enough to get the best result. Sometimes exposing to the right will leave your subject under-exposed. If the highlights are relatively unimportant and you need to capture the image in one exposure, exposing for the subject might be preferable to ETTR.
Which is why I included the bit about specular highlights in my definition. There are some situations where it is acceptable or even desirable to blow some of the highlights for the sake of the rest of the image. But if the subject's DR is within the capture range of the camera, it is always better to bias the exposure to the right.
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Why do so many people worry about what other people do?
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Why do so many people worry about what other people do?
Why do people dig up a 9-month-old dead threads just to complain about them?