I'm not answering for BC; actually, OK, I will. It's about always keep a good face forward. It's about showing your best work. All that work that went into designing that TrueFocus contraption, and all the work to get ASA 800 looking great, and one of the first pictures you see from it is some Trade Show model, with bad makeup, and the frames out of focus. It's not Michael's fault, it's the fault of Hasselblad for allowing CF cards to be inserted in those demo cameras. Remember that other story of another company that glued shut the CF door, during the trade show? Now that was smart.
That would be similar to you, going out and shooting a job, but you shoot on JPG LOW, and you don't bother to tweak the file once you get home, nor retouch it -- you just stick it up on the Splash Page of your site, hereby saying to the world, "This is my best work".
I think there was a time, when you could go to University of Arizona, and you could go into the darkroom and print from original Ansel Adams negatives. I'm not saying you'd put it in your book, but let's face it, it would be pretty bad-ass to print a neg of Halfdome. It's always been weird to me that these MF companies spend zillions designing these cameras, then they never hire a competent photographer to shoot RAW files for them, and then make them available for download, to learn the software. I'm not talking retouching fakery here, to make the camera look better -- i'm talking about uploading the RAW files, and let people download them, to see THE TRUTH about what the camera really renders, in real life. But they were files that were lit well, and composed well, with decent talent. There's not a person I know that wouldn't want to download a RAW file from Demarchelier or Michael Thompson or Misrach or whomever, just out of curiosity, but also to really work the software hard.
Signed,
Not BC
Gwhitf,
I totally agree with your points, so as I agreed with what BC was saying, BUT, if you are right to point a minimum of decence, I think a flat pic with no post prod is a better way
in these cases to provide enough information.
You won't tell me that looking and examinating some boring flat Raw pics, you are not capable of anticipating the kind of quality that can be acheived when used properly and post-produced accurately.
If a poster would send you a remarkable pro RAW file, as BC suggested, then you'll have to complain because of the post-prod involved behind, or the lights settings in this particualar shot or whatever.
I've been a designer and work with and for pro photographer for enough years to know how they can sometimes be with that.
I have nothing against BC, I respect their work, but I'd like to see the comments of this forum if he posted the "best works" he is asking to the others in order to provide info about a gear. Imediatly, you'll have people jump on that because of artistic choices, lights, post prod, etc etc...
To me, more it is neutral, better it is.
Leica, Hasselblad etc...have already their army of masters that provide for them and for us, the high quality pics they diserve. If I want to see what you say, I go to the "show me your last pro work" topic or to the brand website. But that was not the case here, and that was my point.
Regards,
Fred.
