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Author Topic: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !  (Read 12107 times)

EinstStein

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of course it's not true. try to zoom in to check each pixel, or try to adjust color for extreme lighting shots!
The user interface features also make big difference.

But, for majority, people simply shoot in auto mode, no raw, straight jpeg out of the box, never heard that a picture can be print on paper. I don't think which camera or lens matters, at least far far less than in the film and paper era.
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Telecaster

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2013, 05:11:29 pm »

I think what we're seeing is just another wrinkle in the role photos play in people's lives. For most folks taking pics has always been a means of saying "we did this" or "I saw this." Same goes now except that the degree of immediacy has skyrocketed. Take a pic with smartphone or tablet or even "proper" camera, zap it up to Twitter or Facebook or whatever and a whole bunch of folks can see it now. And take it in now and comment on it now. Photos become more a part of the moment-to-moment exchange and less artifacts of what we did or saw in the past...even if the past is only a day or two ago.

I think this is cool! And it doesn't stop anyone who prefers a more traditional approach from continuing to do what they do. I find I'm printing a lot less these days...but this is 'cuz I've raised the bar on what I consider worthy of printing. No need to print for most purposes so I only do the Real Good 'Uns...mostly for my own pleasure.

-Dave-
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Wayne Fox

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #2 on: August 03, 2013, 05:07:52 am »

Until recently, most photography was about preserving memories (the past).

Now it's more about sharing the present.
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BJL

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Re: On screen, no print => a big sweet spot where any camera is fine
« Reply #3 on: August 03, 2013, 09:37:40 am »

I have taken just a few photos with my phone that I am very happy with, good enough that when viewed on my website, no other camera or lens would have made them better. But they have to fit in a sweet spot:
  • the field of view is about normal to moderately wide, not extreme
  • it looks good with everything in focus -- no distracting background to be blurred away
  • the lighting is good, with only moderate subject brightness range -- no bright clouds, deep shadows etc. Or a small flash is enough, as the subjects are close enough and so on.
  • stationary or only slow-moving subjects
  • it invites viewing as a whole, but not closer examination of small elements within the scene

On one hand, that rules out a lot of photos that I take, and even on-screen I often enjoy zooming in on details, so that I often value having far more than the 2MP or so of my screen.

On the other hand, it probably fits a substantial proportion of photos ever taken, and more so when they are records of social events, faces of friends, day-time vacation and other outings, and food.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2013, 09:46:21 am by BJL »
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allegretto

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #4 on: August 09, 2013, 08:47:05 pm »

Quote from: Wayne Fox link=topic=80742.msg652572#msg652572 da?te=1375520872
Until recently, most photography was about preserving memories (the past).

Now it's more about sharing the present.

a nice way to put it, but actually it is even more "different" than that

while many shots are, and always have been trash, much of today's "social photography" is deeply narcissistic. Photographers have shot scenes important to them, and yes it is often just a preservation of memories. But of late a great deal of it is "hey, look at what I'm doing!" in an almost onanistic way. Does any real photographer actually care about my dessert?

Hey, take pics of whatever you like, but when you broadcast photos of the mundane (with little to no artistic sense) simply because it is self-referential it is something very different from what was valued previously, and by some of us today.

YMMV of course...
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: On screen, no print => a big sweet spot where any camera is fine
« Reply #5 on: August 10, 2013, 04:50:51 am »

Hi,

I would suggest that phone cameras will improve, and indeed, we have a 41 MP phone camera that can produce decent pictures. Little doubt that the phone cameras concept can be pushed a lot. They will suit more and more applications.

Best regards
Erik



I have taken just a few photos with my phone that I am very happy with, good enough that when viewed on my website, no other camera or lens would have made them better. But they have to fit in a sweet spot:
  • the field of view is about normal to moderately wide, not extreme
  • it looks good with everything in focus -- no distracting background to be blurred away
  • the lighting is good, with only moderate subject brightness range -- no bright clouds, deep shadows etc. Or a small flash is enough, as the subjects are close enough and so on.
  • stationary or only slow-moving subjects
  • it invites viewing as a whole, but not closer examination of small elements within the scene

On one hand, that rules out a lot of photos that I take, and even on-screen I often enjoy zooming in on details, so that I often value having far more than the 2MP or so of my screen.

On the other hand, it probably fits a substantial proportion of photos ever taken, and more so when they are records of social events, faces of friends, day-time vacation and other outings, and food.
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Erik Kaffehr
 

Telecaster

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #6 on: August 10, 2013, 02:37:46 pm »

...much of today's "social photography" is deeply narcissistic.

Indeed. But it used to bother me more than it does now. I'm less convinced that people are more narcissistic than before and more convinced that modern tech, coupled with social media, simply provides an outlet for already existing narcissism. What we are is just on broader display.

I'm really leaning in the direction of "let it all hang out." Let's put what we are into the public arena and see how it plays. Cultural crowdsourcing.

-Dave-
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scooby70

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #7 on: August 10, 2013, 04:52:44 pm »

A few years ago someone at work asked me to recover some pictures from a memory card that didn't seem to be working, this I did. A lady in the office saw what I was doing and asked if I could get some pictures off her camera and I said "Sure" expecting another corrupt card. What I found was a perfectly working camera stuffed with pictures dating back years and all she wanted was them putting on a memory stick so that she could see them on her PC.

I assume that there are many many people who view their images on their cameras and wouldn't have a clue how to do anything else with them :D
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Iluvmycam

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #8 on: August 11, 2013, 03:40:12 pm »

OP, somewhat true but not exactly.
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EinstStein

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #9 on: August 11, 2013, 04:45:59 pm »

Nice put. You have something much more profound than I've thought about.

Art is always influenced by the tool. In fact, very often, a new tool invented a new art art.

I saw the color photography largely changed the way people thinking about the (B&W) photography. Same from still to motion pictures.

Maybe the spontaneous, Point-and-Shoot-and-Share, PSS, brings back the original purpose of visual art. I assume the original, back to the pre-historic time, the visual art is more for recording than for expression?
I think it's the high bar that prevent everyone to have the luxuary of the spontaneous recording makes it an art. When that bar is lowered, it will be back to its original function. And the importance of the artistic element becomes more tolerable or even ignorable.

I still appreciate some wide spread letters, be it the romance letters between the lovers, or the wisdom passing letters from a father to a son,  or a rhetoric letters among the politicians or philosophers.  I'm curious to see, 30 years later, what would we have to left to the future generations.

Same curiosity on the photography.
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BJL

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Lens size will limit camera-phones, and preserve a niche for compact cameras
« Reply #10 on: August 11, 2013, 07:30:14 pm »

Hi,

I would suggest that phone cameras will improve, and indeed, we have a 41 MP phone camera that can produce decent pictures. Little doubt that the phone cameras concept can be pushed a lot. They will suit more and more applications.

Best regards
Erik
Nokia is doing a fine job of pushing the limits by putting a 2/3" sensor in a phone; bigger than the vast majority of compact cameras offer ... but one limit is the actual aperture size and focal length that can be fit into a reasonably slim, pocketable device. The Nokia 1020 has a lens of focal length about 8mm and effective aperture diameter about 4mm, and it might be hard for a phone to go much bigger than that. If so, that puts a fundamental limit on low light performance, and also on the telephoto reach/angular resolution, through diffraction. The Nokia can give about a4x zoom by cropping while still having adequate resolution for on-screen viewing (2.5MP), but then the sensor is effectively only 1/6" format, and the low-light performance is probably very poor.

My guess is that telephoto reach will be the most common reason that people want more than phones ever provide, and where compact cameras will justify their existence.

P. S. A camera-phone could be made thicker  to allow a bigger and zoomable lens, whole still being sort-of pocketable, but it would cease to be convenient to carry _all_the_time_ the way phones are, so my guess is that wireless tethering of a somewhat more substantial camera to a slimmer, highly pocketable phone is a better direction.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2013, 07:36:16 pm by BJL »
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EinstStein

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #11 on: August 12, 2013, 12:41:43 am »

Your concerns on the large aperture and long focal eight are valid.
Large aperture may be relatively easy to resolve. Just give it a larger space and put in a large lens.
The long focal length may be resolved by using the extended lens, like most P&S.

But I'd be interested to know how many people would care for that type of optical quality.




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BJL

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #12 on: August 12, 2013, 06:18:26 pm »

Large aperture may be relatively easy to resolve. Just give it a larger space and put in a large lens.
The long focal length may be resolved by using the extended lens, like most P&S.
Of course that could be done, and in fact Samsung makes a device that is essentially a zoom-lens compact camera with an embedded Android phone. But I have never seen any such device in use as a phone (or as a pocket computer) amongst the many thousands of phones I have seen, so I suspect that this sort of "phone+zoom camera" sells very poorly. The problem is that at some point, the lens size moves the device out of the comfort zone where the owner is happy to carry it virtually all the time, and so another more pocketable camera is preferred. Then the "zoom lens device" is an additional purchase, to carry only when the owner anticipates photographic demands beyond what a camera-phone can handle, and why own two phones, with two contacts or data plans? Tethering to the "go everywhere" device makes more sense.

P. S. this is one possible and intriguing solution; a rumored camera attachment for a phone:
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-hot-first-images-of-the-new-dsc-qx10-and-dsc-qx100-lens-cameras/
« Last Edit: August 12, 2013, 10:38:48 pm by BJL »
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Glenn NK

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #13 on: August 14, 2013, 10:04:38 pm »

Indeed. But it used to bother me more than it does now. I'm less convinced that people are more narcissistic than before and more convinced that modern tech, coupled with social media, simply provides an outlet for already existing narcissism. What we are is just on broader display.

I'm really leaning in the direction of "let it all hang out." Let's put what we are into the public arena and see how it plays. Cultural crowdsourcing.

-Dave-

Dave:

I agree with your first sentence; the narcissism was always there - annoyingly so - it now can be displayed so easily.

As for letting it all hang out, I think narcissism is like bad manners - one should learn to control it and keep it less visible (and less annoying to others).

Glenn
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #14 on: August 14, 2013, 10:29:29 pm »

Who more than Apple understood this, played with it and probably made narcisism more visible than ver before with their "i" devices?

The intend is of course an "I".

Cheers,
Bernard

BJL

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #15 on: August 15, 2013, 11:59:10 am »

Who more than Apple understood this, played with it and probably made narcisism more visible than ver before with their "i" devices?

The intend is of course an "I".
Actually, the main intent of the "i" was "internet", according to Ken Segall, who introduced it in the name iMac: http://kensegall.com/naming2.html

On the narcissism thing: art galleries are overloaded with many centuries of "selfies", in the form of portraits of the painters' wealthy patrons, so I find it quaint that people think there is anything new in this.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #16 on: August 15, 2013, 07:46:41 pm »

Actually, the main intent of the "i" was "internet", according to Ken Segall, who introduced it in the name iMac: http://kensegall.com/naming2.html

That is certainly true as far as the iMac goes.

I was referring to the portable devices.

Cheers,
Bernard

Isaac

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #17 on: August 16, 2013, 01:51:54 pm »

I was referring to the portable devices.

While you're correct that it can be read that way, the intent could simply be to extend a successful brand.
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Wayne Fox

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Re: On screen, no print => all digital camera and lens are equal !
« Reply #18 on: August 19, 2013, 02:41:54 pm »

Interesting thoughts on the narcissistic nature of photographs ... seems a fairly pessimistic viewpoint.

I guess I just don't see it that way, seems many people are just enjoying sharing their experiences with friends and others using new technology.    The most narcissistic person I know rarely posts anything on facebook or twitter (which doesn't mean anything ... just an idle comment).
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