Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Aram Hăvărneanu on April 16, 2019, 03:30:31 am
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If you want to have a good laugh, here is youtube star, photography educator, author, and photographer Tony Northrup misunderstand diffraction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIRz9e2v3Y.
He thinks diffraction is not yet fully understood, and comes with his own hypothesis about what causes it.
I first had to check it wasn't April 1st, but sadly it isn't. The video appears to be serious. I thought he used to be an engineer.
Enjoy!
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If you want to have a good laugh, here is youtube star, photography educator, author, and photographer Tony Northrup misunderstand diffraction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIRz9e2v3Y.
He thinks diffraction is not yet fully understood, and comes with his own hypothesis about what causes it.
I first had to check it wasn't April 1st, but sadly it isn't. The video appears to be serious. I thought he used to be an engineer.
Tony Northrup misunderstands a lot of things, but he does so with with self confidence and an authoritative air, which apparently is all that matters. Frankly, I don't see the draw.
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Lots of self confidence. I watched them discuss Leica digital and film cameras a couple of years ago. Lot's of misinformation, but presented with authority none-the-less.
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The attraction to Tony's videos is named Chelsea.
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Someone cares to summarize what he is saying wrong?
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Someone cares to summarize what he is saying wrong?
He usually present himself as an expert about subjects he really does not know very well. Does it sound familiar?
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If any of the viewers have problems understanding what he is saying, you can look at the diffraction and corresponding sharpness (or lack of sharpness) in the images he included in his video (small aperture and large aperture). I liked the sharper versions.
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This is simply a by-product of looking at videos where people pontificate. Best devote that time to looking at portfolios of famous shooters. Some are really good and worth the fame - and occasional fortune.
Once you know how the camera works well enough to coax it into giving you an image, you can pretty much teach yourself all you need to know until you reach the point where you want to get into the finer reaches of using something like Photoshop, at which moment you open the lid to Pandora's famous box.
You can be an excellent film photographer and darkroom expert, but digital is something totally else, cloaked in impenetrable veils of mystery that can stump anyone who has never done it before. The single great advantage you have as a film photographer is that you go on to digital with an established sense of print/photographic aesthetics that can save you from the more crass deviations that digital tries to use to seduce the unwary.
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He usually present himself as an expert about subjects he really does not know very well...
I gathered that already from the posts above, but it still doesn’t answer my question. I really have no intention of watching 20 minute videos from some rando from the Internet without first knowing why.
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I gathered that already from the posts above, but it still doesn’t answer my question. I really have no intention of watching 20 minute videos from some rando from the Internet without first knowing why.
There is no reason to watch a Tony Northrup video.
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There is no reason to watch a Tony Northrup video.
Yeah, better to watch some gardening clips or how to convert a van to a camper.
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. . . The single great advantage you have as a film photographer is that you go on to digital with an established sense of print/photographic aesthetics that can save you from the more crass deviations that digital tries to use to seduce the unwary.
This should be carved on a rock, somewhere.
Rand
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This should be carved on a rock, somewhere.
Rand
+1.
Rob often spouts true wisdom.
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+1.
Rob often spouts true wisdom.
Waddya mean, often?
The operative word is always!
That shows the single benefit of age: you have made most of the mistakes youth is still hoping to make, but with unrealistic dreams of the consequences.
;-)
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Someone cares to summarize what he is saying wrong?
He thinks that diffraction is caused by photons being attracted to the aperture blades, interacting with the electrons of the atoms of the material making up the aperture. Unsurprisingly, he says that scientists don't really understand this bit. That would be because it's wrong.
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...The single great advantage you have as a film photographer is that you go on to digital with an established sense of print/photographic aesthetics that can save you from the more crass deviations that digital tries to use to seduce the unwary.
That is very true and is probably why I now feel uncomfortable making adjustments or manipulations that I could not have done in the wet darkroom.
That said I now enjoy the processes so much more in the digital darkroom.
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I unsubscribed from Northrup's channel after the short time it took me to realise that he talks bilge, but resubscribed to benefit from comedy gold like this. It's been a quick progression from trashing cameras (Nikon) to trashing photographers (McCurry) to trashing the laws of physics.
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He thinks that diffraction is caused by photons being attracted to the aperture blades, interacting with the electrons of the atoms of the material making up the aperture. Unsurprisingly, he says that scientists don't really understand this bit. That would be because it's wrong.
When I first learned to drive a car behind the iron curtain, one part of the course and exam was a technical section where we had learn and demonstrate knowledge of the internal combustion engines, including ignition, coil, carburetor for 2 stroke, 4 stroke and diesel cars. Surprisingly, most westerners didn't have a clue about these things. But they knew how to start the engine, press a brake, and pilot the car to the nearest fast food restaurant or to a drive-in movie theatre.
Similarly, most photographers don't need to know the characteristics of the photons passing through the shutter and arriving on the sensor, all they need to know is that smaller aperture results in the loss of absolute sharpness (and in some cases also in appearance of dust spots, primarily in the sky). And that was the main lesson Tony was trying to impart to his subscribers.
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You certainly don't need to know physics to be a good photographer, but you do need to know physics to talk about physics. Even if you are a photographer.
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Same as the black hole phenomena.
I don't need to know the physics behind it, but my preference is not to eat anything with black holes.
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When I first learned to drive a car behind the iron curtain, one part of the course and exam was a technical section where we had learn and demonstrate knowledge of the internal combustion engines, including ignition, coil, carburetor for 2 stroke, 4 stroke and diesel cars. Surprisingly, most westerners didn't have a clue about these things. But they knew how to start the engine, press a brake, and pilot the car to the nearest fast food restaurant or to a drive-in movie theatre.
The father of a childhood friend of mine used to explain how automobiles work by saying, "You pour water in the front and gasoline in the back and they mix in the middle and make the car go." ;)
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Same as the black hole phenomena.
I don't need to know the physics behind it, but my preference is not to eat anything with black holes.
Eat or be eaten ... ;)
Cheers,
Bart
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You certainly don't need to know physics to be a good photographer, but you do need to know physics to talk about physics. Even if you are a photographer.
I don't know unicorns, never seen one for real, but this post proofs, beyond reasonable doubt, that I can talk about them just fine... Of course, whether I can talk about them meaningfully, is an entirely different matter, but for youtube videos that has never been a criterium, as far as I know.
Now, if we could only find an expert on the subject...
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The father of a childhood friend of mine used to explain how automobiles work by saying, "You pour water in the front and gasoline in the back and they mix in the middle and make the car go." ;)
A tragedy for him that YouTube hadn't been invented at the time - he'd have been a star !!
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He thinks that diffraction is caused by photons being attracted to the aperture blades, interacting with the electrons of the atoms of the material making up the aperture...
Thanks, Bill.
And the true reason is....?
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Thanks, Bill.
And the true reason is....?
It's the way waves interfere when they're obliged to squeeze through a little hole :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egRFqSKFmWQ
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It's the way waves interfere when they're obliged to squeeze through a little hole :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egRFqSKFmWQ
Yes, and it boils down to light being less, or more, obstructed and thus being gradually forced to slow down and change angle of direction. It can also help to think of it as pressure which spreads out behind an obstruction.
Basic refraction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6OA_jvnwus
and Diffraction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GIwQ_QQ9uA
Cheers,
Bart
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He thinks that diffraction is caused by photons being attracted to the aperture blades, interacting with the electrons of the atoms of the material making up the aperture. Unsurprisingly, he says that scientists don't really understand this bit. That would be because it's wrong.
Thanks, Bill.
And the true reason is....?
I thought by now everybody understood that diffraction is caused when the shutter snaps, and creates a vacuum that sucks up many of the lightsicles.
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I thought by now everybody understood that diffraction is caused when the shutter snaps, and creates a vacuum that sucks up many of the lightsicles.
Sorry, Chris, I've been napping: has somebody here contradicted what you just wrote?
If they have, they must be crazy: it's painfully obvious you are right. I think I read about that some time ago in Popular Mechanics.
;-)
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I always knew that. But is it true also for the mirrorless?
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I always knew that. But is it true also for the mirrorless?
For Mirrorless the lightsicles obviously are sucked in the opposite direction.
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For Mirrorless the lightsicles obviously are sucked in the opposite direction.
What, you mean back up the stick?
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What, you mean back up the stick?
To get the answer to that you will have to buy my new book, which will be titled "How you, too, can misunderstand even more technical issues than Tony Northrup." The answer is on page 79241. ;D
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One thing is sure. Tony's youtube channel is getting a lot of traffic coming from this site.
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One thing is sure. Tony's youtube channel is getting a lot of traffic coming from this site.
Not from me he isn't. I can make up my own technical fictions without his help.
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For Mirrorless the lightsicles obviously are sucked in the opposite direction.
That makes a lot of sense. Any physicist worth his salt will confirm that when light is reflected from a mirror, it bounces off at the same angle in the opposite direction. Well, unless you project it through a really tiny opening.
So if without mirrors the light travels more direct and much faster, now you can use slower lenses. That must be why also Canon and Nikon are switching to mirrorless technology and to the new F4 lenses rather than the old-fashioned F2.8 variety. I'm sure that researching this new trend would yield a lot of valuable data for a white paper project. Or a new youtube video.
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He thinks that diffraction is caused by photons being attracted to the aperture blades, interacting with the electrons of the atoms of the material making up the aperture. Unsurprisingly, he says that scientists don't really understand this bit. That would be because it's wrong.
It’s almost (but not actually) worth watching to hear him say stuff like this.
I recall watching a video of his when I was looking for a new tripod, where he slagged twist-tighten legs and preferred the tabbed legs. It seems he couldn’t be bothered to actually tighten the collars and - surprise - the legs kept extending as he carried the tripod. It was pretty painful to watch.
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I stopped believing a thing he says when I realized how incredibly biased his reporting on the Nikon Z system was (even if some comments were factual)...
There are a few scary things in life... the fact that this guys has a million subscribers is one of them...
Now, I want to think that most of the them watch him like you watch a Mr. Bean video, with the understanding that the comic isn't intended in his case.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Yeah, better to watch some gardening clips or how to convert a van to a camper.
Great advice. My wife could watch the former, and I could watch the latter. No joking, since she is into gardening, and I have visions of trudging down the SW coast of Portugal in a camper!
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Slobodan I will try and answer your question. There are 2 simple ways of explaining light and how it acts, (corpuscular aka small particles (photons)) and (waves). Scientists pick the model that explains the phenomena and use it to predict what would happen in different circumstances, this also gives a handy test to see if the model (hypothesis) holds true. Theories that explain diffraction, refraction, reflection have been in place since the 17th Century. Diffraction is easily understood if we think of light as waves, trying to use the photon model leads to ever more complicated fudges with rubbish like photons are attracted to electrons in the aperture blades as they pass close to them. What is argued by Tony Northrup is that photons pass through the middle unmolested leading to the centre of the image being sharp and photons passing close to the blades are bent leading to blurring, ok this makes sense but close the lens down and predict what happens, less go through the centre so the central area is still sharp but this area will be smaller than when wide open. Also more of the light will be passing close to the edges of the aperture so the non central part will be increasingly more blurred as the lens is further stopped down. Unfortunately for Tony N this is simply not the case, as we stop down the edges become sharper in reality. He is also wrong with his diagrams of how images are formed on the sensor showing that he has forgotten his high school Physics. All of the Optics theory needed to design lenses was understood by Huygens in 1670. His theory however would not explain how light produces signals in sensors or how do we get noise in the shadows even if we are using the latest and greatest sensor from Sony or Phase One for that you need to think of photons. What is difficult to understand is how can light behave as a wave in one instance and as a particle in another and the answer is that it is neither but behaves is both in different circumstances but I will leave you with that question because I spent 4 years studying Physics and although I could answer that question the enquiring mind would ask “but why” and this would quickly lead to increasingly weird and wonderful theories and ever more complicated mathematics and the limit of my knowledge. Sorry if this sounds like a teacher talking. Ken