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Author Topic: J'Accuse  (Read 29367 times)

Rob C

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #80 on: March 29, 2012, 12:53:20 pm »

Rob, I do understand your preferences, but given your reasoning I have difficulty understanding why you are hanging onto a brace of "bookends" that you say are over complex and too heavy for you to use.

Anyway, enjoy the time with your daughter.

Best

Keith


Keith -

Thanks re. daughter; wish she could bring out her brood too, but one’s at home studying for exams and her Dad will have to play chef (¡he say!) the other still, as far as I know, in Paris.

Bookends. Well, as I have said before, the D200 cost me around the equivalent of 1800 quid in Spain, and was the first such body in Mallorca. I asked a London Nikon specialist last winter, from whom I was buying a lens, for a trade-in value for the D200 and it was a grudging 300 notes! I’m better off keeping it as a ‘just in case’ body. The D700 is all I will ever, AFAIK, require for serious work, whatever that is, and what I’d like is something like an M9 at a tiny fraction of the Leica price. In essence, something that I can carry around as easily as the cellphone but can give real, printable A3+ RAW files. It’s very frustrating to have found some nice abstracts when carrying the cellphone, working on the jpegs and then wishing they were something else!

Well, the ‘bookends’ are obviously no longer too complex because I have wired them to suit my manual mind; but that wasn’t the point of all of this, which I thought was about basic camera design and function as it comes out of the box. In that condition, and with those massive manuals, yes, I still think them far too complicated for comfort if one has the old experience as a yardstick to fine ergonomics and easy use, even for the novice; especially for the novice, when I come to think of it. If these things confuse me, how much more another person with no earlier experience to help him out?  Perhaps that’s one of the reasons for the popularity of cellphone cameras and the erosion of cheaper digital camera markets: people really don’t like a complicated life.

Regarding the heavy Nikon stuff: yes, I can manage to cart it around if something special has to be done, but that’s not leaving me open to serendipity, and being as I am, I have great faith in stumbling onto things, even if they turn out to be no more than old dog turds that can break your ankle when baked in the sun; Michael may have come across some such in Mexico, too. I have realised that an old shopping trolley can carry the Gitzo when I remove the cloth shopping bag, and it looks quite elegant, much like a golf buggy thing. But as I say, it’s not something you’d do on spec, as it were.

But all this aside, film is now too expensive for me if there’s no client to carry the costs. Not only is it expensive, but as far as the local sources tell me, I’d now have to post to Barcelona for my E6 service... In fact, my Palma wholesaler, with whom I’ve dealt since ’81, hasn’t seen me for over a year; well before that, his staff levels had been cut to the bone and his stock was almost zero: “I can get it for you from head office in Barcelona next week! If it’s in stock there.” Pretty hard to see much future in film now, sad to say; even the dentists are deserting it for digital X-Rays.

Rob C

Rob C

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Re: preferring slides light box to computer screen
« Reply #81 on: March 29, 2012, 01:09:25 pm »

I spent years using a lightbox to sort and select transparencies. They facilitated choosing between similar shots but left much to be desired in terms of determining image quality.

Now imaging programs allow us to compare and select at will and with the option of 100% views there's no longer any hiding place or excuses ;-)
 



Exactly it! And for fashion/calendars, that was the name of the game: many similar shots of each setup. And a loup would easily reveal expressions etc. out of the chosen few, the first selection being based on shape, colour and how well or otherwise the idea translated into two dimensions.

Today, even my cellpix take up such a lot of time, and they all look so similar and unlike the final file after I've worked on it for a bit. Transparencies cut all of that doubt away; in fact, they were what you hoped you'd get from the printer, in most cases, and in that sense they provided a master file for everyone with a fish in the dish to refer to when required.

Rob C

theguywitha645d

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #82 on: March 29, 2012, 02:35:21 pm »

Light tables?

So, in Adobe Bridge, when I open a folder, it shows the contents (and I can change the size of the thumbnails so I can see 20 or so images). Simply clicking a thumbnail shows the image in the preview pane (I can also change the size of the preview pane). Clicking on the preview pane magnifies a detail. I can then classify the image as a second which can hide the thumbnail.

But you are right, a light table, of which I have used many, is just such a better solution unless you have not developed the required flick of the wrist to get rid of outtakes.

Quote
...for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so...
William Shakespeare

I am glad you like film. It is a great medium and I am not being sarcastic--I closed my color darkroom a year ago because of supply problems. But there are no winners in this race. There is no difference in the complexity between a silver or bit process excepting availability of supplies--both can be as easy or complex as you want to make it.

I am not advocating one over the other. I believe the choice in a process and way of working is a creative one determined by an individual photographer.
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fredjeang

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #83 on: March 29, 2012, 03:54:08 pm »

What I like is the "almost" before bought...

There are those girls you almost want to invite to dinner.

Then there are the one you actually do invite to dinner. Init?

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fredjeang

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #84 on: March 29, 2012, 05:36:48 pm »

Indeed, à la carte.

Keith, I visited your site again not a long time ago.

Rob in a post seemed to say that you are quite young; I of course don't want you to reveal your age, just that it seemed to me that the work you display is not actually a work of a young artist but long years on the craft.
I was blowned again by the mastering of the composition, apart from light. This is a very impressive mature artistical work.
To be honest, I don't know many people who are capable of doing such a spot-on compositing. It's all subtle, on the edge, but a few milimeters off and it's not working as well.  
Very impressive mastering indeed and I hope you're doing well with those beautifull photographs. You deserve it.

Best regards from Madrid.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #85 on: March 29, 2012, 08:06:06 pm »

Lightbox! Funny coincidence. I was looking at some images in spydergallery on the new iPad yesterday and thought... This really looks like a lightbox!

Of course there are a few workflow issues to iron out, but this tutorial may come handy!

http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/ipad-howto2

Disclaimer, I have not tried this yet but I could perhaps see myself exporting to ipad a whole batch of images and rating them in Lightroom in parallel as I browse through them on the pad.

Cheers,
Bernard

Rob C

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #86 on: March 30, 2012, 03:40:43 am »

Fred

Many thanks for the encouraging words, much appreciated.

No secret about my age, 62 and still counting ;-)

Best

Keith



A mere child! But hell, I've been thirty-nine and holdng for decades, so there's still time for me to work it out and fix on a more realistic figure! A figure less realistic would make the mirror more happy, but you can't have everything. Maybe I can Photoshop myself into something more like the man inside sees. Might help.

Rob C

Rob C

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #87 on: March 30, 2012, 03:59:32 am »

Light tables?

So, in Adobe Bridge, when I open a folder, it shows the contents (and I can change the size of the thumbnails so I can see 20 or so images). Simply clicking a thumbnail shows the image in the preview pane (I can also change the size of the preview pane). Clicking on the preview pane magnifies a detail. I can then classify the image as a second which can hide the thumbnail.

But you are right, a light table, of which I have used many, is just such a better solution unless you have not developed the required flick of the wrist to get rid of outtakes.
William Shakespeare

I am glad you like film. It is a great medium and I am not being sarcastic--I closed my color darkroom a year ago because of supply problems. But there are no winners in this race. There is no difference in the complexity between a silver or bit process excepting availability of supplies--both can be as easy or complex as you want to make it.

I am not advocating one over the other. I believe the choice in a process and way of working is a creative one determined by an individual photographer.


That's part of the problem: I have PS6, which gives me all of the control any of my pix ever need; to buy newer PS systems and get into 'Bridge etc, costs even more money on top, and I just don't have the financial return on photography since I retired to make that make sense; in fact, there is no real financial return on it, and the thrill of new, technical, photographic discoveries (to me) is far from thrilling. I know how to do what I think I want to do, and I see no reason to throw money at what has turned from job to time-passer. I won't even say hobby, because that would suggest an interest, a craving, that has mostly been wrung out of me over the years. In reality, I see digital photography as not a lot more than a licence for firms to screw ever more moolah out of people where film used to be a fixed-price solution once you'd bought what you felt you needed. As I've written before, 'blads and Nikons could have been 'for life', but now the emphasis is on pushing people into ever more changing equipment; in fact, gathering this stuff appears to be what photography is nowadays: a race to the biggest toy cupboard.

Nikon's own NX2, which I have, allows something similar to Bridge, too, but these all become steps added to the process, which if that's the part of photography one enjoys, then fine, enjoy. To me it is just more interference with what was of divine simplicity.

Rob C
« Last Edit: March 30, 2012, 04:07:16 am by Rob C »
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MikeMac

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #88 on: March 30, 2012, 05:05:12 am »

1.  I was perfectly happy using film and can assure anyone interested that I never felt it complicated, threatening or in any other way a bad deal. Yes, I did hate airport X-Ray, though, but managed to avoid most of it by making formal application to the various consulates through whose country I'd be passing. The only place the system failed me was the USA, and once Spain, and in Spain before I twigged about getting good documentation beforehand;

Having just travelled out to Russia with a high end laptop, server, backup drives, memory cards and cameras in my hand luggage I'm not sure I know which is more stressful, film or digital, at the airport! Still managed to leave a vital proprietary cable at home which messes with my backup strategy.

2.  the main problem with digital (for me) is that I have been used to looking at film after film on a lightbox and making pretty instant decisions about what I presented to a client and what stayed in the files or vanished into oblivion. In all the years since the D200, my first digi camera, I have never felt comfortable with digital editing, even for my own, private use where there may be only about fifty to seventy images as a maximum. Were I ever fortunate enough to land another calendar, I think I'd die of stress or old age before I managed to edit such a shoot running into thousands of images via a computer. It's alien to my ways of life, still;

Do you shoot more images per shoot/day with digital than with film?

3.  this thread began with the idea of complication and poor design (unless I'm mixing threads up, which is possible if one reads enough here) in cameras and as far as those parameters are concerned, I found film simple, instinctive and not at all frustrating. Nothing, since the 500 Series, has felt so right, simple and perfect for so many photographic applications, especially those that I face as an older man.

Returning to the thread, is it film that you found simple, or the cameras that used film (relative to todays multi button, multi-menu, multi-modal, mega-manual monsters)?

I could, I suppose, say nothing or just go along with the majority, but why? What would be the point for me or for anyone else?

Where's the fun in that? It's good to talk.
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Rob C

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #89 on: March 30, 2012, 06:10:33 am »

1.  Having just travelled out to Russia with a high end laptop, server, backup drives, memory cards and cameras in my hand luggage I'm not sure I know which is more stressful, film or digital, at the airport! Still managed to leave a vital proprietary cable at home which messes with my backup strategy.

2.  Do you shoot more images per shoot/day with digital than with film?

3.  Returning to the thread, is it film that you found simple, or the cameras that used film (relative to todays multi button, multi-menu, multi-modal, mega-manual monsters)?

Where's the fun in that? It's good to talk.


Hi Mike

2.  With digital, I don’t shoot more because I retired before digital came into my working life and the work ain’t there no more; what I do do, though, is shoot a helluva lot of personal stuff that I would never have dreamed of shooting with film, if only because of cost;

3.  I found film to be very straightforward in use; the cameras for film were also very easy to use. That’s not to say that digital ones are not: what it says is that digital ones come over-complicated, offering a host of options (for which you are obliged to pay when buying) that, in my case, are mainly cancelled out in order to make the damned things more user-friendly and instinctive in use. Of course, I’m aware I may be an exception, that others may revel in having the machine do the thinking, but the only bit of machine-thought that has endeared itself to me is the Nikon Matrix metering. Oh – I also like the auto ISO in very low light conditions. That’s it. But I could live just as well without either.

Perhaps one of the main problems with the high-end digital slr cameras, apart from the technical aspects I mentioned, is weight and bulk. To which one could add price. Buying an F or F2 was never as painful as buying their equivalents today; ditto Hasselblad. Of course, there is also the factor of the one being allowable against the business, whereas with no business… Either way, I never imagined the day would come when a ‘blad would cost the same as a reasonable new car!

Rob C

Tony Jay

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #90 on: March 30, 2012, 06:33:06 am »

I agree with Rob that digital cameras have way too many gizmo type modes etc.
This issue is compounded by the fact that entry level cameras often lack somewhat more important functions such as depth of field preview (Quite useful when allied with live view) forcing one to buy up into enthusisast-level or even pro-level cameras.
Sometimes useful functions are also buried deep inside what can become daunting menu systems.

It is possible that the KISS principle has been well and truly abandoned by the manufacturers.
I do won a Canon 5D3 but feel that the HDR mode is just so much hype.

My $0.02 worth

Tony Jay
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Tony Jay

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #91 on: March 30, 2012, 09:19:47 am »

I am certainly not a technophobe and I certainly don't let all the gizmo stuff to be found in cameras these days distract me from image making.
If the budget allowed I would almost certainly make the step up to medium format since the way I shoot would be compatible with the advantages that MF offers.
I love the possibility of levering everything I know about optics, digital sensors (in this case), exposure and compositional aspects to achieve the best of both IQ and aesthetics cum artistic value in camera.
The 5D3 (sensor) is different enough on initial testing to tell me that a settling in period will be required to get the best out of this camera.

Nonetheless, as an example, I feel that the HDR mode in its present state is practically useless, barely better than experimental.
I do a lot of HDR, not the grungy type so hated by so many, so have a fair idea.
As mentioned before I am no technophobe and I certainly want to take advantage of options that digital capture and post-processing can provide but I feel that a lot of the "functionality" of even professional level cameras is aimed at the uninitiated on an almost "point-and-shoot" basis that cannot possibly survive actual practice.
The real abilities of these cameras can sometimes be lost in the irrelevant hype.

My $0.02 worth.

Tony Jay
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theguywitha645d

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #92 on: March 30, 2012, 09:36:10 am »

I have always found it easy to ignore what I don't use.
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BJL

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the disease of gizmos and no DOF preview predates digital
« Reply #93 on: March 30, 2012, 09:59:02 am »

I agree with Rob that digital cameras have way too many gizmo type modes etc.
This issue is compounded by the fact that entry level cameras often lack somewhat more important functions such as depth of field preview ...
Firstly that is hardly a problem of digital vs film: the profusion of "gizmos", and lack of DOF buttons on some SLRs, goes back to about the dawn of AF in film cameras, as far as I recall.

Secondly, the solution to such problems is just choosing a digital camera that does not insult your intelligence too much; not blanket criticism of them all. There are plenty of affordable digital "system cameras" that pass this test, by having a DOF preview button option and a top dial with PASM modes (maybe along with some cute pictures and a green square, which can easily be ignored if you are not interested) and being perfectly usable the way I use mine, with very little recourse to menus and such, so that the gizmos are at worst irrelevant.


And for DOF preview, live view on a digital camera makes it far more useful for me that it ever was with my film cameras, because with their OVFs, the image was usually too dim to make sense of when more than a couple of stops below wide open.


P. S. Digital cameras also often an addition DOF preview option that is far superior in cases where you can afford a bit more time: taking a test shot and examining it on the LCD, with magnification and panning. In-camera on-screen review and preview is a bit like Polaroid proofs made available to the masses!
« Last Edit: March 30, 2012, 10:11:11 am by BJL »
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fredjeang

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #94 on: March 30, 2012, 03:03:25 pm »

I think I understand what Rob really means about the "golden age".

Here is an interview of my boss they did for a small retrospective of his work in Madrid:

I wouldn't like to be back on film age. But I'd like to live in the profession what those older guys have been living. I think the interview talks about what Rob is saying. (my boss is shooting digital and likes it, it's not about cameras, it's something else, and in this I agree with Rob, I don't see it now. Maybe it's there but I don't see it)
« Last Edit: March 30, 2012, 03:10:16 pm by fredjeang »
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Rob C

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #95 on: March 30, 2012, 03:55:04 pm »

I think I understand what Rob really means about the "golden age".

Here is an interview of my boss they did for a small retrospective of his work in Madrid:

I wouldn't like to be back on film age. But I'd like to live in the profession what those older guys have been living. I think the interview talks about what Rob is saying. (my boss is shooting digital and likes it, it's not about cameras, it's something else, and in this I agree with Rob, I don't see it now. Maybe it's there but I don't see it)



Thank you.

Amazing to hear him echo my wail about the feeling at the end of a good shoot or trip. Heartbreaking. I wonder if the costs involved today allow people the luxury to overshoot just because they don't want to lose the moment, the state of grace?

If you read Sarah Moon's Interview in Frank Horvat's site, you find that she, too, just went on and on clicking the moment away.

http://www.horvatland.com

Only thing: I started twenty years before Pep and already it felt as if we were just hanging on; by the 70s it felt like it was slowing down in some ways, but accelerating in others.... I hope he still has it in another twenty!

Was that you rushing through the background at one moment, at 2.13, wearing a dark bandana?

Rob C

Tony Jay

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Re: the disease of gizmos and no DOF preview predates digital
« Reply #96 on: March 30, 2012, 07:02:04 pm »

not blanket criticism of them all...

I guess one of the weaknesses of posting on forums is the difficulty of completely presenting ones position in a single post.

I wouldn't have thought that my post amounted to a blanket criticism but rather a legitimate concern.

Reading back through my posts on this thread I emphasize that I am not a technophobe.
I have thoroughly embraced the advantages that digital capture do give one.
This would include not only in camera advantages but also those offered in post-processing.
I also found out, on my own, the brilliant advantages of combining DOF preview and live view with magnification to critically evaluate focus.

I shoot with professional level cameras to ensure that certain critical camera functions are present although I stand by my opinion it is ridiculous that not all SLR-type cameras do not have DOF preview, this presented as an example and not an exhaustive list.

It is possible that we are not really at odds over this issue.

Regards

Tony Jay
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BJL

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Re: the disease of gizmos and no DOF preview predates digital
« Reply #97 on: March 30, 2012, 10:25:43 pm »

I wouldn't have thought that my post amounted to a blanket criticism but rather a legitimate concern.
Yes, maybe it was just a matter of wording, and being amidst another debate about the "sins" of digital. If you had changed a couple of words to, say "digital many modern cameras have way too many gizmos ...", I would have objected far less, because indeed some cameras do bury controls expected and appreciated by us enthusiasts and older persons in menus, in order to use precious dial space for "smiling baby mode".
It is possible that we are not really at odds over this issue.
Yes, quite possible!
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fredjeang

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #98 on: March 31, 2012, 06:30:00 am »

My thoughts too.

I think that we got incredibly more versatile and exciting recording mediums now. In term of camera design very little has been done but in the area of post-prod the gap is enormous.

Now, the politics associated with those are IMO completly out of control. It's not normal that you buy a camera and it's almost immediatly obsolete. It's to the point that we hardly have time to
learn deeply the tool. In fact what we buy now is already out-of-game. I find this particularly annoying because it obliges to a constant recycling without having really had the time to mastered totally
the previous tool. It goes too fast, it's like drinking 10 beers in 5 minutes. I sort of have an indigestion of upgrades and learning curves in such short periods of time. Without talking about the costs.

Instead of bringing on the market this bombing of tools to keep people in constant unsatisfaction and create the need of buying every 6 months, and as a consequence more and more reach us unfinished or problematics (Michael's article)
I'd rather have less frequency upgrades but much more robust and better designs cameras made to last more with a higher quality control and better service.

But that is not interesting for the big brands.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2012, 06:37:23 am by fredjeang »
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fredjeang

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Re: J'Accuse
« Reply #99 on: March 31, 2012, 08:08:40 am »

I beleive that you're right.

I have a friend here, non pro. I sometimes shoot with him talents in unformal sessions for the fun and practise. The guy had an Olympus E5 with the digital zuikos from the pro line. The image quality with strobes was simply stunning, one of the best output I ever seen from a dslr in controled light. The camera is completly sealed and built like a tank. It's possible to shoot talents under the rain or shower, the pro-line lenses are sealed too. Anyway...the guy was frustrated because it was only 12 MP. He sold it all and bought a Nex 7 with a couple of Leica and Voitlander lenses. First days he was on heaven because he broke the 20MP barrier and could feature the Leica logo, but then...Results? far behind what he could acheived with his former 12MP Olympus (in studio I insist). Yes, marketing brainwashing is quite powerfull. Like nicotine.

 
« Last Edit: March 31, 2012, 08:10:46 am by fredjeang »
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