The Full Frame Myth

[Rob C]

It obviously won't change any minds, but I do think it unfortunate that so many folks get so wound up about technicalities. There always was and always will be something 'better' than the thing we currently own, but if what we own is good enough to make nice images possible when in reasonably skilled hands, I see little point in looking ahead to the next best thing. It becomes a race instead of a creative pastime. In a way, it represents the difference between pleasure sailing and competing. One is done calmly and for its intrinsic pleasure where the other is a driven thing, forced by the need to appear better than everybody else. They are much the same thing about being in a boat, but utterly different in approach and purpose.

Wasn't photography simply meant to be about making pleasing images? In the end, for most of us, who gives a shit about how wonderfully sharp our ten-foot-wides appear? It's a digital print, for crissakes; it's lost its virginity even before it's been born.

Rob C

[barryfitzgerald]

I've been to his gallery in Bishop, and at Rowell's former Emeryville gallery I've seen his prints side-by-side with Bill Atkinson's (http://www.billatkinson.com/) who at the time was using Hasselblad film cameras.  Rowell's photos do not look like they were made with medium format equipment and film, the difference is obvious.

Doesn't matter he took some damn nice photos.
I'll take a great 3mp image over a ho hum 36mp one every day of the week 

[telyt]

Doesn't matter he took some damn nice photos.
I'll take a great 3mp image over a ho hum 36mp one every day of the week 

That's not in question.  Would you rather take a great 3mp image or a great 36mp image?

[Rob C]

Rob, I agree with much you have said.

On the other hand there are many folk simply looking for solutions to issues they perceive to be problems or irritations. Perhaps a good example would be improvements to Nikon DSLR viewfinders and screens or the introduction of lightweight and compact medium format cameras

Happy Hols.

Keith, you have been reading my posts as well as my mind!

Happy break to you too!

I tooK Ms Coke for an adventure today after lunch - unfortunately, I have to reconnect the old computer to discover whether she did or did not enjoy it, because the  new one won't yet let SanDisk, the Reader, do its thing and send NEFs to a folder of my choosing. They go forcefully into a Windows thing from which they are currently impossible to budge other than by simply cancelling them.

;-)

Rob C

[Ray]

That's not in question.  Would you rather take a great 3mp image or a great 36mp image?

That's exactly the point. However great a low resolution image is considered to be, it would be even greater at a significantly higher resolution, and with significantly smoother tonality and cleaner shadows.

Most Stock Photography sites price photos according to the file size, ie. resolution.

[Ray]

I see little point in looking ahead to the next best thing. It becomes a race instead of a creative pastime. In a way, it represents the difference between pleasure sailing and competing. One is done calmly and for its intrinsic pleasure where the other is a driven thing, forced by the need to appear better than everybody else. They are much the same thing about being in a boat, but utterly different in approach and purpose.
Rob C

Can't understand that attitude at all, Rob. I've never bought a camera in order to compete with someone and appear better. I buy cameras to take pictures. I get more pleasure processing noise-free, high resolution images that provide fine detail than I do processing low resolution images with banding in the shadows. It's as simple as that.

Wasn't photography simply meant to be about making pleasing images? In the end, for most of us, who gives a shit about how wonderfully sharp our ten-foot-wides appear? It's a digital print, for crissakes; it's lost its virginity even before it's been born.

Not at all. A lot of photography is about taking very ugly images, as in a war zone. If the photo is 10 feet wide, I want it to be reasonably sharp as reality is. The sharper the better.

[barryfitzgerald]

That's exactly the point. However great a low resolution image is considered to be, it would be even greater at a significantly higher resolution, and with significantly smoother tonality and cleaner shadows.

Most Stock Photography sites price photos according to the file size, ie. resolution.

Couple of points, stock photography is a dying area few make a living purely on that work. Even so they will happily accept images that are well below 36mp native size.
Regarding the resolution point, it's as I said of no practical significance to 95% of photographers nowadays.

About the only thing that might be interesting isn't more megapixels, but newer sensor technology as bayer bows out replaced by better technology.
For most folks many cameras even at the lower price points offer more than enough resolution even for demanding tasks. But let's not forget that makers have exploited this for their own sales too.

If 9 out of 10 Nikon D3200 buyers never put anything on their camera bar the 18-55mm kit lens, then having 24mp is completely wasted on such an optic. Yes some will have better lenses, most won't. So I still say with confidence it's got a lot more to do with marketing and camera sales than it has printing big.

As for the cropping argument, fine fire away, but poor technique can never really be substituted with huge crops.

[Rob C]

I recently viewed an exhibit of  Ansel Adams work along with some other landscape master works.     I was most struck by the same thing I have been for some while when viewing silver gelatin prints....how generally soft the prints appear!   I realize this is heresy.    I don't believe that there is any doubt that current moderate quality equipment exceeds that which made the vintage masterworks we all enjoy.  

Wasn't part of the St Al mystique built around the story that he preferred making 8" x 10" contact prints? I doubt there be much unsharpness there unless he went hand-held after a gentleman's luncheon.

;-)

Rob C

[Petrus]

AA had a contact print box with a matrix of bulbs so that he could "lightshop" even the contact print images...

[Rob C]

AA had a contact print box with a matrix of bulbs so that he could "lightshop" even the contact print images...

Now that sounds cool! Did it work?

Rob C

[Petrus]

Of course, with 8x10" plates. Each bulb could be turned on and of individually.

[LesPalenik]

Most Stock Photography sites price photos according to the file size, ie. resolution.

Theoretically, that's true, however many stock photographs sold today for print or web pages are small in size, or sold on subscription basis where the buyer pays the same price regardless the size.
 

[Ray]

Regarding the resolution point, it's as I said of no practical significance to 95% of photographers nowadays.

I'm quite happy to be part of the other 5%. I've never been one to follow the mob. 

As for the cropping argument, fine fire away, but poor technique can never really be substituted with huge crops.

Every photographic image that has existed is a crop. It's not possible to produce an image which is not a crop of the scene being photographed. Cropping is always an essential part of good technique whether such cropping is done through choice of lens and camera format at the time the shot is taken, which usually results in higher resolution, or later in post-processing, which usually results in lower resolution.

[bcooter]

Bottom line is this.

I can absolutely build a set of circumstances where every format film or digital that has been mentioned here I could shoot (within a specific scenario) and prove technically that that format was superior.

We all say it 1000 times a minutes but all the matters is the photo.  On this top of this forum is a banner ad, for some metallic silver paper.  Has an interseting image of a woman in white holding some silver thing.

With the right post work I can shoot from 6 to 80 mpx and even the most trained, pixel peeping, chart making tech loving cat will never tell the difference.

So the real bottom line is if it works for you, your images are beautiful (to you and if you work for commerce the people that pay you) if you love photography, then go with what you like, produce great work and live a happy life.

If ol' Ansel built a 10 lightbulb contact printer then good for him, that's thinking outside of the box, or in this case inside the box and if he did it he did it to present the best image possible, from selection to final.

Isn't that the goal?  

Me, right now I dig those olympus 43 omds.  I can build a film, shoot them like I use to shoot 35mm cameras before they got the size of a mini cooper and  .. . ok hold it . . . I gotta confess.  I love those cameras but since I'm such a contrarian I also love the fact that not a lot of professional photographers use them.

I firmly believe that the reason I stuck with the Contax/Phase so long was because everybody else gave up.   I like different stuff, but what I like really has nothing to do with anyone else's work.

IMO

BC

[Rob C]

Bottom line is this.

I can absolutely build a set of circumstances where every format film or digital that has been mentioned here I could shoot (within a specific scenario) and prove technically that that format was superior.

We all say it 1000 times a minutes but all the matters is the photo.  On this top of this forum is a banner ad, for some metallic silver paper.  Has an interseting image of a woman in white holding some silver thing.

With the right post work I can shoot from 6 to 80 mpx and even the most trained, pixel peeping, chart making tech loving cat will never tell the difference.

So the real bottom line is if it works for you, your images are beautiful (to you and if you work for commerce the people that pay you) if you love photography, then go with what you like, produce great work and live a happy life.

If ol' Ansel built a 10 lightbulb contact printer then good for him, that's thinking outside of the box, or in this case inside the box and if he did it he did it to present the best image possible, from selection to final.

Isn't that the goal?  

Me, right now I dig those olympus 43 omds.  I can build a film, shoot them like I use to shoot 35mm cameras before they got the size of a mini cooper and  .. . ok hold it . . . I gotta confess.  I love those cameras but since I'm such a contrarian I also love the fact that not a lot of professional photographers use them.

I firmly believe that the reason I stuck with the Contax/Phase so long was because everybody else gave up.   I like different stuff, but what I like really has nothing to do with anyone else's work.

IMO

BC

On which reasonable, and optimistic, note - Merry Christams BC!

Rob C

[Petrus]

If ol' Ansel built a 10 lightbulb contact printer then good for him, that's thinking outside of the box, or in this case inside the box and if he did it he did it to present the best image possible, from selection to final.

It was more like a 25 bulb box. I had a zone system handbook which had a picture of it, but I can not locate the book anymore. Can not find any info about it in the net, which really does NOT have everything in it, especially about certain obscure things of the past. It is of course possible to dodge and burn a large contact print with the traditional methods when using a small light source like a single bulb or an enlarger.

[aduke]

AA's book, "The Print" mentions that he had used an "Air Force printer" which contained 12 lamps, each with its own switch. I could not find any reference to such a thing on the net.

Alan

[Steve Weldon]

I always like Michael's take on things. He's got the best combination of practical and technical on the web.

My take on his take on FF vs. smaller sensor cameras is that we need to own at least one of each, like him. 

Yes.  This is really the common sense approach.  A different tool for a different job.  A photographer needs as many different tools as their applications demand.

[Petrus]

AA's book, "The Print" mentions that he had used an "Air Force printer" which contained 12 lamps, each with its own switch. I could not find any reference to such a thing on the net.

Alan

That must be the one. Funny that the net does not have anything about this.

Addendum: the full text of "Print" by Ansel Adams is available at http://archive.org/stream/The_Print/The_Print_djvu.txt

Here is the relevant section from the book:

"Contact-printing light boxes have few advantages and one major
disadvantage in that the negative cannot be seen while printing.
However, for printing large quantities I have used an early "Air
Force" printer, which contained twelve frosted lamps, each with its
own off-on switch. It is thus possible to control the distribution of
light during the printing exposure, to broadly compensate for uneven
negative densities; turning off the central lights, for example, will
increase the relative exposure of the borders and edges of the image.
Actual dodging and burning, however, are quite difficult to accom-
plish with such a printer, since they require the use of translucent
masks, cut to the appropriate shape, inserted below the negative.
The printing-frame principle remains, for me, simpler and more
efficient."

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I just made a 70x100 cm. I took it with my Sony Alpha 99, it is nice but could be sharper. Did it depend on camera or the photographer? I don't know! The same week I took another image with my P45+ on Hasselblad that I printed at 60x80 cm (because I could not crop to 70x100), that P45+ image is really sharp.

It is nice to be able to print large, that suggests megapixels and sharp lenses are good stuff. The way I see it:

The Hasselblad/P45+ makes great images, but is a bit limited compared with my full frame DSLR. The DSLR makes great images, too. For short walks I simply carry both. Long walks? The DSLR comes along.

I also have a smaller APS-C DSLR, it has 24 MP. I use that camera for telephoto shots and as a walk around camera. The full frame DSLR with it's large lenses is simply to monstrous and heavy.

I also have a Sony RX100, it doesn't get much love, but makes some nice images.

It is nice to have high MP count, but it needs lenses to match.

Best regards
Erik

Yes.  This is really the common sense approach.  A different tool for a different job.  A photographer needs as many different tools as their applications demand.