Take pictures

[vadim_c]

Remember the good old time of film cameras ? Once you bought a decent one you keep it for decades and your main concern was taking a good pictures with it.
Look how the times changed.

Many 40D owner 'upgraded' to 50D after a year of owning 40D. Many are in the race of better IQ, higher pixel, lower ISO, better LCD etc. Nobody ( well almost ) bothers taking pictures. Many spend countless hours counting each pixel under 400% magnification still not having printed a single photo. The only images produced by the excellent sensors and lenses are MTF charts, exteme low light high ISO samples and those 5 magic batteris in the focus test.

The reason I guess is that it is much more difficult to take good pictures than many realize. The camera is only a very insignificant part of the equation. Correctly set up pose for example makes a photo taken with a cellphone look nicer than the one taken with 1D in inexperienced hands.

 

[snappey]

Remember the good old time of film cameras ? Once you bought a decent
one you keep it for decades and your main concern was taking a good
pictures with it.

What film did you use? Were you using the same film 10 years ago that you were using 20 years ago. Did you do your own film developing or did you use a lab? Did you ever change the lab you used for development or your developing equipment? Why?

Look how the times changed.
Many 40D owner 'upgraded' to 50D after a year of owning 40D. Many are
in the race of better IQ, higher pixel, lower ISO, better LCD etc.
Nobody ( well almost ) bothers taking pictures.

You're kidding, right? You think almost all those buying 40Ds and 50Ds don't take pictures with them?

Many spend countless
hours counting each pixel under 400% magnification still not having
printed a single photo. The only images produced by the excellent
sensors and lenses are MTF charts, exteme low light high ISO samples
and those 5 magic batteris in the focus test.

It's called testing what the limitations and performance of the gear is.

The reason I guess is that it is much more difficult to take good
pictures than many realize.

If you think people measure and test the performance of their gear because taking good pictures is hard, then you're confused. You're forgetting that taking pictures and posting and debating on forums and testing and measuring gear can all be done. They're not mutually exclusive.

The camera is only a very insignificant
part of the equation. Correctly set up pose for example makes a photo
taken with a cellphone look nicer than the one taken with 1D in
inexperienced hands.

Have you printed any nicely posed cellphone pictures to a 11x17 print? Did it look nicer than a print from a 1D to you?

 

[Bob Blount]

snappey,

Good film cameras DO LAST for decades and the development was in film. Today the film (Memory cards) more or less do not change while the camera changes. Brilliant marketing !! You will have to admit that lots of folks on these forums have fallen in love with technology to the detriment of enjoying photography and developing their skills.
Snappey, I think you protest too much! Or is that protects too much?
--
Bob

'I can look at a fine art photograph and sometimes I can hear music.' - Ansel Adams

Canon 40D, 70-200mm f4L IS, 28-135mm IS, Sigma 17-70mm f2.8 Macro, 100-400 mm f4.5L IS Sony R1, Canon Pro1

 

[flash55597522]

I think the point the OP is making is that many of us, me included spend maybe a little too much time worrying about every last pixel and should spend more time outside taking pictures, not staring at 100% crops on the monitor.

 

[snappey]

snappey,
Good film cameras DO LAST for decades and the development was in
film. Today the film (Memory cards) more or less do not change while
the camera changes.

That's the point I was making with the film and developing questions I just posed.

Brilliant marketing !! You will have to admit
that lots of folks on these forums have fallen in love with
technology to the detriment of enjoying photography and developing
their skills.

I don't have to admit that.

Snappey, I think you protest too much! Or is that protects too much?

Huh? I'm not protesting. Are you?

 

[George Spencer]

snappey,
Good film cameras DO LAST for decades and the development was in
film. Today the film (Memory cards) more or less do not change while
the camera changes. you protest too much! Or is that protects too much?
--
Bob

I second what Bob said. When I was shooting film I was ALWAYS looking for the next best film.

However, I will admit that I am a tech junkie. I love new "stuff". IMHO there is nothing wrong with that as long as you know what you are doing and why you are doing it.

 

[Zeee]

The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. Did I really need a 50D? Nope. I did not need the 40D either. I ain't taken it with me and I like new technology. Some of the stuff going on here can get a little out of hand but I keep learning and much faster than I did 20 years ago. I was going to skip this one and wait for a lower end FF to come out but it had a few features I wanted. I'm glad I got it. The camera companies sure learned from Bill Gates but you have admit look at the strides they made in the last 8 years. We are all benefiting from them. If we did not buy the new tech they would not make it.

--
I have made my decision. Don't confuse me with the facts.

 

[Alastair Norcross]

snappey,
Good film cameras DO LAST for decades and the development was in
film. Today the film (Memory cards) more or less do not change while
the camera changes.

The digital equivalent of film is not the memory card, but the camera's sensor. The memory card is more like those plastic sheets we used to keep our negatives in.

--
Alastair
http://anorcross.smugmug.com
Equipment in profile

 

[Brunobl]

The camera companies sure learned from Bill Gates

Nah, both Bill and the camera companies learned from Ford & GM.

You buy the newest car, only to find that the next year's new, contoured headlights are must-haves. When you get that, they come up with some other new feature. All intelligently spaced a few seasons apart. Cool way to have a steady flow of money coming in.

--
Best regards,

Bruno Lobo.



http://www.pbase.com/brunobl

 

[vadim_c]

The camera companies sure learned from Bill Gates

Nah, both Bill and the camera companies learned from Ford & GM.

You buy the newest car, only to find that the next year's new,
contoured headlights are must-haves. When you get that, they come up
with some other new feature. All intelligently spaced a few seasons
apart. Cool way to have a steady flow of money coming in.

Hopefully Canon and Nikon will not follow their teachers.

 

[KariP]

Hi

When i started photography the camera gear was quite expensive and nothing happened very fast in the technology front - some significant "upgrade " came every 5 years or so. Films stayed also quite same with minor improvements in 3 - 6years intervals.
I managed my 40 year film-SLR period with FIVE "upgrades".

Film was quite expensive - and taking 10 000 pict/ year was impossible for an amateur... And darkroom work with B&W - i really do not miss it.

Of course this upgrade pace 40D > 50D in 12 months is too fast and i do not see any idea in upgrading with all new camera cycles. I am considering an upgrade when 60D comes - and will continue using 40D until that - or longer

But i have had fun with my first DSLR 40D - and i have really taken many photographs. Every photo is also a test shot ! But i have not had any interest in taking photos of test charts - it is so easy to read test someone else has made, why bother.
One year "test" photos : http://web.mac.com/karipenkkila/iWeb/CANON%2040D
--
Kari
SLR photography for 40 years
60°15´N 24°03´ E

 

[snappey]

snappey,
Good film cameras DO LAST for decades and the development was in
film. Today the film (Memory cards) more or less do not change while
the camera changes.

The digital equivalent of film is not the memory card, but the
camera's sensor. The memory card is more like those plastic sheets we
used to keep our negatives in.

Yes, very good.

The point I was trying to make in my eariler post was that with film, the equivalent to digital "pixel peeping" was all in comparing film quality and characteristics and development equipment, materials and methods. Maybe back in the day, people would come along and say: "Stop fixating on minute differences between different films and development and just go take pictures. All your tech talk about film and developing is to the detriment of enjoying photography and developing your skills."

Ansel Adams and others wrote entire books about the negative and development to the benefit of the enjoyment of photography and the improvement of people's photography skills.

 

[KariP]

snappey,
Good film cameras DO LAST for decades and the development was in
film. Today the film (Memory cards) more or less do not change while
the camera changes.

The digital equivalent of film is not the memory card, but the
camera's sensor. The memory card is more like those plastic sheets we
used to keep our negatives in.

Yes, very good.

..... snip

Ansel Adams and others wrote entire books about the negative and
development to the benefit of the enjoyment of photography and the
improvement of people's photography skills.

Exactly.

I tried to understand "zone systems" etc advice and methods from books , but that was not so easy.

DSLR and DPP is more easy and the results are better- technically! Not as art of course. But i do not regard my photos as art anyway.

--
Kari
SLR photography for 40 years
60°15´N 24°03´ E

 

[hemsworthlad]

Look how the times changed.
Many 40D owner 'upgraded' to 50D after a year of owning 40D. Many are
in the race of better IQ, higher pixel, lower ISO, better LCD etc.
Nobody ( well almost ) bothers taking pictures. Many spend countless
hours counting each pixel under 400% magnification still not having
printed a single photo. The only images produced by the excellent
sensors and lenses are MTF charts, exteme low light high ISO samples
and those 5 magic batteris in the focus test.

IMHO the biggest contributing factor to this epademic of testing & pixel peeping as nothing to do with photography, but more to do with the use of the Internet.

In the hey days of film the Internet wasn't a factor so the majority of people just got on with photography. ...They had only limited contact with other like minded people and of the ones they did only a very small portion were the techi types who cared about such things, also the needed equipment and knowledge just wasn't easily available or too expensive.

Today things are very very different with digital ....with computers in just about every home and the wide use of broadband and forums like this...peeps have access to thousands if not millions of other like minded peeps.....So it go's with out saying that they have access to thousands of techi types.....The result is thousands of pixel peepers(nowt wrong wi that wot ever floats yr boat).

IMO this is all good for photography because it's so much easier to learn and consult with more knowledgeable people than your self, which can only be good!!

BUT there is a EASY solution to getting rid of pixel peeping and testing from your life. . . . . . . . . DONT READ THEM.......EASY!!

Take care.
Take pics,
Dean.

 

[ppage]

The reason I guess is that it is much more difficult to take good
pictures than many realize.

I completely agree with that statement, but you're wrong about the rest. This forum's main use to is talk about the camera, but go over to the PC Talk forum for example and you will find lots of posts from people asking about software to help them organize the thousands of photos they have stored on their hard drives. Some people will go to an event such as a car race and come back with hundreds of photos just from that one weekend.

I wish you were right in a way; I can't imagine that several hundred photos taken in a two day period are all worth keeping by a long shot. So...your statement above is correct, but even after people start taking photos, they still don't don't realize how difficult it is to take good ones. No offence meant to the car racing fans; I realize people keep photos as souvenirs of events and that is valid, but that doesn't mean that they are all good photos. (We're not talking about IQ, here, but rather things like composition; you won't here much about that on this forum either).

A friend of mine told me recently that he took better photos with his film camera than with his digital camera because he was more careful about each shot. Knowing that he can take lots of photos for free and fix an image up later in Photoshop is making him lazy.

And I wonder about these digital snapshot souvenirs of races and even family events. Print photos were relatively few in number and were in many ways much more permanent than digital photos. Family snapshots taken a half century ago are still kept in envelopes and albums in many homes. I have very old photos of my grandparents taken before WWI. Who knows what will happen to all these digital files. Will our grandchildren have images of us that they run across from time to time and think about? Or will these digital files be deleted in a few years, or simly shuffled from one hard drive to another but never looked at again.

ppage

 

[dwaud]

--Sounds like somebody is a little sensitive?
dwaud
Canon eos 3, 1n, 1nrs; 50 1.8II, 28-105 3.5-4.5, tamron 28-75 2.8, 550, 430 ex.

 

[jsanch08]

I began film photography in earnest in 1978. Kodak dominated the image outcome with its series of films and papers. The combinations of film and paper were too numerous to try all of them. Some combinations yielded low noise and low contrast and neutral color, others, more color, more conrast. I spent countless hours in my high school darkroom exploring many of them.

In 1980 Fuji came on the scene in the US for real with its film...offering even more choices in image outcomes....but...still....all the choices were made by the film and paper combination.

Feedback, a look at the scene to image outcome, was slow....requiring hours in a darkroom.....

For many years, until last September, I followed this arduous path froms scene to print.....slowly learning what worked.

Last Sept I bought a Rebel XT and a couple weeks ago a 430EX flash. I have learned more about photography in one year than I learned in all the years before.

This rapid learning is fed by the very fast feedback loop digital offers. One can, within one minute, photograph the scene and look at a myriad of alternative outcomes.

Fuji and Kodak's tone and color choices are no longer relevant. Mine are what counts now.

There is no way I would return to film. There is no way to get as much learning in as short a time as one can get today.

I will post a 50 cent flash deflector designed over a period of two days recently. This reflector is better than any I ever bought, and, is born out of fast feedback in scene to image reproduction.

So......pixel peepers feel no guilt. Looking at the image is how we get better, and, working in a darkroom with cancer causing chemicals is not amenable to learning.

 

[Brian D. Schneider]

Remember the good old time of film cameras ? Once you bought a decent
one you keep it for decades and your main concern was taking a good
pictures with it.
Look how the times changed.
Many 40D owner 'upgraded' to 50D after a year of owning 40D. Many are
in the race of better IQ, higher pixel, lower ISO, better LCD etc.
Nobody ( well almost ) bothers taking pictures. Many spend countless
hours counting each pixel under 400% magnification still not having
printed a single photo. The only images produced by the excellent
sensors and lenses are MTF charts, exteme low light high ISO samples
and those 5 magic batteris in the focus test.
The reason I guess is that it is much more difficult to take good
pictures than many realize. The camera is only a very insignificant
part of the equation. Correctly set up pose for example makes a photo
taken with a cellphone look nicer than the one taken with 1D in
inexperienced hands.

--Well I bought my 50D to take pictures (after a little testing of course)
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=30172308





Brian Schneider

 

[muxamed]

Although you have quite a few hot pixels there

 

[mbloof]

Who knows what will happen to all these digital
files. Will our grandchildren have images of us that they run across
from time to time and think about? Or will these digital files be
deleted in a few years, or simly shuffled from one hard drive to
another but never looked at again.

Indeed. I have BOXES of family photographs from multiple generations. Many are in albums, others are in envelopes. %99 of them I'm clueless as to who is in them as there is no writing on the back or elsewhere to give hint of its origin.

As for my stuff, I switched to digital 2000. I'm very douptfull that my siblings or ANYONE ELSE for that matter will know where my images are stored online, harddrive or CD/DVD much less how to view/copy or anything usefull with them. (granted the younger generation that grew up with PC's may have a much better clue as to us mid-older folk)

In keeping with the subject of the thread, I think the digital age as made most folk 'snap happy' along the lines of "100 in the camera is worth 1 on the wall" .

Back in the film days the cost of film and developing placed real binders on my shutter finger. Digital has changed all of that.

I'll be the 1st to admit to taking a large number of 'experimental photographs' with a very low 'keeper' percentage.

Just yesterday I was out shooting with my 50D and new 100-400IS and clicked off almost 300 photographs to get 30 or so keepers. (found in the following link)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbloof/sets/72157610328010165/

While in the future I hope for much higher percentages but for now I'm actually VERY happy with a %10 keeper rate.

Remembering to delete the 'non-keepers' off my HD is another story.

--

(Canon S70, => 400D, => 50D. EFS18-55, => EF-S17-85IS, => EF24-105mm f4L IS USM, EF50mm f1.8 II, EF85 f1.8, EF70-300mm IS USM, EF28-70 f2.8L)
Technologist @ Large

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