M43 Musings

Jim Salvas wrote:

woof woof wrote:

Fri13 wrote:

Jim Salvas wrote:

The very idea of shooting small and fast BIFs was unheard of until just a few years ago. Almost nobody could do this with anything other than the grainiest film and early DSLRs were incompetent at the task. But, better sensors came along, with longer, faster AF lenses

Not so. For decades there has been excellent wildlife photographers who have photographed birds in deep dark forests and so. The thing just is that majority of the people didn't hear about those photographers as they made the bird books and education books and even had own special meetings and were more like a war photographers who gathered together once a year to pick best photographers among them.

Now it is like people believe cameras does the tricks and every camera should do it just with push of a button.

While it is a fact that AF is radically improved, but there is huge difference when you give the same camera with same settings to photographer who have been working 30-40 years photographing birds and then for photographer who has been photographing people.

If all this is true what cameras were people using decades ago to get these results?

Personally I find my best MFT camera (GX7) better at higher ISO's than any 35mm film I ever used and quite possibly better than the early APS-C DSLR's I had... 300D, 10D, 20D.

Better photographers may get better pictures but there comes a point when the technology is a limiting factor and high ISO ability must be a limit when shooting in low light and wanting to capture fine details such as feathers?

No matter how good a photographer you are you're going to be tied to an aperture, shutter speed and ISO and the technical results the hardware gets you at these settings and no matter how good you are at stalking the bird and framing it you must be limited by the kit be it film or a digital sensor or even the limits of the processing software.

Very few people were able to shoot small, fast BIFs until recently. Just try to find any of those, even in National Geographic. The exceptions were usually elaborate flash traps. Birds on Branches (BOBs) were the order of the day.

film just didn't have the capability to shoot fast and clean and, as I said, even digital wasn't that capable until recently. Just think. How long has even FF had clean ISO 6400? Two years?

i get it that birders want more and I applaud them for pushing the envelope. That will give me better gear in the future, as well as keep some lens manufacturers in business.

A--
Jim Salvas
"You miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky

I agree and I think that some need to look back realistically.

IMO kit can indeed be a limiting factor and the kit we have now at least for 35mm and smaller formats (I have no idea about larger formats) is (again IMO) superior to anything that's gone before and to say that some were getting as good or better results decades ago needs to be qualified as if they were they were using aids such as the flash traps you mention.

I find it very difficult to believe that technically better or even as good was possible decades ago with 35mm or smaller film or digital cameras of the day... and any aid or technique used in the past could be applied to shots taken today with technically more capable and less limiting kit. IMO of course