The hardest part of photography...

Canon EF 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM

01/17/2006 01:53:24 AM · #26

i know what you're saying modgethanc, when i got my digital rebel .. i spent soo much time obsessing with what the camera can do and probably focused less on the picture ... but i suppose thats because you don have an slr.. when you do, you would probably do what i did for a while and eventually stop thinking about it and focus more on the shot..

zxaar

01/17/2006 01:54:31 AM · #27

having shot with film camera with 1.4 primes, i always wish i had the same with digital.

Originally posted by crayon:

Originally posted by zxaar:
using a point and shoot for DPC, i can tell you that i got lot of comments about picture quality for my challenge enteries. Most of them say the same thing that i already know, but could not do anything about it since my P&S can not do it. So its not only the photographer, but the equipment also. I think its a combination of things equipment and photographer are two of them.

I know what you mean.
Sometimes, I wish I have faster lense.
I have a few times felt that F3.2 (largest for my camera) isn't fast enough for some pics that I'd like to take. And at other times, F7 isn't slow enough for long exposure shots :(

Didymus

Canon EOS-20D

01/17/2006 02:02:45 AM · #28

If a ribbon is what you're after, then hardware and post-processing is of utmost importance. You have to be able to make the crowd go OOOH!
If, on the other hand, we try to imagine which pictures would have something to say to viewers 50 years from now, then hardware (and to large extent, post processing) will be irrelevant. It'll be the subject and photograper's viewpoint and the magic of the moment that will count.
Look at the 100 year old photos today. It doesn't matter that the equipment was far below today's standards. Some pictures are great forever and some are crappy from the press of the shutter.
What you say is most important and how you say it comes next. If you really have something to say, people will recognize and appreciate it, even if you stutter. If you have no message, all the eloquence in the world is not going to save you.

01/17/2006 02:05:02 AM · #29

Originally posted by micknewton:

How many of the Hubble's better shots were dependent on where the photographer was standing?

All of them. None of the hubble shots could have had the same impact if they were taken within the confines of a light bending atmosphere...

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

01/17/2006 02:07:28 AM · #30

Originally posted by rami:

when i got my digital rebel .. i spent soo much time obsessing with what the camera can do and probably focused less on the picture ...

Even having the rebel twice as long as my old Oly, my average score here is higher with the oly...

Message edited by author 2006-01-17 02:07:47.

kmbr2001

Canon PowerShot SD600

01/17/2006 02:09:51 AM · #31

I would like to think (and it's probably true) that if I had the equipment of a nice SLR, digital, expensive canon, I can get closer to a top 10 or a ribbon =). But, of course it could just be an excuse for my lack of talent, lol.

Mick

Canon EOS-5D

01/17/2006 02:15:52 AM · #32

People take photos for a great many reasons. If you need your photo to have certain attributes, for instance extremely high resolution, how is the best photographer in the world going to create such a photo with a cheap P&S camera? Where do you stand to make that happen? It simply isn't possible, now matter how good the photographer is. To deny that the equipment you use is going to affect the outcome is to deny reality.

zxaar

01/17/2006 02:21:42 AM · #33

i was just thinking, that most of us say that its the talent that is important. The composition and thought process is the prime factor etc etc.
But when we vote, we give low scores to enteries in which the photographer has out of box (or creative) intrepretation of challenge (most of us call that DNMC). We simply give a 5 or 6 for the photos those are good but lacking in 'WOW' factor (mainly a camera attribute). We comment to people that i see noise in your photo so even though it is good composition it does not diserve more than 5.

I was wondering how complex are we, we say something and we do something else.

Message edited by author 2006-01-17 02:22:38.

Mick

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

01/17/2006 02:23:38 AM · #34

Originally posted by TooCool:

All of them. None of the hubble shots could have had the same impact if they were taken within the confines of a light bending atmosphere...

None of them, because there is no photographer.

01/17/2006 02:24:27 AM · #35

Originally posted by micknewton:

To deny that the equipment you use is going to affect the outcome is to deny reality.

Is Ansel known for 16x20 prints or is he know for his work that appears in countless books that have his name on the cover? Does it matter that he shot with an 8x10 large format camera to be show as a 4x5 image over and over again?

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

01/17/2006 02:33:51 AM · #36

Originally posted by TooCool:

Originally posted by micknewton:
To deny that the equipment you use is going to affect the outcome is to deny reality.

Is Ansel known for 16x20 prints or is he know for his work that appears in countless books that have his name on the cover? Does it matter that he shot with an 8x10 large format camera to be show as a 4x5 image over and over again?

Ansel didn't shoot with books in mind, he shot with prints in mind. And I've never seen a reproduction that truly captures the depth of his print tonalities. If your point is that he could have gotten away with a small-format camera if he were presenting his work only for books, that's arguably true if you ignore the fact that each of his negatives was individually processed in a specific way to get those tonalities in the first place, and you can't do that very well with roll film. We did it to an extent with our Hasselblad, where we used several different backs with the same film in each and marked them for different processing. We'd shoot contrasty scenes on one roll, flat scenes on another.

Of course, with digital we are back to being able to "process" each "negative" individually if we work with RAW.

R.

Mick

Canon EOS-5D

01/17/2006 02:35:30 AM · #37

Originally posted by TooCool:

Answer the question yourself. Do you think his photos and the resulting prints would have been as good if he hadn't used the large 8x10 format camera?

If you think that's true, then why do you suppose he wanted to lug around the huge 8x10 large format camera? For the exercise? :)

sir_bazz

Pentax K-5

Pentax FA 50mm f/1.4 AF

01/17/2006 02:36:42 AM · #38

It depends what the intended output is and even then the line is blurry.

Alex Majoli is one who has become a bit of a celebrity photographer amongst the P&S users.

bazz.

01/17/2006 02:38:00 AM · #39

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Ansel didn't shoot with books in mind, he shot with prints in mind.

This is true, but his imortality will come from lower quality versions of his visions. These could have been produced with almost any equipment...

01/17/2006 02:39:09 AM · #40

Originally posted by micknewton:

See my post above! :-)

01/17/2006 02:39:20 AM · #41

Originally posted by zxaar:

We simply give a 5 or 6 for the photos those are good but lacking in 'WOW' factor (mainly a camera attribute).

I'm not sure about that "mainly". WOW factor has 3 components at least: One is the actual "zing" of the thing being shot, the POV, all that "photographer-in-the-right-place-and-time stuff. Another is the post-processing, bringing the perfect balance of color and tone to the image. The third, and perhaps least important, is the equipment. Joey's shots have the WOW factor, for example. So do J.J. Beguin's. The WOW factor in Heida's work is largely due to vision and post processing, not equipment.

Robt.

01/17/2006 02:42:19 AM · #42

Originally posted by TooCool:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Ansel didn't shoot with books in mind, he shot with prints in mind.

This is true, but his imortality will come from lower quality versions of his visions. These could have been produced with almost any equipment...

I disagree. His "immortality", such as it is, was conferred upon him by appreciation of his magnificent prints. With fame, came reproductions. Many people yawn when they see an Adams in a book, wondering what the fuss is, because they haven't seen the real thing. NOTHING can prepare you for the experience of the real thing. The prints are beyond exquisite.

R.

01/17/2006 02:45:53 AM · #43

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by TooCool:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Ansel didn't shoot with books in mind, he shot with prints in mind.

This is true, but his imortality will come from lower quality versions of his visions. These could have been produced with almost any equipment...

I disagree. His "immortality", such as it is, was conferred upon him by appreciation of his magnificent prints. With fame, came reproductions. Many people yawn when they see an Adams in a book, wondering what the fuss is, because they haven't seen the real thing. NOTHING can prepare you for the experience of the real thing. The prints are beyond exquisite.

R.

But I've never seen an Ansel print. I'm awed by the vision that created the image...

01/17/2006 02:48:56 AM · #44

Originally posted by TooCool:

But I've never seen an Ansel print. I'm awed by the vision that created the image...

This is good. Now make it a point to seek out a museum or gallery that has some of his original works on display and prepare to genuflect :-)

R.