[filmmaster]

A long time ago, common sense and skill ruled photography. If you needed to deal with alot of sun, you got a lens hood on your lens. If you were dealing with reflections in stuff, you got a CPL on that lens and fiddled till it was good again.

Now, in the world of photography those basics concepts are GONE.. I am serious. Really I am. I guess the ability to use the AI feature in photo shop has destroyed skill or common sense. Afterall the certified professional photographer course of study is 35% digital post production. And the CPP test itself is going by several older tests found online, roughly 40% digital editing based.

And roughly 10% based on basic camera knowledge like shutter speed, iso, aperture, and dealing with common issues solved with a lens hood.

On forums i have been, people who have sold services as a photographer for 10 or more years, have been excited by newbies to cameras, who have exclaimed "i did a shoot with a friend, i took 400 photos and I actually got ONE that was good enough to edit in photo shop".

And called them skilled...

I attended a wedding a few years ago. It wasnt great but i had taken my nikon d7500 and my vitomatic II to do some specialized photos. I wasnt allowed to take them out of the car sadly.

The so called professional photographer was an idiot. Sure the woman had scouted the the wedding spot 2 weeks before but had not been smart enough to go back the previous day due to the weather changing.. fall weddings outside require that effort you know. SO when the wedding started, the woman could only do half the photo work because she couldnt PUT A LENS HOOD on the lens..

Could not comprehend that she would have to change positions for shooting based on those conditions, just absolutely failed..

But worse yet was her "student/assitant". They TRIED to do a photo of the bride inside a room with the blinds closed... absolutely could not do a thing. They had to turn the lights on and open the blinds wide open.. Even though the camera being used by the 'profesional" was a Nikon D5.

And in the photos I saw.... the camera had been left in the auto exposure setting.....

[FozzFoster]

I think this is why Pentax will prevail.
It is more that just 'getting the shot that will sell'.
It's about the user experience, the feel, the tactile enjoyment of photography...
one that not only 'get's the shot' but is also pleasurable to use.
...I believe this will make Pentax predominate in camera manufacturing for years to come.

[luftfluss]

Eh...

[NZ_Ross]

I am pretty sure photography isn't dead because good photography requires using the human-machine interface behind our eyes and in front of the back of our head .

Gear and AI only solves a few of the myriad of issues involved in good photography.

Don't even get me started on the issues associated with the trend I see on YouTube of younger photographers holding cameras and lenses at arms length to see the camera rear display in much the same manner they would a smartphone.

[vonBaloney]

There have always been idiots and unskilled people, and there always will be. Some good points but I don't get the one about the post production percentages. At least 50% of photography has always been post-production -- now it is digital instead of analog. It is frankly more complicated with more skills required these days. A lot more variables.

[wadge22]

I dunno.
Back in the film days there was a lot of learning to be done on post processing, too: developing and enlarging.
And you know, some people always left it to that day's version of "artificial intelligence," too... sending the film to a professional lab to get your prints.
My mother was a lab technician in the photo and graphics department of a big community college. To hear some of her stories, I have no doubt there have always been plenty of folks (even among those pursuing the trade) who were, erm, not super skilled...

[turbo_bird]

I dunno.
Back in the film days there was a lot of learning to be done on post processing, too: developing and enlarging.
And you know, some people always left it to that day's version of "artificial intelligence," too... sending the film to a professional lab to get your prints.
My mother was a lab technician in the photo and graphics department of a big community college. To hear some of her stories, I have no doubt there have always been plenty of folks (even among those pursuing the trade) who were, erm, not super skilled...

That's an interesting point about the film lab being yesterday's AI. I certainly used that when I got film, and what I got back from them was what I got. There weren't very many times that I had any input on any adjustments that were done to my photos. Now I've played a little bit with one or two trials of AI photo software, but I'm not much of a fan.
Kristian

[filmmaster]

There have always been idiots and unskilled people, and there always will be. Some good points but I don't get the one about the post production percentages. At least 50% of photography has always been post-production -- now it is digital instead of analog. It is frankly more complicated with more skills required these days. A lot more variables.

I mean i spent a week deciding about doing the CPP/PPA material online.. I dug through the internet and found several older, post 2015 tests from them. The actual functions of the camera, that are covered in the how to take a picture section of the voightlander vitomatic II manual,,, barely hit 15% of the test content.

Meaning, the ability to select the proper aperture for the scene in the view finder, is actually NOT important to them anymore.

In that test, and course material, it is more important to know the difference between a direct light, and a reflected light, and a tripod then it is to know how to even simply balance the light meter match needle on your vitomatic II or canon FTB. Hell, honestly the ability to hit the meter button on my 120 format 1000S, and move the shutter speed dial/aperture to make it balance out correctly, makes me MORE educated and skilled in basic photography

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

Meaning, the ability to select the proper aperture for the scene in the view finder, is actually NOT important to them anymore

Why would selecting the proper aperture need to be covered over even important to test for. The correct ƒ-stop is highly dependent on the photographers choice in how their image will look, how the images are going to be viewed and even that photographers style. If the goal of the test was for everyone taking photographs to have their photos look the same then yes but that is not what photography is about. And more importantly you tell me what you think the proper ƒ-stop is and why it is important to obtain this ƒ-stop

[filmmaster]

I am pretty sure photography isn't dead because good photography requires using the human-machine interface behind our eyes and in front of the back of our head .

Gear and AI only solves a few of the myriad of issues involved in good photography.

Don't even get me started on the issues associated with the trend I see on YouTube of younger photographers holding cameras and lenses at arms length to see the camera rear display in much the same manner they would a smartphone.

The whole focus is on digital cameras and upon digital image manipulation. There is no concept of doing it wrong. I ran across a post once on photo.net where a person who claimed to be a certified professional photographer talked about using photo shop to remove lens flare from a few hundred photos he took. I asked why he hadnt used a lens hood, or to use a CPL filter, both will deal with flareing,,,, and strangely enough that response was enough to get that user account deleted for me.

I have dealt with people when i post a question to various forums, such as "what happened to using preventive devices on your camera or to altering how you shoot to prevent things like lens flare and unwanted reflections instead of just putting a few hundred shots through photo shop to "fix the issues"

The results have ALWAYS been violent and angry. Always mad that i would doubt the superiority of a digital camera and the use of photo editing software simply by wanting to learn how to avoid those issues.

[wadge22]

makes me MORE educated and skilled in basic photography

Perhaps it's just that with our modern tools these days, getting well metered shots is much closer to automatic and/or easy. Where you are skilled with a little light meter needle, nowadays people view a histogram and adjust settings till the right side has no gap and no compression. Or just review the image and decide for themselves if it's bright enough. I believe the skills and education you're talking about are still required, they're just handled differently than they used to be, and perhaps a fair bit easier.

and what I got back from them was what I got.

Yes, and you just hoped that the operator at the lab who wound up working on your roll was 'intelligent!'

------

There is also the fact (and this applies to both points) that, with digital, one has essentially unlimited trials and errors, whereas with film it took so long and used up actual physical resources to make a try and detect an error.
If we review a shot on our camera's screen and see it's underexposed, we can shoot again with the subject still in front of the lens and the light still more or less the same. If we move a slider in our processing software and it makes the image look like trash, we can hit ctrl-Z and try a different value or parameter, without wasting chemicals or paper.
These are luxuries nobody had back in the day. That necessarily changes the way one learns how to make good images.

[gofour3]

Yes, and you just hoped that the operator at the lab who wound up working on your roll was 'intelligent!'

That's why I shot only Kodachrome for years, everything was controlled to Kodak specifications in authorized processing labs. Also zero post processing as well, just get out your Carousel projector and enjoy.

Phil.

[tokyoscape]

The whole focus is on digital cameras and upon digital image manipulation. There is no concept of doing it wrong. I ran across a post once on photo.net where a person who claimed to be a certified professional photographer talked about using photo shop to remove lens flare from a few hundred photos he took. I asked why he hadnt used a lens hood, or to use a CPL filter, both will deal with flareing,,,, and strangely enough that response was enough to get that user account deleted for me.

I have dealt with people when i post a question to various forums, such as "what happened to using preventive devices on your camera or to altering how you shoot to prevent things like lens flare and unwanted reflections instead of just putting a few hundred shots through photo shop to "fix the issues"

The results have ALWAYS been violent and angry. Always mad that i would doubt the superiority of a digital camera and the use of photo editing software simply by wanting to learn how to avoid those issues.

IMHO, it sounds like it has to do with people's "ego" more than the use of technology and photography to me.
Some people know enough about a topic to think they know more than most people, but when someone come up with a question on the topic, their ego shifted the focus from the subject of conversations to his/herself. (it might sound like you offend them when you just offer what you know and have no intention of offending them whatsoever.)
There are a lot of people with huge ego like that on internet and pretty much in any professional, photography included.
I would just ignore it.

[biz-engineer]

On forums i have been, people who have sold services as a photographer for 10 or more years, have been excited by newbies to cameras, who have exclaimed "i did a shoot with a friend, i took 400 photos and I actually got ONE that was good enough to edit in photo shop".

That's why photographers need 30 frames per second and 500 auto-focus points. Close your eyes, press the shutter button and hope for the best. That's the way it is now, accept it.

The so called professional photographer was an idiot.

She was smart because she had relationship with her customer. Photography skills didn't matter much if you didn't have a personal relationship, hence were no allowed to take pictures out of the car.

[Joetitch]

That's why photographers need 30 frames per second and 500 auto-focus points. Close your eyes, press the shutter button and hope for the best. That's the way it is now, accept it.

Me thinketh you have the foot on the exaggerator, but expresses the concept well.👍