[SFX]

Exactly, more snapping, less yapping. If one is practicing photography first and foremost for the enjoyment it brings, the equipment, and everyone else’s methods or opinions do not matter.
Also, in a world of mass production and consumption, artisans still find a market for their work.

What's the problem here? The equipment plays only a limited role. Indeed, with the K5II(S) and, for example, an SMC DA 16-45 4.0 you can still take great photos.... Much more fun than with a mobile and less complex than a drone.

[Jonathan Mac]

As long as you get a digital camera that allows manual control (which all DSLRs and decent mirrorless cameras do) then there's no obligation to use any of the more advanced features, many of which are centred around video and AF. Image quality benefits seem to be along for the ride though and keep going up.

[ZombieArmy]

Image quality benefits seem to be along for the ride though and keep going up.

I'd like to see someone blind test the difference in IQ between modern digital cameras without 100% crops. I think it'd be basically impossible.

[BigMackCam]

I'd like to see someone blind test the difference in IQ between modern digital cameras without 100% crops. I think it'd be basically impossible.

Generally, I'd agree... though in the OP's case he prints at large dimensions and views up close, so increased resolution - beyond the 36MP from his K-1 and K-1II - ought to be beneficial...

[Rondec]

Generally, I'd agree... though in the OP's case he prints at large dimensions and views up close, so increased resolution - beyond the 36MP from his K-1 and K-1II - ought to be beneficial...

For situations where you can use pixel shift and stitching, you can get amazing amounts of detail and color depth, even with crop cameras.

[BigMackCam]

For situations where you can use pixel shift and stitching, you can get amazing amounts of detail and color depth, even with crop cameras.

Indeed... though from previous threads I believe the OP has already used pixel shift and stitching, but ran into problems with things like moving water (if I remember correctly). I think if Fujifilm's GFX cameras were manufactured to the kind of build quality he wants and remained sensibly-priced, that's the system he might be shooting by now...

[Sir Nameless]

You give the latest camera to a 3 year old kid, and it makes the same pictures as any professional photographer.

But it makes you wonder, who is making the pictures, the person holding the camera, or the factory who developed the software, making it able to focusing on the eye of -lets say- a bird and following the eye wherever it goes. The only thing the person holding the camera has to do is point the camera more or less in the direction of that bird.

I refuse for ever to use such a camera (if you even can call it a camera). When i make a picture, i want to be able to say that i made that picture, and not the software developers.

Read the story of why Henry Ford paid Charles Proteus Steinmetz $10,000 for a chalk mark.

[luftfluss]

You can make a career as a professional photographer easily on something like the 5D mk ii which launched in 2008. What's the point of even getting excited about new cameras in general.

It depends on what your favorite genre of photography is. Recent cameras are massively better for wildlife/birding and sports/action shooting than that 5D mkII. Huge improvement in high ISO performance, too.

[photoptimist]

The funny thing about automation is that it is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, automation enables novices (and busy professionals) to cut through the complexity of the technicalities of photography. It lets them easily create lots of good images with "correct" automagical exposure, focus, sharpness, noise removal, and the latest in AI-created post processing. That's great!

On the other hand, the result is a sea of images that all share the same sensibilities as defined by the designers of the automation algorithms. That's fine if the goal is yet another "keeper" of the bride or the Grand Canyon that everyone can agree looks like what a photograph should.

But if the goal is to create a unique look -- a photograph that does not look like all the others -- then it's both likely and perhaps essential to turn-off some or all of the automation that enforces uniformity.

One key tool in art is the intentional violation of standard expectations. Intentional "mistakes" such as blur, over-exposure, under-exposure, strange white balances can all be used to communicate something deeper about the subject, the world, and the photographer. Although small-minded people might complain about blurry, bad exposures, others will wonder why the photographer chose those settings and they wil get the message. In either case, the image will get noticed and that's great, too!

The point is that automation can be the right tool for many photographic jobs but that does not mean that it's right for everything. In fact, in a world of growing use of automation, it's the photographer who turns off some or all of it that can actually get more attention because they are doing something and saying something in a unique way.

[Pål Jensen]

What I find most strange is when people insist on using auto features apparently just because it is there. Like choosing perhaps an odd AF point on a wide angle image with a stationary subject. Manual focusing is much faster and take 1s.
We now av AF features better than ever before but still AF complaints are on the rise. I cannot remember anyone complaining having trouble getting sharp images when all were using manual focus...
I think one should formulate why one uses an auto feature. If you cannot find an answer, don't use it.

[Digitalis]

I cannot remember anyone complaining having trouble getting sharp images when all were using manual focus...

Mainly because people would have to own up for not having good enough eyesight or faster reaction times.

[reh321]

The funny thing about automation is that it is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, automation enables novices (and busy professionals) to cut through the complexity of the technicalities of photography. It lets them easily create lots of good images with "correct" automagical exposure, focus, sharpness, noise removal, and the latest in AI-created post processing. That's great!

On the other hand, the result is a sea of images that all share the same sensibilities as defined by the designers of the automation algorithms. That's fine if the goal is yet another "keeper" of the bride or the Grand Canyon that everyone can agree looks like what a photograph should.

But if the goal is to create a unique look -- a photograph that does not look like all the others -- then it's both likely and perhaps essential to turn-off some or all of the automation that enforces uniformity.

One key tool in art is the intentional violation of standard expectations. Intentional "mistakes" such as blur, over-exposure, under-exposure, strange white balances can all be used to communicate something deeper about the subject, the world, and the photographer. Although small-minded people might complain about blurry, bad exposures, others will wonder why the photographer chose those settings and they wil get the message. In either case, the image will get noticed and that's great, too!

The point is that automation can be the right tool for many photographic jobs but that does not mean that it's right for everything. In fact, in a world of growing use of automation, it's the photographer who turns off some or all of it that can actually get more attention because they are doing something and saying something in a unique way.

I took the photograph below in summer 1975 {almost 47 years ago!}. The BN was created in 1970; Amtrak was created in 1971 and began by purchasing passenger cars from the railroads.
I "discovered" the photo as I was going through forty years of boxes of "keepers" and "marginal" slides while deciding what to scan and what to trash.

It turns out that - probably because of an accident of history - it was the only "BN" passenger car I ever photographed. so even though I originally classified it as "marginal" because of the slight blurring, I scanned and kept it. Yes, automated cameras could take lots of photographs, but even if they could store them and figure out how to classify them, we would not have means to look at those of interest to us. Perhaps some day we will be able to wander through the fourth-dimension of time, but that time is no where close now. Right now, only human beings can photograph views of interest to us. Automation can assist us {perhaps some day it could inform me that the car was moving too fast for the chosen shutter speed}, but photography is inherently an human activity.

[MossyRocks]

I fully expect my K20D and my K3 to outlast me

Sounds like your not using them enough then. While the K-3 is a very reliable camera, mine now has over 130,000 shutter actuations, I do plan on wearing it out. However it sees less use now as I have the K-3iii so that is now my primary body but the K-3 and K-3ii still will get run hard for astro shooting as does the broken K-500 (aperture block failure and AF doesn't work).

[vector]

I recently did some comparison of nice looking bird images on flickr. Looking to see if R5's, A9's, A1's etc with their bird eye af were really delivering better quality bird images. When I find them in high res and pixel peep the eye, they look like my images from the K3iii. They are not all perfectly focused without any motion blur (and these are the ones good enough that they were publicly shared), but that's the same as with my setup. I don't doubt the in focus rate to be higher, especially for in flight, but for all the hype it's marginal. These flitting little birds are so tiny and their subtle movements are so fast that 1/1000 shutter does not freeze enough. Shooting burst is essential and luck is still king because out 100 shots I still delete 98 either because I moved or the bird did, or it stayed still and I got 10 identical perfectly focused shots in a row. Even noise levels are comparable. Now those 600mm f4 lenses do deliver the bokeh and look wonderful but I have neither the budget nor the desire to carry one even if Pentax did offer one.

This past weekend I took my K1+FA77 out with my niece and her fiance for some engagement photos. We hit 4 different spots during golden hour with different light and backgrounds. With my slow frame rate and no eye af and dismal Pentax AF you may have read about on DPR it should be assumed we got nothing... Well, we got beautiful images from all 4 locations with.. wait for it... THE EYES IN FOCUS! Can you believe it! By the way that FA77 renders like a dream even shooting with strong backlight causing purple fringing. I didn't even remove it because on a 24 inch monitor I can't see the fringing so for the card sized prints they will make it is totally irrelevant.

Pentax makes great cameras and beautifully rendering lenses and I am having a blast making photos with them, even if I have to use the centre AF point and :gasp: focus and recompose. The horrors.

[MossyRocks]

I'd like to see someone blind test the difference in IQ between modern digital cameras without 100% crops. I think it'd be basically impossible.

I always differentiate between image quality and picture quality. Image quality being measurable things like noise, dynamic range, color depth, pixel density, sharpness, etc. while picture quality is does the final image look good with good composition, a good subject, good lighting, etc all of which are subjective depending on what one was going for. Image quality aspects of an image very rarely are as important as many think they are and in my experience really are only worth chasing if you are off in an extreme area of photography (astrophotography for me) but in most cases they only matter that there is enough and that generally has been the case for a while now. Is the image sharp enough, do you have enough pixels, is there enough dynamic range and most of the time with modern cameras that is always the case. If I wanted to I could create a massive super resolution pixel shift stitched stacked image of my carpet using the K-3iii and DFA 100/2.8 WR Macro off my second biggest tripod (manfrotto 3058) where I run everything at it's peak and have a final image with impressive image quality however the final picture will suck because it is tan carpet. That doesn't mean I don't try to get captures with the best image quality I can but that comes secondary to actually getting the picture. This was a thought I had while I was standing in a snow pile in a ditch taking this image.