[mikeSF]

I loved reading your comments Zoe, I think we all go as deeply into this artistic endeavour as we feel suits us and that's great.


And Mike there was no need to delete anything your comments were your honest opinion stated without any malice, its what discussions are based on, and were discussing photography.


My original posting may have indeed been inflamatory although I didn't mean it as such. Please feel free to state your opinion in future.


People are interested in what they are interested in and take from an activity whatever works for them, its a broad subject with room for all personalities.

right. I just lack patience to engage in discussion for anyone appearing to display some unfounded superiority complex because they "shoot manual", "use film", "wish to return to the good old days", or whatever. You realize there are many ways to use a camera, and the vast majority are probably the casual enthusiast or soccer mom types who don't want to know the mechanics or physics behind the photo, right? Does that make your images any more valid? nope, it really doesn't.
By your original definition, my 70-yo parents are your "modern photographer", fwiw, and they love to point the thing at the thingee and look at the screen after they press the button.

[Rondec]

These are all tools. You shoot with what you are comfortable with. If that is film, then fine, if it is digital, fine once again. There have been just as many bad photos made with film as with digital -- maybe more, since it has been around longer. I do like the instant feedback and presence of EXIF and feel like that really makes a difference in figuring out what I did wrong with a particular photo and why it didn't work out.

Throughout history, there have been a lot more snap shots made than real art (I am not totally sure if a photograph can be considered art, but that's a different discussion). But certainly to hear some folks talk about it, film is the only way to truly create art. I don't buy it, but then again, I don't shoot for everyone else, I shoot for myself and if I am happy with my shots, then that is what matters.

[jsherman999]

What I'm leading up to, is that if Ricoh Pentax released a FF tomorrow, just imagine all the whining from the people who never shot film or FF, going on and on about how their tele's are too short, and how they will have to "THINK ABOUT FOCAL LENGTH IN APS-C TERMS!" Ahahahahahah! .

That would happen for a lot of people, and in fact it happened with me - I never shot film, I started with aps-c DSLR, so when I got my first FF camera I had to do the conversions 'in reverse', and some of the FLs felt odd to me.

As a result I don't think there's any across-the-board superiority to effective FL (just talking FOV, not DOF etc) on FF... For example, I think I prefer the 77ltd on aps-c to what I would see from it on FF - but I would greatly favor the 43ltd on FF, because I shoot so much 'normal' on FF and that 43ltd would be perfect for me in several ways. I'm not convinced that I would even like the 31ltd on FF all that much.. but would love a re-release of the FA 20 f/2.8, or even a small Limited 20 f/4.

.

[Imageman]

Absolutely on the nail there mike when you talk about the superiority of some people who shoot manual or use film. Theres too much superiority for no good reason.


Automatic cars are better, under some circumstances and stick shift are better under others. The same is true of digital, and film, or shooting manual and auto.


It is better in street photography, to simply press the shutter button thingy knowing youll get a good picture. Then you can get on with the job of finding those images and capturing them.


This is what Rondec was saying in that pertinent and on the money comment, "these are all tools"


I would however question the point about more images having been taken with film than digital because its been around longer, im not so sure now.


In film days we would take 20 or 30 images in a day, sometimes only 5 or 6, after a 2 week vacation having a dozen rolls was a lot of photography, thats 300 images.


these days a lot of photographers output is 1000 shots in a day, after a fortnight it would be 20,000 images, theres a guy in the forums takes up to 5000 images in a day.


It would be wrong of me to suggest that these aren't well composed without having seen them, What I am saying is, we must be rivalling the number of images taken on film by now with so much digital shutter pressing.


We have only had digital for 15 years, that's one tenth of the time weve had film, but digital photograhers are taking shots at 50 to 100 times the rate film photographers took their images.


And on the point of art being just as valid in digital as in film, that's absolutely correct of course, but I do argue that there are many more bad photos in digital than there were in film. The more time you take over your shots the more worthwhile they are.


When I shot 36 rolls of film, my keeper rate was 6, that's one in 6. When I shot medium format my keeper rate went up to one in 3.


I have recently discovered that image stock libraries are now receiving thousands of worthless images from photographers, much more than they received with film, with film they usually received a handful of well composed images.


The ease with which 1000 digital images can be captured in a day and then all sent off to the library whether or not theyr any good, has resulted in a massive drop in quality in stock library submissions. Their words not mine.


So I guess this brings us nicely back to, there are more guys out there now who are simply pressing the button thingy.

[PPPPPP42]

there are more guys out there now who are simply pressing the button thingy

That's like a state of the union address for the photographic industry dumbed down to one line right there.

Actually the number one way to increase the quality of photos in general would be to stab out the LCD on the backs of cameras with a screwdriver. When you can't chimp every shot you have to learn how to get it right ahead of time, and that leads to learning how to make it better. Even I get lazy and just guess and chimp with my DSLR, its more than likely why my film pictures are all far better.

There are however definitely places where my DSLR is more useful than my film cameras and the advantages of digital grow with each new generation of camera.

I will however never accept an automatic transmission in any vehicle I own.
That was actually a good analogy because a person who is really skilled with a manual transmission and use of the clutch to precisely control power application can drive better and make a car do a large number of things that an automatic transmission simply can't (even while eating lunch in my case), that is a fact. The only place where an auto might do better is straight line drag racing with a shift kit to really slam the gears fast at high RPMS while you simply hold the go pedal to the floor. But that's such a limited application as to not be worth mentioning.
The same is true for cameras, if you become fast on the manual controls, learn how to use them as a second nature and eventually begin to almost see exposure settings without looking through the viewfinder for common situations then manual controls will always be better than the camera taking over. With the top LCD and front and rear dials it takes longer for a person to compose an image than to set the camera for it these days. If you don't have the skill auto will always work better for you.

The advantage to having started with film and a camera like the K1000 is you were forced to think about what you were doing and understand the effects of everything you did, and that sort of knowledge stays with you and changes how you shoot later even with digital. There was no computer choosing even one half the equation, you had to consciously pick a combination of aperture and shutter speed for correct exposure that would give the desired depth of field and motion you were looking for and then set the desired range for your chosen depth of field manually with your focus.
With a limited number of exposures on a roll you also stopped to consider whether an image was even worth taking and the dozens of useless snapshots an average person takes were greatly reduced. You also were much more careful because there was no photoshop to make massive screw up corrections after the fact, the best you had was a darkroom for fancy burning and dodging on complex lighting situations and overall contrast adjustment with filters.
Most people don't consider the details like that anymore and only worry about the AF point of focus and making things as sharp as possible.

[mikeSF]

...
Actually the number one way to increase the quality of photos in general would be to stab out the LCD on the backs of cameras with a screwdriver. When you can't chimp every shot you have to learn how to get it right ahead of time, and that leads to learning how to make it better.

and you forget the various reasons people use cameras. "to get the best quality image possible" is likely NOT number one or two or three.
"Stab LCD" with a screwdriver? a little violent are we?

...
I will however never accept an automatic transmission in any vehicle I own.

funny, i was just thinking that this particular conversation sounds like a forum of Indy Car drivers scoffing at the common drivers who waste so much time driving to work each day, precious time they could have saved if they fine tuned their vehicles and became expert drivers and drove three times faster. Those fools! If only they realized the time they waste following speed limits and using average driving skills with ordinary cars.

...a person who is really skilled with a manual transmission and use of the clutch to precisely control power application can drive better and make a car do a large number of things that an automatic transmission simply can't ...

The same is true for cameras, if you become fast on the manual controls, learn how to use them as a second nature and eventually begin to almost see exposure settings without looking through the viewfinder for common situations then manual controls will always be better...

ONLY if that is important to them. For now, be happy that more common folk with cameras do not improve their skills and displace experienced photographers at their jobs.

[ElJamoquio]

I will however never accept an automatic transmission in any vehicle I own.
That was actually a good analogy because a person who is really skilled with a manual transmission and use of the clutch to precisely control power application can drive better and make a car do a large number of things that an automatic transmission simply can't (even while eating lunch in my case), that is a fact. The only place where an auto might do better is straight line drag racing with a shift kit to really slam the gears fast at high RPMS while you simply hold the go pedal to the floor. But that's such a limited application as to not be worth mentioning.

The torque converter makes high-load work a lot easier. Of course you could have those on both manuals or automatics but in practice they're just on auto's, and not even all auto's any more.

I'm as big a manual-transmission-fan as they come, but honestly it's just for the shear control of the vehicle, that I like to have myself. The auto's do 99% of drive conditions incredibly well these days.

[mikeSF]

That would happen for a lot of people, and in fact it happened with me - I never shot film, I started with aps-c DSLR, so when I got my first FF camera I had to do the conversions 'in reverse', and some of the FLs felt odd to me.

.

good point Jay. For me, "35mm equivalent" has no practical use. My FL frame of reference comes from APS-C and since adding the 645D, it is easy for me to consider the following matchups in my rig:
D FA25 = DA15
A 35 = DA21
D FA55 = FA31
A 75 = FA43
67 105 = DA*55
D FA150 = FA77
etc...
Those are close enough that I can eyeball the shot and grab the right 645 lens based on the FL's I've come to know well on my K5.

[redrockcoulee]

good point Jay. For me, "35mm equivalent" has no practical use. My FL frame of reference comes from APS-C and since adding the 645D, it is easy for me to consider the following matchups in my rig:
D FA25 = DA15
A 35 = DA21
D FA55 = FA31
A 75 = FA43
67 105 = DA*55
D FA150 = FA77
etc...
Those are close enough that I can eyeball the shot and grab the right 645 lens based on the FL's I've come to know well on my K5.

When I come upon an image I can just as easy decide the focal length for it whether it be the digital or film Pentax, the Hasselblad , 4X5 and sort of 5X7. For the first two I am using the same lenses but it is not difficult to remember that the DA35 2.4 is a moderate wide on one and a normal on the other or I get about the same using the 50 on one or the DA70 on the other. I might have to step forward or back a step or two if I wanted identical shots with the two smaller formats or with the MF or LF but essentially I see a shot, select the lens, compose and take. Even my wife can move about in different formats and she is extremely terrible at math (even she admits to that).

[ElJamoquio]

good point Jay. For me, "35mm equivalent" has no practical use. My FL frame of reference comes from APS-C and since adding the 645D, it is easy for me to consider the following matchups in my rig:
D FA25 = DA15
A 35 = DA21
D FA55 = FA31
A 75 = FA43
67 105 = DA*55
D FA150 = FA77
etc...
Those are close enough that I can eyeball the shot and grab the right 645 lens based on the FL's I've come to know well on my K5.

Uh... crop factor from 645D to APS-C is close enough to 2 (as you've more or less noted) . I can do that math in my head. Most days.

[ZoeB]

I'm an academic. First off, I'm an intensly curious person, i have to know everything. The way i was taught, the only way to fully be able to use something is by understanding exactly how it works. My maths teacher in 8th grade made us derive and proove the quadratic equation before we were allowed to use it to solve anything. I came off before sounding like a bit of an arsehat going on about the 'good old days' when people actually composed shots and understood how cameras work, but really, i actually respect snap photography. I have a lot of friends and family that get a ton of great shots. But do they need FF DSLRs with a massive kit? No. Their good shots taken in full auto on their compacts are probably as good as the same shot would be taken manually. But that's not my style, and the (apparently not so) little dictator in my head sometimes thinks that photography would be so much better if everyone just did it her way.

[Erictator]

Wow, these threads really do take on a life of their own... as the OP of this, I do have to chuckle.

Personally, I think it's all about control or "manufacturing" a photo you see in your mind versus just capturing a moment in time.

Remember when taking a pencil erasure to Polaroids while they were still developing was all the rage? The Holga's craze? Pin hole camera's?
Hey, different strokes... it's all good.

My Mom was a pro at capturing moments with her old 126 Kodak instamatic. She had so much raw talent it wasn't funny. A very very good eye. Our family albums actually look pretty darn good, despite her use of the plastic fantastic camera. My brother tried very hard to get her to try to use his Topcon and Miranda, and he babbled on about the technical superiority of the SLR, the glass, the creative control, etc... She would have none of it and said by the time she got her head around those rube goldburgs she'd have missed the shot or lost interest in taking it. Heh.

I ran around with a plate film camera for a while, thinking I wanted to be the next Ansel... Had a home B&W darkroom, a Bessler 4x5 enlarger, the works.Ya know what? Anything that slows you down and makes you think about the shot before you take it does effect your pic's, prolly for the better. And I'm here to tell you, lugging a 4x5, a dozen loaded film plates and a swing tilt wood tripod into the hills for a hike / photo session will definitely make you think a long time before you take the shot. Those 12 heavy plates you sweated, lugging along the trail, become precious resources. Heh heh. My neck and shoulder and back still hurt thinking about it. And in 100% intellectual honesty, it was an utter waste of effort. For the size print I averaged, I could have done just fine with a medium format, which was my very next camera, a Pentax 645 and a 6x7. I missed the swing/tilt function a bit, but I got over it, and got it back eventually with digital, which came next...

I already had a little experience with digital compact Oly... so along came this little digital thing called a Pentax *ist. I mean *ist, what the heck kind of name is that? What the heck, I thought, it's cheap enough, I have some Pentax K mount glass from my SLR, so I'll try one... man, did I get hooked on digital. Never looked back. The convenience factor far outweighed everything else. The ability to try idea's for shots and get instant results were even better than having my Polaroid 545 back on the 4x5...

Before anyone accuses me of being old, I'm not...at least I don't feel old, not even past 50 yet but getting close. I admit I have been told I have an old soul, whatever the heck that means... but I do appreciate the tools and how they effect the outcome. The best tool for YOU is the one that helps you meet YOUR goals best, which means everyone's best tool can be very very different. As I look through my family albums, I am glad Mom stuck to her guns and her little 126 film instamatic, and her Kodak film mailers for processing. It made her happy, she cherished those pics and memories, and in time, so did my brother & I.

[normhead]

I ran around with a plate film camera for a while, thinking I wanted to be the next Ansel... Had a home B&W darkroom, a Bessler 4x5 enlarger, the works.Ya know what? Anything that slows you down and makes you think about the shot before you take it does effect your pic's, prolly for the better.

Only if you don't have the discipline to slow yourself down when the shot warrants it.
And that to me, as another guy who has shot 8x10 film, is a lack of the ability to experience awe. An awesome scene should slow time for you and let you work effectively. The thing that working faster with a DSLR gets you, is instead of 1 or two images of a great sunset, you may get thirty. The two you would have if you were shooting 8x10 film, and another 10 or 12. Because you aren't taking time to mess with you're equipment, all your time is devoted to working different points of view and angles, bracketing, and doing other photographic things that ensure you get the best possible images. I seriously doubt that taking some of that time and changing film backs with it, then moving massive camera gear to different locations, qualifies as image improvement time. If you have to have you're equipment slow you down, some might argue, you're compensating for a personality disorder.

A great sunset might last a half hour and change completely every two or three minutes. How does filling half that time with camera maintenance a good thing?

[Erictator]

Only if you don't have the discipline to slow yourself down when the shot warrants it.
And that to me, as another guy who has shot 8x10 film, is a lack of the ability to experience awe. An awesome scene should slow time for you and let you work effectively. The thing that working faster with a DSLR gets you, is instead of 1 or two images of a great sunset, you may get thirty. The two you would have if you were shooting 8x10 film, and another 10 or 12. Because you aren't taking time to mess with you're equipment, all your time is devoted to working different points of view and angles, bracketing, and doing other photographic things that ensure you get the best possible images. I seriously doubt that taking some of that time and changing film backs with it, then moving massive camera gear to different locations, qualifies as image improvement time. If you have to have you're equipment slow you down, some might argue, you're compensating for a personality disorder.

A great sunset might last a half hour and change completely every two or three minutes. How does filling half that time with camera maintenance a good thing?

Well...Norm, If you take what I said in it's full context you find you and I mostly agree:

"Anything that slows you down and makes you think about the shot before you take it does effect your pic's, prolly for the better. And I'm here to tell you, lugging a 4x5, a dozen loaded film plates and a swing tilt wood tripod into the hills for a hike / photo session will definitely make you think a long time before you take the shot. Those 12 heavy plates you sweated, lugging along the trail, become precious resources. Heh heh"

(Bold and underline added) My comment was about treating those 12 shots differently and slowing down to take the pic, and as you say, enjoy the awe, with the limited resources. Not about fiddling. Heck, I could get a shot off pretty darn quick and blow through those 12 plates in no time... not motor drive speed, but plenty fast. I've done weddings on plate, and you can be very quick with a SpeedGraphic style 4x5.

The comment was more about limited resources forcing you to slow down, not the speed of working the camera, which is admittedly a bit slower. One BIG advantage I enjoyed with large format was composing the shot on that big view plate, and I do miss that a bit.

Talk about doing mental conversions... lets see, if I remember correctly, anything from 180mm to 360mm could be considered "normal" focal length for 4x5 to 8x10!

As far as compensating for a personality disorder, well, a lot of the creative process is mental. We all get in ruts, or bad habits. Discussions like this are good reminders. Not all shots are landscapes and sunsets, and there isn't always a lot of time to think, so that's where knowing your equipment like the back of your hand pays off. Knowing what to do under varying circumstances to get the shot you see in your minds eye quickly only comes with practice. If you know what you are doing, and the final result looks like you took a lot of time to set it up and no one else is the wiser, it's not a crime either.

[normhead]

All good points... but, the only thing I miss about 8x10 film, is the incredible IQ, I don't think people these days realize what it was like reducing your image 4x to produce a proof, and what that looked like, or contact printing an 8x10.. personally I've always found fidgeting with stuff, took away my enjoyment of the moment.

AN example... this summer I took another photographer out on a trip...we were shooting some tripping summer campers and one of the campers came up to us and said "what a beautiful sunset." My client said "You're being facetious right? " The kid looked a little hurt and said "No." And walked away. My client was so focused on the photography, he missed the sunset. I suspect this is a flaw many photographers exhibit. Come on guys, you can do both. And I have to admit, my stress level working an 8x10 in that environment would have made enjoyment impossible, but I'd love to see the image.