[Digitalis]

I have a student that uses Canon 5D's with takumar 50mm f/1.4 (8 element version) who produces excellent work, I also have had a student who used a Mamiya 645AFD with a 60Mp digital back that produced nothing but crap.

I happen to own a platinum/iridium alloy flute - does it make me play any better than I do on my gold or silver flutes?... If my critics are anything to go by then no, I don't. In fact, I have been panned for performing on platinum instruments because they have a tendency to sound "cold" - they lack the warm sound that gold flutes have. From a materials perspective the upshot of using a platinum iridium alloy is that the mechanism on the instrument is physically stronger - which means the instrument is more reliable and less likely to get out of adjustment. Also the harder the metal used to make the flute has the effect of making sound more vibrant and allowing the sound to project enough to fill a concert hall which is much harder to do on silver flutes.

Throwing money into equipment can make up for a lack of talent but only up to a point, and in many ways having too much equipment can be a hindrance to artistic vision*. Doing more with less is art.

*and also hits your wallet when you have to pay insurance.

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Last edited by Digitalis; 05-23-2014 at 09:31 PM.

[hks_kansei]

Unfortunately digital technology has made it very much about the camera.

Which is a big part of why I dislike digital, it's more about the equipment and budget than the skill. In my case I have neither budget, nor skill :P


With film cameras everybody was on a level playing field as such, film wasn't super expensive and was available to everybody.
A person could quite easily load a roll of Velvia50 into their Pentax MG and still get an equal result to somebody putting Veliva into an LX.

It was all about the skill (this is of course ignoring things like lenses and the LX's crazily broad metering range)

[Beaker]

I have a student that uses Canon 5D's with takumar 50mm f/1.4 (8 element version) who produces excellent work, I also have had a student who used a Mamiya 645AFD with a 60Mp digital back that produced nothing but crap.

I happen to own a platinum/iridium alloy flute - does it make me play any better than I do on my gold or silver flutes?... If my critics are anything to go by then no, I don't. In fact, I have been panned for performing on platinum instruments because they have a tendency to sound "cold" - they lack the warm sound that gold flutes have. From a materials perspective the upshot of using a platinum iridium alloy is that the mechanism on the instrument is physically stronger - which means the instrument is more reliable and less likely to get out of adjustment. Also the harder the metal used to make the flute has the effect of making sound more vibrant and allowing the sound to project enough to fill a concert hall which is much harder to do on silver flutes.

Throwing money into equipment can make up for a lack of talent but only up to a point, and in many ways having too much equipment can be a hindrance to artistic vision*. Doing more with less is art.

*and also hits your wallet when you have to pay insurance.

Sorry, didn't make it clear that I was going for a bit of irony. I know good and well that I'm not a musician. On the other hand, with a bit of luck, I can get a few moments of pleasant noise out of the guitar.


Cheers,
Mike

Covering events, I often hear "that's a really nice camera", usually followed by, " I might get one someday". Its an analog human response to the desire we all have to create and express ourselves.

We are the only known species that creates things that have no purpose except to share our imagination. In every means of expression, learning and mastering technique provides the craft or the how that enables the art or the why. Really nice cameras have no idea what is in anyone's imagination.

No matter what photographic technology is used as means of expression ( people still make full plate Daguerreotypes and 8x10 film negatives and Palladium prints) it is useful to understand the exposure triangle and the four properties of light. Being a subject matter expert, engaging and communicating with subjects, creating lighting setups and posing, those contribute to a good photograph. It takes time and investment in learning. No equipment purchase will provide that.

The upside to Digital is that compared to film cameras like my long sold MZ-s, you can buy a used DSLR like a K10 from KEH for less and have a very capable camera. I made and sold 24x36 and 16x24 prints with mine.

My most used lens started out on an MZ-S and has since been on a K10, K20, K5 and K5IIs. Every one was set to Manual mode and the meter ignored. Variable ISO, Histograms and immediate Digital Negatives are great time savers but just like pre-mixed paint in tubes, they won't make the purchaser an artist.

Advances in technology provide new capability (Daguerreotype to Wet Plate to Sheet Film to Roll Film to Digital Sensor) but they do not replace skills attained by investment in learning. Making lots of images without imagination is meaningless. It's simply visual noise.

Skill and imagination create good photographs.

[infra4801]

I once heard someone say "Saying 'that camera takes really nice pictures' is like saying 'that guitar plays beautiful melodies'".
In fact, with today's technology few people understand the experience and knowledge it takes to take a good picture, even with all the bells and whistles that fancy digital cameras have. I have a K-30. Will I take better pictures with a K-3? They'll be a tad sharper, maybe, but nothing else.
My dad has a 120 year old piano, eaten up by termites, but when our piano-playing friend sits on it, it sounds amazing. Sure if our friend sits on a Steinway the same music will sound better, on the whole, sharper, maybe a bit more in tune.
I don't think any of us is trying to discredit the marvelous advances that technology has allowed in photography. It just means that less and less of us everyday really understand that it still takes experience and knowledge to consistently take a good picture.

[Homo_erectus]

I know music much better than photography so I tend to look at these things from that perspective and then translate.

This "you have a nice camera" thing reminds me of auto-tune. I assume everyone knows what it is but for those that don't, auto-tune basically takes a sound and shifts its pitch until it matches the nearest semi-tone. You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune

A great singer might occasionally use auto-tune for some specific creative effect. But terrible singers rely on auto-tune to make the notes they sing actually have the correct pitch. Clearly, buying a better auto-tune unit will make you a better singer!

But, in the case of music, the use of auto-tune is strongly correlated with people who are "entertainers" primarily working to make a buck while people with more artistic aspirations generally take the time to learn how to sing notes that are in the correct pitch for the key the song is written in. There's a sort of rough correlation here with buying a new camera to make better pictures because, at least for the last 15 or so years, the automation in each generation of camera has been better than the previous generation. So, if you rely entirely on automation, then buying a new camera may in fact yield better pictures than you were previously taking. However, much like the auto-tune example above, you are still relying on the machine to do the things that are the difference between yelling whatever feels right and singing.

Musicians have been struggling with the results of democratization of technology for a long time. On the whole it's been a good thing but it sure stretches out the bell curve significantly!

[Tako Kichi]

I'm glad in a way that my time spent in the recording industry was before the dreaded 'auto-tune' was invented (five years, using reel-to-reel multi-track tape machines (16 and 24 track) and non-automated mixing desks). Auto-tune has it's place in the studio but over use is a big problem in modern recordings and many of the so called 'singers' of today wouldn't have been able to get a gig back in my day as most couldn't carry a tune in a bucket! I suppose it's cut down on the hours spent doing over-dubs to correct bad vocals but it doesn't do anything to make the singer a better vocalist.

[TaoMaas]

Unfortunately digital technology has made it very much about the camera.

Which is a big part of why I dislike digital, it's more about the equipment and budget than the skill.

Oh, I don't believe that's true at all! Or rather, if it's true, it's only true for certain situations. People make great images with FF cameras...and other people make great images with their I-phones. I think digital has removed many of the barriers that kept people out of photography. Ultimately, it still boils down to the ideas and having an eye. In the days of film, when you wanted to teach someone about photography, the first thing you had to do was teach them how to get a proper exposure. It was all about "battleship-grey", shutter speeds, and f-stops. Only after you had mastered that could you move on to trying to photograph what you were seeing out in the world and sharing it with others. With digital and computer post-processing, most cameras get the exposure within the ballpark so people can start by learning composition. I know several photographers who use photography as a major part of their professional life, but who, if they were forced to switch over to shooting slides, would be totally lost. Are they photographers or not? To my way of thinking, they are. I'll concede that there are some places where people will look at the dimensions of a submitted photo and make a judgement about it. But for most purposes, that's not a factor at all.