[BrianR]

But it does seem as though a few folks out there get carried away with the sliders in their favorite HDR program.

I blame 'slider desensitization'. You crank the saturation, or structure, or contrast, or any other slider all the way to max (past eleven if your program allows it) to see what it can do. After that visual assault, it becomes impossible to back it off to a modest level. It's like after leaving a rock concert and you find yourself shouting at your friends in a quiet park because your ears are all numb.

[Rondec]

I blame 'slider desensitization'. You crank the saturation, or structure, or contrast, or any other slider all the way to max (past eleven if your program allows it) to see what it can do. After that visual assault, it becomes impossible to back it off to a modest level. It's like after leaving a rock concert and you find yourself shouting at your friends in a quiet park because your ears are all numb.

Maybe so. It's awfully easy to crank things way too much, even when you aren't doing HDR. I'm a little surprised at the images I see with sharpening artifacts all over the place and halos around objects from bumping sliders too much.

[normhead]

Maybe so. It's awfully easy to crank things way too much, even when you aren't doing HDR. I'm a little surprised at the images I see with sharpening artifacts all over the place and halos around objects from bumping sliders too much.

At one point a few years ago I realized I had my export preferences set to "sharpen 10% during export". If I actually applied sharpening the image in PP it was over sharpened after exporting the jpg. But I don't sharpen every image, so sometimes it didn't matter. However if I sharpened paying close attention to the slider bar and artifacts, wait for artifacts and slide back bit, it would be over sharpened on export.

But I have to say, for posting on the forum, I really don't pay that much attention. I don't want this to become a a full time job. Doing print quality PP on every image would be time consuming, and pretty much pointless.

I sometimes got complaints of over sharpening on unsharpened images, the original image was sharp enough even 10% was too much. This became really noticeable after I got the K-3, and it probably took me a year to find why it was happening. I just don't look into my export preferences very often.

[robgski]

The myth that Auto-focus is always better, so there is no need to cultivate good manual focus skills is annoying as well. I have lazily allowed my skills to diminish while I let the AF do the job for me. Revisiting my old lenses is giving me impetus to rehone those skills to sharpness.

[mee]

Photography has a great deal of subjectivity to it. So these threads are going to be all over the place based on how the individual interacts with the camera, their creative preferences, subjects photographed, and experiences.



Someone might say another's work is nuked in post -- oversaturated, too much contrast, etc. But that other person might say the criticizers work is too bland, lacking color, and pastel... like the life is sucked out of it.



So these threads are pretty useless beyond complaining it seems. Because there doesn't seem to be one way here in art, both in technique and end result.

[BirdDude007]

I just love when someone posts a pic and says "Hey I just took this shot with "X" brand of camera that costs around $6k! I dont know how I ever lived without this camera!''
I have usually seen images that these certain individuals have taken before on "lessor" cameras and I really dont see a difference in IQ.
So what I usually do (so I don't start a crapstorm argument on the internet), I compliment them on their images, and then I post images from my K5/K3 for them to compare to theirs. I wont tell them what camera they are from unless they ask, which they usually do. They are usually amazed that I can get similar images on a machine that cost just a fraction of what they paid for thiers.
It seems to me that these folks will pay a fortune for their equipment, and in order for them to justify their purchase, they try to make themselves feel better by posting pics and and saying things like that.
Ya in most cases the expensive equipment is a lot nicer and with more features. When I buy an "upgrade" (K5 to K3 for example) I dont buy it because I think I will take better pics, I buy it for the improved operating shortcuts, automated features, etc. I STILL use my K5 just as much, because of the IQ, and the fact that I am still dialed into that camera physically, I still take the same quality images with it that I do with my K3. I feel all newer cameras in the last five years are very similar in the IQ department, its just that they all have different advantages and disadvantages from each other. I even want to find a K01 and will use the hell out of it, and I bet I will get the quality images out of it like I do with my newer cameras.
Truth be told.......just because you have a top of the line camera that cost a down payment on a house, doesn't mean your photography skilz are going to improve in any way.

[redrockcoulee]

Myth Film is dead!

[Schraubstock]

The myth the glass of the front element of a lens is very easily destroyed making the lens worthless. When in fact it is very difficult to do any damage. Hence people get talked into buying a filter for protection. (plain or UV, preferably UV because the profit greater)



Quote: Voltaire
“The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom.”
Unquote.