[WMBP]

Hi Will

You're at it again.....hee hee !

I'm worried about you, Richard. I'm beginning to get the impression that you may be as silly as I am.

Well I hate to admit it, but sometimes when the sun's at a certain angle, I like to pretend that I'm Henri Cartier Bresson, but only if there are crowds of people around just in case anyone notices.....lol !

Ah, this is because you're a more advanced photographer than I. I pretend I'm Joel Sartore, but I hope to work up to Cartier-Bresson in the next year or so. Got a book on his portraiture for Christmas. Excellent book: it's what I asked Santa for. Amazing how well he did in spite of the fact that his equipment was so pitifully limited.

Will

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Last edited by WMBP; 03-04-2008 at 09:31 AM. Reason: added link to "An Inner Silence: The Portraits of Henri Cartier-Bresson" at Amazon.com

[Confused]

Hi again Will

Re your observation:

I'm beginning to get the impression that you may be as silly as I am.

Oh totally, in fact I'm so far 'off the scale' that I've had to invent a new measuring device to calibrate myself.........and:

Amazing how well he (Henri) did in spite of the fact that his equipment was so pitifully limited.

Which invariably makes quietly chuckle inside when I continue to read the constant drivel nowadays from the clueless masses about why 'this aspect' or 'that aspect' of the latest whizz-bang megapixel/schmegapixel camera is less than satisfactory or could do with improving !
As far as I'm concerned, if you don't have the talent to begin with, then whatever over-hyped box of tricks you happen to be using at the moment is well nigh irrelevant.......but then I'm a cantankerous old sod at the best of times......lol !

Best regards
Richard

P.S. Is it true that Joel was often considered to be 'Sartore...ally elegant' ? (Sorry for the awful pun, but I couldn't resist !)

[TaoMaas]

If I could afford it, I would buy a K20D for the extra megapixels. Not because the way I'm currently using my pics demands it, but for the protection it would afford against future improvements in technology. Right now, the megapixel race has out-distanced printing technology. But somewhere down the road, we may have printers that can take a file from a DSLR and make it look like a contact print from an 8X10 view camera if the resolution of the original file is high enough.

[Canada_Rockies]

Ah, what with me being so Leicable and all.....

Au revoir
Richard

The pun is the lowest form of humour - when you don't think it up yourself. That one is so bad it's good!

[Kameraten]

why hold back evolution?

for less than 1000 dollars i can put together a PC system that can easily handle working with 20-40mb image files within seconds.

the world is moving forward, why do you people want to hold on to the past (this goes towards the full frame crowd, the film crowd, the darkroom crowd, and anyone else thats afraid of large files and post processing)

You are welcome to all the resolution you want, but there simply are other uses for SLR:s too. When you have a laptop on battery for importing 110 raw files, sorting and reviewing them, editing 4-10 of them in Photoshop and sending them over EDGE or WLAN, probably writing a story at the same time, checking facts on the web – this is what pro people do, and for this they (we) need files with just the right amount of information.
The camera cannot be low-end, it just has to have an emphasis on speed.

I know I can also scan my negatives from 1998 much better now than then. It's just that in press photography, nobody needs them anymore. Everybody cannot be a legend. Our pictures are needed today, not next year.

BTW, when I open just a K10D file in Camera Raw it's 57,4 Mb. To control contrast I have to open it at least twice. A two-layered file is 118,6 Mb, I frequently have to work with many files open at the same time. There simply isn't a laptop out there that has the muscle to do this very rapidly, and when on battery the performance drops lower still.
If you run out of power or time – you've lost the whole days work, and probably a customer for good.

[Gooshin]

You are welcome to all the resolution you want, but there simply are other uses for SLR:s too. When you have a laptop on battery for importing 110 raw files, sorting and reviewing them, editing 4-10 of them in Photoshop and sending them over EDGE or WLAN, probably writing a story at the same time, checking facts on the web – this is what pro people do, and for this they (we) need files with just the right amount of information.
The camera cannot be low-end, it just has to have an emphasis on speed.

I know I can also scan my negatives from 1998 much better now than then. It's just that in press photography, nobody needs them anymore. Everybody cannot be a legend. Our pictures are needed today, not next year.

BTW, when I open just a K10D file in Camera Raw it's 57,4 Mb. To control contrast I have to open it at least twice. A two-layered file is 118,6 Mb, I frequently have to work with many files open at the same time. There simply isn't a laptop out there that has the muscle to do this very rapidly, and when on battery the performance drops lower still.
If you run out of power or time – you've lost the whole days work, and probably a customer for good.

see, now THATS a good argument,

i would be intersted to know how many people in this thread share the same time/work/location constraits that would facilitate the need for either smaller files or powerful portable technology, which really is the lap-tops industries fault for not keeping up...


altho for around 4000-5000 grand you can get yourself a very high end laptop... so if you are making good coin from photography as a job, this shouldnt be a problem.

[Lowell Goudge]

You are welcome to all the resolution you want, but there simply are other uses for SLR:s too. When you have a laptop on battery for importing 110 raw files, sorting and reviewing them, editing 4-10 of them in Photoshop and sending them over EDGE or WLAN, probably writing a story at the same time, checking facts on the web – this is what pro people do, and for this they (we) need files with just the right amount of information.
The camera cannot be low-end, it just has to have an emphasis on speed.

I know I can also scan my negatives from 1998 much better now than then. It's just that in press photography, nobody needs them anymore. Everybody cannot be a legend. Our pictures are needed today, not next year.

BTW, when I open just a K10D file in Camera Raw it's 57,4 Mb. To control contrast I have to open it at least twice. A two-layered file is 118,6 Mb, I frequently have to work with many files open at the same time. There simply isn't a laptop out there that has the muscle to do this very rapidly, and when on battery the performance drops lower still.
If you run out of power or time – you've lost the whole days work, and probably a customer for good.

If I may ask a fundamental question.

I see the argument about press photography and that everything is needed today, but that you are using post processing steps to generate high end book or magizine quality photos.

Am I missing something here?

Newspapers (I will make the gross generalization that all press is represented by news papers, I know it's wrong so don't kill me on this point because other press formats don't have the same urgency) print in something pathetic like 100 dpi, maybe 200 but I doub't it. Why are you working in raw? JPEG would do just fine

[davemdsn]

Will, I will tell you this, since you already placed the order and I don't have to feel like a salesperson - while not much in the K20 is necessary, it is dang cool! I think you'll like it. If you are looking for good performance in high ISO you will not be disappointed. I printed an 11x14 from a 1600 shot that is basically grainless in the print.

[wtlwdwgn]

The simple answer is, "Why not?" Who is to say what a manufacturer may or may not choose what products to bring to the market place, and the market place will be the confirmation, good or bad.

[Kameraten]

Why are you working in raw? JPEG would do just fine

To control contrast and color values (a way of circumscribing that your WB and exposure is more or less off the mark - that's life). You need those, even when you don't actually need more than 6 Mp to get the needed sharpness. Plus sometimes you want the possibility to re-purpose a picture initially for newsprint for a magazine (you always make compromises).
I'm not opposed to Pentax making a camera with 14, 24 or 24 mp. I just know there's a need for smaller files, probably with less noise also.

[Lowell Goudge]

To control contrast and color values (a way of circumscribing that your WB and exposure is more or less off the mark - that's life). You need those, even when you don't actually need more than 6 Mp to get the needed sharpness. Plus sometimes you want the possibility to re-purpose a picture initially for newsprint for a magazine (you always make compromises).
I'm not opposed to Pentax making a camera with 14, 24 or 24 mp. I just know there's a need for smaller files, probably with less noise also.

Note that you can, with the K10D adjust WB interactively on the camera, and still shoot jpeg. Also although exposure might be off the mark, usually this is something that happens once in a given lighting situation and then you compensate.

as for dual purpose prints, shoot combioned JPEG and RAW. save the ones you want for magazine perminantly in raw and news paper ones in JPEG, set to the pixle count you need, Note that even the K10D can shoot and save in 6MP jpegs.

If you work a little on your contrast settings with the light at hand I don;t see why you need any post processing for the news papers. If you are that far off the mark that it won't do for the paper with out PP then it will never do for a finer publication (no offence to the newsies out there)

[distudio]

IMHO 10, 14, 20 mega pixel etc. is just holding technology anyway. In the next 4 years or so the new nanotechnology (much as I hate the term) quantum sensors will be boasting orders of magnitude increases in resolution coupled with iso's several thousand times higher than those around today - more sensitive to light than the human eye.

Read up about Quantum efficiency and consider that there are current sensors that approach 95% QE. All sensors are currently more sensitive than the human eye, unfortunately we just cant choose to integrate exposure over time.

[corwynt]

at 14.6mp, you can crop in later and retain that resolution.

You can make use of the extra pixels, sure, but can the optics match the performance of the chip?

[corwynt]

Bizzaboy:

Good point, but maybe the next step would be to double the vertical/horizontal resolution with a 6.1 x 4 = 24.4 MP chip. (Thinks - isn't that where Canon are now with their $12000 EOS 1 Mark whatever?)

[corwynt]

Will, I'm not sure you need to buy a K20D. I still have and still love my K10. While there are other features in the K20 besides MP, they will make their way into the next generation of lower priced Pentax models.

This seems like a good point. It may be worth considering that the linear increase in resolution from the K10 to K20 is only 1.2 times - from 3872 pixels to 4672 pixels horizontal.

I think the price difference is a lot more than 1.2 times!