[aslyfox]

Yeah, that's the way to do it, not let the camera decide what the ISO is with flash, choose another mode, even better, Manual, and set it low.

[ warning diversion ]

I would hate to try to shoot a wedding

so much responsibility and stress

my hat is off to those who do such photography

[savoche]

Yuri, I don't get why you're so upset over other people's equipment. Do you get upset when someone buys a nice car, too? After all, a good car doesn't make you a better driver.

I completely agree! I'm sorry Yuri but what gives you the right to judge. Many of the pictures on here are posted purely because the photographer likes them, they are not here to be measured! You don't know the poster nor do you know why they created the photo in the chosen style!

...and in certain threads the photos are posted for completely different reasons than someone liking them (or not). Game threads, theme threads, they're all for fun, not for "good photography" snobbery.

Besides, if I can't post my photos because they aren't "good" enough, how on earth am I to improve?

[Cerebum]

Agree with OP or not, I think it could be some kind of loose in translation too. I will give OP the benefits of the dough here because English is not my first language too. And I has been a foreiner for more than haft of my life in 2 countries. I know it well, language is a very tricky thing to master.
When I first came to Japan, people ask me something like, which one i like. i want to answer, either one is fine for me. But i said something can be translated to, "whatever", and i should not say that to a senior. some thing like that.

And believe me, English is a very difficult language. And its grammar makes absolute no sense when i first study the language. ... Even now.

You are family and your English is excellent. English is very difficult, not only because of the exceptions to rules but also because if serious regional differences so I am always in awe of those who speak English as a second language to such a high standard. Regarding my comments, this isn't his only thread. He has a certain style of writing and I believe he is quite clear in what he means to say

[altopiet]

You are family and your English is excellent. English is very difficult, not only because of the exceptions to rules but also because if serious regional differences so I am always in awe of those who speak English as a second language to such a high standard. Regarding my comments, this isn't his only thread. He has a certain style of writing and I believe he is quite clear in what he means to say

English being my second language too, I've found various times something I said in a joking, or tongue in cheek way, as being misinterpreted by others, thinking I might be rude etc.

Perhaps not only language, but cultural and then also personality differences, might be to blame, and then if you can't see the person, you can't read the body language, which also gives clues...

[aslyfox]

. . . if you can't see the person, you can't read the body language, which also gives clues...

that is often the problem when communicating solely by the written word

[Dartmoor Dave]

I'm actually glad that Yuri was so tactless in what he said. Having those things expressed so bluntly has led to me re-questioning my own assumptions about photography, and that's always a good thing even when it's a painful process. Perhaps especially when it's a painful process.

I don't want to be anything other than the bumbling old amateur duffer that I am, and sometimes it's good to be reminded that really that is all I am.

[CarlJF]

You are family and your English is excellent. English is very difficult, not only because of the exceptions to rules but also because if serious regional differences so I am always in awe of those who speak English as a second language to such a high standard. Regarding my comments, this isn't his only thread. He has a certain style of writing and I believe he is quite clear in what he means to say

This reminds me something one of my english class teacher told us when comparing learning english vs french (for a native english speaker like he was). You can quickly get to a basic, casual, level in english, but from there it's a lot of work to get a higher level because there's so much exceptions and weird things and regional variations (like US and UK english rules that aren't exactly the same, with anything in between or outside). On the other hand, french is the other way around. There's a lot of rules to master before even getting to a basic level. But once you can get to this basic level, it's not that difficult to progess toward a more formal or litteral level, since the exceptions really are exceptions and the rules are the same wherever you are (even if some regional variations are present, they mostly are for spoken casual level, not for written and formal levels). Must say I agree with him...

But what is even more puzzling than languages are social codes and formal forms and levels. Which are differents in each languages, and often different in different parts of the worlds or country sharing a same languages. Although I'm now somewhat fluent in english, these formal and social codes still are a source of stress when talking to an english speaker: I don't want to say something seemingly rude without realizing it, or being too formal or casual (although it's usually better to be on the side of too casual)... Sometime, politeness formulas will not make any sense whe translated from one language to another or, even worse, will make sense but with a different meaning... But, luckily for me, I have and always had a clearly notable french accent when speaking english, so people know right away I'm not a native english speaker and are somewhat forgiving for any mistakes I could (at least, I hope so!).

[aslyfox]

I'm actually glad that Yuri was so tactless in what he said. Having those things expressed so bluntly has led to me re-questioning my own assumptions about photography, and that's always a good thing even when it's a painful process. Perhaps especially when it's a painful process.

I don't want to be anything other than the bumbling old amateur duffer that I am, and sometimes it's good to be reminded that really that is all I am.

nothing wrong with that

You Tube

You Tube

[CarlJF]

English being my second language too, I've found various times something I said in a joking, or tongue in cheek way, as being misinterpreted by others, thinking I might be rude etc.

Joke and humour are always tricky, even between people sharing the same language. Depending on where you live, or who you talk to, the same joke can be irrestibly hilarious or make you look like a dumb.

[normhead]

One of my favourite experiences was at a small town craft show.
The next booth over was a guy shooting a Canon 5D mkII.
I was shooting a K-20D Tess has shooting our first K-5 but ,most of her images in the show ere taken with an Opito 80W waterproof shock proof point and shoot.

The guy next to us sold maybe a couple hundred dollars worth of prints. barely enough to cover his entry fee. The two other photographers in the show, sold maybe a couple hundred. We sold 3 canvases worth $700 and totaled over $1200. 1 of the canvases was taken with the Optio. Our favourite print of all time was taken with the Optio. We've tried to repeat it many times, it's a place we pass at least once month. Often 5 or 6 times a month. But that camera on that evening with it's 12 MP image was the right combination. We compared it to my K20D shots. The Optio image has something the K20D shots didn't. It's been on our wall for 7 years now. It's stood the test of time.

You guys can go on and on with your intellectual wandering in the woods.
But life experience tells me, you can be a professional with a point and shoot if you are doing the craft circuit.
We have some fine images taken with K-5s and K-1s, (and my K-3 though I can't think of one off the top of my head) but that Optio image is still top three.

We have sold 5 canvases and numerous smaller prints taken with the Optio. We paid $300 for it. We sold over $2000 of prints taken with it over the 3 or 4 shows we did.

The people who saw our images, most didn't care what it was taken with, well except for the ones who wanted to buy a camera and go where i went, because they were too cheap to just pay for an image they liked.

So, I have a choice. Am I going to go with the big spenders extolling the virtues of high end gear, or am I going to look at my balance sheet.

Nothing anyone says is going to change my real life experience. If you take good pictures, people will buy them, and you will like them yourself. (We have over 600 images in slide show we sit and have beer watching. What the value of good gear is, is yet to be determined. Maybe in a high end professional kind of way... but, I've never seen a good explanation of why we have the gear we do. For myself, I spend a lot of time with a camera, I want it to be something I feel good about.

But I don't deluded myself into thinking I wouldn't be taking the same pictures with less expensive gear. And printing at the largest 30"x 20" on canvas, 24" x 16" on paper my 12 MP cameras give me great images. And they also look great on my 3840x 2160 Wide screen.

I don't have the cameras I have out of photographic necessity. I have them because I like them. From the to time, I have some money, I buy what I like or what grabs my attention. The K-1 was almost a whim. It aroused my curiosity. But I din't and still don't have a lot of verifiable reasons for liking it. To me, it's a piece of art in it's own right. A beautiful combination of design, functionality and aesthetics. A piece of art that takes pictures. Aesthetically and with my big clumsy fingers, it brings me more joy than a smaller camera just carrying it around. I feel more secure, if i run into a bear I have something to clobber him with. The pictures are not what the K-1 is about for me.

Leave the photography out of it. It just makes me happy attempting to take pictures. I didn't realize how much so until Tess took it on a trip and I went back to the K-3 for 3 days. I love my K-3 but. no tilting screen, no pixel shift, etc. is really irritating once you're used to it for everyday shooting. But,I still take exactly the same images, it's just not as easy. And I'd be taking those same images with a point and shoot if that's all I had, and for the most part, I'd enjoy them just as much.

[Wheatfield]

Yeah, they are pretty good :/ its his attitude that is questionable

The photography is okay to decent, but as I've said many times, it's impossible to judge the technical or optical quality of an image that has lord knows how much sharpening applied and is downsized 80% or more to fit a website's format.

Mocking people who want the best optics by saying look how wonderful my 800 pixel tall images that were taken by more mundane gear are just doesn't cut it, no matter how wonderful the 800 pixel tall images are.

When I was comparing images taken with the FA50/1.4 to those taken with the D FA* 50/1.4 it was very apparent at the pixel level that the D FA blew the FA lens away in every conceivable metric at every aperture, but when those images were downsized to a few hundred pixels across, there wasn't much to say between them. Downsizing kills detail, and detail is where technical quality resides.

For someone who only displays images at small resolutions on the internet, a multi coated coke bottle might be sufficient. I blew identical images from both the FA and D FA 50s up to 12x18 inch prints and could very easily see, even from a longish viewing distance that the new lens was far superior to the old one.

Saying that better equipment won't improve someone's photography might be true if one isn't especially concerned about technical quality, especially if they end up processing images through crude instagram style filters, but there are a lot of photographers for whom technical quality of the image is an important part of their esthetic.
There are reasons why back in the film days, for example, people humped view cameras and sheet film into the field, there are reasons why people shoot with large sensor cameras rather than cell phones.

[CarlJF]

For someone who only displays images at small resolutions on the internet, a multi coated coke bottle might be sufficient.

A smartphone also works quite well for this and is more practical. But a Coke bottle is definitely cheaper to get.

[Wheatfield]

A smartphone also works quite well for this and is more practical. But a Coke bottle is definitely cheaper to get.

The expensive part is the mount adapter........

[TedH42]

I've only read page 1 of this thread, but I'm getting out the popcorn in anticipation of another thread derail. When I get back to this point in the thread, I'll re-evaluate.

[normhead]

And why should we care?