[UncleVanya]

@UncleVanya, I use MoviePro on my I phone but it still doesn't give nearly as much control as I have with my Sony RX100 or my K-3ii.

To be fair I only rally use the alternate camera software for still images. Movies I allow the onboard software to handle 90-95% of the time on the phone. I also rarely use movie mode on my rx100. I used it more on my LX7 but the phones have eclipsed the camera for the ease of use and as casual as video is for me that’s the deciding factor.

[rpjallan]

I rarely take photos or video with my phone. For photos I use 645pro but I believe they're not developing it anymore, which is a pity.

What model Rx100 do you have? I find the video quality pretty good. You have a lot of control when in manual mode. I have one of the memory settings for it. The big letdown is the sound. Unlike the K-3ii, it doesn't have a mic socket. Even the iPhone sound is superior.

[RICHARD L.]

Sony is an engineer centric company. They are the technological leader in camera tech for a reason. But the flip side of is that they really don't have a long tradition in cameras, and this leads to gear that, while technologically stunning, is perhaps not so photographer friendly. Pentax on the other hand is a brand with not only a long history in photography, but many of camera and lens designers are active photographers themselves.

Never forget that Sony acquired the "MINOLTA CAMERA COMPANY", so they didn't start from nothing, really. I used Minolta film cameras for 40 years and I think they were really good and innovative. My last Minolta lens was an MD 100-300 mm f/5.6 zoom that was extremely performing with my XE-7.


Regards

[gatorguy]

.

@gatorguy, you may have 3 decades of experience in the printing industry but resolution doesn't just get dumped in the printing process. Maybe you need to reword that.

It does. My RIP discards data that exceeds what my printers are capable of reproducing. That new printer you're looking at will do the same thing: It will use algorithms to translate whatever it receives into the physical DPI it is capable of or set to print. If the file resolution is too large, like a photo that equates to 1200 DPI sent to a 600 DPI printer, it will be automatically reduced.

What I initially meant by the more general "dumped" is that all that extra resolution from the Sony will not contribute*. Your printer will only use what it can, and resolution beyond that is effectively discarded. It's not like it was in your darkroom.

I intended to be helpful, certainly not disrespectful. You said one of the primary drivers of a decision to purchase the Sony was the ability to print far more detailed A2 images. You will be disappointed if that's what you expect to find as it won't make the major difference you seem to believe it will.

But you do offer other very valid reasons why you are contemplating a change. You don't even need a reason to be honest.

*Again, it may be beneficial if you are a serious wildlife photographer, as we tend to crop heavily sometimes. Otherwise, not so much IMHO.

---

Last edited by gatorguy; 06-03-2023 at 07:56 AM.

[UncleVanya]

I rarely take photos or video with my phone. For photos I use 645pro but I believe they're not developing it anymore, which is a pity.

What model Rx100 do you have? I find the video quality pretty good. You have a lot of control when in manual mode. I have one of the memory settings for it. The big letdown is the sound. Unlike the K-3ii, it doesn't have a mic socket. Even the iPhone sound is superior.

645pro was the best. Sadly long gone. I changed phones and lost access to it. I use ProCam and Halide now but they aren’t as good as 645pro. I wish that was still available. My recollection is that the framework he used to develop it was deprecated and he didn’t have the time to recode from scratch and let it drop.

I’ve got the RX100 IV. It’s a good video camera but I mainly use video casually and often in live music venues where permitted. The iPhone 13 Pro gives me what I need there typically.

[robgski]

This leads to posting shots that might not be worth posting “but hey, they are sharp”.

That's never going to change. As the saying goes "It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools". I've been using some form of camera for the last 40 years, and no matter the camera, the images which I am most happy with have not been the most technically perfect images, they've been the images where I took the time to get everything right within the limits of that camera and lens and my own ability.

[btnapa]

"It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools"

I agree 1000%!. I have had so many less than perfect images (technically) which were the crowd favorite. This is true in documentary photography more so than any other area. I rather catch a technically less than perfect image than miss the moment altogether.

[Wheatfield]

That's never going to change. As the saying goes "It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools".

This is a rant regarding the poor craftsman nag. It is not directed at you. I triggered a bit when I read your post, but it's one of those things that bug me because I think it's it's overused.

It is only true to an extent. After that, it's the tool.
Example 1:

My old jobsite table saw served me very well when I was doing framing carpentry and renovation work, but it had too much vertical movement in the blade for cutting box joints.
This is the fault of the saw.
The solution was to recognize this failing and buy a better table saw.

Example 2:

My old Nikkor 50/1.2 wasn't sharp enough for what I wanted it to do much of the time. This, again, is the fault of the tool. The solution ended up being to buy a Pentax to get a 50/1.2 that was decently sharp wide open, though a Series E50/1.8 served as a mostly workable stopgap.

Example 3: I have a set of Narex chisels that are quite good, but they won't hone to quite as sharp as I would like. Again, this is the fault of the tool, it's baked in. I can't blame it for chip out if I choose to use it where it's going to fail though
The solution was to start buying very expensive Veritas chisels that could be honed sufficiently.

It's not always about the craftsman, it is often about the tool not quite being up to the task at hand. Perhaps it's because the craftsman didn't spend enough money to get a tool equal to his skill or good enough to overcome his lack of same, but it's still about the tool.

I don't blame my old jobsite saw for not being able to do fine carpentry, but I had to recognize that it was to blame for the uneven well depth in my box joints.

I get to blame my old 50/1.2 for not being able to give me decently sharp images (it really did start off very soft and never got much better), What I don't blame it for is the quality of pictures I chose to use it for. If I wanted sharp, I was using the wrong tool. It wasn't the lens's fault that I chose to put it on a camera in other than a romantic style boudoir shoot where I could control DOF very tightly without having to worry about the picture sharpening up so much that I had to put on a Softar. The lens did just fine, it was soft right down to f16.

I get the feeling sometimes that "blaming the tool" is one of those things that gets dragged out of the barn any time someone publicly concludes that some particular tool isn't up to a task that has become important to do well.

[BigMackCam]

I get the feeling sometimes that "blaming the tool" is one of those things that gets dragged out of the barn any time someone publicly concludes that some particular tool isn't up to a task that has become important to do well.

I agree, Bill... though, on the flip-side, it's not uncommon for folks to have unreasonable expectations of a tool given its age, cost, information they could have gleaned in advance of purchasing it but didn't, etc. etc. Nor is it uncommon for folks to conclude and publicly state that a tool is "bad", when it's simply doesn't match their specific use cases and/or expectations. Is the tool at fault, or are they at fault for selecting the wrong one? The answer could be either, depending on the circumstances. Thinking of another recent thread you and I were both involved in (as an example), regarding the SMC FA50/1.4... with all due respect to the OP of that thread, I felt his prior knowledge (research) of the lens was lacking, and expectations of it weren't entirely reasonable - so, whilst it's undoubtedly limited in performance and versatility when used in certain ways and conditions, the fault was with the user, IMHO. The tool itself was working exactly as expected...

I'm not trying to be argumentative, here. It's certainly just as easy to blame the user by default as it is for that user to blame the tool by default, without fully considering the context and nuances. Both happen quite frequently in these forums, and neither is particularly helpful, despite no malintent

[Lord Lucan]

As the saying goes "It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools".

This is a rant regarding the poor craftsman nag. It is not directed at you. I triggered a bit when I read your post, but it's one of those things that bug me because I think it's it's overused.

The meme is overused. The fact is that a good craftsman makes sure he has good tools - he equips himself with them and then thinks and says no more about it. I have worked in engineering workshops where the craftsmen provided their own hand tools (as the best craftsmen do) and they were never even a subject of conversation. But if you looked at the tools they were using, they were in the top quality bracket, and the quality was taken for granted. A poor tool will not last for long used all day every day in a professional environment, because if it does not break, blunt, or wear out soon, it will be tossed anyway out with words like "crap" being used.

I inherited a cheap cross-cut wood saw from my father-in-law with which I could never follow a straight line. Looking at it closely I could see the problem was that the teeth were biased to one side. It was not even worth keeping for rough jobs and I tossed it out. I have two other cross cut saws anyway, and with the best one (a Tyzack Sons & Turner Nonpareil Elephant Brand), and close-grain timber, I reckon I can cut within the width of the pencil line that I am following.

[Dartmoor Dave]

It's an invalid syllogism to state:

Good craftspeople use high quality tools.
Fred isn't using a high quality tool.
Therefore Fred is a bad craftsperson.

The premises don't justify the conclusion. Fred might be an excellent craftsperson using a tool that isn't high quality for some perfectly valid reason.

It's also invalid to state:

Good craftspeople use high quality tools.
Fred is using a high quality tool.
Therefore Fred is a good craftsperson.

For the same reasons. The second premise is invalidly distributed.

It is logically valid to state:

Good craftspeople use high quality tools.
Fred is a good craftsperson.
Therefore Fred uses high quality tools.

Logically valid but not necessarily true because it doesn't state that good craftspeople ALWAYS use high quality tools.

In fact, right now I can't think of any logically valid and necessarily true construction that would prove that the quality of the tools has any true relationship to the skill of the craftsperson.

[jgnfld]

It's an invalid syllogism to state:

Good craftspeople use high quality tools.
Fred isn't using a high quality tool.
Therefore Fred is a bad craftsperson.

The premises don't justify the conclusion. Fred might be an excellent craftsperson using a tool that isn't high quality for some perfectly valid reason.

It's also invalid to state:

Good craftspeople use high quality tools.
Fred is using a high quality tool.
Therefore Fred is a good craftsperson.

For the same reasons. The second premise is invalidly distributed.

It is logically valid to state:

Good craftspeople use high quality tools.
Fred is a good craftsperson.
Therefore Fred uses high quality tools.

Logically valid but not necessarily true because it doesn't state that good craftspeople ALWAYS use high quality tools.

In fact, right now I can't think of any logically valid and necessarily true construction that would prove that the quality of the tools has any true relationship to the skill of the craftsperson.

Fuzzy logic and fuzzy sets can deal with these sorts of issues quite a bit better than Boolean logic and classical binary yes-no set membership! Choosing camera bodies/systems is a good place to employ fuzzy logic and fuzzy sets. Fact of the matter is there are far too many fanboys employing binary logic and binary set inclusion in all sorts of areas where it does not apply.

[UncleVanya]

Let’s be clear. A real craftsman may be limited by his tools - but is unlikely to blame said tools. He may envy others tools and work to surmount the supposed limits of his tools - at least in my worldview. Does this mean that better tools can’t help a craftsman at the edge of the limits of his existing tools - no. Does it mean an automatic improvement because of improved tools no. And so on.

[Rondec]

A good craftsman will do more with poor tools than a bad craftsman will with awesome tools. He can still feel limited by them and want better. People use the iphone thing all the time -- a good photographer will do more with an iphone than a bad photographer will do with a Z8 and a top end Nikkor lens. That doesn't mean that a good photographer will want to use an iphone for all of his shots.

I do think that every camera out there now is capable of good images. As always, they are a set of compromises and you need to choose the set of compromises that fits best with your style of shooting. If you hate using your camera because you don't like something about it -- the EVF, the ergonomics, the size -- or whatever else -- then you want shoot much with it, even it turns out nice images.

Generally speaking, I think that most people are unable to take full advantage of the resolution their camera offers because they don't do the basic things like use a rock solid tripod and some sort of wireless trigger for the shutter. 60 megapixels isn't all it is cracked up to be when you have camera shake.

[gatorguy]

A good craftsman will do more with poor tools than a bad craftsman will with awesome tools. He can still feel limited by them and want better.

On a related note while out hiking this morning, I came across a girl using one of those super-zoom Nikon's. She had just finished talking to a Canon guy on one of the docks using what looked like a 600 or 800 prime. Big lens, whatever, he's usually parked in place there and probably because the lens is so heavy and hard to locate the subjects with it if moving. So I eventually caught up with her and complimented her on that little camera. Light and easy to carry, good range, decent images at full zoom too. I've seen photos from them before and they're pretty good. She said the Canon guy was telling her to get the best mirrorless she could afford, suggesting at least the R6, and then a used zoom lens to start out with. Learn how to use the camera and later on buy a better lens. She thought she might look at the newer Nikons instead since she liked the brand.

I gave her just the opposite advice: Get a kinda recent but inexpensive camera, no need for a full-frame and a DSLR would be a better value but mirrorless is OK too, and then the best telephoto zoom she could afford to go with it if she was serious about her wildlife photos. I let her know that some of my best shots were taken with a cheap $500 camera (I didn't mention a brand), but with very good glass mounted to it. The body is far less important than the quality of the lens.

Whether she listens to me or the Canon guy, who knows? But I've seen her out there before and I imagine I will again. We'll see if she does anything and what, or if she stands pat with what she has.