CKrueger wrote:
Look at the arc of cameras and lenses since the first cameras. IQ has gone up continuously. Fast-forward 200 years and we'll have cell phones with resolution to shame any camera of today.
No need to wait 200 years. ! Cell phones are already 12 and 16MPx ya know...
BTW, Nikon's current President says that the distant future of photography will be lensless sensorless 3D devices that operate from wireless smart dust scattered about in locations where photography is allowed. In fact, with such a system you'll be able to photograph the Empire State Building while sitting in India somewhere.
Nice example images, and thought provoking discussion.
It does, however, seem an odd perspective. I don't recall "future-proofing" my film shots. One chose 35mm, MF or LF depending on the image quality required for the desired print and subject while trading off the cost and convenience of the format. Similar trade space for film used and lens used.
I didn't expect shots with 35mm ASA 400 color print film to be at all comparable to 4x5 ASA 50 slide film. Nonetheless, sports I'd use the former and for landscapes the later. I was never worried about the future, I was worried about the now. The decision about the IQ limitations of the system were made at the time the shot was taken.
If film days no one was thinking "there will be bigger monitors in the future, better bring the bigger camera" - they were thinking "how much resolving power do I need for my intended output now" and then made their choice. I don't know why anyone would make their decision any differently today.
I guess your point is very valid if there are people whose goal is to only display on monitors that are viewed from a fixed distance even as the monitor size grows and they expect monitors to get continuously larger with time. Given that desktop sales are plummeting as most consumers move to mobile platforms, even in desktop land the manufacturers largest panels have stayed the same or gotten smaller (30" 16:10 replaced by 27" 16:9 in most cases) in the past five years, and most photographers who care about IQ are targeting prints which have easily out resolved modern monitors for decades it seems an unusual way to think about it.
I'd state it differently, and in a way that has been true through the ages regardless of technology. Pick your medium based on the desired output and what it takes to get the shot. People didn't bring Leicas or view cameras to the football game back then and no one would today either. Ansel Adams decided not to use 110 film following the same thought process.
The experience you are describing sounds more like the standard pathway of anyone getting interested in photography - whether it was 30 years ago or today. Low IQ is fine at first, you can't imagine displaying any of your shots large because they aren't very good. As you improve to the point you might actually dare to display a print in your home printed large you desire the IQ for it. This tends to work well because while we probably all have some shots from our "early days" that are very nostalgic to us the photographer, the reality is we have limited wall space and even in the virtual world our viewers have limited patience and will only look at so large an online gallery. Once you are a capable photographer you rapidly fill your portfolio with so many quality images that the one or two in your past that you can't print gigantic aren't much of a loss since you'd likely have cycled them out of the portfolio for newer material anyway.
I don't see any of the folks in this discussion falling into the category of steadily evolving IQ requirements because they are new photographers. Nearly everyone here has shot with plenty of camera systems (both film and digital) with higher IQ than m43. Most everyone talking about m43 in this thread has opted to take the step back with that extensive experience in mind. This too has been a common pathway for photographers over the years, uncompromising pursuit of IQ followed by the realization that IQ isn't free and is eventually of diminishing marginal benefit with drastically increasing marginal cost (and I'm talking more than $$$ here).
In every era of photography there have been the "IQ at any cost" photographers out with 8x10 and larger view cameras. More power to them, it is a large hobby and profession. In the end though, every point on the IQ curve is valid and relevant to someone and used effectively both in amateur and professional settings.
As an example, everyone likes to say "such and such doesn't have the IQ for landscape". In general every landscape photographer has said this about every camera smaller than the one they choose to carry since the days of glass plates. A few decades ago when the general thinking was a MF landscape photographer was just a lazy slacker not "dedicated" enough to carry a LF field camera a guy named Gallen Rowell came along and using 35mm practically invented an entire new genre of landscape photography. His prints (*big* prints) with obvious resolution limits when viewed ridiculously close sell for big dollars right next to LF work.
IQ is not everything - there has always been "good enough". Photographers have been making that choice themselves and coming to different answers for a century.
Thanks for the interesting post, I think you raise some great points and have some excellent examples. To me though, it is more of an ageless narrative about photographers deciding what their needs are. I don't think the concerns about technology or the future are actually all that necessary or relevant to the points about IQ you are making.
Gunzorro wrote:
You may be being conservative -- within five years, we may have 60" wall monitors with greater than 300PPI -- for entertainment as well as photo/video viewing and editing.
Jim, for wall monitors you won't need 300PPI. It's the limit that a human eyes (perfect vision) can resolve at a distance of about 0.5 meters (~20 inches). So there's a practical upper limit on pixel density.
Bifurcator wrote:
The second thing I wanted to say was that with a 330 PPI screen I think there's almost zero chance of the affects from today's AA filters showing up at all. That's pretty much the same thing as if we were to scale one of our images to 30% and show it on a standard monitor. Furthermore unless there are bionic eyes in store for us in the future humans are limited to about 85 PPI at a distance on one meter so we may not see higher density screens in the future. Remember that with hand-held devices there's two things at play. One, we hold them much closer than one meter and two, they need to fit more information in a smaller space. 300 or 400 PPI is meaningful for hand-held screens or EVF's and such but for desk and wall monitors it's pretty much a total waste. I can't really see a future in which DT monitors are commonly over 120 PPI....Show more →
Oh, I think we'll get much better than that. A 17" macbook pro has a pixel density of 132 PPI and it's nowhere near as good as an iphone 4 when you look at photos. I can definitely see the pixels and I typically use it at a similar viewing distance (~0.6 m) as my workstation monitors.
CKrueger wrote:
Look at the arc of cameras and lenses since the first cameras. IQ has gone up continuously.
That's not quite true. As Jim mentioned a scan from a 4x5 will blow away anything digital that we have today, including the 80+ megapixel digital medium format backs - not to mention 8x10 which is just ridiculously ahead of anything else. There's a larger gap between a 50 year old 8x10 photo and a modern FF DSLR than between the cheapest 640x480 web cam and said DSLR.
kwalsh wrote:
I didn't expect shots with 35mm ASA 400 color print film to be at all comparable to 4x5 ASA 50 slide film. Nonetheless, sports I'd use the former and for landscapes the later. I was never worried about the future, I was worried about the now. The decision about the IQ limitations of the system were made at the time the shot was taken.
If film days no one was thinking "there will be bigger monitors in the future, better bring the bigger camera" - they were thinking "how much resolving power do I need for my intended output now" and then made their choice. I don't know why anyone would make their decision any differently today.
I guess your point is very valid if there are people whose goal is to only display on monitors that are viewed from a fixed distance even as the monitor size grows and they expect monitors to get continuously larger with time. Given that desktop sales are plummeting as most consumers move to mobile platforms, even in desktop land the manufacturers largest panels have stayed the same or gotten smaller (30" 16:10 replaced by 27" 16:9 in most cases) in the past five years, and most photographers who care about IQ are targeting prints which have easily out resolved modern monitors for decades it seems an unusual way to think about it.
...
Thanks for the interesting post, I think you raise some great points and have some excellent examples. To me though, it is more of an ageless narrative about photographers deciding what their needs are. I don't think the concerns about technology or the future are actually all that necessary or relevant to the points about IQ you are making....Show more →
Ken, many excellent points. There are however two things I'd like to highlight.
1) Digital camera sensors are still in their infancy. It's only recently that small format cameras have been able to match their film equivalents.
2) The way we view photos has changed. Go back a few decades and most people had photo albums with 4x6 photos. Today people look at photos on computer monitors that are huge. Plus the monitors are viewed at close distances. Few people would make 13x19 prints from 135 film, but it's quite common to view image sideshows in full screen on a 24" or larger monitor. So the requirements have changed.
denoir wrote:
1) Digital camera sensors are still in their infancy. It's only recently that small format cameras have been able to match their film equivalents.
Very true. On further thought I can see how as many photographers went through the film to digital transition they went through a similar process to what I describe for first entering photography. Digital was first reserved for "snaps" and then began to encroach on "serious" shooting with a similar discovery process.
2) The way we view photos has changed. Go back a few decades and most people had photo albums with 4x6 photos. Today people look at photos on computer monitors that are huge. Plus the monitors are viewed at close distances. Few people would make 13x19 prints from 135 film, but it's quite common to view image sideshows in full screen on a 24" or larger monitor. So the requirements have changed.
Good point, and definitely very true for the lion's share of the amateur market. I was thinking more of the "prosumer/enthusiast" and professional markets of the past and present where IQ requirements have been relatively static all things considered. For the much, much larger market of more general use you are right that the output has dramatically changed. Big monitors and three dollar 18"x12" prints from Costco/Walmart are a rather new thing!
denoir wrote:
2) The way we view photos has changed. Go back a few decades and most people had photo albums with 4x6 photos. Today people look at photos on computer monitors that are huge. Plus the monitors are viewed at close distances. Few people would make 13x19 prints from 135 film, but it's quite common to view image sideshows in full screen on a 24" or larger monitor. So the requirements have changed.
This is true, but choosing a camera system based on future proofing images is for me a low order problem. At a certain point, you have to spend a lot more money or deal with a lot more size/weight inconvenience for every small, incremental gain in image quality. Even if you choose to deal with those consequences, future proofing is not a guarantee. You're always vulnerable to disruptive technological changes, the occurrences of which are both unpredictable and inevitable. What was the current thinking regarding future proofing film photographs in 1995?
I'd rather have the camera system that meets my needs for the next 3-5 years than deal with the money/size consequences of buying into a system that will possibly give me an additional 5-10 years.
Aug 13, 2011 at 01:50 AM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Yup, mine was 11 feet and always set up in my photo room along with many many 8x10's covering the other walls and filling the pages of albums. But I don't think that was typical. I guess most people projecting slides only did so once or twice a year. Probably a loupe & light table or a Fotovix type viewer were the more common ways.
yeah, borrowed the Pany for a weekend and wasn't greatly impressed and having recently purchasing the Oly 40-150 now think is it better and much smaller and lighter. The Pany was too big to feel comfortable on my E-P1, the Oly feels perfect!
I guess if you shoot a Panasonic body without IBIS the 45-200 might give you better photos...
FlyPenFly wrote:
The 45-200 is well known to be mediocre for people who have used a lot of telephoto lenses.
The Oly kit zooms are surprisingly good for the money and so is the non kit 8-16mm.
With my first 2MP camera I was showing prints in a gallery up to 8x10", I can always show/proof these images to that size. I knew the limitation when I shot the photos and was fine with it. From my m43 (E-P1) I can easily print superb 12x16" prints, I will always be able to show/proof these images to that size.
Aug 13, 2011 at 02:57 AM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Bifurcator wrote:
Yup, mine was 11 feet and always set up in my photo room along with many many 8x10's covering the other walls and filling the pages of albums. But I don't think that was typical. I guess most people projecting slides only did so once or twice a year. Probably a loupe & light table or a Fotovix type viewer were the more common ways.
Not typical but rather common. And a lot more common than view image sideshows in full screen on a 24" or larger monitor today
denoir wrote:
There's one thing we haven't mentioned in these discussions and that is the problem of future proofing your images.
Good point - but one I don't really care about, frankly. What I care about today, for a decision about buying or not buying a camera today, is that it delivers image quality that I find acceptable, and that it fits the other parameters, whatever they might be... And in the case of my latest fancy, the E-P3, those other parameters happen to be: being smaller than the 7D, having interchangeable lenses, and good IQ. I also fully expect to exchange that camera, if I buy it, for a newer model in a few years. I'm a gear head and can't deny that.
kwalsh wrote:
IQ is not everything - there has always been "good enough". Photographers have been making that choice themselves and coming to different answers for a century.
Bifurcator wrote:
Yup, mine was 11 feet and always set up in my photo room along with many many 8x10's covering the other walls and filling the pages of albums. But I don't think that was typical. I guess most people projecting slides only did so once or twice a year. Probably a loupe & light table or a Fotovix type viewer were the more common ways.
Lars Johnsson wrote:
Not typical but rather common. And a lot more common than view image sideshows in full screen on a 24" or larger monitor today
Really? Wow, OK. I wouldn't know as back then I kept pretty much to myself and never paid much attention to what others were doing.
In those days I think HiFi stereo equipment dominated most people's living-rooms and game-rooms. I don't think I knew too many other people who even owned a camera - besides like a Kod ak Instamatic or something.
Bifurcator wrote:
Really? Wow, OK. I wouldn't know as back then I kept pretty much to myself and never paid much attention to what others were doing.
In those days I think HiFi stereo equipment dominated most people's living-rooms and game-rooms. I don't think I knew too many other people who even owned a camera - besides like a Kod ak Instamatic or something.
Don't tell me you never had to suffer through "Our vacation and my wife and kids in 1001 boring/cringeworthy poses"? EVERYONE I know used to own a camera and shot slide film, whipped out the projector regularily and tormented us with neverending slide shows, two meters wide on the wall, with commentary like "This is Rosi on the beach... this is Rosi at the Colosseum... this is Rosi on the beach again... me and Rosi having a coffee... Rosi eating an ice cream on the beach... Rosi and Mechtild and our car... " Accentuated by the click of the slides changing.
You had a very protected childhood if you weren't subjected to atrocities like that!
I think this was a big difference between the States and Germany. Denmark was like Germany, I always had some uncle who wanted to show slideshows of his vacations and his wife topless
Lars Johnsson wrote:
Not typical but rather common. And a lot more common than view image sideshows in full screen on a 24" or larger monitor today
You can't be serious. Everyone today (in industrialized first world countries) look at photos on either large computer monitors or on large flat screen TV:s. Showing slides was indeed very common, but not nearly as ubiquitous as large screen computer monitors and TV:s are today. And people take a lot more photos today since they've switched to digital.
Sure most of them end up thumbnail sized on facebook but few have given up the enjoyment of terrorizing friends, relatives and neighbors with boring slide shows containing an endless stream of vacation photos.
At larger viewing distances it's not much of a problem, as it wasn't with slides but today slide shows are often sent to individuals and shown close up on computer monitors (i.e Picasa, Flickr etc) and in addition to that people are fond of using their images as desktop wallpapers.
Even if we ignore the general population and just look at photography enthusiasts, you'll see that things have changed a lot. How many of your photos do you print large? How many of them do you look at on your computer monitor?
mh2000 wrote:
From my m43 (E-P1) I can easily print superb 12x16" prints, I will always be able to show/proof these images to that size.
You can print good 12x16" photos, but saying "superb" is overstating things a bit. I find my 7D's 18 megapixels to be a bit lacking, especially for photo books (typically A3 sized which is close to 12x16") when printing at 300 dpi. You'd get 240 dpi (or ppi to be precise) from an E-P1 for that size, which is good when viewed at a bit of a distance but falls apart if you look close up.
Of course it will to a large extent depend on what type of photography you do. If you for instance primarily do street photography then high resolution and detail is of little importance.
Antje wrote:
Good point - but one I don't really care about, frankly. What I care about today, for a decision about buying or not buying a camera today, is that it delivers image quality that I find acceptable, and that it fits the other parameters, whatever they might be... And in the case of my latest fancy, the E-P3, those other parameters happen to be: being smaller than the 7D, having interchangeable lenses, and good IQ. I also fully expect to exchange that camera, if I buy it, for a newer model in a few years. I'm a gear head and can't deny that. ...Show more →
Well, I care because I've been burnt - my older digital photos are simply not good enough in terms of image quality to be viewed on a reasonably large monitor. And the only reason why I'm not terribly upset about it is because back then I didn't particularly care about photography so the photos are mostly interesting from a personal/documentary perspective where the IQ isn't very important. There are exceptions though and I would have really liked to have some photos in a higher resolution and taken with a better camera and lens.
carstenw wrote:
I think this was a big difference between the States and Germany. Denmark was like Germany, I always had some uncle who wanted to show slideshows of his vacations and his wife topless
Auntie Hilde topless?!? Ewww. Yeah, I remember those, too. Those were the more entertaining ones - trying not to giggle like the 14-year-old girl you are is preferable to trying not to fall asleep. At least that gave us kids a solid view of what to expect should we ever reach the biblical age of forty.
denoir wrote:
Well, I care because I've been burnt - my older digital photos are simply not good enough in terms of image quality to be viewed on a reasonably large monitor. And the only reason why I'm not terribly upset about it is because back then I didn't particularly care about photography so the photos are mostly interesting from a personal/documentary perspective where the IQ isn't very important. There are exceptions though and I would have really liked to have some photos in a higher resolution and taken with a better camera and lens.
Don't we all. My dad took a gazillion photos of me and my siblings, and some are B&W when I wish they were in colour. Some are faded, some are discoloured because the film he used doesn't keep well. He took some with MF, some with a 35mm Leica, some with ancient folders, lots with a relatively modern Minolta SLR. Your kids will say that their dad took lots of photos, but some of them were taken with that crappy Canon 1Ds VII he loved so much with only 25 MP resolution, and they weren't even 3D. What was he thinking!!
I see your point, but I don't think there's anything you can do about it. Apart from seeing things in context - I own a few cyanotypes I really love, a few ferrotypes, daguerreotypes, and they're all interesting for what they are. So I think this is merely a philosophical point, not something that should affect anyone's decision to buy a camera. YMMV.
Bifurcator wrote:
Really? Wow, OK. I wouldn't know as back then I kept pretty much to myself and never paid much attention to what others were doing.
In those days I think HiFi stereo equipment dominated most people's living-rooms and game-rooms. I don't think I knew too many other people who even owned a camera - besides like a Kod ak Instamatic or something.
Antje wrote:
Don't tell me you never had to suffer through "Our vacation and my wife and kids in 1001 boring/cringeworthy poses"? EVERYONE I know used to own a camera and shot slide film, whipped out the projector regularily and tormented us with neverending slide shows, two meters wide on the wall, with commentary like "This is Rosi on the beach... this is Rosi at the Colosseum... this is Rosi on the beach again... me and Rosi having a coffee... Rosi eating an ice cream on the beach... Rosi and Mechtild and our car... " Accentuated by the click of the slides changing.
You had a very protected childhood if you weren't subjected to atrocities like that! ...Show more →
carstenw wrote:
I think this was a big difference between the States and Germany. Denmark was like Germany, I always had some uncle who wanted to show slideshows of his vacations and his wife topless
Yeah, but that's what I meant when I said "only once or twice a year". Usually those event/vacation shows were only pulled out once or twice a year. Normal viewing of one's own shots or just some shots of the kids playing in the yard or whatever weren't usually loaded into the canopy or cube and from my very limited experience most people put the screen and projector back in their storage closet when they were done with the show - unlike me who dedicated a space in the house just for photography... which included a permanent projection screen.
I didn't start seeing permanent projection screens in homes until I started working on Hollywood film productions. Then I met lots of folks who had their own projection rooms.
! Cell phones are already 12 and 16MPx ya know...
Yeah, I remember those, too. Those were the more entertaining ones - trying not to giggle like the 14-year-old girl you are is preferable to trying not to fall asleep. 