Sometimes it is good to look back, to evaluate how far we have come, or perhaps in some other ways, how little we may have gained.
I was going through some of my earliest adventures into Digital SLR and decided to have a second go at processing these 2 shots. (Yeah, I know... captive models, sorry.)
Who knew, we somehow made do without autofocus at one time? And a measly 6MP or 16MP...heh.
Truth be told, those old cameras were slow writing, slow reviewing, slow A/F, well, slow at everything compared to today. Tiny LCD, the A/F not the best, etc. But somehow, we made do. One way to get around the A/F was to use M/F, like in these 2 shots, heh.
All in all, I think it was still a good learning experience, and even back then, digital was starting to pull ahead of film.
Thanks for looking.
Eric
Full res from a 6mp APSC taken Sept 2005
Pentax *ist Ds A Series Lens (Tamron Adaptall 80-200mm F2.8) ƒ/5.0 1/200 iso200
Tight crop from a 16MP APSC taken Oct 2011
Pentax K-5 A Series Lens (Tamron Adaptall 80-200mm F2.8) ƒ/5.6 200.0 mm 1/320 iso800
Two wonderful shots. Totally agree what a great learning experience it was to have to do things that we now depend on and expect the camera to do. As I advance in age , I really appreciate that the camera can compensate for some of the skills I seem to be losing 🙀
morris wrote:
Two sweet images, particularly the second Eric.
Slow focus, think about all manual focus and exposure.
Morris
Thanks for the comment and your pick Morris!
Slow? Slow was my venture into plate film cameras & a handheld 1deg spot meter... When I was young I wanted to be like Ansel Adams, Wright Morris, Minor White doing the Zone System and huge B&W prints... then even more so, like Clyde Butcher, (I met the man at an art show in Dunedin, Fl, was a great guy...loved his work) I found out I wasn't cut out for it. No shame in that, I just didn't have the free time once my business got going (or a Sherpa to help me carry it all) to dedicate to such a contemplative form of the art, at least not as a lifelong endeavor.
These are two sweet images Eric. I enjoy going back as well. I pulled up some shots the other day of my daughter playing soccer with my first Pro body a used Canon 1D 4 MP and it was amazing. I especially like #2.
birdied wrote:
Two wonderful shots. Totally agree what a great learning experience it was to have to do things that we now depend on and expect the camera to do. As I advance in age , I really appreciate that the camera can compensate for some of the skills I seem to be losing 🙀
Birdie
Thanks Birdie! You've probably still got more artistic skill in your pinkie than I've ever had, as the saying goes, so don't sell yourself short. But yeah, these new-fangled doo-dads do make life a lot easier, heh.
Dave_E wrote:
These are two sweet images Eric. I enjoy going back as well. I pulled up some shots the other day of my daughter playing soccer with my first Pro body a used Canon 1D 4 MP and it was amazing. I especially like #2.
Dave
Thanks for the comment and the pick Dave!
I remember seeing the first Kodak/Nikon and Fuji collaborative effort DSLR's at COMDEX and EXP-Tech, waaaaay back, and they were basically VGA or SVGA, low resolution, big and bulky tethered shooting with hard drives. I thought it was terrible tech, horrible looking images, and would never catch on. Boy was I wrong!!! We sure have come a long way! Your 1D 4MP represented several generations of development and pretty good by that point. Once they hit 6MP APSC and 12MP FF, film was about out of the picture, pun intended, heh.
johnohio wrote:
Both very good images. Nice work Eric. Many times what's behind us leads us to where we are today.
John
Thanks for the comment, John, and yeah, I guess we are all kind of a work in progress.
Someone once told me it's ok to look in the rear-view mirror once in a while, but don't get stuck looking there too long, or you'll miss what is right in front of you!
The amount of additional pixels is not as important as how close you are to the subject IMO. I look back at many of my Canon 1DMKIII images, 10.6mp with a 1.3 crop factor and find those files really beautiful.
MPixels is a nice offering buffer for cropping and at times over cropping
Both images you present are great shots but #2 could easily pass as a modern day image Eric, sweet!
Karl
