p.6 #1 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
Steve Spencer wrote:
Of I love good satire and I actually love it when people satirize me. I would hope you would see it as all in good fun. If we can't laugh at ourselves who can we laugh at.
I bet you there are a few people here who don't laugh enough at themselves. Not naming names
p.6 #5 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
I guess I’m too new to the forum to respond to anybody, but here goes:
Yes, it is entirely possible to be intentional with a 30fps autofocus monster. But it is also entirely possible to drive a Ferrari at 25 mph in a school zone—it just isn't what the machine is designed to do, and eventually, the machine’s DNA dictates your behavior.
When your camera is 'reacting' for you—tracking eyes, calculating exposure across 1,000 points, and buffering 50 RAW frames—you aren't in full creative mode and if you try to be, you are effectively fighting the machine.' You are auditing the work of an algorithm. You’ve outsourced the 'architecture of the frame' to a processor in exchange for a higher hit rate.
My Leica doesn't 'make' me a better photographer. It strips away the safety net that allows for laziness.
You’re absolutely right that I could do this with other cameras, I just prefer to have tools that specialize in what I need and get out of the way for the rest. If you give van Gogh 4 inch house, painting brush he’s going to create in the style of van Gogh, but it’s not going to be the same kind of art that you created using his standard tools. Tools do impact art.
p.6 #6 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
It’s OK to have an opinion that’s different from someone else’s. If someone cares about something in photography that you don’t agree with, just move on with your day.
Ninety nine percent of the people here are great. Honestly, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to enjoy people’s quirks more than the ones trying to be like everyone else. I’ve taken breaks from this place over the years too.
p.6 #7 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
I tend to gravitate towards the experience of getting the photo bs getting the photo personally. A lot of that is heavily driven by family size and the opportunities to focus on getting a specific photo are few/far between for me. Consequently I don’t aet goals of trying to get a lot of specific photos anymore as I would just end up not meeting many of those goals.
I do enjoy manual cameras with manual focus lenses and film sometimes. I take what I get and know how to work within the confines of perspective and what shutter speeds/aperture I will have for creative control. The tools are well made and pleasant to use and the process of developing negatives is enjoyable for me.
I also enjoy when I have the option to occasionally just use my Z body and a 24-120 or maybe a given prime to be prepared for what I have visualized in my mind. I will wake up early and go hike/run/setup while all of my children are asleep. I do occasionally take some kids birding with a camera too, and a few times a year I make dedicated jaunts for photography. I don’t have many/any opportunities to pre scout locations anymore so I do try to think about times when I will be in places I know and can take advantage of good wildflower seasons/light conditions/storm conditions/etc to try and execute a few of those beautiful shots. I do try and plan hikes in advance for some state parks to put us in certain parts of parks in certain light conditions and that results in some pretty beautiful shots also.
p.6 #8 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
dclark wrote:
I include your prior comment and this one among those that are part of the nasty turn and not funny.
I know. But I’m not the one attacking others over their preferences. I’m only commenting on what generally causes the typical slide toward tension where no tension is needed.
p.6 #9 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
Jacob Watrous wrote:
I guess I’m too new to the forum to respond to anybody, but here goes:
Yes, it is entirely possible to be intentional with a 30fps autofocus monster. But it is also entirely possible to drive a Ferrari at 25 mph in a school zone—it just isn't what the machine is designed to do, and eventually, the machine’s DNA dictates your behavior.
When your camera is 'reacting' for you—tracking eyes, calculating exposure across 1,000 points, and buffering 50 RAW frames—you aren't in full creative mode and if you try to be, you are effectively fighting the machine.' You are auditing the work of an algorithm. You’ve outsourced the 'architecture of the frame' to a processor in exchange for a higher hit rate.
My Leica doesn't 'make' me a better photographer. It strips away the safety net that allows for laziness.
You’re absolutely right that I could do this with other cameras, I just prefer to have tools that specialize in what I need and get out of the way for the rest. If you give van Gogh 4 inch house, painting brush he’s going to create in the style of van Gogh, but it’s not going to be the same kind of art that you created using his standard tools. Tools do impact art....Show more →
I disagree with your take on creativity at high speed shooting. If anything, it can be much harder to be creative at high speeds, even when the camera is helping. You’re still in full creative mode. The idea that a Leica strips away laziness may work for you, but it’s not typical of modern Leicas at all. Sure, you have to focus an M manually, but with enormous dynamic range and high resolution, you can be very sloppy with your exposure and composition. Use a wide lens and f/8 and you can be less careful than with a 20mp older digital AF camera.
p.6 #10 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
The experience is more important to me. I never plan what to shoot, I just go out and bring a camera. Which puts me in a state where I look for things. I let go of everything else and concentrate on my surroundings. Interesting colors, patterns, surfaces, shapes, and so on.
Often I come home with no photos. It can still have been a good photo day.
However, I also want a good camera experience, even if that's secondary. I prefer manual primes if I can choose (which I often "can't" since I also have specific demands on image quality). I have no interest at all in a camera that does the hard parts for me.
Lastly, I don't really care about my photos. When they are done, I rarely look at them again. The photos were not the point of photographing.
p.6 #11 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
Jacob Watrous wrote:
I guess I’m too new to the forum to respond to anybody, but here goes:
Yes, it is entirely possible to be intentional with a 30fps autofocus monster. But it is also entirely possible to drive a Ferrari at 25 mph in a school zone—it just isn't what the machine is designed to do, and eventually, the machine’s DNA dictates your behavior.
When your camera is 'reacting' for you—tracking eyes, calculating exposure across 1,000 points, and buffering 50 RAW frames—you aren't in full creative mode and if you try to be, you are effectively fighting the machine.' You are auditing the work of an algorithm. You’ve outsourced the 'architecture of the frame' to a processor in exchange for a higher hit rate.
My Leica doesn't 'make' me a better photographer. It strips away the safety net that allows for laziness....Show more →
We appreciate the newer members and various points of view.
For me the creative part is choosing the location, time/date, lighting, lenses, composition, camera settings. No humans can do the 30+ FPS manually. Even in manual focus, manual exposure mode the camera is converting photons to signals to pixels and then digital data. Without the technology we would be painting dots by hand. How a person uses the available technology is just as creative now as it was hundreds or thousands of years ago. I can use the same 45MP camera to shoot at 30FPS with a 600/4 for flying BIFs and then use it to create a gigapixel image from 1440 individual frames. Maybe the next week I'd use a Sony with 61MP for best IQ and a particular lens. So my behavior is not dictated so much by the hardware; I choose the hardware (camera and lenses) for the subject and situation faced. I'd go bonkers having to use only one brand and type of camera for everything.
p.6 #12 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
EB-1 wrote:
We appreciate the newer members and various points of view.
For me the creative part is choosing the location, time/date, lighting, lenses, composition, camera settings. No humans can do the 30+ FPS manually. Even in manual focus, manual exposure mode the camera is converting photons to signals to pixels and then digital data. Without the technology we would be painting dots by hand. How a person uses the available technology is just as creative now as it was hundreds or thousands of years ago. I can use the same 45MP camera to shoot at 30FPS with a 600/4 for flying BIFs and then use it to create a gigapixel image from 1440 individual frames. Maybe the next week I'd use a Sony with 61MP for best IQ and a particular lens. So my behavior is not dictated so much by the hardware; I choose the hardware (camera and lenses) for the subject and situation faced. I'd go bonkers having to use only one brand and type of camera for everything.
I have a friend who was originally a large format photographer. He would go into the backcountry with as many sheets as he could carry, but that was never a big number. This was fine for certain kinds of traditional landscape photography, and his work in that direction was beautiful and widely acclaimed.
Later he switched to a Phase One (back on on Mamiya) MF system, and suddenly was no longer constrained as he had been. He was able to photograph subjects that were almost “un-shootable” with the LF gear, notably moving water, where one cannot precisely know what is going to happen in the next moment. He built a small body of work around these photographs that would have been nearly impossible using the old school approach.
To write off things like autofocus, autoexposure, and burst mode as simply letting automation take over for creative judgment is to write off whole genres of photography and a lot of truly beautiful work.
If one chooses to work slowly and manually — as I often do with some subjects — that is fine. But to assume that any work done with a system that applies some form of automation to a process as being not creative makes no sense. Are movies to be written off because they are assembled from multiple takes and the audio is dubbed in later? Is all recorded music to be dismissed because the recording process may use multiple takes or add effects? Were paintings made with the help of the camera obscura not art? Is using roll film depraved? ;-)
p.6 #13 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
I'd like to see anyone that belittles the skill and creativity involved in intense, blink-and-you-miss-it 20 to 30fps action shooting, often having to frame a subject WHILE actively zooming in or out, come stand next to me and hold my camera and do it. Let's see what you can come up with
p.6 #15 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
RoamingScott wrote:
I'd like to see anyone that belittles the skill and creativity involved in intense, blink-and-you-miss-it 20 to 30fps action shooting, often having to frame a subject WHILE actively zooming in or out, come stand next to me and hold my camera and do it. Let's see what you can come up with
Hah, you ain't lying... following an Osprey dive @ 600mm+ even at my slow A7RV speeds on mech shutter is still a handful... to fight the tendency to overshoot once the Osprey hits the water is no joke, then if you do screw up, zoom out find it again as you zoom back in and hopefully get it exiting the water with a fish... and if you think that is bad, try a Royal Tern grabbing a small sardine, and if that doesn't get you revved up, Kingfishers are fun too and if you still are feeling chippy after all that, go find some barn swallows chasing mosquito's, heh, Just keeping them in your AF area is fun, add screen blackout to the equation and you come to appreciate some of the newer stacked gear fast. If I did more of that type of shooting, I'd definitely want something like an A1ii or A9iii etc and I'd be leaning hard on the shutter with a 1tb cf a card, not my usual little sd cards. The only thing I hate about shooting high frame rate stuff is the culling afterwards, .
p.6 #16 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
RoamingScott wrote:
I'd like to see anyone that belittles the skill and creativity involved in intense, blink-and-you-miss-it 20 to 30fps action shooting, often having to frame a subject WHILE actively zooming in or out, come stand next to me and hold my camera and do it. Let's see what you can come up with
I had this argument before about shooting dance recitals with fast cameras. I was happy that technology helped catch every single dancer at peak action while doing acrobatics and stuff. Somebody argued that technology wasn't needed and that he was just fine with older cameras. As an example, he said something like, "How did they shoot the Olympic Games with old cameras?" I showed him on the Getty website - today we have well-composed peak sports action in many, many pictures there. But 15–20 years ago it was mostly pictures of people on podiums and crowds, barely any action.
But all this tech isn't needed when you photograph other things, and that's why we have all these different slow and fast cameras. In my case, lighting tools help with getting great outcomes much more than cameras do, which, funnily enough, is rarely discussed.
p.6 #18 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
olegkin wrote:
I had this argument before about shooting dance recitals with fast cameras. I was happy that technology helped catch every single dancer at peak action while doing acrobatics and stuff. Somebody argued that technology wasn't needed and that he was just fine with older cameras. As an example, he said something like, "How did they shoot the Olympic Games with old cameras?" I showed him on the Getty website - today we have well-composed peak sports action in many, many pictures there. But 15–20 years ago it was mostly pictures of people on podiums and crowds, barely any action.
But all this tech isn't needed when you photograph other things, and that's why we have all these different slow and fast cameras. In my case, lighting tools help with getting great outcomes much more than cameras do, which, funnily enough, is rarely discussed....Show more →
shooting dance concerts is a thing of the past shooting stills. i just sit back now enjoy the show and shoot 4k 30 at 1/320 sec and extract the saleable images when i get home. or just give the video to the dance school and tell them they can extract the 220,000 images if the please and have every peak action shot they need😁 the problem with that is it shows up how uncoordinated there dancers are 🤣🤔
i even had a dance school that didnt give me the work this year and gave it to someone else that totally screwed it up and asked my why are my images so crisp and detailed compared to the person the gave the job to , i had a good laugh.😁
p.6 #19 · Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo
I wonder if anyone here also draws and/or paints. Like many here, I appreciate the fact that photography makes me observe more and better than I would if I didn’t look for images.
Then, a few years ago, I started dabbling in drawing and I was surprised that my photographic observations were nothing compared to what you need to see when you want to capture a reality in a drawing or painting.
Of course, the flip side is that it’s also easier to leave out things or translate that reality into abstraction. Still, what struck me is that when I wanted to draw a building across the street, I’d have to actually SEE each individual window, while with photography I’d seen the whole.
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