pick your own word then... if you don't think that English is full of idioms, sit next to someone who's first language is not English and then have to explain different words that on the face of it make no sense... but make sense to English speakers.
All I'm saying is that when someone says that images from a certain camera have a more organic look/feel that *I* understand what they are trying to articulate (whether or not I can see it or agree with them is another story)... and no, it does not mean "looks more like film."
RDKirk wrote:
"Hot" as a term for a woman who look sexually alluring has been in use for more than a hundred years and crosses cultures--it's probably connected to the phrase "in heat" to describe a female animal during its mating period. "Hot" as a term for a person who is sexually aroused by a woman has been in use since at least Shakespeare.
However the connotation was developed between "hot" and "sex," it's been there for centuries. There is nothing "rapid and changing" about that particular term.
"Organic" is all over the map...it's not going to last in this sense.
Maggot wrote:
I think you have some "old school" photographers who don't like the look of digital. That is, they prefer a more noticeable grain structure in their images that I think can produce a more analog/filmic type look, even at low ISO. Personally, I have no issues with digital, and I have not noticed a difference, other than the resolution/micro resolution increase, between my 5D and 5D2 files.
I'll bet 90% of the people debating the fresh and healthy organic taste of the 5D compared to the factory farmed 5DII never shot much film to begin with...
Micky Bill wrote:
I'll bet 90% of the people debating the fresh and healthy organic taste of the 5D compared to the factory farmed 5DII never shot much film to begin with...
I don't think I agree with that, I think it is film users and ex-film users who think that for some reason film looked better, or more 'real' or whatever.
I think film just looked different and more familiar. To evoke feelings from a medium is just to step into the past and it's purely subjective. Younger digital users just don't feel the same way, I don't think
If I still shot concerts for a living I certainly wouldn't be using film to do it, digitial is so far superior at high ISO it's hardly a comparison.
Film 'was' digital 'is' they are both just as 'valid'. If film as a medium was just being invented now I doubt somehow it would catch on
mh2000 wrote:
pick your own word then... if you don't think that English is full of idioms, sit next to someone who's first language is not English and then have to explain different words that on the face of it make no sense... but make sense to English speakers.
As is the term bolded ("on the face of it")
the thread split. it started out saying one camera gave images with a more "organic" look than the other, then *some* people brought up film more as an aside, then the non-organic camp started building their straw man and began arguing about film and equating organic as only meaning more film-like.
My 15 year old daughter mostly shoots digital, grew up in the digital age, but recognizes and loves the look of film too. She has a AE-1P that she shoots occasionally and just stole my Diana Mini because she loves the look of film and the square format. She is also an artist.
To make a living off photography you need to work in volume... so the cost and convenience of digital overrides almost everything else... many pros went digital before digital was anywhere near as good as film, newsrooms went to video back when video was crap compared to film...
My friend's son is going to RIT and is studying photography... grew up with digital and is shooting a lot of film (to his father's surprise)... he likes the look of film.
If you are sensitive to the differences, film and digital evoke different feelings no matter when you were born. many people are not sensitive to these differences (read this thread), but that doesn't mean that no one is. Different digital cameras also evoke different feelings in some people. Nothing wrong with having a "just gotta get the photo" mentality... and maybe it is a sign that you will make more money along the way... sensitivity and feelings are fine and good, but they are also a sign of weakness in this capitalistic society that we live in...
hahaha! Yes, how is that expresion "rooted in something concrete?" I didn't even think of it... and outside this word bickering thread, neither would you.
BubbaJon wrote:
As is the term bolded ("on the face of it")
mh2000 wrote:
the thread split. it started out saying one camera gave images with a more "organic" look than the other, then *some* people brought up film more as an aside, then the non-organic camp started building their straw man and began arguing about film and equating organic as only meaning more film-like.
<snip>
If you are sensitive to the differences, film and digital evoke different feelings no matter when you were born. many people are not sensitive to these differences (read this thread), but that doesn't mean that no one is.
So if "organic" is not "film like," then what is "organic" and what is "film-like"...and when other people assert that "organic" is "film-like," can I refer them to you?
"film-like" means like film. Film for the most part is more organic in feeling than digital, but mimicing film is not the only way an image can impart an organic feeling to the viewer. Furthermore, most people will respond to a Kallitype (etc) and think that it is more organic than a film image... and so on and so on...
Organic refers to something in the art sense that you respond to with the *feeling* that it shares something in essence that is more governed by the forces of nature or living matter as opposed to mathmatically defined by Platonic geometry...
droopy1592 wrote:
meh, I wonder if people could tell any shot was from what camera if the dimensions/lens/FL was all the same. Doubt it. Organic or not.
Agreed.
Main difference with the 5d2 vs my 40d in my experience is the DOF and noise (esp if shooting in sRAW with the 5d2 - amazingly low noise in sRAW). But yea, the differences are over blown.
The same can be said about photos taken by one of the "magic" Holy Trinity L lenses either... But that doesn't stop the weekly threads of lens love now does it?
droopy1592 wrote:
meh, I wonder if people could tell any shot was from what camera if the dimensions/lens/FL was all the same. Doubt it. Organic or not.
mh2000 wrote:
hmmm... thought is nonsense... *kewl*.
I don't see a whole lot of "thought" in this thread. Mostly a lot of mental masturbation about nothing.
Images are not "organic" or "unorganic". It's just more buzzwords used by people who, for whatever reason, want to think their equipment is better in some special way that they don't have to quantify.
mh2000 wrote:
All I'm saying is that when someone says that images from a certain camera have a more organic look/feel that *I* understand what they are trying to articulate...
It isn't an idiom because you understand it. It is an idiom precisely because the words have a specific and quantifiable meaning to many people who share the understanding of the meaning of the idiom apart from its literal meaning.
Example: "I think that the Canon 5D2 is a cool camera!" I think that most of us who are native speakers of American English (and quite a few who have learned it well enough to know common idiomatic expressions) realize immediately that a) I'm not describing the temperature of the camera, and b) I'm stating that I regard the camera in a positive way. (Whether or not you agree that the camera is cool or think otherwise isn't the point - either way, we share an understanding of the meaning of this idiomatic expression.)
Example. "I think that the image quality of the 5D is more organic than that of the 5D2." Uh, OK. I think we probably are suggesting that there is something about the image quality of the 5D that you prefer over than of the 5D2, but I have no idea what that might be or what it would look like.
Now, it is fair to say that the term "organic" can function in an idiomatic manner. But this isn't it.
Example: "I think that the Canon 5D2 is a cool camera!" I think that most of us who are native speakers of American English (and quite a few who have learned it well enough to know common idiomatic expressions) realize immediately that a) I'm not describing the temperature of the camera, and b) I'm stating that I regard the camera in a positive way. (Whether or not you agree that the camera is cool or think otherwise isn't the point - either way, we share an understanding of the meaning of this idiomatic expression.)
Shakespeare would have also understood it--"cool" has been used in the context of "good" for at least that long.
Dan, you and someone else have already shown that even in the visual arts, "organic" has meaning apparently different from the way it's being use here.
mh2000 wrote: All I'm saying is that when someone says that images from a certain camera have a more organic look/feel that *I* understand what they are trying to articulate...
How do you know when you agree it's "more organic" that you're looking at the same characteristic they're looking at?
That's not meant to be a rhetorical question. Seriously, how have you determined that you and someone else on this forum are specifying the same characteristic by the term "more organic?"
Now, Dan has explained the term "organic" as it is used in a different way by visual artists, and I've totally understood what he meant. But I don't understand what the "organic" difference is between the 5D2 and the 5D1, and when someone says it looks "more digital" my inclination is to think that he or she simply hasn't learned to process it appropriately.
("on the face of it")
