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 p.33 #16 · which lens has the most 3D POP? | |
jeffersoncasey wrote:
Since there's lock down going on in my country and most of the time staying at home stating at my computer screen, I might as well spend more time on reading a lot about cameras. Here are my finding recent findings and that made me look at images quite differently ever since.
Firstly, nothing has changed from my previous opinions on what makes an image pop - the shadows and gradations of the subject, which means lightings, and to a certain degree, composition technique based on framing the subject according to the lighting.
But there's one aspect that isn't easily judged, well it's not even easily realized by many people - microcontrast. I've been fascinated by this very subject for long time and finally saw what people had been talking about.
Simply put, microcontrast ≠ contrast ≠ sharpness. There's one site that provide a very revealing studio test scene between different cameras, which is the red fabric (along with other) from imaging resource. You'll find some camera samples looked much more contrasty between the same swatches which consists mostly same colors, which cannot be replicated with basic editing (if you know a way to do this, do share as I'm curious). I've read somewhere in dpreview that it's both the lens and the sensor that contribute to this microcontrast, turned out to be true, based on what was observed in imaging resource studio tests. IMHO Philip covered quite a bit about the same topic above albeit we didn't use the same terms to describe it.
Generally speaking, tests of older camera tends to do better, some has punchy color contrasts straight out of the RAW files. Sadly, it seems like a trend that newer sensor tech or lens or system seems to do worse than they used to be, even from the same manufacturer. Crisps details, amazing dynamic range, are what consumers and pros are asking nowadays.
I notice this because I was editing my old travel photos taken with the RX1R and still amazed by the image quality, so much that I realized my GFX 50R did not do better, in fact, worse. Yes it's fun to see the crisp details when zoom in 200% and still hold up really well. It's when I watch the images at normal viewing distance and size and realize something special about the RX1R files that looked so pleasing and organic (for lack of better words). Interesting to note that I never really fall in love with the output of the RX1R ii compared to the original no matter how many real world samples I saw, and now I can see why.
Whether this translate into the quality of your image making, it's up to you to decide. In the end, IMHO, it's the lighting and composition make great images, not the gear (before anyone chime in and tell me it's the person behind the camera, you can take great pictures with iPhone). However, as a casual shooter, a camera like RX1R that's small and light with great image quality, it'll stay in my camera bag for a long, long time.
Last but not least, here's a great video with great informations, and also talk about microcontrast, even if he didn't quite mention it. I often hear people talk about what make Leica lens great, here you can probably have a clearer idea.
(PS: An interesting finding after comparing many camera studio tests, you'll also find with the same ISO and aperture setting, cameras varied greatly between models. Generally, newer cameras tend to use slower shutter speed. This will sometimes translate into real world difference but that's a whole different topic.)
&t
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Been awhile, but since you reminded I had to watch this video again.
Even though I pixel peep with the best/worst of them as the iMac 5K tends to encourage this practice, I never forgot what Thorsten mentions in this video. Something along the lines of: "What can you measure in a picture? It is really hard to measure the artistic quality, and what is the emotional quality. But what is easy to measure is that you zoom in how sharp it is, how detailed it is, how sharp is that hair, but who really cares. But what you should look at is a picture as an overall picture...what you see when you zoom in or not doesn't matter"
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