The “ingredients” of a fine photograph are subject, composition, light, color — the things in the photograph.
And, the light passes THROUGH the LENS. You can't speak to the light (in photographic medium context) without acknowledging the light path, en route to the film plane, IS affected by the lens. That's like saying the jets on a carburetor don't matter, the car is all about gasoline and tires.
This argument, and other similar arguments, are often offered as if they are discussion-ending truths.
Indeed, the light does pass TH”ROUGH the LENS.” But that does not negate my point at all, particularly if you have read with some care. My point has never been that there is no difference between lenses. It has been and continues to be that the magnitude of the difference between the ostensible Best Pop Lens On The Planet and a whole slew of other fine lenses is negligible…
… and that chasing after The Best Super Lens In The Entire World is a diversion from investing time and energy in the factors that provide significant differences between run-of-the-mill photographs and excellent photographs. Hint: It ain’t picking teh One Perfect Lens To Rule Them All.
- - -
Kevner wrote:
Which ironically includes this site which the bot mined to formulate its response.😏
Welcome to our new hell!
I have an instructive story about that.
Someone I know is fascinated by and researches various health-related issues and even blogs about them in depth at times.
This person asked an AI system for information about an issue that he had previously been interested in. He thought the reply looked familiar… and in a moment he realized that the text had basically come from one of his blog posts. A blog post from for which he had obtained information from a different AI.
So essentially one AI was mining another AI for its content.
Kevner wrote:
Which ironically includes this site which the bot mined to formulate its response.😏
Welcome to our new hell!
I have an instructive story about that.
Someone I know is fascinated by and researches various health-related issues and even blogs about them in depth at times.
This person asked an AI system for information about an issue that he had previously been interested in. He thought the reply looked familiar… and in a moment he realized that the text had basically come from one of his blog posts. A blog post from for which he had obtained information from a different AI.
So essentially one AI was mining another AI for its content.
Speaking of hell…
Sep 21, 2025 at 01:56 PM
Previous versions of gdanmitchell's message #16894627 « which lens has the most 3D POP? »
