Considering what we are.

[waday]

Photoshop killed The Art of Photography as much as the microwave killed the art of fine cooking.

That’s “science oven” to you!

 

[Derrel]

And there's a difference between a bridge/point-and-shoot and a fixed-lens camera.

Gosh, this is so true. The other day, I was using my Ricoh GRIII next to someone that had an early model Nikon D3xxx with kit lens. I tried to talk to them photographer to photographer, but they acted as though my camera was bupkis because to them it was a “point and shoot”. I left it as is without saying anything. Little did they know, it just showed how shallow and uninformed they were.

also, to add, I’m not saying that the Ricoh is a godsend of a camera nor is it “better than theirs”, but it is several years newer with same size (and newer) sensor, built in IS, etc...

Ricoh designed the camera to look like a point-and-shoot to make it less threatening. It's less obvious in social photography situations than a traditionally-styled camera.

 

[beagle100]

In terms of equipment capability. We haven't really progressed much throughout the ages. Seriously we haven't.

When the first microscope lens was created by Voightlander/Pexal, the standard for high grade work was created. When Kodak took the low cost market over with fixed power, fixed aperture meniscus lens cameras, that "pocket camera" "point and shoot" market segment was concreted for eternity.

Now we have lots of pride in our cameras, we really do. We should the level of technology going into the lenses now is marvelous. It really is. The optical quality is easily 10 times what it was in 1930.

The Vitomatic II when it was released was a high grade camera. It cost around 180 dollars back then. Not a cheap thing. IT was the D7200 of its day in terms of quality and function. And results. But yet nowadays 99% of people at a camera store would toss it out if they found it in a bag with a 5 year old Kodak point and shoot.

But with quality film, a lens cleaning, a tripod, and proper focusing and control on exposure, it will create images that are able to win next year photo contests, and grave the cover of any magazine in the world.

Yet we keep getting suckered into thinking new models always make it better. Looking at photographic "how toos" online, it seems we need the image stabilizer turned on when playing with manual control, and to some extent some seem to think that aperture control mode on a DSLR is MANUAL control, because you like control stuff manually....

Now every region seems to have its own preference on equipment. Australia and UK amateurs seems to prefer the one piece super zoom cameras, ya know they think its a crime to use removable lenses because get this... IF YOU TAKE THE LENS OFF outside you just get dust and dirt inside the body, AND THAT ONE SPEC RUINS THE CAMERA.

Funny, I thought used film cameras BREED dirt on lenses and on the mirror when they aren't used for 20 some years.. And I remember how the replaceable lens cameras were heralded as major, important breakthroughs when they were put on market.

The main issue with the superzoom is the next to smallest size sensors they use, and the fact the super zooms have issues with image quality in the top 1/3rd of their magnification range, and issues in low light. And they are popular in countries that have had some extra good low light photos taken over the years.

I suppose it depends on how serious ...

 

[Grandpa Ron]

Worrying or even paying attention to what another photographer thinks of your gear is the height of folly. Other have no idea why you chose to use that particular piece of gear.

You could be a vintage camera aficionado pushing the limits of film photography or you might be using a $79.00 digital wonder from Wal-Mart be cause you work in salt spray, dusty or other harsh environments; or you could just be a cheapskate.

Post processing, be it dark room or digital, is also a matter of opinion. I prefer "as shot" with minimal processing, usually cropping and exposure adjustments. I like to show what saw. Others, craft beautiful photos, extracting what they saw in the same scene.

It has always been this way. Modern post processing just make it easier. Just because you own a Stradivarius, it does not make you a great violinist.

Much to-do about the opinions of others.

 

[otherprof]

Hm. Gear. Tools. Equipment. SO much stock is put into the equipment we use. One definition of "equipment" is "the necessary items for a particular purpose."

Format size, lens type, media type, matters not.

I think it does matter depending on the particular purpose. And... some tools can make a job easier (even possible) when others do not.

FOR ME, I look back and think it was a maturation process. When I got my first "real" camera (one that wasn't typically found in most households), I was so very proud of everything about it; the brand, the maximum aperture, the fastest shutter speed and so on. Even as I started my business, friends would tell me how their meter was accurate to 1/10 of a stop or they could x-sync their strobes at a faster shutter speed. At seminars, I would hear how one make of lenses was sharper than another. At that time, I would put all sorts crap in front of my portrait lens to kill contrast and soften the image... so what did it matter if my lenses were the sharpest on the market?

It gradually came into focus for me (pun intended) that my gear no longer mattered to me they same way it did in the beginning. As I cared about was reliability and if I could make it do what I needed to complete the job. I made certain to keep it clean, safe and in good working order. It's how I paid the bills. It had to work and perform they way I wanted... EVERY time.

I just didn't care if my exposure was off by 1/10 of a stop (especially when shooting negative film). I did insist that my tripods were stable and the sync cords didn't fail. I had to have cases that protected my gear and everything was back in them at the end of the day.

When I read the title of this thread, "Considering what we are," my interested was piqued. I sure hope we're not defined by the equipment we use.

-Pete

Equipment IS used to define who we are, and what we do. Just look at the whole web cam market.
Until a few years ago, all a webcam had to do was hook to a computer and show you on screen. You were good to go. NOW you aren't considered a "true online video content person" UNLESS you have very specific and very pricy webcams.

The regional differences in equipment is an actual one that I discovered this month. Its bizaare but the uk and Australian kids believe the superzoom is BETTER in all way, regardless of its sensor and lens limitations. The moderating staff of one forum told me in no uncertain wording that the bridge camera or superzoom camera was BETTER then any camera with removable lenses because the simple switch of changing out a lens would allow air and dust and dirt to get onto the mirror or circuitry and cause damage and shorten the life span of it.
And those same Australian and UK photo kids feel that those who use detachable lens cameras are the toddlers that have to be put up with in order to get coffee at a fast food place.

Here on American forums, the mandatory tool is a detachable lensed camera. And those who use bridge/superzoom one piece cameras are patted on the head as the "toddlers who get in the way".

Pay attention to photographic how to websites and information these days. Far to many of them confuse aperture or shutter control with MANUAL FOCUS because you control one variable of the exposure triangle puzzle while the camera computer adjusts the other two for ya.
Looked at a Nikon Coolpix B600 this afternoon, the control dial doesn't even have a spot on it for manual control.

Even the most indepth online articles and instructions with digital cameras are identical to a camera compony manual, turn on, put selector to Auto Focus, take lens cap off, point at object, depress shutter button half way, watch the lights, fully depress button to take photo. Then its all right into PHOTO SHOPPING tricks.

Zoom lenses suck in air and dust every time they are zoomed. This was explained to me by a technician when I couldn’t understand how dusty got on the sensor of a camera that had never had the kit zoom off the body.

 

[DanOstergren]

In terms of equipment capability. We haven't really progressed much throughout the ages. Seriously we haven't.

This must be the falsest statement I have read about photography in the recent past. I don't know who "we" is in this context, but replacing it with "the imaging industry" I'd say that imaging producing technology has advanced enormously in the last 50 years. It is the same level of advancement that has moved us from typewriters to modern computers. There is just no comparison.

Now, I am 60 and I love to shoot film. It's fun, and I can create good images in the darkroom. I can even print images manually and make each image unique. But this doesn't take away the incredible advancements the industry has made in imaging.

IF the industry has made HUGE advancements in quality, why has the art of taking photos become the art of photo shop and post production computer work?

If the claim that digital cameras have given use a device that has the ability to take photos without needing to have external lighting, why has that "advancement" simply become one of having to use a computer to adjust the light balance, darkness, lightness, of a photo we took..

When in the "dark ages" we would have either waited for better light, or used a flash or camera on a tripod in order to take a picture in less then ideal lighting?

When I see people make these sorts or arguments about photography "not being photography anymore", my first conclusion is that the people making these claims simply are not good photographers. By the way, have you ever shared your work here, or is it always just discussions that you gear in a way to where you KNOW they will cause arguments?

 

[DanOstergren]

I hate to say this ... but I do find pocketshaver's discussions "difficult" for some reason.

There's an angle here though; these "discussions" are clearly intended to be problematic in nature and aim to create tension. It's the same with this person's topics asking for advice; if they don't like the answer they get, that answer is met with condescension and sarcastic insults. We just keep feeding this troll even though we shouldn't.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

I hope by now most folks have figured out that once you move from cold hard facts, what is left is opinion.

To get upset over what another person thinks photography should be; is foolhardy.

I define photography by my rules, biases, likes and dislikes. That is why I take the pictures I like, the way I like them. Fortunately, most of us share approximately the same views, colored by our own vision of photography.

There is nothing mystical, earth shattering or even new. Just various opinions and rhetoric that make for somewhat entertaining if not downright amusing reading.

 

[pendennis]

I've been doing photography in some form, or the other, for over 50 years. My first camera was a Kodak Star Flash; from there to an Argus C-3, and so to more advanced equipment. I've never given a lot of heed to those who hype gear, and I've always used the "form follows function" axiom. When the job called for 4x5, then a 4x5 it was. If I needed something in 6x6, I had that, in 35mm, digital... You get the picture. However, the object was always the image.

I was not a big darkroom technician, so I hired others to get my end product. That worked sometime, sometimes not, technology at the time didn't allow for the wide range of image creation I sought. However, when I discovered the scanner and image editing, I could go back in time and recover those memories. I framed images, internally disappointed, though others talked about how great the photo was.

I still shoot film and digital, and there are as the adage goes, "horses for courses".

The limiting factor in the art and technology of photography is the human mind. If you can imagine it, you can get the image to output as you saw it.

Technology is a marvelous thing. It drives science. For instance, the science of thermodynamics didn't come into existence until James Watt harnessed steam; Until Zeiss, Leitz, and others harnessed the ability to coat and develop modern lenses, the science of photography didn't exist.

 

[ACS64]

When the first microscope lens was created by Voightlander/Pexal, the standard for high grade work was created.

This statement intrigued me so I looked up the multiple histories of the microscope. Nowhere did I find Voightlander or Pexel mentioned in the history of the microscope. I think the rest of the OP's argument is equally flawed.

AC

 

[MVPernula]

When the first microscope lens was created by Voightlander/Pexal, the standard for high grade work was created.

This statement intrigued me so I looked up the multiple histories of the microscope. Nowhere did I find Voightlander or Pexel mentioned in the history of the microscope. I think the rest of the OP's argument is equally flawed.

AC

I also can't find anything about that.

 

[Derrel]

Voigtlander, Petzval,perhaps?

 

[dxqcanada]

Hmm ... This Month in Physics History

 

[Soocom1]

From Wiki:

Voigtländer - Wikipedia


Now its simple. The argument is weird, but brings a philosophical point that IMO few want to explore.

Except annoying trolls like me.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

Actually the whole opening post makes little or no sense. It's a string of soundbites with little or no meaning.

The optical quality is easily 10 times what it was in 1930.

Where is the proof for this statement, or is it just the OP's approximation again to suit the narrative? Optical quality in the 1930's was actually extremely good, as was precision engineering. Mostly missing were advanced lens coatings, computer aided complex designs and the ability to mass produce them at a marketable price. Don't forget that Newton's "Optiks" was published in 1704, The 1930's saw nuclear fission, the first jet engine, and Kodachrome.

We took photographs from the moon in 1969, and digital pictures orbiting Neptune from a spacecraft that was launched in 1977...

I've seen this tired old argument many times before on other photo forums, that "my camera is better than anything Ansel Adams had" and then spending inordinate amounts of time fabricating an argument based on science, film/MP comparisons and camera specifications to prove this.

And then pointing it at the same Tunnel View shot.

Has Tunnel View become more scenic, does it have more detail, is it sharper, composed of more vivid and saturated colour than it was before simply because camera technology has advanced? No, but on many forums you see photographs that seem to have no purpose other than to prove this with impossible DR, unreal sharpness and hideously thinned and saturated colour. And yet many fail to see just how abstracted their images have become when they spend their time concentrating on proving the technology rather than understand why people are generally in awe of nature.

I don't understand this narrative we create in mainly the Western world where we have to re-invent everything in ever shortening cycles to create the illusion we are forever moving forward and towards greatness. Digital doesn't just need to be better than film, it need to defeat film in every aspect. "Film is dead!" It's a forum favorite where many digital photographers feel the need to prove logically why the technology they have bought into is *where it's at* and has obliterated the opposition.

It's an interesting question which was missed by the Op who's thoughts seem to be jumbled and at times incoherent.

It's as blatantly obvious that Tunnel View is not an intrinsically more vibrant and photogenic place just because you own the latest digital camera as it is obvious that it wasn't really B&W in Ansel Adams' time. It is also as obvious that if you expect a more vibrant and photogenic Tunnel View from a more modern camera that you have fallen for the marketing, and equally obvious that just because Tunnel View is the same colour as before that the technology hasn't failed, (though there probably is more dust now...).

You need to look objectively and in the right place, then you'll see it. Compare a 1930's newspaper to a modern web based one. From the front page to the sports section, and pay particular attention to not only the number of photos, but the diversity of geographical location and the length of time from pressing the shutter to world wide publication.