Reply interspersed, Larry. On 11/8/2010 6:04 AM, Larry Colen wrote:
To be honest, for the vast majority of shots taken in "reasonable light", most people would not be able to tell prints of photos taken with K-5, a high end point and shoot (like my old lumix FZ50), or even for that matter an Argus C3. It is the special cases, and the question of which special cases that determines when you need the better gear.
Yes, the article in Luminous Landscape where I think it was Canon G10 vs medium format digital backs of the same time comes to mind.
As to your automotive analogy, I've got out on the racetrack in a Honda Civic station wagon, or even a full size Dodge Van, and had students in sports cars not be able to keep up with me. On the other hand, I've gone out in my Miata (Eunos) race car, and had students that couldn't get within the same Zip code as the apex blow me away in their 400 hp Corvettes, BMWs etc.
The question is whether your students could have kept up with your zip code changes a year after you made them fall behind in your dodgy Van. If they still couldn't out drive you, then for all I care, whomever bought them their sports car wasted great deal of money.
Most of the time better performance won't be needed, or even noticed, but when it's needed to overcome adverse conditions, or lack of skill, there's no substitute.
I agree with everything but lack of skill. In driving it is even more so, as it may result in severe injury or even death. This is, in fact, what is happening every weekend in my country. Young, hormone overfilled individuals are competing for Darwin award and unfortunately getting it time and time again. Different individuals, of course as it is one-time life-time achievement. Pun intended.
It is time, Larry, that I openly admitted that I cannot extract full potential of my FA Limited lenses or my K-7. Upgrade to K-5 will be pleasant, but it will not make me catch you in my shiny BMW Z-5 (intentional 5 here, yeah) no matter how old is the car you drive. This realization is tough and it is also challenging and fun because it makes one learn great deal about oneself and others around as well.
Photographers have been doing all sorts of things to match the dynamic range of the scene, with the dynamic range of their sensors (or film), and the dynamic range of the print for decades. I believe that this is what Mr. Adams referred to as the zone system. The principle that I use is to set my exposure to capture the most data in the raw file, and then in post processing, decide how to take the captured dynamic range and present it in the final image. There are a lot of times that I'll specifically adjust my processing to get rid of all of the shadow detail, and other times where I'll tweak the curves to try to preserve both shadow and highlight detail. This, by the way, is one reason why I'll frequently bracket my shots, even though I haven't been doing any HDR work yet, so that in the future I'll have the option of going back and recovering some of that data if I wish.
Makes sense to me.
I'm not going to say that if you aren't going to make the effort to optimize the exposure range at both the time of exposure and post processing, you might as well shoot in jpeg, but I will say that if you don't, you may be missing out on a lot of potential in your final images. Just because using the the full 14 bits in a linear mapping onto your print may look a little flat, doesn't mean that you have to do it that way. You might only want to use 10 of those bits, but it's nice to be able to choose which 10 you use.
Well, I am yet to see or hear about a lab here, that can take anything but 8-bit JPG files for print. It is therefore that only 8 bits should be chosen for final award of printing. The same moment a lab that can print 16bit TIFF files opens, the rules of the game will change completely. And no, I don't have a photo printer at home nor do I intend to buy one.
In general, I try to optimize my exposure so as to keep maximum useful information in the areas that I want to be bright in my final image. So, I am aware of expose to the right principle. But K-7 seems to be rather prone to saturation when it comes to bright areas so that effectively I gave up/in? to its meter and go with the flow, so to say. I shoot in RAW and I have 4 bits to loose before I convert to final JPG for print. For anything else, methinks, you and I will have to sit in front of the same computer, same set of programs, same photograph to see if you have something to teach me or vice versa.
I don't buy the argument that I am going to have to buy a sports version of family hatch just because. Everything is done for the purpose. Presently, like I said before, I am struggling to learn how to extract the best from the gear that I have. Does it make sense to upgrade? Well, like Paul proves constantly by the way he is buying and selling his camera bodies, one has to keep up with the market. But that is entirely different story, not related to photography in any way.
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