D850

[gandolfi]

..

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Whenever the drooling competitions over new lenses appear, I worry a bit about what direction photography is taking. Sometimes I get a feeling that the future will mostly bring amateur selfie makers and professional pixel peepers. The story tellers are becoming rare and less visible. While Life Magazine, Paris Match and Stern used to be on everybody's table and encouraged images with a message, regardless of pixel sharpness and dynamic range, their current online counterparts mostly contain technically spectacular, sharp as a tack images that may or may not tell a story. However, the technical perfection is sometimes so overwhelming that whatever story there was, is easilly overshadowed.

We have been taught that technical innovation is good, but we should probably become more picky. Those of us who are not engineers don't need new mechanical or electronic gadgets on a daily basis. If I can't take a good photo with the gear I used last year or even ten or twenty years ago, I'm not much of a photographer.

Not my photo this, but one of the legends:
Alfred Eisenstaedt for Life Magazine
Children watching story of St. George and the dragon at the puppet theater in the Tuileries in Paris, France, 1963.

 

[Steen]

+ 1 :thumbup:

and yet another reason why it's so healthy to now and then go back and use a film based camera

 

[Vivek]

Not sure what good it would, Steen?

Even if you go to war torn Afghanistan, you would not find children rivetted by a puppet show nowadays. Most would be nose deep in their mobile phones.

+ 1 :thumbup:

and yet another reason why it's so healthy to now and then go back and use a film based camera

Edit: besides that Eisenstaedt was using what was the cutting edge gear of his and NOt some glass plate camera or a Daguerreotype camera from the previous century. If he is shooting today, i bet it would be a D5 with near real time dumping of images to his publishers.

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Not sure what good it would, Steen?

Even if you go to war torn Afghanistan, you would not find children rivetted by a puppet show nowadays. Most would be nose deep in their mobile phones.

It doesn't need to be a puppet show, you know. It can be a bicycle:

D810 with 70-300 ED

Edit: besides that Eisenstaedt was using what was the cutting edge gear of his and NOt some glass plate camera or a Daguerreotype camera from the previous century. If he is shooting today, i bet it would be a D5 with near real time dumping of images to his publishers.

The biggest problem with the D5, and most other digital cameras, is that you can fire off 5 or 10 or 20 shots within a second or so, with AF and face detection and whatnot, and you hope or asume that at least one of those shots will be the killer shot. It rarely is.

The next problem is that those cameras are big machines. You walk into a scene where you are a stranger from the outset, then you hide behind an electronic device and expect people to act natural. Of course they don't.

There are certain key success factors needed to do interesting street reportage:

- Time. Time to adapt to the environment. Time to "disappear". Time to wait.
- Timing. Pushing the shutter release at the right moment. It can be now or in five minutes or in half an hour.
- Anticipation. Learning the patterns of movement in the scene, so that you can predict the right moment to release the shutter just before it's time.
- Preparation. Finding where to focus, which person to focus on and guesstimating where that person will be at the moment of interest, so that you can pre-focus. AF rarely cuts it.
- Concentration. Go alone. Wives and dogs are distractions. Other photographers too. Don't ask other photographers where to find motives when you go to Paris. Find your own motives, at places where you won't be distracted.
- Be stingy. For each shot you take of a certain scene, you lose a bit of interest and a bit of consentration. Don't take a lot of shots, hoping that one will be good. Wait. Have I said it before? It's worth repeating. Using film is a great way to become stingy. It costs money, and you don't like to waste money. Wait.

What camera would Eisenstaedt or Cartier-Bresson have used today? Nobody knows. Maybe they wouldn't even have become photographers in today's world. They lived in a world where there was time to wait, time to spend time. As you point out yourself, the photojournalists of today are online with their editors, and they work within exact time limits. I've been there myself, with commercial customers, and I didn't like it. There's rarely time to dwell over a scene, not even for a few minutes, even less for hours, days or weeks.

Eisenstaedt and Cartier-Bresson both used Leica rangefinders more or less exclusively, but that was probably because Leicas were the most compact and most practical quality cameras of that time. These days, there are so many good cameras that are also compact and quick to use. The challenge is time, time to wait and time to develop the skills needed to take unique photos.

Only rarely do I have time enough to live by my own principles. The photo below was taken on one of those occasions last year. My daughter was feeding fish in a pond with bread, and I waited and focused and waited. Then I got two shots that I felt were fine, while she was on the last bag of bread of bread.

F6 with Samyang 135mm f/2 and HP5:

If I retire, I hope I have strength enough and time enough to develop my photographic skills further, so that I too can take good photos of children enjoying a puppet theatre. Or something else.

 

[Steen]

Not sure what good it would, Steen?

Even if you go to war torn Afghanistan, you would not find children rivetted by a puppet show nowadays. Most would be nose deep in their mobile phones.

Edit: besides that Eisenstaedt was using what was the cutting edge gear of his and NOt some glass plate camera or a Daguerreotype camera from the previous century. If he is shooting today, i bet it would be a D5 with near real time dumping of images to his publishers.

Sure, Vivek

What I meant was just that film enforces you to go back and concentrate on content, since there isn't the same amount of modern wow frenzy about sharpness, micro-contrast etc.

(Apart from that, film based photography also has its own quite different graphical expression and aesthetic but that's a different discussion and another good reason to now and then go back and shoot some films;
provided you like that aesthetic, of course, otherwise don't bother.)

Just my 0.02

 

[Vivek]

Steen,

I do not have anything against the film aesthetics.

If anyone is occupied with all the gear based factors you list (and more) before tripping the shutter, they should not be buying a camera. My 0.02c.

OTOH, there is nothing wrong with checking out the gear that I would use, ahead of time and buy the right stuff that suits my purposes.

Jorgen bought the D810, it would not suit him and went back to his m43rds. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Frankly]

Taken to the extreme there is the quintessential stoner argument that rather than using a single shot stills camera. a photographer could use a video camera and pick the best frames for their photos. Technologically we are there, or at least almost there. In a few years we'll have capture devices with multiple lenses making multiple versions of the same scene, calculating the image we want by combining various focal lengths and focus points.

Versus the retro approach of making one image at a time, waiting for that decisive moment.

We can gripe about modern media, I certainly do, but what difference does it make? There are wonderful expressive video clips and stills taken from streams of photos out there on social media and they compare just as well as the classic film stills.

The thing about many of the famous Magnum/Life photos wasn't that the photographer was all that exceptional but that they were there, their organizations got them access to D-Day and war zones, moon launches and exotic locales. Robert Capa was not a particularly good photographer, Eisenstadt was probably a wonderful personality but did he really shoot anything different than hundreds of other press photographers?

We bemoan the loss of classic photojournalism but I rather like that billions of people can be amateur photojournalists. Image making should be like writing, not a specialty but a universal skill, with some practitioners doing it better than others.

 

[Godfrey]

Taken to the extreme there is the quintessential stoner argument that rather than using a single shot stills camera. a photographer could use a video camera and pick the best frames for their photos. Technologically we are there, or at least almost there. In a few years we'll have capture devices with multiple lenses making multiple versions of the same scene, calculating the image we want by combining various focal lengths and focus points.

Versus the retro approach of making one image at a time, waiting for that decisive moment.

We can gripe about modern media, I certainly do, but what difference does it make? There are wonderful expressive video clips and stills taken from streams of photos out there on social media and they compare just as well as the classic film stills.

The thing about many of the famous Magnum/Life photos wasn't that the photographer was all that exceptional but that they were there, their organizations got them access to D-Day and war zones, moon launches and exotic locales. Robert Capa was not a particularly good photographer, Eisenstadt was probably a wonderful personality but did he really shoot anything different than hundreds of other press photographers?

We bemoan the loss of classic photojournalism but I rather like that billions of people can be amateur photojournalists. Image making should be like writing, not a specialty but a universal skill, with some practitioners doing it better than others.

So, by this diatribe, there is no longer any need or desire for the skilled photographer in the world. Great. All you folks can simply click away while I practice photography ... I no longer need to make a living from photography, I do it for myself. :toocool:

G

 

[Jack]

This thread is obviously taking a turn, but it's a good discussion.

@Frankly -- I agree that "being there" is half the battle. And taking a still from a movie is essentially what sports photographers have been doing ever since motor-drives were invented

@Godfrey -- I agree that knowing when to click is half the battle. Of course having 30 (or 60) frames per second to choose from alleviates this to a certain degree... Knowing how to set the camera was definitely a thing back when, as was focusing it properly, but now the cam does both for you, and frankly most of the time better than we can. I see the niche for today's photographer being perspective, framing/focal length and aperture for desired effect --- that's where the art of photography now lies. Okay, need to add in lighting modification whether natural or artificial.

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Taken to the extreme there is the quintessential stoner argument that rather than using a single shot stills camera. a photographer could use a video camera and pick the best frames for their photos. Technologically we are there, or at least almost there. In a few years we'll have capture devices with multiple lenses making multiple versions of the same scene, calculating the image we want by combining various focal lengths and focus points.

Versus the retro approach of making one image at a time, waiting for that decisive moment.

We can gripe about modern media, I certainly do, but what difference does it make? There are wonderful expressive video clips and stills taken from streams of photos out there on social media and they compare just as well as the classic film stills.

The thing about many of the famous Magnum/Life photos wasn't that the photographer was all that exceptional but that they were there, their organizations got them access to D-Day and war zones, moon launches and exotic locales. Robert Capa was not a particularly good photographer, Eisenstadt was probably a wonderful personality but did he really shoot anything different than hundreds of other press photographers?

We bemoan the loss of classic photojournalism but I rather like that billions of people can be amateur photojournalists. Image making should be like writing, not a specialty but a universal skill, with some practitioners doing it better than others.

Shooting good video and good stills will normally give two totally different results. As a photographer, you will be looking for that one moment that sums up the whole action. When you make video, you will through a sequence of occurences at the scene describe the development of the action, hopefully to end up with a final scene that will be remembered. The latter may not contain the "decisive moment" of the photographer at all, since it's a totally different way of telling a story.

Try to take the exceptional final scene of The Passenger, Antonioni's great movie, out of context, and you have basically nothing of interest. But as the conclusion of that movie, it represented a strike of genius. A video from the scene of Eisenstaedt's photo would be zooming in on faces, pan to the actual puppet performance, show the environment where it's happening and so on. While you are doing this, consentrating on conveying all the action, the quintessential photo may happen while you're not even aware of it.

Yes, being present was, and still is, an important part of being a good photographer. However, photographers 50 or more years ago had another big "advantage": Their task was to get one, or a few, good photos, and because communication was slower, transportation was slower and life in general happened at a more relaxed pace, they were given more time to capture that photo than what is the case today.

News photographers today will deliver hundreds or thousands of images from an event, and they will have little influence on which of those photos will be used. Most of the time, they won't even be back at the desk when the choice is made. It will be the picture editor's or the editor's or maybe even a journalist's choice, made on the background of what they think will illustrate the event in the best way, or what suits the publication's political agenda the best. In principle, it's the same process as it was 50 years ago, but it happens much faster now, since photos are often published within minutes of being taken, chosen from thousands, instead of tens, of candidates. The human brain, the one that evaluates those photos, isn't faster than it was though. The greatest photo, the one that conveys what was actually happening the best, may not even have been looked at.

To me, it seems like news photos 50 years ago, in addition to being reportage, was art on several levels. Today, they look more like design. The difference between art and design is that, while both can be used as decorations, art conveys more than one message, and it may take time and require a thought process from the point of the viewer, to get access to those messages.

We can discuss till the cows come home if Capa or Eisenstaedt or Cartier-Bresson were good photographers. Some of them, like Capa, were probably mostly brave. But it would be illogical to believe that there weren't good photographers then, at least as many as there are now. The technical differences between now and then also forces another difference: While a photojournalist back then were more or less forced to capture the scene "as is", because he didn't have much equipment to make it look otherwise except maybe a flash, current photographic equipment enables the photographer to "create" reality in a totally different way.

Take Joey Lawrence for instance. While there's no doubt that he's a very good photographer, his use of artificial lighting and other equipment, and the way he stages and arranges his photos, makes me wonder what he's trying to convey. Reality, it is not. In a way, one can say that he, and many other current photographers, stage their own decisive moments in an alternate reality that resembles the real world, but doesn't reflect it. Not in a way that the photos of Eisenstaedt, Capa or Cartier-Bresson reflected it anyway.

But as decorations, they are very suitable.

 

[Frankly]

If I photograph a skier flying over a downhill race jump, I can not physically capture “the decisive moment”. I certainly used to try back in the manual camera days. However I can mash the shutter on a modern camera and find an optimal frame during editing.

I understand that an art house movie not directed by Terrence Malick may have different requirements than a still photo, seems like a pointless analogy?

 

[Frankly]

So, by this diatribe, there is no longer any need or desire for the skilled photographer in the world. Great. All you folks can simply click away while I practice photography ... I no longer need to make a living from photography, I do it for myself. :toocool:

G

Point being that now that the masses can make good photos with ease we’ll have to step up our game to stand out.

Or take their cameras away so we can revert to only the weathly and skilled having the privilege to make pictures.

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

If I photograph a skier flying over a downhill race jump, I can not physically capture “the decisive moment”. I certainly used to try back in the manual camera days. However I can mash the shutter on a modern camera and find an optimal frame during editing.

I understand that an art house movie not directed by Terrence Malick may have different requirements than a still photo, seems like a pointless analogy?

Sports is a totally different world. The only things that are not predictable are the end results and any accidents. The layout is known, the competitors are known, the time frame is known, both to the photographer and the viewer. I agree that video converted to stills would actually work for many sports, not least for motor sports which I have been photographing for years. This is also one reason why unmanned or remotely operated cameras are frequently used for some sports photography.

 

[Godfrey]

This thread is obviously taking a turn, but it's a good discussion.

@Frankly -- I agree that "being there" is half the battle. And taking a still from a movie is essentially what sports photographers have been doing ever since motor-drives were invented

@Godfrey -- I agree that knowing when to click is half the battle. Of course having 30 (or 60) frames per second to choose from alleviates this to a certain degree... Knowing how to set the camera was definitely a thing back when, as was focusing it properly, but now the cam does both for you, and frankly most of the time better than we can. I see the niche for today's photographer being perspective, framing/focal length and aperture for desired effect --- that's where the art of photography now lies. Okay, need to add in lighting modification whether natural or artificial.

Heya Jack,

No intent whatever to take this thread to a turn, personally, but the post I responded to simply struck me as saying "Photography as we knew it is dead." I don't believe that, nor is it what I practice in my photography.

I know everyone here is all amorous and drooling over bazillions of multiple-gazillion megapixel frames to work with, hypersonic AF and prescient-scale-12 exposure automation with every trick in the book ... but quite honestly, all those things just bore me. I focus my lens. I make my exposure settings. I set up where to shoot from. And then I make my exposure. It's that simple: that's photography to me. The notion of the latest WunderKamera as being the next best thing to the Buddha floating in on his magic carpet leaves me cold. To me, it's a big, heavy, complicated, machine. It has none of the light ease of learning, remembering, and using that even my beloved Nikon F still does. (And yes, I still have that one. ) It's kind of like aiming Darth Vader's Death Star to snap a picture of a tulip... (I hope that image gives you a giggle. )

I've moved far away from these things. Photography is about seeing, expression, and timing. Not about ISO, pixels, lenses, and all that palaver. No carefully selected frame out of a row of a thousand wannabes will ever give me the sense of satisfaction having seen, caught the expression with my settings and timing, that a single snap at the right moment with a box brownie does.

As I said, I no longer need to sell my photographs for my income. I don't have to do anything for my income any more, other than stay alive to receive my checks. I do photography for the joy of it, to share my seeing and my photographs with other photographers and artists who see more than pixels, lenses, etcetera. I stay out of discussions of the latest trends in the photography business because it's no longer my world. I'm branching into doing short art motion stuff, just for fun and because it intrigues me now.

I'll keep doing, and evolving, my photography the same way I always have. And please pardon what I thought might be an amusing jest at ourselves.

G
—
"To see the light and wonder at it, to capture a moment and make a heart sing."
Rainy, Lazy Day: https://youtu.be/75K3Wl8dGG4

 

[Godfrey]

Point being that now that the masses can make good photos with ease we’ll have to step up our game to stand out.
Or take their cameras away so we can revert to only the weathly and skilled having the privilege to make pictures.

You've likely already seen my response to Jack.

I no longer need to stand out with my photography.
I simply need to make photographs that please me, and maybe another couple of people who like to look at my photographs...

G

Shimmer — Cork 2017
Leica M-D + Summicron-M 50mm f/2​

 

[JohnBrew]

I keep coming back to this thread hoping to read something relevant about the D850. By the latest postings I see that is not going to happen.

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

I keep coming back to this thread hoping to read something relevant about the D850. By the latest postings I see that is not going to happen.

Oh, but the D850 is sooooo 2018, and photography is dead anyway... or was that film?

Jokes aside, maybe a good idea to get back on track. Has anybody here used the D850 long enough to say anything about how it's an improvement over the D810?

 

[ptomsu]

Heya Jack,

No intent whatever to take this thread to a turn, personally, but the post I responded to simply struck me as saying "Photography as we knew it is dead." I don't believe that, nor is it what I practice in my photography.

I know everyone here is all amorous and drooling over bazillions of multiple-gazillion megapixel frames to work with, hypersonic AF and prescient-scale-12 exposure automation with every trick in the book ... but quite honestly, all those things just bore me. I focus my lens. I make my exposure settings. I set up where to shoot from. And then I make my exposure. It's that simple: that's photography to me. The notion of the latest WunderKamera as being the next best thing to the Buddha floating in on his magic carpet leaves me cold. To me, it's a big, heavy, complicated, machine. It has none of the light ease of learning, remembering, and using that even my beloved Nikon F still does. (And yes, I still have that one. ) It's kind of like aiming Darth Vader's Death Star to snap a picture of a tulip... (I hope that image gives you a giggle. )

I've moved far away from these things. Photography is about seeing, expression, and timing. Not about ISO, pixels, lenses, and all that palaver. No carefully selected frame out of a row of a thousand wannabes will ever give me the sense of satisfaction having seen, caught the expression with my settings and timing, that a single snap at the right moment with a box brownie does.

As I said, I no longer need to sell my photographs for my income. I don't have to do anything for my income any more, other than stay alive to receive my checks. I do photography for the joy of it, to share my seeing and my photographs with other photographers and artists who see more than pixels, lenses, etcetera. I stay out of discussions of the latest trends in the photography business because it's no longer my world. I'm branching into doing short art motion stuff, just for fun and because it intrigues me now.

I'll keep doing, and evolving, my photography the same way I always have. And please pardon what I thought might be an amusing jest at ourselves.

G
—
"To see the light and wonder at it, to capture a moment and make a heart sing."
Rainy, Lazy Day: https://youtu.be/75K3Wl8dGG4

Godfrey,

great words and great thoughts - i really wish I would have been the one writing this. Had similar thoughts lately but could not really formulate what you have done in such a perfect way. This is also one of the reasons I lust of going back to the Leica M as this camera really forces - at least me - to think out of the box to take extraordinary pictures.

I also don't sell any photographs (at least I could not make a living out of this) and so I can concentrate on what pleases me. In times where all cameras need to do everything including perfect 4k video with all different kind of bitrates and color depth at up to thousands of FPS and also easily mountable to drones so one can add that Hollywood-look to your videos intermixed with iconic photos that were taken directly out of the video - I think I am getting way enough of that trend. Do I need video - sure to film some memories from my daughter or my grown up kids or their friends, but that's it!

I am no filmmaker and I do not want to be - I AM A PHOTOGRAPHER that occasionally needs to make some video - PERIOD!!!!

And for that a camera and technique that makes me think before I take the shot is what I need. Plus for me 24MP are already plenty enough - be it from m43, Leica FF or Nikon FF or any APSC camera.

So once again many thanks for reminding (me and maybe also many others) of the roots of good photography - and also this discussion is VERY OT in this thread I do hope that most reading through this will appreciate these musings ..... because these are the essentials why we finally do photograph.

 

[retow]

Godfrey,

great words and great thoughts - i really wish I would have been the one writing this. Had similar thoughts lately but could not really formulate what you have done in such a perfect way. This is also one of the reasons I lust of going back to the Leica M as this camera really forces - at least me - to think out of the box to take extraordinary pictures.

I also don't sell any photographs (at least I could not make a living out of this) and so I can concentrate on what pleases me. In times where all cameras need to do everything including perfect 4k video with all different kind of bitrates and color depth at up to thousands of FPS and also easily mountable to drones so one can add that Hollywood-look to your videos intermixed with iconic photos that were taken directly out of the video - I think I am getting way enough of that trend. Do I need video - sure to film some memories from my daughter or my grown up kids or their friends, but that's it!

I am no filmmaker and I do not want to be - I AM A PHOTOGRAPHER that occasionally needs to make some video - PERIOD!!!!

And for that a camera and technique that makes me think before I take the shot is what I need. Plus for me 24MP are already plenty enough - be it from m43, Leica FF or Nikon FF or any APSC camera.

So once again many thanks for reminding (me and maybe also many others) of the roots of good photography - and also this discussion is VERY OT in this thread I do hope that most reading through this will appreciate these musings ..... because these are the essentials why we finally do photograph.

I shot my best pics with old school technology and inferior electronics. Yet there seems to be no escape from the "upgrading to the newest and best" hamster wheel. M9 and "focus tracking", i.e. called zone focusing in the old days.