[HN Gopher] Vintage digicams are an artistic statement
___________________________________________________________________
Vintage digicams are an artistic statement
Author : Tomte
Score : 91 points
Date : 2024-11-29 12:55 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| datpiff wrote:
| The article is about the aesthetics of old cameras but doesn't
| include a single image.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| There's a bizarre "Old stuff is better" tendency which sees
| vintage tech as somehow more credible, ethical, characterful,
| expressive, and individual than modern tech.
|
| It's quite strange. It's still consumerism - primarily about
| ownership display, not use - but trying to pretend it isn't.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I don't know take valve amps for example, the subjective
| qualities the clearly imperfect technology produces can be
| quite pleasant. Yes you could just as well simulate such an
| amplifier in software because there's no 'magic' to why it
| sounds that way, but there's something aesthetically pleasing
| about warm glowing glass.
|
| I'm no photographer but I feel there's something similar going
| on here.
| piltdownman wrote:
| UAD and WAVES, amongst several other companies, operate their
| business on the premise that there is some 'magic' as to why
| it sounds that way that is somewhere between difficult and
| impossible to manage (sufficient to enthuse a
| musician/producer).
| louthy wrote:
| As an owner of a UAD Octo and plenty of their plugins, but
| also lots of analogue hardware [1], including valve based
| compressors, EQs, and distortion units that are emulated by
| UAD. The plugins still aren't there.
|
| Especially for anything that needs harmonic distortion. I
| get the impression they use regular random number
| generators for some of the random variance, rather than
| trying to emulate the physicality of a valve. They just
| don't quite have the mojo. For some things it doesn't
| matter, but often music production is about a 1%
| improvement here, a 1% improvement there, which sums up to
| a lot. It's still easier to get those wins with hardware.
| Like 'mojo' is the default setting.
|
| A really good example is the Chandler Curve Bender [2]. I
| have the real hardware. A new one will cost you PS6,700 -
| so it would be insane to buy one when UAD have a plugin
| version for PS179. I have the plugin too. The plugin is my
| favourite digital EQ. It sounds great. But the hardware
| does things that the plugin just doesn't touch. The
| hardware is all discrete circuits (with massive
| transistors). I think the slight latency shift between the
| left and right channels gives a 3D-ness to the sound that
| the plugin doesn't even attempt. Anyway, this demo [3]
| really shows what it can do and why hardware is still in
| the game.
|
| In many areas plugins are good enough, I tend to use the
| plugins for more precision and to have similar curves to
| the hardware, but there's still a ways to go to until
| there's parity with the hardware.
|
| That doesn't mean you need the hardware, plenty of
| successful artists use digital alone. Just it's still
| easier to get 'the good stuff' with hardware.
|
| [1] https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9swzlgk3wszeq6jfjxmw1/IM
| G_141...
|
| [2] https://www.thomann.co.uk/chandler_limited_emi_tg12345_
| curve...
|
| [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUv9GtMlUwA
| gambiting wrote:
| I mean, audiophiles will gaslight themselves into believing
| and hearing what they want to hear. There are some areas
| where ok, maybe there is _some_ difference to the sound,
| unlikely as it is, but once you start getting into "audio
| optimized SSDs" and "audio optimized ethernet switches"
| then it's all a 100% scam(and yet audiophile forums are
| full of people swearing that they can hear a difference in
| their audio tracks saved to an SSD that had a few extra
| capacitors added). So I'm not surprised that there are
| companies making money off that belief into what is
| effectively magic.
| louthy wrote:
| > audiophiles
|
| Audiophiles are ridiculous, frankly. I'm on the ATC group
| on Facebook. ATC make pro speakers used in many top
| studios, but they also make home 'audiophile' speakers.
| The speakers are amazing, but I often see them talking
| utter nonsense about how X sounds great or whatever, when
| they have pictures of their setup in an untreated room.
| Like they could even tell if the speakers are good in a
| room like that. They're hearing the room.
|
| Audiophiles are like astrologers, it's all in the wind
| with them. But they shouldn't be confused with people
| into pro-audio for music or film production. The name of
| the game is to get the best sounding room you can, so
| that it's easier to make your art, there is a motivation
| to get it right and not be hoodwinked by the things you
| state.
|
| Not that pro-studio people don't have their blind-spots
| too (especially around things like cabling), but they're
| not the same.
| vasco wrote:
| On the other hand it helps preserve history so I'm not sure I
| care the intentions are not pure. I know I got on this
| bandwagon with a simple analog camera over ten years ago and
| now I'm drowning in 1800s and 1900s electrical engineering
| books and newspapers.
| fragmede wrote:
| It focus on nostalgia and repairing of old things (because they
| don't make them anymore, so you have to), rather than buying
| the latest Apple shit, so there is a distinction from modern
| disposable consumption patterns.
| vachina wrote:
| Old stuff feels better because people are familiar with it.
| People grew up with them and if anything their expectations are
| set by those very things.
| PetitPrince wrote:
| I suspect their failure mode, limitation and purpose are more
| characterized and less surprising ? Single purpose tech vs
| magical black mirror that does everything.
| gspencley wrote:
| My wife and I were just watching a YouTube video about the
| history of the Mattel Intellivision gaming console. If you've
| never seen one, the thing had wooden panels. It was definitely
| inspired by an era where your appliances were meant to match
| your furniture. I remember, as a child of the 80s, seeing
| televisions that were cased in wood as well.
|
| I would argue that these types of designs made an anti-
| consumerist statement which is why you don't see them anymore.
| An appliance that tries to look like furniture doesn't need to
| do that, it is a non-essential feature of the appliance that
| the manufacturer chooses to include. And it makes a statement:
| "I'm part of your home. Care for me. Display me. Treasure me.
| Enjoy me ... and don't throw me out because I'm not disposable
| plastic."
|
| The dedicated camera vs smartphone topic doesn't necessarily
| align with the concept of appliances as furniture, but it does
| strike me as being the difference between a specialized tool
| and a multi-tool.
|
| Everyone owns a smartphone. There's nothing special about that.
| And while taking a good photo arguably requires some degree of
| skill regardless of your tool, smartphones represent the
| average consumer; the lowest common denominator. Anyone can,
| and does, snap pictures with a smartphone.
|
| A dedicated camera, on the other hand, represents a conscious
| decision to take photography more seriously. To want to focus
| only on that, free of other distractions. To climb whatever
| learning curve stands in the way.
|
| Then, consider, that there are people who appreciate history
| and have no illusions about whether or not a particular
| historical time period was "better" or not. I follow a historic
| costumer on YouTube, from whom I learned how to sew by hand and
| how many historic clothing was constructed. Do I think that
| living in the Victorian era would be better on the whole? No. I
| value modern medicine and social advancements that have been
| made since that time. But do I love the Victorian aesthetic and
| value the knowledge of how to do things without modern
| machinery? You betcha. I feel like a more rounded person and,
| despite coming from a hobby, I have life skills that I didn't
| have before, like being able to fit, hem, repair and even
| produce some of my own clothing.
|
| Trends and fashion changes, and the phenomenon of "older is
| better" is human nature that has always existed. It is easy to
| find artefacts of the past that are less common, or gone
| entirely, that you consider to be better than the trends of the
| present.
|
| This doesn't mean things are worse on the whole now, nor does
| it mean that those artefacts aren't valid examples of things of
| value that are no longer produced. I guess it's part and parcel
| of change.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Treasure me. Enjoy me ... and don't throw me out because
| I'm not disposable plastic.
|
| Plastic looking finish is the one that was luxurious at the
| time. And wood was just a way to get a good-looking finish
| for cheap... Like shiny black plastic is today.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Old stuff is better understood. Parts and information are often
| more available, and the failure modes etc are well known. New
| stuff is more in the "unknown unknowns" territory.
|
| There's a reason brand new tech isn't favoured for safety-
| critical systems.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| What is bizarre? Ethical, characterful and expressive they
| certainly can be, right? I also haven't seen anyone pretending
| it's not consumerism. People are just trying to have some fun.
| blueflow wrote:
| I think the new stuff is getting worse. Enshittification and
| such. Digital cameras don't show you ads.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| I was at an event recently, with a bunch of teenagers (one of
| which was mine) and I passed around a couple of those Fuji
| Instax cameras.
|
| They loved them. They liked writing notes on the border. The
| photos aren't nearly as good as even the most basic smartphone
| camera, but there was something genuine about them.
|
| For all the advances we've made in technology over the years,
| people are still thoroughly analog. And while digicams are not
| analog in any way, there is something about them that scratches
| that itch. Maybe it's as simple as hitting an actual button to
| make it go.
|
| For all the amazing high-tech in today's smartphones, you still
| feel like a monkey at the monolith as you paw at it.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| those little printers were a big hit a few years ago for this
| use case; haven't seen or heard much of them since.
| vundercind wrote:
| I've got to admit, digging through a shoebox of fifty blurry
| lightly-water-damaged family or childhood photos is _kinda_
| better than finding a directory of 10,000 perfect digital
| photos of the same stuff.
|
| One's pure joy, the other's a damn to-do item.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| We had one of those out at my girlfriend's kid's graduation
| party for anyone to use. It was a lot of fun.
| sevensor wrote:
| It's super weird to find out that my old camera sitting in a
| drawer, the cheap one everybody had, is now an object of desire
| for people who weren't even born yet when it was manufactured.
| However silly I think the motivations are though, I'll get
| behind any trend that extends the useful life of our
| electronics.
| Suppafly wrote:
| Especially since so many of the cheap cameras made right
| before the smartphone era were essentially manufactured
| e-waste that barely worked. Same with things like portable
| tape and cd players, the Sony ones were good, but any of the
| other brands were just the same trash electronics repackaged
| in slightly different packages for each brand.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| Millennials went through the same thing with 70s Polaroids.
| bmitc wrote:
| There is something real to it. It's not just nostalgia or a
| fad. Go and look at product manuals from the 70s through 90s.
| They're awesome and detailed with diagrams and even exposition
| discussing the general genre of product. For example, synth
| manuals would actually teach you about synthesis while also
| covering the synthesizer in question in great detail. Nowadays,
| you are lucky to get a little placard of quick tips.
|
| The fact that manuals were produced with such care when it was
| really hard to do so is insight into how much thought was given
| to the entire product. It's not necessarily that the products
| are technically superior. It's that honest hard work was put
| into the products. You walked into a store and purchased it
| from a person. It couldn't be easier to produce product manuals
| these days with modern software, and yet it's never done.
| Today's consumer landscape is about disposability and scale.
| You have companies like Apple that intentionally remove
| features so that they can sell you them separately, like the
| dongle mess. Apple lied to their customers for the reasons they
| were removed and now sell them parts that costs sub-cents for
| dozens and hundreds of dollars.
|
| There is something real about all of this that modern people
| yearn for. I remember having to buy technology as a kid. You
| talked to people, asked them questions, and they new things
| about the product. It wasn't about just pushing a virtual
| button.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > "Old stuff is better" tendency which sees vintage tech as
| somehow more credible, ethical, characterful, expressive, and
| individual than modern tech
|
| Well stuff produced at 1/10000th the number of units sold of,
| say, a modern iPhone or Android phone is obviously more
| "individual". I mean: I see a dude driving an AC Cobra vs one
| driving a mass produced chinese EV... They're both cars but
| that's about it. That'd be Hank Moody driving an old beaten up
| Porsche 911 Carrera in Californication. I mean: for one reason
| or another, Hank Moody is driving an old beaten up Porsche and
| not a Hyundai. And the series shows him as liking his car and
| liking to drive his car.
|
| Where's the lack of use in someone daily driving an AC Cobra or
| an old Porsche? Where's the lack of use in someone using an old
| camera to take pictures?
|
| > It's still consumerism - primarily about ownership display,
| not use
|
| Someone takes his old camera, goes out at night, snaps a
| picture of the sunset, and goes back home. Where's the
| ownership of display?
|
| I don't post picture or my cars online. I take one out at night
| and go for a drive on desert roads. Where's the ownership of
| display? On HN?
|
| Sure, everything is still an object. But then _everything_ is
| consumerism, unless you make your clothes yourself (funnily
| enough my mother-in-law knits clothes).
|
| Regarding ethics: I think something can be said about older
| tech. For example an old "dumb" 1080p projector both gives that
| "movie theather" feeling (mine had a gigantic diagonal no TV
| could match) _and_ it 's neither listening to everything you
| say nor sending your data to the motherload nor constantly
| updating apps for seemingly no reason nor can it be bricked
| remotely. Nor can it be hacked.
|
| I mean: there's at least _something_ in vintage tech I think.
|
| P.S: I'm currently in the process of buying a "vintage" HP Z
| series workstation that I'll use a small server but that's
| because I want shitload of cheap ECC and huge, big, cheap SAS
| drives... And it's going to get lots of love and use. I may
| blog about it if I want to display ownership though.
| elgaard wrote:
| I agree with all that.
|
| But smartphone cameras are not progress on all fronts. They are
| small and seem to be optimized to take pictures that look
| impressive.
|
| I sometimes have a slideshow with family pictures running on a
| large monitor. Sometimes I stop and look at a picture that
| somehow just look much nicer that the rest when you spend some
| time looking at it. If I then check the metadata, it almost
| always turns out to be one of few pictures I took with my old
| DSLR camera or a newer compact camera.
|
| Of course those cameras are much bigger and has bigger lenses
| and should be able to make better pictures. But the best camera
| is the one you brought with you. Which is why so few of the
| pictures are made with a smartphone.
|
| But it seems to me that all the computational power of
| smartphones does not quite compensate for the smaller optics.
| Or that they are trying too hard to make the pictures look
| spectacular.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >But it seems to me that all the computational power of
| smartphones does not quite compensate for the smaller optics.
| Or that they are trying too hard to make the pictures look
| spectacular.
|
| It seems like if you have the latest top tier phone: iphone,
| pixel, samsung s, etc., you get decent photos, if you have
| any of the 2nd tier phones, they all continue to suck no
| matter how many mp they claim to have or whatever optics they
| claim to have.
| prpl wrote:
| I think low light performance is still worse than I thought
| it would be with an iPhone 16 Pro. With enough light the
| cameras are great.
| telgareith wrote:
| Probably because everybody is convinced they can beat
| entropy with math
| asdff wrote:
| With enough light all cameras look great
| soylentcola wrote:
| * until you zoom in or look at it on a screen larger than
| you'd hold in your hand.
|
| Seriously, even on a modern Pixel (mine) and iPhone
| (gf's), I'm often disappointed in the level of detail you
| find once you want to crop an image or zoom in on
| something distant/small.
|
| The software has come a long way and does incredible
| things within the limitations of such tiny lenses and
| sensors. But I've got much lower resolution images from
| point and shoot cameras in the mid/late 2000's that show
| more detail and none of the weird software sharpening
| artifacts of a 20-40+ megapixel phone pic.
| qingcharles wrote:
| My girl has an S24U and outside it is badass. Indoors,
| low light, it's really weak. We just bought a 13 year old
| Canon EOS (Rebel) and it takes much better photos inside.
| You can get some amazing bargains on old DSLRs.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| Smartphone cameras will never compete with full size optics.
|
| They can only simulate the physical properties of optics.
| Eventually we'll get to the point where they're far from
| "photos" and more AI generations that look like photos.
| its-summertime wrote:
| Comparing the output of the camera app to the RAW you can
| also get it to produce, you can already see an absurd
| amount of reconstructing taking place.
| ianburrell wrote:
| The newest iPhone and Pixels have much larger sensors than
| older phones. That is the reason for the hump on the back.
| The sensors are bigger, and better, than digital compacts.
| They are half the size of the 1" fancy compacts and with
| newer sensors might be better.
|
| The only difference with compact cameras is not having zoom
| lenses. But the telephoto and wide cameras on some models
| help make up for it.
|
| There is a big jump to interchangeable lens cameras. But
| those aren't what is popular as vintage.
| eschneider wrote:
| Not really. Different cameras, both old and new, draw
| differently. It's not a question of "good" or "bad". Sometimes
| I want a nice, sharp image, sometimes I want the scratchy,
| somewhat random image I get from a Holga.
|
| You pick the tool that gives the artistic effect you WANT.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Like walkmans! Beyond the portability - which on modern
| hardware is better in every way - the qualities were all worse
| than comparables at the time. Why anyone would want to relive
| cassettes and batteries is beyond me.
| nemomarx wrote:
| I actually got a refurbished tape deck the other day, and the
| sound is quite good. A CD would sound a little better but
| they seem to actually become unreadable faster in storage
| than tapes? very counter intuitive.
|
| I'd love a nice mp3 player set up, but it's sometimes harder
| to get those legally for music compared to a CD or even an
| old tape now! streaming has a lot of downsides in comparison
| and I think that's fueling the desire to own a full album in
| some form.
| badgersnake wrote:
| A CD is a lot better, but the discman was crap because it
| was too big and it ate batteries. Converting a CD to MP3s
| is trivial though.
| nemomarx wrote:
| yeah, and you can go the other way and fit most of an mp3
| library on one DVD or something with later CD players.
| (my car has one that can do this for instance).
|
| but ofc at that point you can use a flash drive and it's
| way easier
| xanderlewis wrote:
| It's not about being 'better'. Older tech is just more fun!
| There are more moving parts, more differences between models,
| more to enjoy repairing, maintaining, hacking, comprehending!
| Modern tech is now so mature that it's obfuscated to the point
| of being magic.
|
| I don't think it has much to do with 'ethics' at all -- at
| least not for me.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Sometimes missing features are a feature. For example, older
| stuff comes without surveillance capitalism built in.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| It is also reasonable for one human being to _fully_
| understand a piece of the "older tech". Modern stuff is
| often just a black box, even to the people designing parts of
| it because they only work on a single part.
| ranger207 wrote:
| Old stuff is harder to use and you have to put in more effort
| to get good results out of it, so the act of creation using old
| tech feels more meaningful
| asdff wrote:
| Hardly. People are talking about point and shoots here. On
| button, flash button, click, shoot. The phone paradigm is way
| more awkward. Some buttons become shutter but one still locks
| the phone. Have to tap the screen for autofocus. Have to futz
| with touch screen menus to adjust settings. On an iphone you
| straight up fight with the exposure setting that is both
| stuck in molasses and wants to reset and ignore your
| instructions. Oh and someone could blow up your phone with
| notifications in the middle of this. And having that camera
| on and screen on tanks your battery.
|
| Plenty of reasons why the new ways are worse.
| amelius wrote:
| > It's quite strange. It's still consumerism - primarily about
| ownership display, not use - but trying to pretend it isn't.
|
| Reality is strange. Like how Apple owners somehow think they
| own a product that expresses individualism and artistic freedom
| where it really is a mass-produced product that looks the same
| as everybody else's, and more so than any other brand with less
| choice, while almost every aspect of customization is heavily
| controlled by the company ...
| gr3ml1n wrote:
| As someone with more-or-less the full Apple ecosystem in my
| home: I don't think it expresses any sort of individualism or
| artistic freedom. It just all works together really well
| without any nonsense.
|
| I understand that was Apple's marketing a decade ago, but it
| doesn't really seem to be their pitch anymore.
| doubled112 wrote:
| This thread makes me miss see through coloured plastic on
| electronics.
|
| Hard to feel artistic and like an individual when
| everything is a piece of black plastic, metal and glass.
| vundercind wrote:
| Yep, don't give a shit about making a statement, just
| finally gave them a try and realized I'd been wasting my
| time with half-broken computers my whole life until then,
| rather than the 75% broken computers I could have been
| using.
|
| If someone eventually makes a non-broken computer that's in
| no way cool, I'll switch to that.
|
| [EDIT] Though nb a mostly-just-works ecosystem of devices
| and integrations is basically table stakes for a competitor
| now. _Just_ a better computer is almost useless to me, it
| needs to take just a couple clicks or taps (if any at all)
| to have it integrated with the rest of my shit. That 's
| where the time savings and utility comes in, and fiddling-
| with-electronic-crap becomes computers actually doing
| things useful for me in my life, making paying any money at
| all for the damn things _worth it_.
| LtWorf wrote:
| "What's a computer" was less than 10 years ago.
| stuaxo wrote:
| The friction that they have in their use, means you have to be
| more intentional when you use them - you put in more effort and
| it feels more special.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >The friction that they have in their use, means you have to
| be more intentional when you use them - you put in more
| effort and it feels more special.
|
| This, I knew a guy 20ish years ago that was super into vinyl
| right as the rest of us were getting into MP3, and it was a
| whole experience of dusting off the records and cleaning them
| with a soft brush and waiting for the electronics to warm up
| and such. It's like the modern equivalent of those Asian tea
| ceremonies.
| signaru wrote:
| While I gladly embrace the shift to solid state, I find the
| mechanical engineering in old electronic devices, cameras in
| particular, quite fascinating.
| casey2 wrote:
| It's not bizarre at all, if you assume a consumerist or
| marginal+consumer sovereign economy then after years of phone
| releases making cuts to whatever buzzword some group cares
| about eventually anything they buy will be worth less than
| whatever they already own, after that all it takes is someone
| pointing them to a old device.
|
| Are you just saying it's bizarre that we live in a consumerist
| economy? Or are you saying that you think we live in a
| capitalist economy with people brainwash by capitalists into a
| consumerist culture? Or are you just acting like a naive purist
| who thinks that art isn't economically motivated?
| Dig1t wrote:
| In a lot of cases, older stuff is actually better by many
| objective criteria.
|
| I love old tools, both hand tools and power tools.
|
| There are many criteria by which you could judge the older
| tools, made in the USA, Canada, or UK, and say they are
| objectively better than even the highest-end tools I could buy
| today at Home Depot.
|
| Thicker metal, designs which are more repairable with swappable
| parts, they were obviously designed to be more durable. I have
| a roofing square I use on the job site which is over 100 years
| old, and it's better than one I could buy at the store. I use a
| chop saw which was made in Japan in the 80's and it is going to
| outlast any equivalent chop saw I could buy at the store today.
| You can tell immediately by just using the thing that it is
| more durable and higher quality.
|
| Yes, older tools lack some modern improvements like lasers or
| safety stops, but when it comes to reliability and durability
| you can't buy a brand new tool with the same quality of old
| tools for any price.
|
| I don't know if the same is actually true for digicams or
| whatever, but things like record players or typewriters have
| similar qualities to what I'm talking about with tools.
| vundercind wrote:
| I've run into this with nostalgia-toys and board games.
| Modern "reprints" usually suck, even if they superficially
| look the same.
|
| Loopin' Louie? The modern one's lighter and has a weaker
| motor, even if the original was never exactly greatest-games-
| of-all-time material, the modern one's just _non-functional_.
|
| Rock 'em sock 'em robots? Weaker punches, plastic's lighter,
| new models are often smaller. They suck compared to vintage
| ones.
|
| Hell even soda bottles are kinda like this. Those things used
| to be _thick_ and you could re-use them for all kinds of
| stuff.
|
| It seems like at some point around the late '90s and early
| '00s we got a ton better at precisely optimizing plastic use
| in mass manufacturing processes, and all plastic products got
| somewhere between a little, and a lot, worse, because
| manufacturers could make them just _barely_ thick enough to
| not fall apart. Good for waste on the one hand, for
| disposable things, so that hits "reduce" at the expense of
| making "re-use" a lot worse. But also makes non-disposable
| things so shitty they become disposable (often because they
| suck so bad to begin with that you're gonna toss them out
| after one use)
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| I was very disappointed when I bought my kid a "vintage"
| Fischer Price record player. Turns out it's made in 2023 by
| a company that licensed the look. [1]
|
| Instead of winding a spring, the wind knob turns on an
| electric motor that takes batteries.
|
| Instead of playing the music with an embedded set of metal
| tines in the play head, the disk just holds and RFID and
| the player loads the mp3 file of what the original 1980s
| toy sounded like.
|
| The thing is an abomination.
|
| 1: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003CGVCXS
| jquery wrote:
| Based on the reviews, it seems a lot of purchases are
| grandparents thinking they're getting their grandkids the
| same thing they played with...
| prpl wrote:
| Before 2008 or so a 35mm SLR has higher quality photos for the
| price if you weren't taking that many photos and you could
| still process film all over, with good quality scans if you had
| the right place. When DSLRs hit 10+ MP and dropped to $700 or
| so that changed things a bit.
|
| My X100 still has better photos than my iPhone 12. I have an
| iPhone 16 Pro and I think it's better as a camera than the X100
| but I still prefer the X100 when I want a shot and I will put
| the time into it. That is 13 years old. I also have a canon S95
| and it was still more useful for photos than my iPhone 12 was.
| qingcharles wrote:
| My girl just got a 13 year old Canon DSLR and for indoors,
| low light, it's better than her Galaxy S24U.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Cameras imbue a grain onto what they shoot, both in the
| physical sense of grain in analogue cameras and the digital
| grain of the iPhone camera (The technical high quality but AI
| smearyness and color grade of modern iPhones is it's own grain)
| and that iPhone grain is now the aesthetic of almost all social
| media content so anything filmed in it has the same feeling as
| every janky social media video shot with it.
|
| If you're creating art and easy route to differentiate and not
| feel like everything else in the timeline is to use an entirely
| different "grain" and you'll stand out from the mass.
|
| It's not as simple as "old stuff better" it's more "other stuff
| feels different".
| card_zero wrote:
| Going against the grain, you say?
| munificent wrote:
| I try not to be this guy, but _actually_ your terminology is
| a little off.
|
| Film cameras have _grain_. Literally, there are tiny physical
| _grains_ of photo-sensitive material on the film. Those
| grains, which are distributed semi-randomly in a film across
| the medium determine the limit of film 's resolution and give
| it part of its organic, non-digital feel.
|
| Digital cameras have _noise_. That 's the term for randomness
| injected in a signal from the effect of physics: Brownian
| motion, heat, quantum effects on photons, etc. Noise means
| that while each pixel on the sensor is in principle
| quantizing a measurement of the real world, that measurement
| has some random error that can never be fully eliminated.
|
| A digital image recorded from a digital sensor has no grain.
| There was no film, and no grains of photosensitive media
| involved. (It might have _simulated_ grain from some "film
| effect" look applied to the image.)
|
| The distinction matters because they look different. It's one
| of the key reasons film looks like film and digital looks
| digital.
| grbrr wrote:
| It's not "old stuff is better" as much as "I'm better than
| you."
|
| For a long time, that was by having sharper, higher-quality
| pictures. Your friend had some Kodak Instamatic and you had a
| Hasselblad and you could assert your dominance over them.
|
| But nowadays, the phones in everyone's pocket take such
| outstandingly sharp pictures that there isn't really meaningful
| room for improvement. So, people now differentiate themselves
| by getting vintage digital cameras which are hard to find, cost
| extra money, break frequently, etc., so that they can
| demonstrate their uniqueness.
| gruez wrote:
| Sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersignaling
| baxtr wrote:
| It's a good old status game just with different metrics.
|
| A: Which iPhone do you have? Mine is an iPhone 13.
|
| B: I have got the 2019 iPhone 11.
|
| A: Wow. Respect! You're better than me.
| 310260 wrote:
| Of course. People are never genuine in their interest or
| preference of things. It's always about status, wealth, and
| their standing among their peers. /s
|
| God y'all need to have some hobbies.
| z0r wrote:
| When I first had got my nexus 4, my first upgrade over
| another Android phone that I can't remember, I was astonished
| by the improved fidelity of the pictures.
|
| Then after I got my next phone I looked back and saw that the
| pictures had terrible artifacts that weren't hard to find.
| Now I'm on a Pixel N after having a handful of earlier Pixels
| and I can see the shortcomings of the photos it takes (and
| all its predecessors have taken) without much difficulty.
| Just zoom into the picture a little.
|
| There's something to be said for analog.
| alistairSH wrote:
| That's probably some of it, but I recently took up film
| photography again.
|
| A few aspects of shooting film appeal to me... the imperfection
| (memories aren't perfect, the photos shouldn't be either - but
| I'm also a huge Impressionism fan, so maybe that's it). The
| delayed gratification - in a world where most things are
| "instant", waiting a few weeks+ to get results changes the way
| I mentally process the images and associated memories. And the
| higher cost per shot forces me to be a bit more planful about
| shots.
|
| Of course, that said, I get the photos scanned (not prints),
| and view them in the same apps as pure digitals. So maybe I'm
| just weird or a hipster.
|
| I did ask for a Polaroid for Christmas - full analog baby! The
| Go model is dirt cheap (for a camera), maybe it'll be great,
| maybe I'll use it a few times and stick it in a drawer.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| just go find a used Polaroid and shove some film in it. no
| need to spend money on a camera someone will probably give
| you for nearly free. That said, the instax wide is a better
| value. unless you really want the brand and square photos.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I'm looking a the Polaroid Go 2, primarily because it's the
| smallest of the bunch. And on sale for $60.
|
| I'd love an Instax wide or square, but the camera bodies
| are just too bulky (at least as big as my rangefinders or
| micro-4/3+prime). Same for vintage Polaroids, plus the need
| to use the older battery-included (and more expensive) film
| packs.
|
| And I'm aware of the limitations inherent in the current
| Polaroid chemistry and small size. It's a toy and I'm ok
| with that.
| dnel wrote:
| I saw a Youtube video recently that looked like it was filmed
| using a late 90's webcam. The presenter looked too young to have
| owned it from new so I assumed it was a lo-fi aesthetic choice
| but having suffered those cameras at the time the appeal of them
| eludes me.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| I saw a few of these posts and dug up my 5MP Sony digicam from
| ~2006. The LCD had a few artifacts, but it still worked.
| Unfortunately, the memory card was in bad shape, and it took a
| really long time to boot, making it useless as a "point-and-
| shoot". Without the card, it had enough onboard storage for 15-20
| pics.
|
| Took a few pics, couldn't see myself using it regularly with the
| terrible quality and the horrible sync story, so it was a pretty
| short experiment.
| dbcooper wrote:
| Michael Mann achieved remarkable results on Collateral and Miami
| Vice with the Sony CineAlta HDW-F900.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| That's a three-sensor camera which is quite special IMO.
| plastic3169 wrote:
| I think about this Brain Eno quote often. It's always surprising
| when old worse formats resurface, yet it happens everytime.
|
| > Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty
| about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD
| distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of
| 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as
| they can be avoided.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Absolutely. Like those terrible filters that are supposed to
| make video look like it was recorded on VHS. They always make
| the results far worse than VHS actually was in practice.
| karel-3d wrote:
| In 30 years, people will be nostalgic for TikTok.
|
| Some people might even be nostalgic for Bing. (People are
| nostalgic for Clippy after all.)
|
| In other words.... you are not nostalgic for the thing itself.
| (The thing kind of sucks.) You are nostalgic for your
| childhood.
| crazygringo wrote:
| What did he mean by CD distortion?
|
| I'm also not super clear on how digital video would have jitter
| in a way that analog video wouldn't?
|
| I totally agree with his overall sentiment, I'm just a bit
| confused on the specific examples.
| jcarrano wrote:
| I read that, at least early on, many CDs were mastered with
| inadequate dithering, resulting in audible quantization
| noise.
| jcarrano wrote:
| People are now corrupting mpeg video intentionally. They call
| it "datamoshing". And of course there is glitch art, and the
| "vhs look" filter being (over) used everywhere.
| joenot443 wrote:
| An account called Natspone plays with this idea in shortform
| vertical videos, I find it incredibly bizarre and unsettling. I
| should forewarn - you're probably not going to enjoy the style
| at all.
|
| https://www.instagram.com/p/C3HtsLXOgui/?hl=en
| lancesells wrote:
| This is brilliant
| pimlottc wrote:
| This is a big thing for early synthesizers. Many of them tried
| quite hard to accurate emulate real instruments - pianos,
| horns, strings - but inevitably failed due to limitations of
| their time. But many of them became classics in their own
| rights, to the point that later synths emulated them. And now,
| of course, you can get software versions of the same synths
| which do an incredible job of reproducing every last detail of
| a hardware instrument that did a bad job of emulating an analog
| one!
| wkjagt wrote:
| Not sure if this counts but my original Canon 5D is still my
| favorite camera. It came out in 2005 which is almost 20 years
| ago. I've tried many other cameras but always come back to my 5D.
| I don't think it's nostalgia though, it just works really well, I
| love using it and I love the results.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| I still take photos on a 5D Mark II because I don't see a big
| reason to upgrade. The photos look great and I'm familiar with
| the layout. I know there are plenty of improvements to be had
| in newer and better models, but I've managed to work around its
| flaws and still take good photos. It being old helps me feel
| comfortable taking riskier shots, too.
| gspencley wrote:
| > Today's young adults grew up in a time when their childhoods
| were documented with smartphone cameras instead of dedicated
| digital or film cameras.
|
| I get that this is a ridiculous nit-pick to kick off a comment,
| but how do they define "young adult?" Because I'm not sure that
| that statement is actually true just yet.
|
| I have two Gen Z daughters, the youngest having been born in
| 2001. Smart phones didn't really start to land on the scene until
| 2008. It then took a few years until everyone had one and the
| cameras were good enough that people were getting rid of their
| digital cameras and switching to smart phones.
|
| Granted, my daughters are several years older now than an 18
| year-old, which I would consider to be the "youngest" possible
| "young adult."
|
| Even then, an 18 year-old today was born in 2006. I suppose that
| _part_ of their childhood was likely captured on smart phones
| rather than digital cameras. But being old enough that I remember
| the 00s like it was just yesterday, and having two "young adult"
| children whose childhoods' were almost entirely documented using
| digital cameras, even having packs of old printed photos that
| were printed at the same places you would get film developed ...
| I just can't help but question the statement that today's young
| adults had their childhoods documented on smartphones. Today's
| children and young teenagers, sure. But the modern smartphone,
| with camera, actually hasn't been with us for a full generation
| quite just yet... as much as it feels like it.
| Retr0id wrote:
| The first generation iPhone will enter "adulthood" on Janury
| 9th, 2025.
| jhbadger wrote:
| "Young Adult" is a weird term -- think of the book/movie genre
| called "young adult" or "YA" -- it isn't actually literally for
| people in their twenties but for children. It's like calling
| people like me in their 50s "middle aged" -- most of us aren't
| going to make it to 100.
| gspencley wrote:
| I had considered the YA genre in fiction, which is marketed
| at teenagers. But I did a quick search for the general term
| "young adult" and Wikipedia seems to suggest that it is the
| period immediately following adolescence, which is generally
| considered to begin at 18.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_adult
|
| .. this one silly statement _really_ triggered my autism this
| morning lol.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Both terms are euphemistic for the groups they refer to.
|
| You call it young adult fiction because most teenagers would
| rather be perceived as young adults than children.
|
| You call people middle aged in their 50s because no one wants
| to be reminded that they're statistically 2/3 of the way to
| the grave.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Exactly. Kodak stopped selling film _cameras_ in 2004.
|
| Peak film sales was in _2001_!
|
| Film sales in _2006_ was the same as in _1994_ ...
|
| After 2006, the decline was drastic1.
|
| But the long tail of childhood memories stored on film and
| cheap digicams stretches _far_ into the smartphone era.
| Remember, not everyone had a smartphone or even a good way to
| transfer the images out of there. Also, smartphone cameras were
| _really_ bad in the beginning.
|
| 1: https://petapixel.com/why-kodak-died-and-fujifilm-
| thrived-a-...
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Yeah, I wondered that, too. That line might be referring to the
| handful of people whose parents were tech enthusiasts who went
| to midnight launches of the first iPhones and were born at
| roughly the same time. A very small group.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > I get that this is a ridiculous nit-pick to kick off a
| comment, but how do they define "young adult?" Because I'm not
| sure that that statement is actually true just yet.
|
| Additionally, before the explosion of digital camera sales in
| the early 00s, many childhood memories simply went unrecorded.
|
| Growing up my family had a couple film cameras that rarely got
| used. They might come out for holidays and a handful of events
| but they spent a lot of time in the closet.
|
| Even when they were used a roll of film only got two dozen
| photos that weren't cheap to develop. We'd get maybe one or two
| photos per roll that had decent focus and lighting.
|
| There's a Cambrian explosion of photos I have from my first
| digital camera onwards. There's so many events and several
| people I'd love to have pictures of today that don't exist
| because no camera was handy at the time. Today I can capture
| pretty much anything I want to remember.
| smeej wrote:
| A friend brought out a "Camp Snap"[0] camera at an event the
| other day, and the thing everybody enjoyed about it was that it
| didn't immediately bring the whole internet into our event. It
| doesn't even have a screen.
|
| I would pay good money for a digital camera that could take
| photos as well as the average flagship phone and fit as easily in
| a pocket (and I'm a woman, so I'm including sometimes pathetic
| little pockets), but they could only be tweaked and edited later,
| on a computer or companion device.
|
| I think that desire for spaces occupied only by the people in
| them, not the whole rest of the world and its opinions, explains
| even more of this trend than the aesthetic of the photos.
|
| [0] https://www.campsnapphoto.com/collections/camp-snap-
| screen-f...
| 0xf3ffff wrote:
| What you are looking for is a Ricoh GR III or IIIx [0] (same
| camera, different fixed lens focal length). It's super
| pocketable, and you can turn the screen off completely,
| although it doesn't have a viewfinder, so with the screen off
| you can't really know what you are framing - it could be fun to
| try and guess after getting the hang of it. Image quality would
| be much better even than the latest flagship phones. Finally,
| you can browse the images on the camera afterwards and
| wirelessly transmit the ones you want to edit/post to your
| phone/tablet/computer. You can also have presets for color
| filters and highlight/shadow tones, so you don't really need to
| edit in post if you prefer. It's truly a great little camera,
| and the price is not that bad (usually around $1000, but can be
| found for less, or you could go with the previous model, GR
| II).
|
| [0] https://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/english/products/gr-3/
| smeej wrote:
| There's not a chance in the world that thing fits in women's
| pants pockets!
|
| What I'm looking for has the form factor of a phone
| (potentially even much smaller) and a camera like a phone,
| but all it does is take pictures. I'm fine with seeing the
| pictures on a screen, just not editing them.
| mwambua wrote:
| If the image quality is good enough for you - you could try
| out an iPod touch.
| superultra wrote:
| My kids started asking for vintage digicams about five years ago.
| At first I wrote it off as a fad. And it is definitely partially
| that.
|
| But when my kids started taking pictures with these cameras, I
| realized that the pictures were, subjectively at least, better.
|
| We were in the Rockies and the pictures taken on their iPhones
| are sharper, more vibrant, but those photos lack perspective.
| It's not just aesthetic. The mountains feel more like massive
| objects on these older cameras than they do on modern iPhone
| cameras.
|
| Something else happens with digital cameras. My kids think more
| intentionally about the framing of the shot. They move into
| better positions. They think about light and shadows. With the
| iPhone it's click and forget. So that contributes to better
| photos too.
|
| Even with the point and click models that my kids bring to social
| gatherings, there's clearly a sense of posture and special-ness
| about the photos that changes the dynamic more than everyone
| posing for a phone selfie or photo.
|
| There are obvious limitations. My kids didn't fully understand
| why older cameras perform so poorly in darker light without the
| flash.
|
| But otherwise they really love their digital cameras. My eldest
| is studying abroad in France and it's a real treat to get a batch
| of digital camera shots of life in Paris.
|
| I now buy digital cameras in bulk and repair them slowly as a
| hobby and then resell them on eBay. It gives me a little spending
| money. I avoid the TikTok trend cameras - they're too expensive
| to buy - but I make some nice pocket money on selling the in
| between models that perform really well.
|
| And my kids get to pick their favorite models now and then.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _It's not just aesthetic. The mountains feel more like
| massive objects on these older cameras than they do on modern
| iPhone cameras._
|
| Can you post a representative mountain photo from each camera?
| I'm very curious what generates this feeling for you.
| SirFatty wrote:
| It's probably along the same line as how vinyl records
| supposedly sound better.
| superultra wrote:
| I get that you're saying this as if to point out the
| hipster-ness of vinyl. I work in the music industry and
| have personally overseen the manufacturing of 100's of
| thousands of records, so I'm as much an expert as anyone on
| this topic.
|
| Yes, vinyl is technically an inferior sound quality to
| FLACs. I'm happy to rant all day about the flaws of vinyl.
| I personally prefer high quality digital.
|
| However on a good pressing there is an undeniable
| difference to a good vinyl pressing. It's not dissimilar
| from why I said that my kids frame the shots on digital
| cameras in ways that are different using an iphone. The
| processes that surround vinyl are different (better?) than
| those we use for digital mastering. Engineers pay more
| attention to vinyl mastering than they do digital. While
| there's a lot of shitty USB turntables, even those are
| often far better than how most people listen to music
| digitally which is often on iphones and shitty laptop
| speakers. The physicality of vinyl manufacturing incurs
| requisite different attention and processes that sometimes
| (emphasis on sometimes) results in a "better" listening
| experience.
|
| Could you get the same "better" listening experience with
| lossless digital? Yes. but most don't. So vinyl is
| "better."
| tekla wrote:
| > The processes that surround vinyl are different
| (better?) than those we use for digital mastering.
| Engineers pay more attention to vinyl mastering than they
| do digital.
|
| I call BS. I know people who work in music mastering, and
| I've asked about this. They use the same digital masters
| for the digital release and for vinyl.
|
| They know people will buy vinyls if they want to no
| matter what if they want to, so it doesn't matter if the
| digital master isn't perfectly attuned to the vinyl
| medium
| superultra wrote:
| > They use the same digital masters for the digital
| release and for vinyl.
|
| With all due respect, you don't know what you're talking
| about. If the engineers you know do that, you don't know
| good engineers.
|
| edit: I can't reply to tekla's comment, so I'm editing
| here. It's frustrating on Hacker News for an expert -
| like myself, who has sat in on dozens of mastering
| sessions - to be disputed by someone who "knows some
| people." I'll clarify further. Do some engineers use the
| same mixes for vinyl as they do for digital? Sure.
| They're not good engineers. Or the customer hasn't paid
| enough (it's usually about $60-$100 per song to master
| per format). Vinyl is a drastically different medium than
| digital - of course - and any decent engineer will 100%
| mix differently and accordingly. If there are artists
| reading this and your engineer is using the same mix,
| fire them. You're paying a lot to press to vinyl so do
| the followthrough and get vinyl-specific mastering.
|
| Here's a good article from an engineer I have worked with
| many times on why mastering for vinyl is different:
|
| https://www.oregonlive.com/music/2014/11/does_vinyl_reall
| y_s...
| tekla wrote:
| /shrug. He said/she said standoff is always fun, with a
| mix of insults.
|
| People who are the type to buy vinyls will buy them no
| matter what, as long as its not obviously a bad press.
| Why would any sound engineer bother to do extra work for
| such a low volume, high chance of losing money, PITA to
| work with medium, unless they were some sort of super
| artist.
| unvs wrote:
| I'm a good engineer. I've done tons of mixes for records
| released both digitally and on vinyl or even tape. I
| never create different mixes for the formats - but I work
| with great mastering engineers and cutters who will
| create different masters for each format.
| superultra wrote:
| Thanks for commenting. I'm curious why you wouldn't
| master specifically to the format. There are so many
| nuances to vinyl with mistakes that can deeply impact
| sales when the job isn't done right.
|
| For my own part, we had to recut the lacquers on a vinyl
| release _five times_ to get it right, because the nature
| of the mix created a middling sound that bounced the
| needle around and caused intense surface sound. Once we
| solved that problem, the pressings sounded great.
|
| Obviously with cassettes the profit margin isn't there to
| justify the additional expense of mastering, and to my
| ears cassette mastering rarely sounds different than the
| digital master (maybe some slightly different leveling).
| I believe NAC actually has a mastering guide to master to
| cassettes kicking around. But...not sure anyone follows
| it.
|
| Just to be honest, I don't doubt you're a great engineer.
| But if you weren't mastering specific to format...I
| wouldn't hire you. Increasingly we've gone to vinyl-
| exclusive engineers on bigger projects, because it's so
| crucial to get the sound right at the start and poor
| vinyl mastering can cause problems months down the
| manufacturing line that are costly.
| unvs wrote:
| Are you confusing mixing and mastering, maybe? I just
| said that I don't MIX to different targets. I create the
| best mix I can, checking phase to mono every step of the
| way, then I deliver my mix to a mastering engineer who
| will create a master for digital as well as a master for
| vinyl. The vinyl master will sometimes be more
| agressively summed to mono in the bass if we're dealing
| with too much information in that registry. My point is
| you don't have to mix to different formats if your mix is
| good. Good mastering engineers and lacquer cutters will
| sort the rest for you! Maybe we just misunderstood
| eachother?
| louthy wrote:
| > I call BS. I know people who work in music mastering,
| and I've asked about this. They use the same digital
| masters for the digital release and for vinyl.
|
| Nah, they don't. There is always a vinyl master. I have
| several here from records I have released. It may well be
| made from the digital master, but vinyl needs low and
| high end roll off and mono low end bass to stop the
| needle jumping out of the grooves.
| tekla wrote:
| I know that part. I was imprecise in the words I used.
| There is a different vinyl master of course, but its
| almost always based off the digital master that is than
| modified to not fuck up on vinyl medium. The vinyl master
| has more "attention" because the vinyl is more limited,
| it has nothing to do with being "better"
| louthy wrote:
| I'm not a mastering engineer and I always send my pre-
| masters off and get a digital and vinyl master back. So,
| whether they prefer to create the vinyl master from the
| digital I wouldn't know for sure, but that would be my
| assumption, yes.
|
| I would also agree that the vinyl master wouldn't have
| more attention outside of dealing with the limitations of
| the format. Most mastering engineers are working on
| pretty tight schedules, for not much money, so it
| wouldn't make sense for them to take longer on the vinyl
| master (outside of the known limitations). There isn't
| any aspect of vinyl which is (technically) better. So,
| it's not like they can improve on the digital master.
| superultra wrote:
| > The vinyl master has more "attention" because the vinyl
| is more limited.
|
| This isn't really true from my perspective. There are a
| lot of factors as to why vinyl mastering gets more
| attention. It's harder to do right, so there's that.
| Artists will often pay far more attention to the vinyl
| master, so it's a crucial A&R issue. But there's an issue
| on digital master, we can easily (more or less) change
| the material on DSPs. It's not fun but it's possible. On
| vinyl, mistakes made on the mastering side may not even
| reveal themselves until past the test pressing stage and
| can be very costly.
|
| > its almost always based off the digital master that is
| than modified to not fuck up on vinyl medium
|
| This might be true at some levels of skillsets, I guess.
| But in my circles for at least the last ten years, the
| vinyl master is sourced from the original mix, not a
| digital master. In fact, on larger projects more
| independent labels and artists are hiring vinyl-specific
| engineers who can oversee what is a very physical process
| from mastering to lacquer cutting in one sitting. Having
| sat in an a number of sessions, there's a lot of
| attention to the ways in which the master is effecting
| the physical nature of the cut. This is actually how it
| used to be when vinyl was the imminent format, for
| reasons I've already stated (cost). In fact some vinyl
| plants had apartments for record label people to stay on
| site and oversee the vinyl mastering process.
| louthy wrote:
| Vinyl is technically worse in that the low-end and high-end
| frequencies need to be rolled off to cut. It's also
| technically worse in that it can't do low-end stereo
| without the needle jumping out of the groove.
|
| The reasons that people might prefer it (subjectively) are:
|
| * The notion that it's 'warmer' - all this means is the
| high-end frequencies have been rolled off
|
| * The subtle distortion effect you get from feedback
| through the needle. The needle, as well as picking up the
| groove, acts like a microphone for any sound nearby (i.e.
| the speakers playing the record). This then feeds back
| through the same loop, creating a subtle chorus effect
| (very subtle).
|
| I've played in enough large nightclubs with massive sound-
| systems to know that my records sound completely different
| in them. The feedback is more extreme, so the chorus effect
| is more pronounced. This often turns into bigger low end at
| higher volumes. It can also be problematic if you have a
| record that's been cut too quietly. You need to turn the
| gain up on the mixer, picking up more of the club speakers,
| eventually creating audible feedback hum.
|
| But, by having the same 'effect' on every record played,
| there then seems to be a consistency of sound from one
| record to the next. Creating something that's more 'glued'
| together.
|
| It absolutely comes across. If you know what you're
| listening for then you understand, but most people just
| feel it. It's technically distortion, but humans like
| distortion. Anything too clean is boring to the human ear.
|
| So, vinyl, is not technically better. But, it has some
| artefacts that are pleasing to the human ear. And, I
| suspect, that's what people pick up on subliminally (if
| they're not just trying to be boring hipsters).
| tivert wrote:
| > It's probably along the same line as how vinyl records
| supposedly sound better.
|
| I'm not an audiophile, but that's actually probably
| objectively true, but for non-obvious reasons that are not
| clear if you're just looking at technical specs. Digital
| music _can_ sound better, but opens up the technical
| possibility of prioritizing other things, which are in fact
| prioritized.
|
| IIRC, it was the "loudness war." Digital audio capable of a
| much wider dynamic range than vinyl, but the record
| companies _choose_ to throw most of that away in order to
| make the music sound "louder." Technical limitations of
| vinyl prevent those shenanigans (I believe the grooves
| would be too wide or something), which _forces_ the music
| to be mastered in a better way than sounds better.
| alexjplant wrote:
| Vinyl is technically lower-performance than well-designed
| digital but albums that came out in the heyday of the LP
| sound better on that medium because they were generally
| mastered with more range. Vinyl has less practical dynamic
| range than 16-bit PCM but in that era they only had
| hardware limiters which meant that your mastering engineer
| couldn't just slap Ozone or L3 on the two-track and
| brickwall it to within an inch of its life via transient
| shaping and other DSP tricks. This is also why early CD
| releases of these albums often sound quieter (and better
| with a slight turn of the volume knob) than the remasters.
| Don't get me wrong... some older releases were mastered hot
| (presumably to stand out on a jukebox in a crowded bar) but
| even Motown's best attempts can't hold a candle to the
| nihilistic tidal wave of digital crunch that is possible
| with modern pop and rock mastering.
|
| For this reason buying modern albums on vinyl doesn't make
| much sense to me besides for collectibility and
| sentimentality. I have a few hundred LPs sitting in my
| closet behind me but it's for those reasons, not because I
| have any delusions about a non-existent inherent sonic
| advantage of the medium.
| superultra wrote:
| Here are two examples:
|
| https://postimg.cc/gallery/g8kzGHB
|
| https://postimg.cc/gallery/ChSgbdd
| crazygringo wrote:
| Thanks! Which is which?
|
| Are you saying you prefer the bottom ones?
| superultra wrote:
| In the mountain photos, IMG_1187 and IMAGE 2024-12-03
| 08:31:09 are the iphone photos. I think they're fine. But
| the alternate images (which are by a Canon PowerShot S50)
| convey better the lighting of how the scene actually
| looked IRL.
| bitcurious wrote:
| The Canon shots are also more zoomed in, shot with a
| longer focal length on the lens. The obvious effect of
| focal length is zoom, but it's the change in foreground-
| background distortion that makes the photos look weird or
| good. Flat, wide lenses like the one used for the iPhone
| photo exaggerate the foreground and shrink the
| background. As you lengthen the lens you shrink the
| distortion and pretty soon you hit a point where it
| matches the distortion of your eyes' lenses. That's when
| photos look most natural.
| pdpi wrote:
| The iPhone photo of the mountain has a really nicely
| balanced dynamic range. The Canon one has blown out
| highlights where the clouds meet the peaks, and _really_
| dark shadows with almost no discernible detail. From a
| purely technical point of view, the iPhone picture is a
| "better" photo, but this serves as a perfect example of
| how "technically better" and "artistically better" are
| not the same thing.
|
| Ultimately, photography is less about the quality of the
| equipment, and more about what you do with it (cliche, I
| know), and phone cameras are pretty high quality but clip
| your wings by taking all control away from you.
|
| Your kids might benefit from an entry-level Sony a6000 or
| a6100 (the a6000 is ancient but shockingly capable) or
| equivalent, and some practice with raw processing
| software (Lightroom Classic is the default choice here,
| but Darktable is great if you don't want to give Adobe
| your money. Apple Photos is a pretty damn decent beginner
| option too).
| Suppafly wrote:
| >Your kids might benefit from an entry-level Sony a6000
| or a6100 (the a6000 is ancient but shockingly capable)
|
| That's what I hate about cameras, the 'ancient' model is
| still $450 used and ~$850 new.
| mkehrt wrote:
| Wow, I thought it was really obvious which was which,
| which I found surprising (and I guessed before I read
| this comment). The thing that gives it away is that the
| post processing means there's a uniform amount of
| illumination throughout the picture, which rally makes it
| look like an iPhone picture.
|
| I'm never going to be bale to unsee this.
| crazygringo wrote:
| The poster said they "convey better the lighting of how
| the scene actually looked IRL."
|
| I dunno... I've never seen anything like the photo of the
| mountain (IMG_6491) in real life. The reality is that our
| eyes have an extremely wide range of contrast. But in
| that photo, the clouds are blown out and all the
| immediate scenery is essentially black. In real life,
| clouds don't get blown out, and you can see everything
| around you just fine in every situation where there's a
| big blue sky above you. The iPhone photo is a _much more
| accurate_ approximation of what our eyes perceive.
|
| And the poster claims the mountains feel like more
| massive objects on the older camera. I'll respectfully
| disagree -- on the older camera, I can't judge their size
| because I can't see any of the landscape leading up to
| them for comparison. Whereas on the iPhone, I intuitively
| feel how massive they as my eye is drawn up the road, up
| the valley, up into the sky. I have full context for
| comparison.
|
| Maybe I can never unsee this either -- I appreciate the
| iPhone even more now!
| bux93 wrote:
| You should teach them to also move into better positions and
| think about light and shadows when they take phone pictures.
|
| A big difference between smartphones and cameras is the focal
| lengths. On an iphone, a 48mm focal length is considered tele,
| and the main cam is 24mm. That will surely take away the
| perspective from the Rocky mountains, if not your nose.
| davidgay wrote:
| Perspective depends on distance to subject only. Focal length
| decides framing.
|
| They get confused, because one tends to / has to adjust one's
| position to obtain the framing one wants given one's focal
| length choices...
| maurits wrote:
| > It's not just aesthetic. The mountains feel more like massive
| objects on these older cameras than they do on modern iPhone
| cameras.
|
| Might be due to a combination of sensor size, focal length on
| the older camera, and the distance to the subject.
| AlanYx wrote:
| Assuming you're not talking about lens effects (which
| definitely has a huge effect), you might be reacting to the use
| of tone mapping in iPhone photos, which tends to make things
| look "flat". There's a slider called "Brilliance" in the iPhone
| photos app that you can play around with to get a sense of how
| this type of processing tends to flatten images. I'm not sure
| how or whether it's possible to disable this in the default
| camera app.
| barnabee wrote:
| Every digital camera I've ever owned takes "better" pictures
| than my iPhone 15 Pro. The iPhone is fantastic for taking a few
| snaps to remember a trip or event, or recording an ephemeral
| "story", but when I am actually trying to take photos there's
| no comparison to my ~10 year old digital camera.
|
| It's partly about sensor size and tech., partly down the the
| limitations of tiny smartphone lenses, and partly down to
| what's added (or should that be taken away) by the
| "computational photography" software in modern smartphones.
| Spawnzer wrote:
| It's partly the ccd sensor, it's unfortunate we moved on past
| these as no modern digital camera can quite match the best of
| those color-wise imo
| davidgay wrote:
| CCD or CMOS sensors count photons. They presumably have some
| natural frequency response curve, but the actual colour
| discrimination comes from the filters (usually some flavours
| of RGB, but has been other choices too).
|
| It's those filters, and the colour reconstruction algorithms
| that change colour response, not the underlying sensor.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Every now and then I come across a picture on wikipedia that hits
| me, colour/texture wise, in a "they don't make 'em like that
| anymore" way. Usually they're old film pics (e.g.
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F-14A_VF-114_over_bu...)
| but a while ago it was this one, from a 2005 digital compact
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fittja_2007a.jpg
|
| Certainly they can have a pretty special and endearing look.
| kiririn wrote:
| The film secret sauce is usually varying temperature/hue in
| different regions/brightnesses of the image. The 2005 digital
| example exhibits this via red/magenta being excessive in the
| shadows, but falling off in brighter areas
| tekla wrote:
| One of the few times I agree with the ArsTech Comments section.
|
| If you have to write a article about how a thing is not a fad,
| its almost definitely a fad.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| They are a fad because in most cases their entire purpose is
| nostalgia, i.e. pointing at the screen and saying "OMG it's just
| like the 1990s!!!". In the recent Batman movie, soviet lenses
| from the 1950s were used. Did anyone feel a "soviet" look? A
| "1950s" look? No, they were chosen because they look unique
| jcarrano wrote:
| Tangentially related, I've been doing video art, both analog and
| digital, and there is a quality in analog video that cannot be
| replicated by digital processing (at least not yet). In addition,
| every camera and device has it's own "look", like a personality.
| In the end it is more about the artistic result that one wants to
| achieve rather than pure technical specs.
| ganzuul wrote:
| Algorithms are to Gen-Z like GMO is to Millennials.
| cies wrote:
| So fad and "artistic statement" may be quite closely related.
| Quite possibly every popular artistic statement is a fad. The
| opposite is clearly not true (some fads are silly plastic toys).
| pdpi wrote:
| Makes sense.
|
| Phone cameras are great at what they do, but are absolutely
| neutered in terms of the degree of control they afford you. If
| you want to make an artistic statement in photography, your hands
| are tied. A standalone digital camera that gives you even basic
| exposure controls is miles ahead even if technically inferior
| (older crappier sensor, worse autofocus, etc).
|
| Jumping from there straight to vintage equipment amounts to
| dumping the baby with the bathwater, but modern digital cameras
| can be quite pricey (starting at around the cost of a mobile
| phone), so vintage stuff can make sense as the budget option for
| dedicated hardware.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| You can get a lot of good deals on basic/entry-level DSLR
| cameras such as the Nikon D3500 on ebay and such.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I love stories like this because they tell me what to call the
| old things I'm trying to get rid of.
|
| Am I selling an outdated Sony Cybershot 6MP? Nope, it's a
| "vintage CCD digicam."
| sehugg wrote:
| I really like my old 2010 pictures on my Canon PowerShot, I wish
| I had shot in RAW mode. I even miss my iPhone X, the AI upscaling
| has gotten out of hand.
| lancesells wrote:
| I honestly like my photos more from my iPhone 3 than my current
| iPhone SE. The photos were blurry, noisy, and crunchy while my
| current photos are just flat and without character. It's not
| nostalgia for me, it's the photos looking too good and a bit
| plastic.
| eschneider wrote:
| Umm...I've got an old HP 1.3? MPix digital camera that I hang on
| to because, yeah, I like how it paints. The sensor acts as if it
| has a slow focal plane shutter and that combines really nicely
| with some specifics of how I take pictures to give some really
| amazing effects.
|
| Original iPhones shot in a very similar way, but over the years,
| newer versions have lost those 'faults' I like as the sensor got
| faster and 'better'.
| casey2 wrote:
| The title isn't mutually exclusive at all. I'd wager the vast
| majority of artistic movements are fads, let alone statements.
| That doesn't mean it says anything deep about reality
|
| Ask anybody why they are doing it any you won't get an answer any
| deeper than "I like the way it looks", "It's nostalgic", "I saw
| other people doing it", or even "It's trendy" and it doesn't take
| much digging to see that.
|
| Digicams are a fad and a shallow artistic statement. That's not
| to say you can't make great art with a digicam nor that switching
| to one won't make you a more mindful artist. Switching from a
| modern graphical shell to a bourne-like shell will make a non-
| programming computer user (if there is such a thing) a more
| careful programmer, but in doing so you are cutting out an entire
| space of tasks that you could be doing.
| tqi wrote:
| Yeah I don't buy it. Juicy Couture tracksuits are also trending
| right now, but I haven't seen any thinkpieces about how they're
| not a fad, but really a bold artistic statement about modernity
| and AI...
| chinathrow wrote:
| I had a Nikon Coolpix 950 in 2000 or 2001. I loved it.
|
| https://camerapedia.fandom.com/wiki/Nikon_Coolpix_950
| mrmetanoia wrote:
| This article existing strikes me as a sign its at least in some
| context a fad. If someone uses a tool, in this case vintage
| digicams i guess, to make a piece of art and the use of the tool
| comes through as part of the statement it was in that context an
| artistic statement. If they're using it to make nothing and just
| bought it because they saw someone else using it and found it
| novel, seems like they got caught in the fad.
|
| Stomping your feet and telling me why it's not a fad is very fad
| behavior.
| waltbosz wrote:
| I recently had burst of vintage digicam nostalgia.
|
| For her birthday, my daughter received a toy digital camera that
| instanly printed photos on thermal receipt paper. It's great fun,
| and the print quality has lovely B&W dithering.
|
| Her gift reminded me of my Gameboy Camera and printer. The
| printer worked by printing on thermal stickers. I bought several
| Gameboy Cameras back when they could be found in discount bins
| for 10 USD.
|
| I bought a Gameboy printer off ebay and it came with several
| rolls of tape. Still have it all in my basement.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > For her birthday, my daughter received a toy digital camera
| that instanly printed photos on thermal receipt paper.
|
| I got one of those recently. Immensely gratifying to have the
| photo printed immediately (even if all the tourists in London
| look at you funny.) Wish the camera was a little better but
| then again it's probably not worth it given you're printing
| relatively lo-res B&W dithered output...
| sans_souse wrote:
| And the entire article includes 1 .jpg image along with 4
| duplicate advertisements, yet not _one_ image showing the
| difference, retro vs new?
| taeric wrote:
| I reject the title as a false dichotomy. Fads are artistic
| statements.
| neom wrote:
| Random story: I went to the first ever digital imaging and
| technology film program to run in Canada, first cohort, 20+ years
| ago. There was one dude in our class that, in spite of the fact
| that our program didn't allow analog submissions, shot super16
| all the time for his "personal projects and art", fine. So he
| kinda bothered me a bit, but did inspire me to, for the first,
| time grade my film to look like analog. I sucked all the contrast
| out, flattened it down and split toned it heavily. Submitted it
| to class and got the top grade for it. The guy was furious and
| went to the teacher to complain I shouldn't have submitted film,
| teacher came back to me to confirm I'd just graded it to look
| like film, and then told the dude my submission was accepted and
| my grade stood, but didn't tell him I shot it digital, so the guy
| goes and submits a 16mm short for his final because he thought I
| got away with it, ha.
|
| After I graduated, I stuck to the all digital stuff and a couple
| of folks from my program and I went on to start a film company,
| and win 3 Emmy awards, over the years I was still in film I saw
| people bring various analog film things to set to try and see if
| they could somehow include it, be it some film type, some vintage
| light panel or whatever, but it was always just fad, there was a
| period of time everyone brought 35 to set just to "see if we
| could fit it in later" - it never got cut in, it was too
| difficult to match it to the digital.
|
| It was always a fad bringing film to set, but those that did, I
| always admired they wanted to make that statement, no matter how
| foolish they seemed to many on set, I always appreciated the art
| they brought to the table.
|
| I recently bought a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P5 with a broken back
| screen, honestly I've had so much fun with it, I went out with my
| wife this last weekend, left the phone at home and brought the
| Sony, had a blast looking at the frames when I got home, do
| recommend it.
|
| Sorry for this random ass post, just this is my fav kinda HN
| content :D
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| 20 years ago HBO made the tv show Rome. They filmed it on
| analog film. I've recently been watching it for the first time
| and it's absolutely amazing how well it looks compared to shows
| shot on digital from the same time. It looks good even compared
| to modern cinema and because it's film they could do 4k
| captures.
|
| For a recent movie, Strange Darling was filmed in analog. Great
| movie and looks unparalleled.
|
| Dune was filmed on digital, transferred to analog, and the
| scanned back to digital for distribution.
|
| I guess my point is, that there is some magic in analog.
| Whether the inherent limitations of the form, or by introduced
| randomness of the chemical process, or by placebo assumption of
| "realness".
|
| We live in an age of Netflix enforcing all shows to look
| exactly the same and even adding de-aging filters to actors.
| The gulf between the perceived reality of analog film and
| digital has never been larger. So yeah, analog excites me.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| Random idea about "the look". Doing an analog transfer might
| kill the gradation banding that digital images suffer from,
| especially those that have gone through lossy or low bit
| depth edits to brightness values in large flat color areas
| like sky. Analog transfer may add dithering to the bands to
| make them look more natural.
| bastloing wrote:
| Nice! I've got a whole basement full of computer stuff from the
| late 1970s until a few years ago, probably time to put some of
| that stuff up on eBay!
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I hit up a 100gecs concert awhile ago and there were a non
| trivial amount of people snapping photos with a nintendo 3DS.
| These pics are stereoscopic 3d so they can only really be viewed
| on a 3ds unless you want to cross your eyes or have access to one
| of those vintage picture holder thingies. The sensor in them is
| also not very great but it is what it is.
|
| The gecs as a music act is a weird cross between extremely
| scuffed and extremely glossy, so the 3DS is somehow the perfect
| way to capture it imo.
| tdeck wrote:
| Was "digicams" a word people regularly said in the 2000s and I
| just somehow didn't notice? I only remember these being called
| cameras or, when necessary, digital cameras.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| People love fancy names when getting scammed ;)
| qingcharles wrote:
| This is a great resource I check every day:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageDigitalCameras/
| munificent wrote:
| "Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about
| a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the
| jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of
| these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be
| avoided. It's the sound of failure: so much modern art is the
| sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its
| limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the
| sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it.
| The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an
| emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The
| excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is
| the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium
| assigned to record them."
|
| - Brian Eno
| devindotcom wrote:
| Eno never misses does he?
| thanatos519 wrote:
| I have a pile of Nikon CoolPix 950 (1999) mostly cheap from eBay,
| along with tele, wide, 183deg fisheye lenses, and IR filters. It
| started with a pro photo friend who had upgraded and I went for
| the complete set.
|
| 1600x1200 pixels is plenty! The CMYG CCD matrix gives incredible
| fidelity of green. With the IR bandpass filters, I get saturated
| two-tone IR: Leaves reflect IR that passes the C+G filters and
| water transmits IR that passes the M+Y filters, so I get foliage
| in ice cyan and water in wine red colour.
|
| It can see your eyes through your sunglasses, but not through
| your cornea.
|
| It's a joyful thing from end to end!
| ttepasse wrote:
| It seems Lomography is back. Again.
|
| Back in the 90s some artists discovered the LOMO LC-A (Lomo
| Kompakt Automat), a soviet era cheap film camera which they used
| for self-expression. The distortions of the cheap camera were the
| preferred feature. And for a time a lomography movement started,
| with a focus on spontan snapshots.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_camera#Lomography
|
| https://aboutphotography.blog/blog/history-of-lomography
|
| The echoes of Lomography then found themselves in the very early
| German/Austrian blogosphere - Lomographic snapshots, then with
| digicams, were often seen in blogs of the early 2000s. There were
| even group weblogs, some of which are even going 20 years on:
|
| https://lomo.blogger.de
|
| https://mks.antville.org
|
| In my opinion the very early artistic filters with whom Instagram
| started - long before Kardashian culture - must have been
| influenced by cheap film or digital cameras and tried to
| replicate those effects with smartphone cameras:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram#/media/File:Instagra...
| tolerance wrote:
| Photography is among the lower forms (if not the lowest) of
| artistic expression on account of how it captures the
| "exactitude" of a subject's matter. It's no surprise to me that
| people are shunning high quality images and embracing the
| imperfections of older devices to capture a semblance of the
| quirks and personalities that make humans who they are and
| consequently what makes "Art" art.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Ha!
|
| I asked my wife to buy me a new Polaroid for Christmas. And
| bought two 35mm film cameras in the last year.
|
| I got "tired" of the perfect reproduction offered by my digital
| cameras. Along with the less-perfect reproduction, the delayed
| gratification and higher cost/shot has brought some pleasure back
| to taking photos. Even the shots that look straight out of a
| late-80s family photo album bring me more joy than pixel-perfect
| shots.
|
| FWIW, I'm 48, so grew up using mostly 35mm disposables or cheap
| P&S. By the time I was post-college, it was early digital P&Ss
| and an early Canon Rebel.
| nbk_2000 wrote:
| Back when I was shooting on film, various "Toy Cameras" came in
| and out of vogue. I enjoyed the subtleties of the Lomos and
| Dianas, so when digital cameras became mainstream, I kept a
| lookout for similarly quirky DCs. My favorite was the JamCam
| (640x480) which was fun for awhile. But soon realized, the same
| quirkiness could easily be achieved with digital filters applied
| to photos from cameras that were more enjoyable to work with.
| That's about when my interest in toy digital cameras died. But I
| have to admit, do miss the 9v consumer battery of the JamCam :P
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