[HN Gopher] Contradictions in photography advice
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Contradictions in photography advice
        
       Author : Breadmaker
       Score  : 52 points
       Date   : 2024-11-30 21:36 UTC (6 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (medium.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
        
       | Breadmaker wrote:
       | The third law of photodynamics: For every piece of loudly-spoken
       | advice, there is a piece of equal and opposite counter-advice.
        
         | steveBK123 wrote:
         | As in all art - the rules are made to be broken
        
         | HelloUsername wrote:
         | Why repeat something that's exactly mentioned in the very
         | opening of the article?
        
       | Salmonfisher11 wrote:
       | I'm a surf photographer and rely on my camera automatics a lot.
       | They are allowed to move freely within defined limits.
       | 
       | 99% of my pictures are technically fine.
       | 
       | I only use full manual if the picture job needs it.
       | 
       | Most of the time setting the aperture is enough (and the camera
       | allows to set the exposure time and ISO automatically, but set
       | limits which to automatics is not allowed to cross). On the other
       | side action/sport photography is mostly shutter time bound - then
       | the other side around.
        
       | brudgers wrote:
       | Related, Tom Sachs _Paradox Bullets_
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Evrm03Y5hI
        
       | FollowingTheDao wrote:
       | I always crop, but always and only 8x10. Why? Because I saw the
       | results from my past clients. There is something about that
       | ration, whether it is genetic or historical, that makes people
       | feel more drawn to my photographs.
       | 
       | And I agree with all of his points. Modern cameras have made
       | people focus more on the technical and less on the art. I sold a
       | photograph I took with a point and shoot Canon A series for $150
       | multiple times.
        
         | vouaobrasil wrote:
         | > Modern cameras have made people focus more on the technical
         | and less on the art.
         | 
         | It's not modern cameras that have done that. It's the fact that
         | technology reduces the relevance of human experience, so that
         | the only way for people to feel a sense of relating is by
         | talking about gear, and that sense is superficial indeed.
        
         | ir77 wrote:
         | that's not cropping, that's resizing -- you're resizing the
         | aspect ratio of your image from its natural dimensions to 8x10.
         | cropping would be if you cropped your image to only show 10% of
         | that image...
        
           | FollowingTheDao wrote:
           | No, it is cropping. Because I lose some of the image by
           | cropping it to 8x10. If I resized it it would look distorted.
        
       | ben7799 wrote:
       | Lots of bad photographers can't seem to figure out photography is
       | art. All the rules get in the way of them understanding that. I
       | do wonder if photography attracts people who were never
       | interested in other art forms. Certainly the best photographers
       | have an artists mindset.
        
         | sharkjacobs wrote:
         | The dilettante who cares more about the equipment than the work
         | is a well worn cliche, but on the other hand lots of "real"
         | painters love the smell of paint.
         | 
         | Lots of photographers, good and bad, like how finicky and
         | mechanical cameras are.
        
           | ben7799 wrote:
           | It's not really that different from a musical instrument. The
           | camera might be finicky but you need to get to the point
           | you're not focusing on the camera and it just becomes a tool
           | that is there. The way digital photography has turned into a
           | measuring contest where everyone is always getting the newest
           | gear doesn't help with that.
        
       | matja wrote:
       | > RAW vs JPG
       | 
       | Most cameras have an option to save both the raw (which depends
       | on the camera make, probably .dng/.cr2/.nef) and also a JPEG
       | using automatic white-balance and exposure options, so you can
       | have the best of both worlds of a quick workflow (using just the
       | JPEGs) or tweaking exposure/balance/tone in 12/14 bpp.
        
         | kkapelon wrote:
         | At least in beginner cameras, this makes shooting really slow
         | and can become problematic for burst photo sessions
         | 
         | Also I believe some mobile phones can do exactly the same
         | thing.
        
         | blitzar wrote:
         | I would also add that modern cameras can be incredibly
         | opinionated about how they process photos. At times they can
         | make reasonable choices and at times poor choices all with
         | varying consequences.
        
           | alistairSH wrote:
           | My consumer grade Olympus bodies allow heavy tweaking of the
           | JPG profiles - color and intensity curves, etc (not just
           | selecting from the 10+ art filters). Pretty sure Fuji does
           | the same. IE, anybody who's willing to dig into editing RAWs
           | can also drill into the camera's settings and tweak the JPG
           | output.
           | 
           | RAW is still more powerful, but if you don't want to spend
           | time in post, there are usually ways to get JPG output that's
           | closer to what you want.
        
         | ghaff wrote:
         | If you import into something like Lightroom and, given the
         | price of modern storage, it generally makes sense (for me) to
         | mostly shoot raw. Pretty much the only time I'll shoot both is
         | if I (rarely) may need to hand off the JPEGs to someone in
         | real-time.
        
       | vouaobrasil wrote:
       | As a professional photographer, I'll say that a lot of these are
       | just overhashed and oversimplified arguments that most
       | photographers don't consider or even think about, with the
       | possible exception that high ISO causes noise.
        
         | ano-ther wrote:
         | Agree. Mostly, the "rules" help a beginner to understand the
         | levers they can pull to get the intended effect. Then they can
         | experiment and develop the artistic taste & technical
         | experience so they can choose what to apply.
         | 
         | But they shouldn't be seen as dogma. (Well, unless you do it on
         | purpose: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95 )
        
         | kqr wrote:
         | Sure, high ISO causes noise, but what's the alternative? Both
         | longer shutter times and larger apertures cause blurriness,
         | which is worse! People are way too scared of noise.
         | 
         | Having had to push 400 ISO film to 3200 during development, I'm
         | super impressed by how little noise modern sensors produce.
         | Sure, colour noise looks awful but it's also really easy to
         | remove because humans are not really sensitive to high-
         | frequency components of chroma anyway.
        
           | ghaff wrote:
           | Yep. The fact that I can casually "push" to 1600 or 3200 ISO
           | at a poorly lit conference or other setting is fantastic.
           | When I was in college, shooting at 1600 in a poorly-lit
           | lecture hall or sports arena was about as far as I could
           | reasonably go even playing games with development chemistry.
           | (Could go somewhat higher but the results were generally
           | pretty poor.)
           | 
           | High ISO even for relatively small sensors is an often
           | overlooked benefit from digital photography. I got a lot of
           | pleasure out of my many hours in a darkroom but I wouldn't go
           | back.
        
       | jasode wrote:
       | _> To Crop Or Not To Crop? Point: Never crop. Cropping is
       | cheating. Get it right in camera. Zoom with your feet. If you
       | have to crop later, that only means you blew the composition.
       | Counterpoint: It's almost impossible to "get it right" in camera
       | every time -- the real world gets in the way. That pelican on a
       | piling out in the harbor and you're only sporting the one prime?
       | Zooming with your feet isn't an option, so it's all about the
       | perfect crop in post._
       | 
       | That point-vs-counterpoint is leaving out a critical difference
       | between cropping vs zoom-with-your-feet: _the geometric relation
       | between the foreground and background objects will change_.
       | 
       | Cropping is more comparable to a post-processing version of "zoom
       | magnification" at the expense of pixel resolution. Or flipped
       | around, zoom lenses can be thought of as in-camera "cropping"
       | with max pixel resolution but at the expense of crop boundaries
       | being irreversible. The geometric relations between objects are
       | still the same if your feet don't move in both cases. (Edit add
       | for clarity: zoom and telephoto prime lenses are the same for
       | purposes of "in-camera cropping" being compared to zooming-with-
       | feet.)
       | 
       | Zooming with the feet alters how the background looks in relation
       | to the foreground subject -- which may not be your artistic
       | intention. Examples:
       | 
       | https://www.slrlounge.com/glossary/compression-definition-ph...
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_zoom
       | 
       | In other words, "zoom with your feet" may get you the _wrong
       | composition_.
        
         | francasso wrote:
         | Why are zoom lenses 'in-camera "cropping" with max pixel
         | resolution'? They should zoom physically the same way a prime
         | would, just with a less optimal optic structure, no?
         | 
         | I mean the perspective projection you get from a 70-120 zoom at
         | 90mm should be the same as the one from a 90mm prime
        
           | patrickthebold wrote:
           | Not gp, but as an example of what they mean: take a photo at
           | 70mm then at 120mm. You can crop the first photo to be have
           | the same composition as the second, but the resolution will
           | be lower.
        
           | lalaithion wrote:
           | A 70-120 zoom at 90, a 90mm prime, and a 70mm prime cropped
           | in to the same field of view should produce the same
           | perspective projection. Try it sometime - take two photos
           | from the same spot, one at 70 and one at 100 and then crop
           | the 70 to the same field of view as the 100. It won't be
           | perfectly identical but those differences are due to lens
           | imperfections, not something fundamental.
        
         | archerx wrote:
         | Zooming in with the lens will also change the background
         | because by zooming in your are changing the focal length. Also
         | there is the lens distortion to consider as well. A portrait
         | taken at 28mm will look very different than one taken at 150mm
         | no matter what you do.
        
           | ChadNauseam wrote:
           | How does the focal length affect the background? Are you
           | referring to the focal length's relationship to the depth of
           | field? Because otherwise, I guess that the effect you're
           | referring to ("A portrait taken at 28mm will look very
           | different than one taken at 150mm no matter what you do.") is
           | an artifact of the same thing the GP comment talked about,
           | which is the effect of the distance between the camera and
           | the subject.
        
             | formerphotoj wrote:
             | Wide vs. tele foreground/background lens distortion, not
             | just the field of view (framing). Some call this choice of
             | lens "lensing" and as noted, the distortion of a 28mm wide
             | vs 200mm tele are part of their physical design, optical
             | "laws" being what they are.
        
           | formerly_proven wrote:
           | GP had it exactly right, perspective distortion ONLY depends
           | on the distance between objects to the camera (entrance
           | pupil). The focal length literally does not matter at all.
           | 
           | (This is an interesting point of contention, because
           | conventional wisdom up until a few years ago was exactly what
           | you said, and relaying what GP said got you tarred and
           | feathered as an imbecile in the usual "photog forums". It's
           | also one of these things which were never in doubt at all,
           | and are very easy to check for yourself.)
        
           | nayuki wrote:
           | Wrong. Zooming optically can have the same effect as
           | digitally cropping a photo. Here's a video explainer:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AmA_Tv6V1k
        
         | kvmet wrote:
         | Totally right. I shoot almost exclusively with a 50mm prime and
         | make heavy use of cropping. I get to carry a very light, small,
         | and FAST lens that works in many different situations without
         | needing a flash. Modern cameras have such high resolution that
         | the output still has good quality even after significant
         | cropping.
         | 
         | There are some situations where "zooming with your feet" is the
         | right answer and others where it is impossible. Try everything.
        
           | formerphotoj wrote:
           | Try everything...to make the shot your "own." Yep.
        
         | mahoho wrote:
         | The first time I ever went out with a zoom lens after starting
         | with just a 50mm prime, the amount of creative power and
         | freedom I felt really opened my eyes. Without having to worry
         | about focal length you can actually compose with the naked eye
         | and walk around til you get everything in the right position,
         | then zoom in to get the framing right.
         | 
         | Zoom With Your Feet and other photography minimalist cliches
         | seem to me kind of mystifying, and more interested in a kind of
         | romantic vision of photography than in technical excellence
        
           | formerphotoj wrote:
           | Agreed, but would you think it to be good advice for
           | beginners? One of those "learn the rules to break the rules"
           | kind of rules?
        
         | Melatonic wrote:
         | Zooming with your feet and zooming with a lens will give you
         | quite different results regarding "geometric relations between
         | objects". The word you are looking for here is "Parallax" :-)
         | 
         | Cropping in post is identical to digital zoom and will not
         | change parallax and of course reduce resolution (which neither
         | of the above will do)
         | 
         | All three give quite different results and of course are viable
         | methods depending on what your intended outcome is
        
         | tshaddox wrote:
         | Every fixed lens and sensor configuration has some "level of
         | zoom" (better terms would be "focal length" or "angle of
         | view"). There's not some "natural zoom," unless the author
         | wants to prescribe his favorite configuration as the privileged
         | one.
        
       | dave333 wrote:
       | Rather than contradictions think of photography patterns like
       | design patterns.
        
       | justlikereddit wrote:
       | Having a hobby which is pretty much "trying every hobby to find
       | the right one" I've been doing multiple variants of photography.
       | Drawn and painted art. Some quickly aborted starts at creative
       | writing. A half decade shattershot effort at solo
       | gamedev(involving a branching multi-artistic art-sound-code-
       | design efforts) and several other probing efforts.
       | 
       | I thus could consider myself as an experienced advice-reader and
       | advice-evaluator.
       | 
       | My conclusion is that everyone is addicted to bullshit advice
       | that signals about discipline and purity. If you want to get into
       | anything the best approach is to stop reading generalist advice.
       | Either probe it in a spotwise creative fashion on your own or do
       | follow-along practical work flow tutorials. Advice for overall
       | approaches and strategy is a waste of time at best or actively
       | harmful and will undermine your enjoyment
        
       | hengheng wrote:
       | A lot of this is not photography advice, because it's not about
       | what print you put on your wall eventually. This is mostly
       | learning advice, eg which path promises the quicker way towards
       | improvement for somebody starting out.
       | 
       | And as with most learning advice, both sides of each argument are
       | great advice. As somebody who is learning a craft, throw a coin
       | and re-evaluate every once in a while.
       | 
       | Using primes or zooms? Using vanilla VSCode vs a highly
       | customized environment? Putting every picture through a raw
       | converter with split toning vs taking candid snapshots? Using
       | copilot vs typing everything yourself? Flash vs natural light?
       | Microservices vs monolith?
       | 
       | All answers are right answers. The whole point is that not
       | knowing an answer to each means that the photographer should
       | explore the topic until they have formed an opinion. No matter
       | how, and no matter where their opinion ends up on.
       | 
       | And naturally, online places tend to attract people of equal
       | experience who discuss each of those topics, without realizing
       | that they're all just taking part in the same learning
       | experience.
        
         | turnsout wrote:
         | Exactly. Both programming and photography seem to attract
         | technicians who want to believe there is a "right" way. Fast
         | forward 20 or 30 years, and anyone still practicing has given
         | up on absolutes and false dichotomies.
        
           | formerphotoj wrote:
           | 100%
        
         | formerphotoj wrote:
         | 100%
        
       | internet_points wrote:
       | my mom thought all photos had to be taken with us kids squinting
       | into the blinding sun (her with the sun in her back) in order to
       | get enough light for the camera
        
         | ir77 wrote:
         | i don't know how old you/your moms are, but chances are that
         | even if you're younger your moms' mom probably did that because
         | she was taking pictures with something like kodachrome 64 than
         | unless you're in the sun it ended up having 0 shadow detail. so
         | it was better to have a least a squinting picture of a kid than
         | have half their face be complete darkness.
        
         | alistairSH wrote:
         | Depending on the camera and film she had, she might not have
         | been totally wrong. Or, at minimum, this likely allowed a
         | higher "keep" rate for shots without futzing about with the ISO
         | setting, exposure compensation, or anything else (which might
         | not have been available if she was using a basic P&S).
        
       | glitchc wrote:
       | I've been a photographer for years and it's the first time I've
       | heard most of these. Crop vs no-crop, who debates that? Raw vs
       | jpg? DSLRs allow you to store both simultaneously.
       | 
       | As for lenses, it all depends on what works for you. A zoom used
       | to be my go-to for the longest time, but nowadays I much prefer
       | the prime (a Sigma DG Art). It also depends on what you're taking
       | photos of. Shoot a lot of wildlife and a zoom is your best
       | friend. Shoot a lot of architecture and a prime with excellent
       | distortion correction is far better than most zooms. I just
       | happen to shoot more architecture nowadays, so the prime is what
       | I pack. It's all about using the right tool for the subject.
        
       | snowwrestler wrote:
       | The biggest contradiction to consider is that the photographer
       | has an emotional context from when they took the photo, that a
       | random viewer does not.
       | 
       | This is at the heart of why so many people overestimate the
       | impact of their photos. They remember being at the Tetons, awake
       | cold and alive at dawn, taking the picture (for example). Or they
       | remember a particular photo session with a model, perhaps someone
       | they knew.
       | 
       | The photographer remembers the moment. But the viewer gets _only_
       | what is inside the frame of the image.
       | 
       | The crucial thing is that it is totally OK to take pictures for
       | yourself! You don't need to blow some random person's mind in
       | order to truly enjoy photography. I think sometimes that gets
       | lost, especially with beginners.
       | 
       | Often people are inspired to take up photography because they
       | loved some images they saw. But delivering that impact to a broad
       | audience is super hard to do. It requires a far more analytical
       | and self-critical approach than most people want to sustain in a
       | hobby.
        
         | munificent wrote:
         | I'm glad this is the top comment because it's also the deepest
         | insight I've had in my 20+ years of doing photography.
         | 
         | So much of the art and challenge of photography is about
         | creating a single flat rectangular image that somehow conveys
         | the sense of depth, presence, time, and emotional impact that
         | the photographer had while _being there_ in that actual moment
         | in time and space.
         | 
         | A good photo must be _super-real_ in some sense because the act
         | of reducing an entire lived in experience in 4D space-time down
         | to a single flat image discards so much information. It
         | requires just the right subject, framing, composition, light,
         | color, everything so that even after so much is lost, what 's
         | left is sufficient for the viewer to fill it back in.
         | 
         | Photography is to experiencing the world as poetry is to prose.
        
         | formerphotoj wrote:
         | Yes! And if you're trying to please the masses, you risk losing
         | that inspiration if your own vision is not as "mainstream."
         | This may seem minor, but I can tell you from teaching many
         | students that there is a bit of youthful self-identity at work
         | when picking up a camera, and that finding one's vision can be
         | fraught by the desire to receive affirmation for the photos one
         | worked so hard to capture (but that the viewer does not
         | see/feel/appreciate).
        
         | shagie wrote:
         | In my own philosophy of photography, I've got a generalized
         | (and admittedly overly simplified model) of:
         | For me / For others         Memories / Emotions
         | 
         | There are photographs that I take that are "memories for me" -
         | things that I want to remember but are otherwise rather meh for
         | other people. There's also photojournalism which is much more
         | on the memories for others quadrant.
         | 
         | Likewise, the are photographs that are emotions for me... and
         | the sellable ones are emotions for others.
         | 
         | All of those are perfectly acceptable photographs. It's a
         | matter of what expectations there are for me when showing them
         | to others. And likewise, there are photographs that other
         | people other people take for memories for themselves that I
         | hope don't disappoint them when they show them to me and its a
         | "its ok" as the response when it was a memory that they want to
         | maintain. Someone else's wedding photograph isn't something
         | that is particularly interesting to me as a photograph.
        
         | Andys wrote:
         | That is the art of photography: the challenge of capturing the
         | emotional context in a way that conveys it to a random viewer,
         | drawing on common elements of culture, nostalgia, etc.
        
       | ir77 wrote:
       | this is like a rambling of a mad man, it reminds me of the many,
       | many posts on any XXX photo gear forum where majority of the time
       | people will dedicate their time arguing about edge sharpness
       | performance of lenses or pixel peeping and only a small portion
       | of the forum is dedicated to actual pictures, and when you see
       | those pictures you quickly close out of the forum because 99% are
       | visually just not interesting.
       | 
       | use the auto mode and don't worry about it. if you acutally want
       | to have some control then learn the relationship between shutter
       | speed, aperture and ISO. I learned this very long time ago
       | through a Sunny 16 rule on my Leica M6 and outdoors during the
       | day that rule works just fine with today's digital cameras that
       | have 8+ stops of dynamic range anyways.
       | 
       | otherwise photography is about in interesting picture. unless you
       | crop it so much that it's so pixilated that it hurts your eyes no
       | one will scrutinize it or chastise the photographer that they
       | took it with a tripod or cropped it and this article is just a
       | gigantic self serving vent that really doesn't give anyone any
       | better advice on photos.
       | 
       | here's an example of acceptable cropping of a very iconic image:
       | https://i.redd.it/6lpvu9dzkv111.jpg
        
       | Finnucane wrote:
       | I'm old enough to remember that the preference for prime lenses
       | over zoom was because early zoom lenses were crap. Even now,
       | (mumble) decades later, intellectually knowing that thanks to
       | improvements in glass and cadcam manufacturing techniques,
       | today's zooms are much better than what I grew up with, I still
       | don't use them.
       | 
       | And I've been listening to the whole crop-no crop thing most of
       | my life too. BUt ECB didn't crop! people say (though he sometimes
       | did). I try to shoot to get it 'in camera' as close as I can to
       | what I want, but as the article says, sometimes you just can't.
       | You still get to choose what your final image is going to be. And
       | that's the thing about 'rules' and 'advice'--they're just some
       | guidelines, things to think about, but they're highly contextual,
       | depending on the situation.
        
       | snozolli wrote:
       | _"Zoom with your feet!"_
       | 
       | Nothing in photography annoys me more than advice conflating
       | zooming with repositioning the camera. A wide angle lens up close
       | gives a _completely_ different result than a zoom lens from far
       | away.
       | 
       | I've been seeing this awful sentiment for nearly two decades now.
       | 
       | Here's my advice: try everything and try to capture whatever
       | feeling you had in the moment. If you convey the feeling, you've
       | succeeded.
        
         | alistairSH wrote:
         | "Zoom with your feet" is usually related to cropping (and
         | enlarging/zooming) in post.
         | 
         | Say you have a 50mm prime and want a photo of a car that's
         | parked down the street.
         | 
         | Do you... A) take the shot from where you are and crop/zoom in
         | post OR B) walk a block and get the shot composed correctly
         | from the start?
        
       | pizza234 wrote:
       | > Photography is an art form and that means you get to do
       | whatever you want. Edit freely [...]
       | 
       | This has made me lose faith and interest in (most of)
       | photography. While I can't speak for the past, modern photography
       | often feels dishonest to me. Many photographers heavily retouch
       | their images, yet allow viewers to believe that the final result
       | reflects reality.
       | 
       | It would be more honest if photographers acknowledged that their
       | published work is a creative interpretation rather than a direct
       | representation of reality. But of course, admitting this would
       | diminish the "wow" factor.
        
         | mannyv wrote:
         | Every photograph lies. The art is in making it the lie you want
         | others to see.
        
         | nayuki wrote:
         | > more honest if photographers acknowledged that their
         | published work is a creative interpretation rather than a
         | direct representation of reality
         | 
         | My high school English teacher said this on the first day: All
         | media are constructions.
        
         | foldr wrote:
         | Most retouching techniques used in modern digital photography
         | were also practiced in darkrooms.
         | 
         | For a famous example of this, take Ansel Adam's _Moonrise over
         | Hernandez_. A straight contact print looks like this:
         | https://i0.wp.com/www.haroldhallphotography.com/wp-content/u...
         | 
         | The final image looks like this:
         | https://i0.wp.com/www.haroldhallphotography.com/wp-content/u...
         | 
         | https://www.haroldhallphotography.com/ansel-adams-and-group-...
        
       | nachox999 wrote:
       | Almost all "advice" is ultimately an artistic decision: It's an
       | arbitrary rule that each photographer can change.
       | 
       | However, there are rules that DO help improve the quality of
       | photos, especially if you're a beginner. Then, to move beyond
       | being a beginner, it's good to know how to break the rules (as
       | with any art or discipline).
        
       | grouchomarx wrote:
       | working pro for more than a decade now, maybe some off this was
       | relevant very early on but it's really just all web forum gear
       | chatter. What people miss is that a photographer's job isn't
       | using a camera or lamenting settings, it's lighting. Done
       | artificially or by modifying what's available, you have to master
       | both. The camera is incidental and what he's describing his just
       | picture taking. If you're interested in photography it's more
       | useful to take a studio lighting course and learn about fixtures
       | and modifiers than worrying about iso.
        
         | kmoser wrote:
         | > If you're interested in photography it's more useful to take
         | a studio lighting course and learn about fixtures and modifiers
         | than worrying about iso.
         | 
         | When you do primarily street photography, and you have almost
         | no ability to change the light, knowledge of studio lighting is
         | all but useless.
        
       | tristor wrote:
       | I've been doing photography as a hobby since I was a kid,
       | learning from my dad who also did photography as a hobby. We've
       | both won numerous awards, although I have not won as many as my
       | dad, and none of them are particularly prestigious (mostly local
       | / regional contests, often tied into a fair)
       | 
       | Pretty much all of the stuff being discussed here is meaningless,
       | although a table stakes that every person should learn. The most
       | important thing in photography is learning about light and
       | lighting, how light works, how the camera interacts with light,
       | and how to capture and harness light. Every single thing you see
       | with your eyes, and every single thing you capture with your
       | camera is just a reflection of light off your subject and the
       | subject's surroundings. If you don't understand light, you cannot
       | formulate a composition, and if you can't formulate a composition
       | it doesn't matter what settings you use on the camera, it's not
       | going to be a good photo.
       | 
       | I love the technical aspects of cameras, both film and digital,
       | and I delve very deeply into that myself out of my enjoyment of
       | these aspects, but they're really ultimately not important to the
       | actual art of photography and taking good photos. They're just
       | tools. What matters most is composition. I see a lot of great
       | photos online that are taken with smartphones, and there is
       | nothing wrong with that. I have complicated gear because I enjoy
       | futzing with complicated gear and some of the things I do
       | visually are not possible (easily) with a phone, but for the most
       | part these days I take most of my photos with a phone and some
       | have even been printed and hung in galleries.
       | 
       | There's no reason to worry about any of the meaningless things
       | this article talks about until you understand light, composition,
       | and have figured out what you want to say with that photo. Keep
       | in mind your phone, and any camera you can buy today has more
       | digital resolution than any of the professional grade digital
       | gear available just a decade ago, and in some cases more digital
       | resolution than was available on 35mm film. Even with the revival
       | of film today, you get more stops of dynamic range on a current-
       | generation professional mirrorless camera than you can get on
       | 35mm film.
       | 
       | These technical details basically have ceased to matter within
       | the last 3-5 years, all that matters is composition,
       | storytelling, and lighting.
        
       | raphting wrote:
       | It's a nice comparison of advice that I was pondering with when I
       | started photography. As an advice I'd like to give about the
       | comparison: stick to one of each options for a series of
       | pictures. Do not change these principles too often.
       | 
       | It pays off to develop an intuition about whichever option you
       | choose.
       | 
       | Just personally, I try to limit my max ISO, I do crop pictures,
       | but I do not alter them. Fujifilm has awesome color grading, so I
       | only need JPG. I love my prime lenses and I don't wanna use zoom
       | anytime soon. And all these things were different 5 years ago.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-12-06 23:01 UTC)