Everything Matters. It's All About The "Small Details" by Mark Dubovoy Jan 2012

[david_duffin]

My kudos to Mark for this article!  Why so many are attacking his presentation with such vengeance is beyond me.

There may be some hyperbole involved -- he may have a tendency to present personal opinions as gospel -- but I see this merely as a matter of style and an aid to get his point across effectively and with clarity.  Works well for me.

Overall, I found the essay to be wonderful food for thought.

[Isaac]

Why so many are attacking his presentation with such vengeance is beyond me. ... a matter of style and an aid to get his point across effectively and with clarity.

When the argument's premises rest on hyperbole and personal opinion there's good cause to doubt the argument's conclusion.

[david_duffin]

LOL -- personal opinion is what the best writing is all about.

It could be that the article needs a modicum of white balance applied, but one cannot say that it has insufficient contrast.

[Photo Op]

The OP seems to be a photographic 1%er, no disrespect intended. When he wrote-

".......because there are lots of self proclaimed "experts" that are, in reality, far from being true experts and do not understand either the craft or the science beyond a very cursory lay person superficial level......"

I understood I as the "lay person" was going to be lectured by the "expert" who understood the craft and science of photography.

Nice photos,

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

While I want high quality also, in the end the emotional impact of photographic images is what is most important to me personally. Eleanor

Thank you, Eleanor.

Your single sentence contains more essential substance than Mark's entire essay.

Eric

[Dohmnuill]

Mark D. surely should become a painter if he worried about controlling "small details".

It is impossible to control most detail in any photograph. Instead, we try to group together some chosen details into an arrangement we call a composition.
 
Some might make use of the clone or healing brush to remove or alter details that don't "fit". Even then, we're not always aware of what all the details might be - someone will come along and point out something in a print about which we were completely unaware.

I agree with Mark about his ideas on what we can sense and how that relates to seeing something new or different in a print.
Much of the horrendous HDR seen on photo sites might be an attempt to create something "new", but our senses are immediately jarred by its incongruity, falseness or unreality. The glowing radioactive foreground of a shot which has almost no natural light source remaining is a typical incongruity that detracts from other aspects of a shot.

[Isaac]

LOL -- personal opinion is what the best writing is all about.

That's a rather sweeping personal opinion. While you may have found the article entertaining, others - justifiably - found the article unconvincing.

[Rob C]

That's a rather sweeping personal opinion. While you may have found the article entertaining, others - justifiably - found the article unconvincing.

Trouble is, Isaac, take away personal opinion and there's only catechism.

Rob C

[eleanorbrown]

Thanks Eric.  In this discussion I am reminded of Voltaire's famous quote: "the perfect is the enemy of the good".  Perfection is unattainable and when someone...any one of us, gets too caught up in the compulsive pursuit  of perfection in anything, it is so easy to loose track of what in the end  is really important or good or beautiful or moving, or whatever.   No camera or system or sensor size should ever become the holy grail in photography.  Eleanor

Thank you, Eleanor.

Your single sentence contains more essential substance than Mark's entire essay.

Eric

"While I want high quality also, in the end the emotional impact of photographic images is what is most important to me personally." Eleanor

[feppe]

So I read the audiophile paragraph, explaining how CDs have unbearable sound, and how there is a "pretty much universal consensus that analog still sounds better than digital." Mark is known for hyperbolic statements (re: the infamous dynamic range of prints seen across a room), and I guess one needs to make such claims to drive traffic these days. Fine. It's free, so I'll take some bs with the rest of the content.

But then it went to crazy town with the claim that you have to break in power cables for optimum sound. I just couldn't read further, as I was going back and forth between physical revulsion and giggling laughter.

Is there any sanity in the rest of the article?

[bartfrassee]

This article simply should not have been published as it is. Comparing an iPhone 4S shot to a Phase One Alpha IQ180 shot is plain silly. It's like comparing apples and oranges. Those two cameras and their image processing have been optimized for different use cases and for different kinds of users. In addition, it most probably is also a comparison between "all auto" (iPhone) and "all manual" (MF).

For part two of this article I expect the author to prove his point with a sound comparison. I would even accept a comparison between the tiny sonsor of a Nikon V1 and the author's IQ180. But this time the test shots should really be comparable, i.e. same angle, same conditions, comparable camera (and JPEG) settings, image quality manually maxed out for both systems, etc. (Also, both images should be encoded in the same color space, not one in sRGB and the other in ProPhotoRGB. Some browsers simply ignore color space information and thus misinterpret ProPhotoRGB data.)

The author has some good points, but as he said, the details matter: get the details wrong (references to esoteric audiophile thinking, badly executed comparison, etc.) and the whole article is spoiled.

[Isaac]

Trouble is, Isaac, take away personal opinion and there's only catechism.

Trouble is, Rob, I haven't said "take away personal opinion" and what you said doesn't make sense.
Take away personal opinion and Which brand of toothpaste did I use this morning? is a varying matter of fact not a matter of religious indoctrination.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Just a personal observation, I use Sony cameras and bought the better ones from time to time. I had Sony's top camera, the Alpha 900 for three years. Unfortunately, I never felt that I have taken my best pictures with that camera. Four/five years ago had better opportunity to travel and other positive factors.

Obviously, I would have preferred to have that full frame Sony on past travel but it was not invented yet at that time. Hopefully I can revisit some of my favorite places in the coming years.

Best regards
Erik

Thanks Eric.  In this discussion I am reminded of Voltaire's famous quote: "the perfect is the enemy of the good".  Perfection is unattainable and when someone...any one of us, gets too caught up in the compulsive pursuit  of perfection in anything, it is so easy to loose track of what in the end  is really important or good or beautiful or moving, or whatever.   No camera or system or sensor size should ever become the holy grail in photography.  Eleanor

"While I want high quality also, in the end the emotional impact of photographic images is what is most important to me personally." Eleanor

[Rob C]

1.  Trouble is, Rob, I haven't said "take away personal opinion" and what you said doesn't make sense. 2.  Take away personal opinion and Which brand of toothpaste did I use this morning?[/i] is a varying matter of fact not a matter of religious indoctrination.

1.  Makes perfect sense to me; catechism and religion are not exclusively bound, the one to the other. Beyond personal opinion lies only received wisdom, the echo of another opinon, the catechism learned at the feet of the other opinions.

2.  No, it's an example of a bad memory.

Rob C

[Isaac]

Trouble is, Rob, I haven't said "take away personal opinion".

I think I'll leave you to quarrel with yourself.

[kwalsh]

Beyond personal opinion lies only received wisdom, the echo of another opinon, the catechism learned at the feet of the other opinions.

Interesting, no such thing as empirical observation in your world?  Everything is just words, your words or the words of someone else?  No facts, no observables, just varieties of "opinion" and "wisdom".  Very telling as to why you are having trouble communicating with some in this thread

Ken

[Schewe]

Comparing an iPhone 4S shot to a Phase One Alpha IQ180 shot is plain silly.

Actually it's not...I wrote a comparison between an iPhone 3, Rebel, 1DsMIII and a P65+ in my book Real World Image Sharpening...if you compare what are small but not at all atypical repro sizes, the difference between an iPhone and P65+ for an image reproduced in halftone at a size of 2"x3", you would have a hard time determining the difference–the difference being primarily the DR of the shot-the iPhone has a hard time containing bright highlights (not unlike Mark's example).

I think a lot of people here are having fun piling on Mark...Mark is a perfectionist on matters of audio, wine and photography (also cars and other high-end stuff). Yes, he is prone to making inflammatory comments–for a reason. The fact that so many of the posters in this thread are first posters here on LuLa kinda tells you something. Mark is willing to take a stand and stick his head up on the air. The net result being you catch a lot of crap. (I kinda have some experience in this phenomena). If you don't like what Mark wrote, unread it. Either that or demand your money back. Oh, wait...you didn't PAY any money to read the article did ya?

[dreed]

I think a lot of people here are having fun piling on Mark...Mark is a perfectionist on matters of audio, wine and photography (also cars and other high-end stuff).

Please explain to me why *any* of that should be mentioned in an article on photography?

If the writer knows his craft and is considered by some to be an expert in it, then they should be able to convey the required information without needing to talk about other fields.

[paulbk]

Of course everything matters. But nowhere near as much as the piece claims. I assume we're talking about photography, not satellite reconnaissance. The A vs B comparison is a load. (And it's glaring.) Unless you're shooting micro grain structure in a metallurgical laboratory, artistic eye and having something to say matter far more than any of the topics mentioned. The image is made in the mind.

Ask Michael about his print comparison a few years ago in his Toronto studio.

[Rajan Parrikar]

Label Drinkers -

http://pindelski.org/Photography/2006/09/24/label-drinkers/