J'Accuse

[BJL]

We have an Apple-esque camera manufacturer in Hassleblad in that they have a closed system, desirability and high cost but yet they get seriously criticised on this site.

The weird thing about that is that Hasselblad is overall no more closed that Canon, Nikon or any of the smaller format makers, which do not allow users to mix and match sensors with bodies from different brands and so on. Sometimes, indeed very often, a tool that is a complicated system of interacting components does benefit from an integrated, coherent design, and such designs are often at the cost of less modularity and mix-and-match options. Other times or for some other users, greater flexibility is referred. So long as both options are out there (Canon/Nikon/Hasselblad, etc. vs Phase One; iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 vs Android phones; Mac vs Windows PC vs Linux; etc.) people should probably stop making dogmatic moral judgements about which is "the one and only true way", and just choose the option that works best for them.

[BJL]

No, you're missing the point: do as you suggest and you do not get the equivalent of manual/film. What you get is a bloody compromise based on their views of quality. That's why I have had to configure the damned camera as close to neutral as I can. Using a proprietary auto setting wouldn't give me unadulterated RAW or even focus as and where I choose.

It is quite easy with a modern camera to use only the settings and options comparable to those of manual/film cameras and ignore the rest, if that is one's preference. For example:
- Where you would use normal daylight balanced film, set white balance to daylight, no auto WB.
- Where you would use tungsten light balanced film, change the white balance color temperature. There are presets for this, so no Kelvin value need be memorized (And you can do it "mid-roll"!)
- Where you would just send the film to the lab for development (and printing) use default in-camera JPEG conversions.
- Where you wouldfiddle with developing and printing in the darkroom, use raw and fiddle in the computer instead.
- The choice between AF and MF is always there.

None of these setting choices takes more than a few seconds, and if you crave the simplicity of "good old days" mode, they only have to be done once. Also, finding out about them does not require reading the whole hundred page manual; the quick start guide usually covers most of it.


Let us avoid the false dichotomy of "use full auto 'green dot' mode" vs "thinking about every obscure option deep in the menus for every shot because anything else might give less than the best possible result, and so is not 'Photographically Correct'"; most of us find a balance between those extremes that we are comfortable with.

[theguywitha645d]

In my experience auto is the enemy of excellence.  Too often it's not even good enough.

You missed my point. You can make the act of photography as easy and as complicated as you wish. To imply that a modern camera is more complicated because it has more choices (which you can use or ignore) is not an argument.

[theguywitha645d]

No, you're missing the point: do as you suggest and you do not get the equivalent of manual/film. What you get is a bloody compromise based on their views of quality. That's why I have had to configure the damned camera as close to neutral as I can. Using a proprietary auto setting wouldn't give me unadulterated RAW or even focus as and where I choose.

Rob C

You can also make these cameras, and quite easily, as manual as you like.

And how do most of the setting affect RAW? Do you actually believe the auto WB setting on the camera affects WB?

But your Golden Age is just faulty memory. You had to rely on the engineers at Kodak, Agfa, Konica, and Fuji to give you the contrast and color of the image--it was their view of quality your were buying. And if you did not run your own darkroom, the film processor and printer as well.

[MikeMac]

You missed my point. You can make the act of photography as easy and as complicated as you wish. To imply that a modern camera is more complicated because it has more choices (which you can use or ignore) is not an argument.

Where does Instagram on a smartphone fit into this? About 3 taps and you have some very 'pretty' pictures?

[wildlightphoto]

You missed my point. You can make the act of photography as easy and as complicated as you wish. To imply that a modern camera is more complicated because it has more choices (which you can use or ignore) is not an argument.

Nope, my comment was beside your point.

[wildlightphoto]

You can also make these cameras, and quite easily, as manual as you like.

Depends on whether the manual functions are a primary focus of the design or percieved as an accomodation to old fuddy-duddies who refuse to be "with it".  Not all manual functions are equally usable.

[Rob C]

You can also make these cameras, and quite easily, as manual as you like.

And how do most of the setting affect RAW? Do you actually believe the auto WB setting on the camera affects WB?

But your Golden Age is just faulty memory. You had to rely on the engineers at Kodak, Agfa, Konica, and Fuji to give you the contrast and color of the image--it was their view of quality your were buying. And if you did not run your own darkroom, the film processor and printer as well.

And here we go again, as ever on the Internet, sliding crab-wise from one premise into the arms of yet another close relative of the first.

That was the whole point about film – good film – and tightly controlled processing: you took it as a standard, a constant, a given, and everything else was up to you and how you used it. But your base line, the datum, remained constant. Today, you have to adjust just about everything to get back to that delightful state of operational virginity; I don't believe that I stated that it was Mission Impossible, just that it was a pain and awkwardly inconvenient to have to do it. As I think I also mentioned, I have both my digi bodies as Manual as I can make them.

I’m happy to learn that my Golden Age is but a failure of my memory; for a moment there I thought I’d actually experienced it! How falsely convincing experience can be; almost as real as looking it up in a book – sorry – the Internet.

Tell you what: you live your version of it and I shall struggle along in mine. Win - win, no?

;-)

Rob C

[KLaban]

Oh, how I long to return to the Golden Age when I pressed a button and let Kodak do the rest.

Not.

[Rob C]

Oh, how I long to return to the Golden Age when I pressed a button and let Kodak do the rest.

Not.

Keith, come on now, you're too young to remember those days; you're just going by hearsay. Dammit, I suspect that even I may have missed that particular Golden Age boat!

Anyway, my daughter's coming to stay for a week, so I can forget about the hungry cellphone for a while.

;-)

Rob C

[theguywitha645d]

And here we go again, as ever on the Internet, sliding crab-wise from one premise into the arms of yet another close relative of the first.

That was the whole point about film – good film – and tightly controlled processing: you took it as a standard, a constant, a given, and everything else was up to you and how you used it. But your base line, the datum, remained constant. Today, you have to adjust just about everything to get back to that delightful state of operational virginity; I don't believe that I stated that it was Mission Impossible, just that it was a pain and awkwardly inconvenient to have to do it. As I think I also mentioned, I have both my digi bodies as Manual as I can make them.

I’m happy to learn that my Golden Age is but a failure of my memory; for a moment there I thought I’d actually experienced it! How falsely convincing experience can be; almost as real as looking it up in a book – sorry – the Internet.

Tell you what: you live your version of it and I shall struggle along in mine. Win - win, no?

;-)

Rob C

Rob, if you just want to stick to your version, why join the conversation?

BTW, shoot RAW and you are there. You also have a very unique view of the consistency of film-remember the time when folks were very concerned to get a run of film from the same batch. I have probably done a lot more work with film and processing if you think it was such a perfect material. Certainly no more prefect than what we have today in digital.

[KLaban]

Rob, seriously, why on earth would I want to return to such a severely limited baseline, standard, constant or given?

[BJL]

That was the whole point about film – good film – and tightly controlled processing: you took it as a standard, a constant, a given, and everything else was up to you and how you used it. But your base line, the datum, remained constant. Today, you have to adjust just about everything to get back to that delightful state of operational virginity ...

As I said above, to emulate that "standard, constant, given" behavior of film with lab processing, only a couple of easy steps are needed, not adjusting "about everything":
1. Use in-camera JPEG.
2. Set white balance to daylight, no auto WB, other settings at default.
3. For fuller emulation of the comforting limitations of film, set ISO speed to minimum and never change it.
Anything more complicated that that is an option, not a necessity.

Is this really so stressful, even for us old-timers?


P. S. In truth I would never eschew the convenience of auto WB; just use raw+JPEG mode so that occasional auto WB errors can be fixed later.

[Rob C]

Rob, seriously, why on earth would I want to return to such a severely limited baseline, standard, constant or given?

Keth, I have no idea or agenda about why you should do anything; I speak/write only for myself. I can't be you, you can't be me, and that's how God made us. Be happy; your toys aren't mine and vice versa.

For the record, I wouldn't go back either because though I still have a beautiful F3, the food for it is beyond funny when it comes to the buying, a result of diminishing returns, as our Mr Kodak discovered.

;-)

Rob C

[Rob C]

Rob, if you just want to stick to your version, why join the conversation? BTW, shoot RAW and you are there. You also have a very unique view of the consistency of film-remember the time when folks were very concerned to get a run of film from the same batch. I have probably done a lot more work with film and processing if you think it was such a perfect material. Certainly no more prefect than what we have today in digital.

Snap! You obviously have the same problem, if problem it be.

Thanks, but I already do shoot RAW; the only jpegs I have ever shot are with the cellphone.

Quantity of work with film? I started using it professionally, full time, back in 1960; and you? Surprise me.

;-)

Rob C

[Rob C]

As I said above, to emulate that "standard, constant, given" behavior of film with lab processing, only a couple of easy steps are needed, not adjusting "about everything":
1. Use in-camera JPEG.
2. Set white balance to daylight, no auto WB, other settings at default.
3. For fuller emulation of the comforting limitations of film, set ISO speed to minimum and never change it.
Anything more complicated that that is an option, not a necessity.

Is this really so stressful, even for us old-timers?


P. S. In truth I would never eschew the convenience of auto WB; just use raw+JPEG mode so that occasional auto WB errors can be fixed later.

1.  I never use jpegs in anything other than the cellphone where there is no better alternative;

2.  already dong that;

3.  red herring. Changes in ASA were not required by me during the course of any single shoot. I selected the film I wanted at the start and that was what was used throughout. In the studio, on the ‘blads, it would be TXP120 or Ektachrome 64; outdoors, the same or, on 35mm, Kodachrome, FP3/4 or HP3/4, again depending on time of day and subject. I didn’t even need to carry different film types at any one time. One knew what one was going to be doing. Perfectly convenient.

As for the multi-ISO of digital, yes, it can be a boon if you go out to shoot in a club or something like that, but it wasn’t my need then, and now, when I have shot musos, I find that auto ISO, indoors, is indeed useful. But it never was part of my pro life. Hell, there is a legacy of wonderful jazz and rock’n’roll photography shot way back when digi wasn’t even a bad dream in the film industry’s mind, and the quality/mood of that stuff is beyond the clinical sterility of digital, even my own.

However, we all know this is going nowhere, that we all love to make points and adopt positions – what else can anyone do here?

What others choose to think is just fine by me; I just don’t feel obliged to think along with them when I know differently from the experiences of my own life. That I may be wrong is certainly possible, as is the alternative that others may be wrong, too. If there is no single truth in a photograph, there is even less within the producers.

Rob C

[BJL]

1.  I never use jpegs in anything other than the cellphone where there is no better alternative;

2.  already dong that;

3.  red herring. Changes in ASA were not required by me during the course of any single shoot.

I think you are missing my point, which is only that any complications of digital can be avoided if you wish to, depending on your priorities. For example, _if_ you were to desire simplicity comparable to just having the film developed and printed, _then_ you have the equally simple option of using default JPEG options (or choosing a selection of settings to your aste and sticking with them; comparable to experimenting with various films amd settling on one). Having additional options that need not be exercised, involving raw processing or such, does not make digital inherently more complicated, must more flexible.

And on item three, I was not talking about changing ISO speed, just pointing out that if indeed you do not feel the need to change ISO speed during a shoot, the ISO setting of the camera can likewise be set and forgottten. Some (not you) have complained of the problem of accidentally having the wrong ISO speed setting, but that is no worse than having the wrong speed of film loaded (and not as bad as loading film of one speed but leaving the ISO speed set to some other value from a previous roll of film.) So again, how is one worse off with a digitsl camera in this or any respect? That is my only question on any of this.

[KLaban]

Keith, I have no idea or agenda about why you should do anything; I speak/write only for myself. I can't be you, you can't be me, and that's how God made us. Be happy; your toys aren't mine and vice versa.

Rob, apologies, I'll rephrase the question.

Why on earth would you want to return to such a severely limited baseline, standard, constant or given?

[theguywitha645d]

Snap! You obviously have the same problem, if problem it be.

Thanks, but I already do shoot RAW; the only jpegs I have ever shot are with the cellphone.

Quantity of work with film? I started using it professionally, full time, back in 1960; and you? Surprise me.

;-)

Rob C

Started in professional photofinishing in the 80s--mundane stuff like dye transfer and photomechanical composites.

[Rob C]

Started in professional photofinishing in the 80s--mundane stuff like dye transfer and photomechanical composites.

Quite; I rest my case.

Q.E.D.

;-)

Rob C