Menu
#724. Photography’s Week Links (May 19 2018)
By pascaljappy | Monday Post
After last week’s almost blasphemous post, I struggled to find ideas to make his one even worse and realised there was only one way: illustrate it only with phone photographs ! Oh, and link to Instagram accounts! So here are a few links for the week-end, a few comments and a few pics. Onwards.
French humor, Montpellier – Galaxy S9
In ze garden – Galaxy S9
Session expired
Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.
I enjoyed several of your tips.
To some of your Links:
# “10 things … Stephen Shore”
[ You asked for thoughts…]
To me it looks more like marketing lightly camouflaged as information.
Of course, Christie’s is known to do auctions, and if not, their menu shows it.
( The photos: Good documentaries, further down on the page a few more creative ones.)
# Witty captions :
” 9. A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.”
So true!
( And not surprisingly by — Lao Tzu.)
# 10 Street Photo tips
Missing : I think you should ask people first if their faces will show in the photo.
( I like Robin Wong’s approach:
https://blog.mingthein.com/2017/07/20/street-portraits/ )
# Sixstreetunder
Some really good photos.
# Gurushots
Sounds nice, but after some googling I get the impression that it is more like just a game with no real value for serious photography.
( e.g. https://zoelarkin.com/gurushots-user-review/ )
Viewbug is another, probably there are more.
( https://zoelarkin.com/viewbug-user-review/ )
Kristian, I also like Robin’s approach. I had to pass on one opportunity, many years ago, in Hong Kong – simply because I thought it was “inappropriate” to intrude on the privacy of the person concerned by taking the photo without permission, and asking for permission would have destroyed what I found to be of value in the scene. Sometimes we must take “no” for an answer – even when (as in that case) we can’t even ask the question. Robin gives other examples of “why not”, too.
“We can’t have everything”. We can’t shoot someone or something just because they/it is there. we can’t just do as we please.
One of the very worst cases I ever saw was someone with a cellphone, who snapped a shot of a craftsman working in his atelier in France – and the blasted cellphone automatically set off its flash, startling the craftsman, who flew into a rage over it. Don’t those contraptions have ANY controls, Pascal?
Pete,
Exactly!
( I just wanted to point out that this discussion was missing in that video.)
I suspect will produce a “scatter gun” effect in the responses, Pascal – so many topics, and it may prove unlikely that “Dear Reader” will have an equal interest in each one. I shall head the list and set a bad example – hopefully that will generate an equal and opposite reaction, and restore the balance of nature.
The second shot looks to be in your home town – Place de la Comédie, where I took my first cellphone photo (sent to you some time ago) – a shot taken with my D810 & Otus 55mm, of a young kid having the time of his life with a cellphone, as he tried to photograph the adults he was with. (I had to bring that up – you gave me the opportunity by including that shot, and you KNEW that was my “take” on a cellphone photograph).
Action photography in the field – that photo looks as though he hit all the impala simultaneously, with a cattle prod or similar. YIKS – what a sensational photograph – anyone would be proud to have taken that – he can gloat over it for the rest of his life!
Pass on Leicas – my eldest brother gave me a lifetime allergy to Leicas, by attempting to use his on each of us in turn, and taking so long to reach the point where he could actually bring himself to press the shutter button that none of us ever wanted anyone to photograph us ever again. I’m sure other Leica owners are nice people and it’s not really Leica’s fault – but that red dot is a “trigger” to what rapidly degenerated into a deep seated psychological aversion to having cameras pointed at us.
I shall skip past London for other similar reasons. But what is the problem for GenZ? – I had to wait till I was nearly 30 before (a) I could take a long enough holiday from work to make a trip to Europe really worthwhile and (b) I could afford to do it. These kids want everything, and want it all NOW – but that’s not the way it works.
Stephen Shore is something I can’t connect with and since I don’t understand it, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it.
Gurushots – no, not commenting on that either – I have no competitive instincts – as a Leo, I already know that I am perfect in every way – and it would simply be upsetting for everyone else, if I were to enter my photographs in their competition.
And Nikon? – it seems they leaked that story about financial woes to get at the “sympathy vote”, so that when they finally launched the D850 they would be utterly swamped with orders for it. Having been raised as a gentleman, I have stood aside to let them all get the camera of their dreams before I headed to my camera store to buy one. In the meantime, I occasionally see an article with photos taken with a D850 and all this talk about “the best camera in the world” is beginning to make my head hurt. I am tempted to wait this one out, and see if the guy who invented our sensors is really serious when he tells us his latest invention – a sensor that makes all other sensors obsolete, and completely eliminates all further discussion of “how many pixels is enough”, by capturing each individual photon, instead – is really serious, when he tells us that his invention is never likely to reach the manufacturing stage. Just imagine – a wonderful world of photography, where everyone is equal – till some bastard comes along with another idea, so that some photographers end up being more equal than everyone else.
Sign me on as a fanboy for the Nikon D850. The quality of my bird photographs has improved dramatically since I started using the D850 in Feb of this year.
All of my small bird photographs are shot with a Nikon 500mm f/4G lens and then cropped significantly even though I shoot with a reduced frame using the 1.2 conversion format. This D850 lets me make these crops without losing detail or tonal values.
If it does this well with birds, think how great it’s going to be with landscapes and other subject matter.
Let me see – I paid around $3,700 for the D810 body – the D850 (in box) would cost around $5,000 – if I trade in the D810 I’ll drop about $2,700 on the cost of that, so the effective cost of the D850 would jump to nearly $8,000 – then’s there’s the L-bracket from RRS, the memory cards, etc – I’m now about $8,500 poorer, and still have nothing more than I had at the start. Except I now have a tilt screen (tick), no inbuilt flash (half a tick – actually I do sometimes use the inbuilt flash on the D810, so maybe that’s not a tick after all, and cancels the only tick so far). Oodles more [smaller] pixels, but how will I ever see an improvement in my photography because of them? A marginal improvement in ISO ratings and digital noise that might help my available light photography, so a small tick for that. It can take movies – WOW – why would I want to do that with a camera? What else? Nothing that jumps out at me, really.
Some of these “new release” cameras are beginning to resemble the wondrous “Thermomix” – the only gadget you’ll ever need in your kitchen – it’s a complete “all in one, do everything, wunderkind” of the cooking world. So how many professional chefs have one?
Cliff, I’m not going to rain on your parade – each to their own, and if you’re happy, I’m happy.
But sadly, there’s nothing about the D850 than makes me itch. If I wanted to spend that much, I’d spend it on a fast super tele zoom with high grade optics that doesn’t shrink or stretch (and blast the sensor with dust) and a suitable tele-converter for added extra strength, so I could get into bird & wild life photography and take shots of the moon that would blow people away. Hang on – won’t that hit my wallet for something like $18,000?
So I’ve considered it. It would be nice to have both, so I could treat the D810 as a spare body whenever I’m away from home – I’ve lived through one experience, when I had card failure and no hope of relief! – I’d hate to have that with failure of the camera body and not have a spare on hand.
I have to be sensible about this. I don’t have the luxury of unlimited funds, for my photography. And I’ve decided I would be much better employed working on using what gear I already have, and using it “better”. After all, isn’t self-improvement [improvement of our own photography skills] what this is really about, for most of us?
Pete, if I had had a D810 I probably wouldn’t have sprung for the D850. I had (still have) a D800E which I kept to use as backup and because I like the 800E and still use it for several things, especially where flash might be needed. But, I can’t remember how many times the image counter has reset after it hit the 10,000 images mark, so it seemed like a good move to go ahead and get the D850.
I have seen a significant improvement in the resolution of my bird photographs with the 850 and post processing takes much less time. For my specific interests going to the D850 was a good move. And, my cost at USD $3,290 must have been considerably less than yours. Not cheap, but I started saving for a new camera long before the D850 was announced. :))
Cliff the only thing I really miss on the D810 is a tilt screen. Otherwise I am perfectly happy with it. No doubt there are “improvements” on the D810, in the D850.
But I was chatting to the manager of one of the leading camera stores here, the other day, and he put it like this – we have come so far, and gotten so close to “perfection”, that the whole photographic gear thing has plateaued. There really isn’t any much “further” we CAN go. And trying to point score off different items of equipment is becoming quite futile.
Example – I have the Sigma ART 50mm – I also have the Otus 55mm – I’ve had a lifetime love affair with Zeiss gear & lenses – I paid a hell of a lot more for the Otus than the ART lens – I’ve seen DxO tests on both – I personally prefer the Otus, although it’s MF and not waterproofed or dustproofed – I don’t know if the ART is either, but I can see at a glance it would do better if it was raining or in a dust storm – so how can I prove to anyone that one is better than the other? I can’t – it’s purely personal preference.
And one of the reasons why I can’t is that the tests all miss one thing. We don’t view our shots the way those tests are carried out. Pascal tells us something like 99% of all photos these days are born and live and die in digital format – never leaving the wonderful world of computers and computer related technology (lumping cellphones in there too, since they also rely on the same technology). Luddites like me and (in percentage terms) a handful of pros like to produce prints of our work – but again, prints now depend on a similar pattern of dots. I like to think prints can be – and generally are – sharper than screen images. But I know they aren’t “perfect”.
It’s all very well having “perfect” glass and 50MP or 100MP – but how are we ever going to actually SEE it?
Earlier today, in relation to Pascal’s latest posting, I looked at a site displaying some of Stanley Kubrick’s work. No sensible photographer is likely to criticise his work – or Ansel Adams’ work for that matter. But because of the technology they had, their photographs are nowhere NEAR as sharp as some of the stuff out there today. Rank amateurs are shooting “sharper”!
So how DO we decide what’s a “good” photograph? IMHO it’s NOT going to be on the basis of the gear the photographer had – in some cases that will definitely play a part – maybe sometimes it’ll be a major part – but it’s highly unlikely that it’ll be the defining factor – and, if it IS the defining factor, then the shot is highly unlikely to be a “good” photograph, but (instead) it’ll most probably be a purely technical shot.
Pascal
The Sixstreet under is a great example of non exploitative street photography, thanks.
I am not sure that you should have put up the Lonely Planet link, pure crap designed for FOMO clickbait advertising, IM-Not-So-HO.
This type of advertising is designed to exploit the most insecure, vulnerable and vain who are judging themselves against the most popular fake and toxic (anti)social media posts. All the companies involved are morally corrupt and quite incompetent; a travel site that needs to stoop to this is clearly is out of touch with what travel is about and totally failing if it uses this type of envy to generate traffic. It may be worth following the links to find the new must avoid locations for your next holiday because it will be full of flaky anxious idiots worried that they should be somewhere else. [Spleen vented, breath out]
Regards Noel
Another hour’s fun reading on a Saturday morning; followed by another hour (at least) of fannying about with GuruShots. I should have known better, just another dopamine generator. Moving on…