Erwin Puts' lens reviews are back

[jrp]

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http://www.imx.nl/photo/

 

 

 

 Some older article and reviews that have historical and/or philosophic qualities have been re-introduced. Some paragraphs have been deleted or upgraded to reflect current thinking. 

 

[pico]

Puts: According to Plato (and his disciple Aristotle) all things in nature possess an original ideal form and the visible phenomena we can see in reality are in fact more or less distorted copies of the original. It is the goal and function of art to accomplish what nature could not achieve: perfection. This ancient Aristotelean vision has been actualized in the current digitally manipulated photography.

 

With respect, Puts' take on ancient Greek philosophy of art's goal to accomplish what nature could not is bullshit, and his take on ancient Greek art is skewed, at least in my view. Nature is what it is, and our deficiencies in seeing what it is is a matter for science. What art can show of the ideals is how deficient we are to perceive its elemental quality. Ancient Greek art sought to perpetuate a cultural ideal, and it had strident rules. The Greek ideals in, for example sculpture, were vastly upgraded by Roman art which exposed gravity in form. Look at greek sculpture in which the base of sculptures were broad, simple, easy to make, and ungraceful so they did not topple over. On the other hand, Roman art were balanced, figures standing on their own feet, as if gravity were discovered in Roman culture. Hermes sculpture was 'propped up', but not cemented into the earth. (And to the credit of much later historical works, was vastly improved in regards to balance.)

 

I understand that this is hard to grasp as profound, but it is so, and I think Puts' view of digital photography errs as we do when we do not see an elemental, critical difference in manipulated photos from straight photography. The gap is as profound as the Greek/Roman oversight, but our culture in general has not seen it yet, and those who discover and then evince the difference  will be ignored for a while,  but eventually seen as important.

[Mornnb]

I don't entirely agree with Puts remarks on digital photography. Photography is fairly pointless if its sole purpose is to capture reality as reality is. The idea is that you are able to show your perception of reality. That you can make real what's in your mind, rather than making a carbon copy of reality.

And that is why I much prefer digital photography to film. There is so much opportunity to make the photo a more real portray of what you see in your mind.

 

People don't care about things like dynamic range, high ISO performance just because they want cameras with better specs. It's because people spend hours trying to get the most out of the camera possible in Lightroom and Photoshop, and eventually find the limits of what their camera can do. A better performing sensor means more possibilities.

[thighslapper]

Photography is fairly pointless if its sole purpose is to capture reality as reality is. The idea is that you are able to show your perception of reality. That you can make real what's in your mind, rather than making a carbon copy of reality.

 

 ........ and then we get into semantics  ....... Puts regards photography as primarily a technical process to depict on paper (originally) what we see in life ...... but others prefer to regard it as an art-form where manipulation produces what the photographer wants us to see.....

 

..... and so this argument goes on and on ..... as numerous threads on this forum testify ........

[Peter H]

.................................

 

..... and so this argument goes on and on ..... as numerous threads on this forum testify ........

 

And presumably the reason the argument fills so many threads is because people care about it. It matters to them to try to understand what they and others are trying to do when they use their cameras.

 

I don't thinks there's a Platonic ideal of photography or art waiting to be discovered so I expect there to be no conclusion to the discussion, but that doesn't make the discussion worthless. 

[CheshireCat]

Nature is what it is, and our deficiencies in seeing what it is is a matter for science.

Nature is not "what it is". It is "how your brain sees it". And we are all different.

 

I think Puts' view of digital photography errs as we do when we do not see an elemental, critical difference in manipulated photos from straight photography.

Manipulating a photo is usually the only way to make it match "how your brain sees nature" (the camera output usually differs).

 

Manipulated photos is also a powerful way to show nature as "we want it to be, or appear"; which adds an extra layer of art and expression.

 

Let's not forget that photography is just a tool. Anyone can decide which art this tool will be used for.

[adan]

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Just for the record, what jrp MEANT to link to was the revived set of old lens reviews.... http://www.imx.nl/photo/leica/lenses/len_start.html

 

NOT the current blog post. But since the party's already begun ; )........

[jrp]

EP was supposed to have updated his Lens Compendiumy by now, having published his "Leicography" series, but that seems to be off the menu, perhaps completely (otherwise I assume he would not have put the review material back up).

[mbc 1944]

I confess I don't understand about half of what Putts writes, and those are in the non-technical chapters. But he does come up with some illuminating ideas, as when he says (someplace) that essential task of the photographer (or maybe it is the camera) is to reduce a three-dimension reality into a two-dimensional form.

[CheshireCat]

NOT the current blog post. But since the party's already begun ; )........

Right, Andy.

... but we love to party !

[IWC Doppel]

I'm pleased to have the older lens reviews back. I also like Erwin's ramblings and his desire to correlate measured performance to photography in for me a considered way. 

[a911s]

I don't agree with every thing he says, but I'm also pleased to have the Erwin Puts lens reviews back.

[Mornnb]

Indeed. But that is what one wants from a reviewer! Good writing should provoke one to think differently and test their opinions.

[colonel]

thanks

 

love this gem

 

"Do not buy a new camera for at least two years, but invest time and energy in exploiting the possibilities of the current one"

 

so true

just an aspiration for me at the moment

[Exodies]

<snip>

 

Let's not forget that photography is just a tool. Anyone can decide which art this tool will be used for.

 

Let's not forget that photography is just a muse to inspire forum posts.