High Speed Too Clean?

[Stuart Richardson]

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I am with Jamie here. All art is representation and as such no technique or style is any more true than another. They are all inadequate depictions of reality. Adding some grain to a digital image is no different than adjusting the curves and levels, dodging and burning, or even making a print and drawing or painting on the print.

[fotografr]

Like I told my wife when she surprised me by showing up at my hotel in Paris, "I don't give a damn how you got here. All I care about is that you're here." Same is true for image making. If the end product pleases, what else matters?

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[Guest guy_mancuso]

There is ALWAYS a bottom line and that is really all that matters.

[AlanG]

When ASA 400 Tri-X first came out, do you think anyone would have complained if it had such a fine grain that it looked to be grain free?

 

Likewise with digital cameras. If they can produce clean, relatively noise free files at high ISOs, I won't complain. And at low ISO's, the only alternative to the noise free look of digital photography is to use medium or large format film. And I rather not do that if I don't have to.

 

So where's the problem? I generally am not trying to reproduce the look of 35mm grainy photos.

[MrEd]

Now this is a thread i never thought i would see after all the moaning about high ISO noise , now we want more. Banging head against the wall:D

 

 

.....that's because the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence:D ..........

 

.

[lars_bergquist]

Well, Jamie. I do sincerely hope that I have not been guilty of any 'pseudo-artistic vocabulary'. I will confine myself to some factual comment on the human visual system.

 

This is an incredible Rube Goldberg/Heath Robinson affair, because it was cobbled together by Ma Evolution and not designed from scratch by any Divine Engineer. It consists of two main components, one optical – the eyes – and one image processor – in the hindbrain, as far away from the eyes as you can get, of course, Ma!

 

The eyes can focus only on one plane in space – and that only if you are not seventy and badly presbyopic – and the angle of sharp seeing is extremely small (the fovea). But we can adapt our eyes to different ranges, and move them around, and our head too. Our visual perception of the world is synthesized in the brain's visual center. But we are usually not aware of our eye adaptations and movements, so (just like my friend the revolver tyro) we normally do not discover that we build it up incrementally, over time. Most of us think naively that we see everything sharp simultaneously.

 

So all arguments about 'how the eye sees' are a waste of time. We use choice of lens, aperture, point of view in order to direct the attention of the prospective viewer of the finished image where we want it to be. Making a photograph is an act of pointing and saying 'look!' And all that is optional. There is nothing 'mechanical' or automatic about it. As long as we are allowed to press the shutter release all by ourselves.

 

So, given all this vast variation of choice, it is really a failure of imagination to go about screwing up the image after it has been made. And that is realy all I want to say. I do not say that we should tar and feather people who do this. We should pity them, and, if possible, help to open their eyes.

 

The old man from the Age of the Neue Sachlichkeit

[FMB]

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I think the nodal point of Lar's and mine thoughts is on the mist of our inner feelings of hidden envy, astonished by the irrefutable fact that nowadays achieve complicated effects, many years ago impossible to do or at least spending a lot of effort, today can be done with a simple movement of a mouse on the table.

 

But Lars, think how confused the young photographers are trying to choose among the infinite amount of alternatives or processes they can use, without having the certain knowledge that, at the end, they will have a happy outcome.

 

Bye all,

 

Francisco

[jaapv]

Ansel used a Contax RF occasionally ...

 

The old man from the Age of Brovira

 

And to great effect too - his (Contax) snapshot of Stieglitz is world famous, despite being back-focussed, motion-blurred and underexposed.....Oh yes - grainy too..

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped} Making a photograph is an act of pointing and saying 'look!' And all that is optional. There is nothing 'mechanical' or automatic about it. As long as we are allowed to press the shutter release all by ourselves.

 

So, given all this vast variation of choice, it is really a failure of imagination to go about screwing up the image after it has been made. And that is realy all I want to say. I do not say that we should tar and feather people who do this. We should pity them, and, if possible, help to open their eyes.

 

The old man from the Age of the Neue Sachlichkeit

 

Lars--my apologies for being overly grumpy yesterday. I want my Noctilux, and it's not here yet And I know I said I'd shut up too. Sheesh. But at least we agree about directing someone's attention with a work of art...

 

But I would say given all the vast variation of choice in creating the latent image (the one that "exists" on undeveloped film or as raw data on a sensor) the lack of imagination comes in not finishing the image for fear of screwing it up

 

Pity is not required, but sometimes humility is (and I'm not talking about my own efforts here).

 

Every great photographer I like, who has produced a consistent body of work and not a couple of once-in-a-lifetime shots--in other words, every photographic artist I like, is completely concerned about the print as well as the negative and "the shot." The really great ones, if they're working in a realistic vein, don't even give you the impression that a lot of work has happened there.

 

But they all knew the surest way to screw up was to forget about all the post-capture / creation choices.

 

The ones I pity were the commercial photographers who got to have their film thrown over to a commercial lab and didn't have enough editorial clout to do anything but take their chances with what the lab did (and we've all been there, no?).

 

Francisco--this is the miracle of non-destructive editing! You can always go back to the RAW file if you need to...

 

Try that with developer