24meg verses 40meg aesthetic

[Tom1234]

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4 hours ago, Steven said:

I don't have enough walls, enough wood, enough space to frame them all. 

When you run out of walls… you have to stack things… a book is a stack grouped by some idea.

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[Jeff S]

7 minutes ago, Tom1234 said:

When you run out of walls… you have to stack things… a book is a stack grouped by some idea.

Other options with actual prints... rotate wall displays, create portfolio binders or cases, which can be sequenced like a book based on themes, projects, etc. Prints can also be matted, but not framed, or left unmatted, and still presented in a variety of ways. Even museums and galleries exhibit a tiny fraction of their inventory, but archives can often be accessed for private viewings, as I’ve done many times.  
 

Jeff

[Tom1234]

49 minutes ago, Jeff S said:

Other options with actual prints... rotate wall displays, create portfolio binders or cases, which can be sequenced like a book based on themes, projects, etc. Prints can also be matted, but not framed, or left unmatted, and still presented in a variety of ways. Even museums and galleries exhibit a tiny fraction of their inventory, but archives can often be accessed for private viewings, as I’ve done many times.  
 

Jeff

I am truly glad that someone is out there printing.  Printing moved artists off painting on cave walls, printing was the best source, almost only source, of pictorial art for over a hundred years.  I hope it never ends.  

Today we have the TV with its moving images, but the printed still picture that can be studied as it remains still, will always be one of the greatest legitimate art forms.   

[LocalHero1953]

I have space for about 40 prints on my walls: grouped by theme of about 10 each, plus a few individual shots, rotated from time to time, all printed and matted at A4 or A3 size (plus a couple of larger canvases. I am luckier than most, I guess. I have also made a number of blurb books, for personal and family satisfaction.
But my digital archive is approaching 40,000 images.
There is no way I will ever print all the images I want to see and put them on my walls, so I am always thinking and shooting in terms of online, onscreen and, perhaps, ephemeral.

But then I have a fundamentally different outlook on the the matters discussed in this thread. I don't have a problem with those who wish for technical perfection in the print, or the aesthetics of more or fewer pixels - life would be grim if we were all the same. But for me what an image shows (subject matter, content, composition....), and what a photographer is trying to say with it, is far, far, far more important than the technical characteristics of the image reproduction. 

As a result, I am happy to see the work of others online and on social media because I can 'read' it there as easily as if it were in print. And if it is ephemeral, then it is as ephemeral as magazine and press photography, or, for that matter, newspaper and magazine articles. That doesn't make it unimportant - think of the power of press photography through the ages (where perfection in technical reproduction was the least of the photographer's concerns). 

Nor am I afraid to say that I put stuff up online for others to see, comment on and appreciate - after all, if I think I have something to say (sometimes) then I want someone to say it to.

I'm not trying to derail this thread, which I have followed from the beginning, and learned plenty from it, but just give an alternative perspective. 

Edited November 2, 2020 by LocalHero1953

[Tom1234]

Many thanks for your comments LocalHero1953.

[analog-digital]

Am 1.11.2020 um 09:50 schrieb jaapv:

I wonder how you get  that impression. I advocate using the best of equipment to the best of its potential. If that is elitist in your view, so be it. I see it as perfectionism, which is indeed a driving force to obtain the best tools possible and learning to use them to the best of one's ability to create the best result one can. That comes with a regret of seeing them used inadequately, or of people falling into the fallacy of buying the wrong tool because they have fallen for the idea that it is "the best" - which it isn't, for their intended use. 

 

To be clear, a "good" photographer can take good photos with not so good or not so modern cameras.

 

It's not just about the resolution or sharpness of an image, the impression it leaves on the viewer is crucial.

Just think of the analog times ......

Edited November 2, 2020 by analog-digital

[Tom1234]

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16 minutes ago, Steven said:

I also purchased a 40$ access to reidreviews.com. I read the nine articles I could find about the M10R, where he extensively compared it to many other cameras. It confirms my current position (which seems to me reasonable but since I am not a reasonable person I might change my mind!): 

If you are getting into the M10 line, it's worth buying the M10R as it is the best M colour offering of Leica. 

If you already own an M10 or an M10P, unless you specifically need high MP count for printing or heavy cropping, upgrading is not necessary and you're probably better off waiting for the M11. Same conclusion as matt granger, Chris Nichols  and plenty other Leica (YouTube) reviewers. 

Thank you… I had decided the same… wondering what the M11 will be. Probably adds two more stops of ISO. The new number everyone is hitting with really decent files is 6,400 ISO methinks.  Higher numbers look like gravel.  

[Tom1234]

 

26 minutes ago, Steven said:

Yesterday night, I spent hours editing old photos (potentially for printing a book). Most of the photos were 12MP (Nikon), 24MP (Canon and Leica) and 47MP (Q2). After applying my workflow mechanically for hours, here’s what I found in conclusion:

 

All resolutions produced pictures I love.

12MP is great but IMO not enough anymore in 2020. It’s a bit like you look at an Iphone 5 photo and compare is an iPhone 12 shot. The iPhone 5 took excellent photos, but it’s not sharp enough compared to what we are used to consume everyday. While I loved editing my old 12MP photos and the were very easy to manipulate, but I don’t think I could live with 12 only anymore.

 

47MP is a beautiful look, and I like it for some things, for it’s too sharp to use on everything I do. I presume that we will eventually get accustomed to that look and start thinking that less is too pixelated.

 

24MP is the sweet spot for me, in 2020. Good enough for cropping, good enough for printing, great in low light, and it has the aesthetics I love. Its atmospheric. Its not too real. Eventually, I know I will have to upgrade to a 40+ MP sensor, and I will take the time I need to let my eyes get accustomed to it, until I forget completely what 24MP looked like (just like Annie Lebowitz did when she transitioned from 35mm to MF). Transitions like this have happened many times in the history of photography. We will survive it together!

I am of similar opinion.  24meg is an artistic precipice in sensors.  40 meg moves to new ground of ultra detail that is too much sometimes like on human skin, and other phenomena show up, like jagged edges during down sizing (but the software people will figure this out and fix it).   

I am hoping the M11 is even higher true meg, not just a doubling program as you showed mainly just improves focus but not detail, but a true 60-80meg, but I might be asking too much for the M11.   

At some point the new sensor's detail will be so high that one of my favorite aesthetics called Still Life can be correctly produced.  Still Life by definition requires abnormally high levels of detail, that the eye might not see itself, if a person was standing looking at the scene.  The highest level of detail should take Still Life to its sinister best, I will wait to see.

[Guest Nowhereman]

1 hour ago, Steven said:

12MP is great but IMO not enough anymore in 2020...47MP is a beautiful look, and I like it for some things, for it’s too sharp to use on everything I do. I presume that we will eventually get accustomed to that look and start thinking that less is too pixelated...24MP is the sweet spot for me, in 2020. Good enough for cropping, good enough for printing, great in low light, and it has the aesthetics I love. Its atmospheric. Its not too real. Eventually, I know I will have to upgrade to a 40+ MP sensor, and I will take the time I need to let my eyes get accustomed to it, until I forget completely what 24MP looked like (just like Annie Lebowitz did when she transitioned from 35mm to MF). Transitions like this have happened many times in the history of photography. We will survive it together!

Not how I look it. I've written elsewhere that, with film, I generally liked the "35mm aesthetic" (usually of Tri-X) compared to the medium-format look. About 20 years ago, a friend shot Tri-X test shots in a variety of genres with a Leica M6 and with a Mamiya 7 (6x7). Both of us preferred the 35 mm aesthetic of the M6 shots: we preferred the "bite" the 35mm shots had. With digital, I'm interested in a camera with which I can get the range of looks that I like, not one that is the "best". I don't see this changing, for me, in terms of the increasingly high megapixel look that one gets used to.

Similarly, Moriyama Daido, whom I would call an expressionist photographer, continues with the high-contrast Tri-X look that made him famous but, now, shoots only digital, apparently with a Nikon Coolpix  S6100, which has a telephoto lens with a sensor the size of your pinky nail and produces only JPGs,  and often prints at 150x100cm. One of the things he likes about digital is that he can easily have either color or B&W. Actually, when he shot color-negative film, he occasionally printed and exhibited the same shot in color and B&W (on different occasions). He won't be pushed to higher megapixel images because that is what people get used to seeing. Also, as his work shows, high-MP cameras don't automatically have better "image quality".
____________________
Frog Leaping photobook 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Nowhereman

[Jeff S]

9 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I have space for about 40 prints on my walls: grouped by theme of about 10 each, plus a few individual shots, rotated from time to time, all printed and matted at A4 or A3 size (plus a couple of larger canvases. I am luckier than most, I guess. I have also made a number of blurb books, for personal and family satisfaction.
But my digital archive is approaching 40,000 images.
There is no way I will ever print all the images I want to see and put them on my walls, so I am always thinking and shooting in terms of online, onscreen and, perhaps, ephemeral.

But then I have a fundamentally different outlook on the the matters discussed in this thread. I don't have a problem with those who wish for technical perfection in the print, or the aesthetics of more or fewer pixels - life would be grim if we were all the same. But for me what an image shows (subject matter, content, composition....), and what a photographer is trying to say with it, is far, far, far more important than the technical characteristics of the image reproduction. 

As a result, I am happy to see the work of others online and on social media because I can 'read' it there as easily as if it were in print. And if it is ephemeral, then it is as ephemeral as magazine and press photography, or, for that matter, newspaper and magazine articles. That doesn't make it unimportant - think of the power of press photography through the ages (where perfection in technical reproduction was the least of the photographer's concerns). 

Nor am I afraid to say that I put stuff up online for others to see, comment on and appreciate - after all, if I think I have something to say (sometimes) then I want someone to say it to.

I'm not trying to derail this thread, which I have followed from the beginning, and learned plenty from it, but just give an alternative perspective. 

Not so different from my views. I look at tons of work online, in books, magazines and elsewhere (I collect photo books and prints).  Content is paramount; with no worthy picture (or grouping), there’s no reason to pay attention, to learn or to bother with displays.  I’ve studied art and photography for longer than I’ve actually practiced it, and continue to seek new content and learnings.  

But the thread topic IS about aesthetics, so it’s in that context that I’m emphasizing the print and not screen viewing. And to the specific topic, megapixels aren’t the basis for those aesthetic outcomes either, in my experience; that’s up to the person behind the effort.
 

Jeff

[SrMi]

7 hours ago, Tom1234 said:

 

I am of similar opinion.  24meg is an artistic precipice in sensors.  40 meg moves to new ground of ultra detail that is too much sometimes like on human skin, and other phenomena show up, like jagged edges during down sizing (but the software people will figure this out and fix it).   

I am hoping the M11 is even higher true meg, not just a doubling program as you showed mainly just improves focus but not detail, but a true 60-80meg, but I might be asking too much for the M11.   

At some point the new sensor's detail will be so high that one of my favorite aesthetics called Still Life can be correctly produced.  Still Life by definition requires abnormally high levels of detail, that the eye might not see itself, if a person was standing looking at the scene.  The highest level of detail should take Still Life to its sinister best, I will wait to see.

Jagged edges appear with suboptimal settings. What software do you use to downsize?

[Tom1234]

6 hours ago, SrMi said:

Jagged edges appear with suboptimal settings. What software do you use to downsize?

We were told by a poster way back in this thread, that the Leica Forum downscaled pictures to like 1k for web browser use.  After that we went to judging pictures only by high res downloads and not by their appearance in the browser.  This cleared up major argument about M10-R file quality.

With the downsized pictures I felt/saw that there was a slight harsh edge to M10-R pictures, the higher res pictures, that the M-10 pictures did not have. It is slight but I could see it in the browser and it irritates. Of course I can not fix this.  It made me falsely judge M10-R pictures as having a harsh edge to them.  The downloaded 40meg files do not have this harsh edge. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Tom1234
word use

[Jeff S]

3 minutes ago, Tom1234 said:

We were told by a poster way back in this thread, that the Leica Forum downscaled pictures to like 1k for web browser use.  After that we went to judging pictures only by high res downloads and not by their appearance in the browser.  This cleared up major argument about M10-R file quality.  

But with the downsized pictures I felt/saw that there was a slight harsh edge to M10-R pictures, the higher res pictures, that the M-10 pictures did not have. It is slight but I could see it in the browser and it irritates. Of course I can not fix this.  It made me falsely judge M10-R pictures as having a harsh edge to them.  The downloaded 40meg files do not have this sharp edge. 

I can think of many other reasons you may not be seeing a picture on screen optimally, let alone how the presenter intended.  I know of a solution.

Jeff

[Tom1234]

15 minutes ago, Jeff S said:

I can think of many other reasons you may not be seeing a picture on screen optimally, let alone how the presenter intended.  I know of a solution.

Jeff

I have a Benq photo monitor calibrated with X-Rite sensor on a MacMini.  I am in the ballpark of greatness for monitors.  Spending more money did not cause an appreciable uptick.  

This monitor is quite good for those interested.  It comes with calibration software that you buy the X-Rite sensor for.  It gives a Calibrated setting, a sRgb, and an Adobe RBG setting that can be clicked to anytime. It is the Benq SW320 and the Mac Mini 2014 puts out 24bit color.  Occasionally someone will complain that a few of the samples of the monitor has an inconsistency here and there but I don't see them on mine. 

[Tom1234]

24 minutes ago, Jeff S said:

I can think of many other reasons you may not be seeing a picture on screen optimally, let alone how the presenter intended.  I know of a solution.

Jeff

Jeff:  

Are you not a monitor on this Forum?

Why don't you ask them to put a note under displayed pictures that they have been downsized for presentation to 1k?  This would clear up some foolish arguing about image quality and it is a much more honest way to do business for the Forum.  If this information is available on the site, then burying this information in some help file somewhere that no one accesses is a poor way to inform and is joked about as "the small print".  I am not saying the Forum is trying to be dishonest but just that it is a missed opportunity to inform.

Those of us that use this Forum all probably have a good amount of "Leica Love" and do not want to be falsely evaluating the equipment.

Tom1234

[Jeff S]

17 minutes ago, Tom1234 said:

Jeff:  

Are you not a monitor on this Forum?

 

I am not a moderator here.  Nor do I have concerns about forum posting protocols, as I don’t post pics here or judge others based on aesthetics.  I do know all about monitors (the screen types, not forum monitors), calibration, etc, as I rely on them for editing and soft proofing for my prints. But even the best are a poor substitute.

Jeff

Edited November 3, 2020 by Jeff S

[Tailwagger]

30 minutes ago, Tom1234 said:

I have a Benq photo monitor calibrated...

I can't speak for him, but my guess is that Jeff was not necessarily referring to equipment.  I'll offer up my own, possibly, completely different take. A while back I believe you suggested that if you have to do too much work to an image there's a problem somewhere.  As someone who tends to shoot mostly during the blue and golden hours, I tend to disagree... but thats a different discussion. I revisit this notion as whenever you look at someone else's work you really have little to no idea how the image was treated, nor the skill of the photographer to do so.  There are far more ways to destroy an image in post than improve it. View any photograph critically not made by you and there really is no separating the camera, lens and author.  Everything is easily and nearly always intentionally manipulated for better or worse. The solution is rent and see for yourself. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Tailwagger

[Jeff S]

7 minutes ago, Tailwagger said:

I can't speak for him, but my guess is that Jeff was not necessarily referring to equipment.  

I definitely was not.  My solution is the print; thought that was obvious given all my posts. Screen viewing has many limitations by comparison, even top of line.

Jeff

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[Tailwagger]

4 minutes ago, Jeff S said:

I definitely was not.  My solution is the print; thought that was obvious given all my posts. Screen viewing has many limitations by comparison, even top of line.

Jeff

Print?  I'm struggling to remember what that is... (still have yet to even get a whiff of my p900 😉 ☹️) 

[Jeff S]

7 minutes ago, Tailwagger said:

Print?  I'm struggling to remember what that is... (still have yet to even get a whiff of my p900 😉 ☹️) 

You as well as the usual reviewer suspects.  Covid probably has been a factor.

Jeff