Leica M11 – a field report after four months

[adan]

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3 hours ago, tashley said:

The rhetorical approach that says that ‘they’ (the cameras) are > ‘us’ (the photographers) may be superficially attractive but is ultimately untrue. 

Depends, perhaps, on how one defines " 'us' (the photographers)." Or for that matter, " 'they' (the cameras)."

Which has often had a quite, ummm,  broad definition on this forum, at least according to some members. Even to the extent of "A photographer is anyone who uses any camera and exposes any photograph."

Usually comes up in more philosophical discussions on "What is Art?" and such, in the Barnack's Bar forum.

Using that definition (which I don't insist on, myself) - yeah, there are probably a great many "photographers" who are outclassed by their gear. But also a great many photographers who outclass their gear - and have no problem with that, since they may be into "quality images" rather than "image quality."  

See: https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/photographic-magic-with-the-diana-camera/

https://www.wvxu.org/arts/2019-04-01/cincinnati-art-museum-acquires-collection-of-photography-pioneer-nancy-rexroth

https://www.nancyrexroth.com/

Edited May 11, 2022 by adan

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[stray cat]

Thank you Andy, the Rexroth pictures are outstanding.

 

[M11 for me]

That DIANA camera is even not mentionned in DxO Mark. I would not be able to make my outstandung photographs with such a tool. The M11 certainly makes the difference. Look at the Diana pictures: They have neither 3D look nor are they sharp.

[M11 for me]

And the lens is certainly not APO either.

[M11 for me]

vor 12 Stunden schrieb stray cat:

Thank you Andy, the Rexroth pictures are outstanding.

 

How can you come to that odd conclusion.

[M11 for me]

Now I go to my dinner 😇

[tashley]

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16 hours ago, trickness said:

Funny, these limitations never stopped Cartier Bresson from taking a memorable photo back in the 1930s. Or Ralph Gibson in the 70s, etc etc etc.

Technology is a great crutch, but its no substitute for artistry. 

 

That is an entirely different argument. A good artist will find a way to work with or around the limitations of their equipment, for sure. But that is not the same as saying that the work that the equipment allows is most often a superset of the abilities of the artist.

[tashley]

17 hours ago, THEME said:

Photography will always be photography. 2-dimensional, a reproduction. You demand a clone of the real thing? It will be something different.

To start with: Every human eye sees differently.

And don't you sometimes miss the grain of film pushed to ISO800, 1600 even? Made some of the best photos.

The more "real" photography becomes, the more sterile photographs risk to be.

But that is merely a question of your particular aesthetic. Some of the very greatest photographers of our (or any) age make astonishing work which has enormous technical virtuosity in a manner you might call sterile but which others might interpret in a far more profound manner. Take a look at a huge Gursky. That technical perfection is allowing reproduction at vast scale, and is commenting on how he sees the nature of the world we’ve made for ourselves. Sterility might be part of the message. Clearly. Crewdson, love him or hate him, makes the photographic process get out of the way by shooting as perfectly as humanly possible so that the image doesn’t bear the marks of the process.

My point is that you can always reduce the abilities of a system but using a funky lens or exposing non-conventionally or doing any number of things both at capture and in post and in display. You can always make an image look technically less perfect. But it is very hard to make an image technically better after you have had too capture it with more noise or distortion than you wanted or with less DR or not enough pixels. And as I say, nearly all competent photographers would be able to widen the range of images they can successfully capture were there to be twenty stops of noise-free DR available at ISO6400. We are not all Nan Goldin and many of us don’t want to be.

The fact that talented photographers can make silk purses out of sows’ ears does not mean that we all want to purchase sows’ ears all the time however much fun that sort of equipment can be.

Edited May 11, 2022 by tashley

[trickness]

19 minutes ago, tashley said:

That is an entirely different argument. A good artist will find a way to work with or around the limitations of their equipment, for sure. But that is not the same as saying that the work that the equipment allows is most often a superset of the abilities of the artist.

You’re talking about something that applies to the most minuscule portion of the people using these tools. I know many street photographers who use these cameras every single day and I have never once heard anybody talk about the “limitations of their equipment” - But I’ve heard them (and myself) talk plenty about personal limitations, whether it be their own technical abilities, or limitations in there creative vision that they are seeking to expand. But Street Photography is inherently humbling.
 

You can keep making the argument that somehow these tools are flawed and are holding us back from some photographic ideal. And by all means you are free to make that assertion. But all one needs to do is to go into any of the image threads for any of these cameras here on this forum and look at what has been posted. It’s painfully clear that any photographic ideal not being met has nothing to do with the camera being inferior to the human eye. The overwhelming majority of photographers who want to improve would be better served investing their money getting an understanding of photographic and art history, and more importantly getting their asses off these forums and getting out into the world to shoot more. It’s not lack of dynamic range that is holding back 99.9% of photographers whose work needs improvement.

But it’s a lot easier to just get on an Internet forum and moan about all the things that are missing from a shiny new $9000 camera. I get it. Maybe one day somebody will print & hang all these raggy posts in the Louvre and people in the future will stand around and marvel at them.

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by trickness

[tashley]

14 hours ago, adan said:

But also a great many photographers who outclass their gear - and have no problem with that, since they may be into "quality images" rather than "image quality."  

And there we have the rhetorical technique known as the false opposition…..

[tashley]

8 minutes ago, trickness said:

You’re talking about something that applies to the most minuscule portion of the people using these tools. I know many street photographers who use these cameras every single day and I have never once heard anybody talk about the “limitations of their equipment” - But I’ve heard them (and myself) talk plenty about personal limitations, whether it be their own technical abilities, or limitations in there creative vision that they are seeking to expand. But Street Photography is inherently humbling.
 

You can keep making the argument that somehow these tools are flawed and are holding us back from some photographic ideal. And by all means you are free to make that assertion. But all one needs to do is to go into any of the image threads for any of these cameras here on this forum and look at what has been posted. It’s painfully clear that any photographic ideal not being met has nothing to do with the camera being inferior to the human eye. The overwhelming majority of photographers who want to improve would be better served investing their money getting an understanding of photographic and art history, and more importantly getting their asses off these forums and getting out into the world to shoot more.

But it’s a lot easier to just get on an Internet forum and moan about all the things that are missing from a shiny new $9000 camera. I get it. Maybe one day somebody will print & hang all these raggy posts in the Louvre and people in the future will stand around and marvel at them.

 

I’m guessing at this point that my degree in logic was a waste of time…

[trickness]

Just now, tashley said:

I’m guessing at this point that my degree in logic was a waste of time…

No, it’s always nice to know that a thick gloss of condescension was earned at a university.

Please do post some photographs where you feel your camera was a limitation to your creative vision. I’m trembling with anticipation (I got my degree in sarcasm from a correspondence school).

 

[tashley]

18 minutes ago, trickness said:

No, it’s always nice to know that a thick gloss of condescension was earned at a university.

Please do post some photographs where you feel your camera was a limitation to your creative vision. I’m trembling with anticipation (I got my degree in sarcasm from a correspondence school).

 

Gladly.

This one, a crop of an image taken on an M8, a 10 MP camera with limited DR and not great noise characteristics. It was almost a ‘street shot’ in that I glimpsed this scene across a field, stopped the vehicle and ran in blinding snow over towards what would have been the right spot (i.e. closer) and as I ran, the blizzard stopped again for about three seconds. I had time to get one shot only, then the snow drove back in and didn’t stop while I still had warmth in my body.

It was shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition last year and the entire edition sold out before the show opened to the public.

If It had been taken on a 60mp camera with a better noise floor, I could have done a further edition printed at a larger size and that would have paid for my M11 many times over. As it is, the original capture is stretched as far as all my PP and printing wiles allow and there is no way, unless there’s a really massive bump in AI, that it will ever see the light of day as a larger print size edition.

There was nothing restrictive about the M8 that stopped me having the right creative eye. There was a lot about it that meant that my creative eye hasn’t translated into as successful an image as it might. For many of us, these things are not toys, they earn their keep.

 

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Edited May 11, 2022 by tashley

[Olaf_ZG]

1 hour ago, trickness said:

You’re talking about something that applies to the most minuscule portion of the people using these tools. I know many street photographers who use these cameras every single day and I have never once heard anybody talk about the “limitations of their equipment” - But I’ve heard them (and myself) talk plenty about personal limitations, whether it be their own technical abilities, or limitations in there creative vision that they are seeking to expand. But Street Photography is inherently humbling.
 

You can keep making the argument that somehow these tools are flawed and are holding us back from some photographic ideal. And by all means you are free to make that assertion. But all one needs to do is to go into any of the image threads for any of these cameras here on this forum and look at what has been posted. It’s painfully clear that any photographic ideal not being met has nothing to do with the camera being inferior to the human eye. The overwhelming majority of photographers who want to improve would be better served investing their money getting an understanding of photographic and art history, and more importantly getting their asses off these forums and getting out into the world to shoot more. It’s not lack of dynamic range that is holding back 99.9% of photographers whose work needs improvement.

But it’s a lot easier to just get on an Internet forum and moan about all the things that are missing from a shiny new $9000 camera. I get it. Maybe one day somebody will print & hang all these raggy posts in the Louvre and people in the future will stand around and marvel at them.

 

This. The last sentence! 
 

i admit it is funny to see all the new requests for the yet-new-to-come camera because without it we are not able to make/take/create an image…

 

honestly, if you didn’t had the know how to create an image with the m8, you won’t make it with the m11/m12… may be the camera will make it, but not you.

cameras are like phones: the smarter they get, the dumber we are.

[adan]

38 minutes ago, tashley said:

I’m guessing at this point that my degree in logic was a waste of time…

Possibly. Logic is only as good as the demonstrated truth of its propositions, premises and/or assumptions.

If someone says "Sharper pictures are always better, therefore.....," that is an unproven (and quite probably false**) premise. It is certainly not one I would accept as true without factual evidence. Any more than I would accept an argument that begins "The Moon is made of green cheese, therefore.....," no matter how perfect the logical deduction that follows.

So tell me your assumptions, and demonstrate that they are factual in all cases, before you tell me your logical deductions from them. 

The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. - Thomas Henry Huxley

(....based on my BA in Cinema & Photography, MA in Visual Communications, and 45 years of further reading, questioning all assumptions, and critical observation of the real world. )

___________________
** the inclusion of Nancy Rexroth's Diana pictures in the world's permanent archive of worthwhile and important photographs (a museum), while billions of sharp pictures don't make the cut, is the "ugly fact" that slays the first hypothesis in the second paragraph.

[tashley]

Honestly I’m getting a little over being misrepresented!

I started off by disagreeing with something Trickness said - which was that “all of these tools far exceed the limitations of the vast majority of photographers. ”

My disagreement was based on the clearly true fact that very many photographers would sometimes, indeed often, be able to benefit from cameras with more pixels, better high ISO noise performance, and most of all better dynamic range since it is still the case that on a bright day, the DR of a strongly lit outdoor scene is very often greater than that available in even the best cameras.

Having said this, I am constantly misrepresented as having in some way implied that technology is the limiting factor to great image making, and that great artists can only make great work with amazing materials and that it’s not possible to make great pictures with more basic equipment. I did not say any of those things, nor imply them, nor do I believe them. Nor have I at any point implied or stated that sharper is always better.

My assumptions are that there are three components to a great image: a great eye, the ability to choose and skilfully use the appropriate equipment, and the availability of equipment which is not itself a limiting factor to the image one wishes to make.

Rembrandt and Raphael could draw astonishing cartoons on rough paper with the simplest crayon. That is not in doubt. However they both devoted massive amounts of time and energy to researching, sourcing, refining and developing the best supports, mediums, pigments, brushes and glazes. If you want to create some sorts of masterpiece, you need everything to be as good as it can. 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by tashley

[trickness]

44 minutes ago, tashley said:

If you want to create some sorts of masterpiece, you need everything to be as good as it can. 

 

And yet, all the masterpieces in the photographic oeuvre taken prior to the release of the M11 (or 12, or 99) exist, oblivious to your assertion.

I for one consider myself quite fortunate to be not so advanced as to have the curse of waiting for technology to catch up with my talent. Please accept my best wishes and empathy for your burden.

 

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by trickness

[tashley]

1 hour ago, trickness said:

And yet, all the masterpieces in the photographic oeuvre taken prior to the release of the M11 (or 12, or 99) exist, oblivious to your assertion.

I for one consider myself quite fortunate to be not so advanced as to have the curse of waiting for technology to catch up with my talent. Please accept my best wishes and empathy for your burden.

 

 

 

A piece of trite passive aggressiveness backed up by your SL2 and wide selection of ultra fast lenses. 
 

Hmmm.  

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[hdmesa]

2 hours ago, tashley said:

Honestly I’m getting a little over being misrepresented!

...

 

Which is why I call some of these posts "bait" and think it better to not bite. 

I don't feel seriously limited by current cameras, but if someone gives me a camera with 21 stops of DR, I certainly ain't kicking it out of bed in the morning, either.

[tashley]

4 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Which is why I call some of these posts "bait" and think it better to not bite. 

I don't feel seriously limited by current cameras, but if someone gives me a camera with 21 stops of DR, I certainly ain't kicking it out of bed in the morning, either.

You are wiser than I…..