Endless Pursuit Of Image Quality
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- Опубліковано 5 бер 2024
- Are you searching for the best image quality you can get from your black and white film cameras? How do you know when you’ve got great quality, what are you basing that on? If you want to talk quality in b&w film photography, you’ll want to listen in.
We'll take a look at the work of real black and white Masters like Eugene Smith, Richard Avedon, Ansel Adams and others and learn how to improve the quality of our work.
Rob Skeoch is a career photographer, working for five newspapers and wire services before joining the team at Major League Baseball for 17 seasons and the NFL for 14 seasons. Then he was a national manager for the camera group at Sony North America before going back to shooting.
Now he shoots for gallery shows around the world, mostly street work and portraits made with a Rollei twin lens. For 35mm shooting he uses a Nikon F3 and a couple M-mount Leica cameras and shoots mostly Ilford film.
HP5 FP4Pan F Ilford Zeiss ZM Distagon Summaron Biogon Leica Leica R6.2 R6.2 R6 Nikon Nikon F3 Nikon F3T Nikon FM3A Pentax Pentax LX Pentax MX Canon Canon F1 Canon New F1Minolta Minolta X-700 Olympus Olympus OM4 Olympus OM3 Olympus OM4T Olympus OM3T Contax Kodak Fiilmprocessing darkroom black and white b&w developing film at home developing black and white filmdeveloping 35mm filmdeveloping roll film loading film developing reels loading 35mm film on reel loading 35mm film loading 35mm into development tank #blackandwhitephotography, #filmphotography, #blackandwhite, #filmprocessing, #film, #bw, #ilfordhp5, #filmisnotdead, #blackandwhitephoto, #filmcamera, #35mmfilm, #leica, #nikon, #darkroom, #darkrooms, #film, #filmcamera, , #leica, #leicasociety, #ilford, #120film, #rolleiflex #rollei, #gitzo #kodak, #kodakfilm35mm #kodaktmax400 #streetphotography,, photo, photography, picture, 135mm lens, 35mm film, black and white, rollei, ilford, portrait, #nikon, #canon, #pentax, #zeiss #distagon #18mm #zeisslens #leicaphotography #leica_world #leicaimages #leicalens, #leica_camera #leicam6 #nikonf3 #nikonfm2 #canon_official #minolta #olympus #Leicam6 #Leicam #hp5 #ilfordhp5 #slr #slrcamera #slrcanon #hasselblad #hasselblad_camera #pentax67 #pentax645 #fuji #rolleiflex - Наука та технологія
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“There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” - Ansel Adams. Great video. Thanks!
Glad you liked it!
I am not sure that a sharp concept with a fuzzy image works well either ;o)
lol
maybe not, lol
"It's always about the content", agreed! Thanks.
Glad you liked it.
Hmmm, this video is 99% about form not so much content but it was nice way to conclude it.
I think we can agree then, content is king!!
Once I got a present from Barry Lategan/London ,- an original print of him from 1990 called "falling angel"....found it in a gallery for 4500,- pounds. Away from galleries wishes to achieve a certain price of a work, I was very happy about a personal gift from a good professional photographer. It still hangs on my studios wall and did not change brightness or contrast...so the quality of printing and even the mounting in a frame that meets the quality and the value of the image is a very important feature in regarding a photograph. Love your videos...
Thanks, I'm glad you like them!
Another episode of fantastic thoughts and memories. Thank you. Content is indeed king. Sadly we all suffer that stupidity of youth. Missing out on meeting Avedon and Eisenstaedt !
You'e right. Who knew.
Nice to hear someone looking back and admit their mistakes instead of crowing over how great they are - had to be a Canadian!
lol, yes, it had to be a Canadian.
Whoa! Camel! This is better than Christmas morning when I was a kid. Thank-you.
“Stand in front of more exciting things.” Amen.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Well said. I love seeing masterful work in galleries, it is awe inspiring. Keep up the great work.
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and expertise!
Glad you're enjoying it.
Super insightful video. Thank you for taking the time to make this and share!
Thanks, we're having fun doing them.
Well said my friend. Content is king.
Glad you enjoyed it.
What an outstanding Video! I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to other presentations!
Glad you enjoyed it
Great video Rob.
Thanks, glad you liked it.
Probably what separates Ansel Adams with the rest is he's also a master printer. His scientific-like approach to photography is well documented especially on "The Negative" and "The Print". I'm not that fond of landscape photography, but when I'm thinking of black and white prints with rich tonality, yep hard to ignore AA.
The WORST exhibition I ever saw was a Szarkowski curated show in Chicago, a retrospective of Ansel Adams work. I left completely disillusioned by Adams. His published work far exceeded his wet prints. He later admitted as much. Not much of a printer to be honest.
The work I've seen has always been outstanding. Of course I haven't seen all his work.
Always enjoy your content.
Glad to hear it!
excellent *content* in this vid, thanx a lot!!
Glad you're enjoying the videos.
Thanks and great content as always! I love your channel! As far as sharpness, I think content was paramount to sharpness years ago. Today, it’s more about technical and sharpness over content to some people. I used to shoot for local news papers and local television stations. I used 35mm for news, medium format for weddings and portraits and S-VHS transferred to 3/4” SP for video news gathering. By today’s standards digital has surpassed the photo and video of the past. I still shoot more film than video, I love darkroom printing and creating content over sharpness.
I find printing and working in the darkroom very enjoyable, and love that aspect of photography.
LOVE this!!! Thanks for such a great video - I'm back to shooting film more regularly - unfortunately the digital stuff is paying the bills, for now. My passion is and always has been film. I'm currently working on a project with my 8x10 camera.
That sounds like fun, and it's supposed to be fun.
❤ I love your videos - it’s all about true photography! Here in Ottawa 🇨🇦 I was lucky to attend a private event organized by a local Ukrainian 🇺🇦 community. It was taking place at the famous Rideau Club. I was tasked with photographing the Governor of Bank Canada 🍁 And there I had a privilege of seeing photographs by Yosuf Karsh hanging on the wall. Of course the portraits are amazing. But also the quality of those prints is incredible!!!
That's great. He was such a wonderful photographer. The Ottawa Small Theatre, or maybe it's the Ottawa Opera, have a few old photo albums from the 1940's and 50's that where shot by Karsh as his wife was a fan of the theatre and he would volunteer to shot the photos.
Sir you should create a Podcast. Such an amazing stories. I am glad I found your channel
Thanks I'm glad you like it.
👍👍Great stuff, love it, keep it coming. Your subs will add up fast.👍👍
Thanks 👍
One of my favorite images of my own work was while working on a book of my time in Romania. I shot it with a Nikon FM2 and a Nikkor 200 f4 Q using Kodachrome 200 slide film. The most gorgeous tonal quality and sensuous grain Ive ever seen from 35mm. It was reproduced in a two page spread (10"x26"). A sharper lens or a more saturated, fine grain color film would have ruined the magic."Art is in the edges"
I think you're right. The pursuit of sharpness has ruined parts of photography.
Wow. Did not know you could blow up 35mm film that large. Amazing. Sebastião Salgado!
They are huge prints. Always great to see his work.
Remember that viewing distance plays a big part on how a print looks too.
That's true. It's unfair if you can walk right up to a print and peep at the grain. However his content is so strong who cares.
For me, the tragedy of Adams was how much of his working career had to be spent in the darkroom making prints instead of creating more and even better content. When someone ordered a print of one of his images, he started from scratch and printed it himself --- and that accounts for his relentless quality. Now, he obviously had formulized the process of each print, but every one had to be done by hand. And if he wasn't satisfied with the final print, he'd have to start over and do it until it was right. That seems a sad way for an artist to have to live. In the end, I suspect that took a toll on his eyes as he eventually became to poorly sighted to make the quality prints he demanded of himself. I just wish he'd been able to spend even half that darkroom time out in the field working a camera. Thanks for a thoughtful video.
Glad you're enjoying the videos. Not sure how much Adams enjoyed the darkroom, he might have loved it, might have dreaded it, I'm not sure. I enjoy time in the darkroom and try and get in their two mornings a week.
Great "conversation." It reminded me that I saw one of Ansel Adams's portfolio framed and on display in Seattle in Sept. 2022,(I think it was the museum set). I realised I had forgotten what print quality was there. I went twice in 3 days. Just a note about Salgado, with Genesis (seen at the ROM in Toronto in company of another excellent large-format (color) photographer, Ed Burtynsky), Salgado moved from medium format (645) that he was using at the beginning of the project to digital medium format.
By the way, being Canadian, do you the work by Robert Bourdeau? And as a note the 8x20" work by the late Michael Smith, a good friend of mine?
I had met Michael at a Large Format Conference held in ... I think it was Springvale NY, maybe 20 years ago. Burtynsky is well known in the area, and I used his lab when I had my one 8x10 negative scanned a few years back. I haven't met Bourdeau yet.
It’s a great exercise to shoot with some 1930s-40s camera and glass to see what the image could be at their best. Even with the advantage of modern films.
You don't have to go back that far. The films from the 80's were far grainier than todays film.
Why use modern film and not go all the way and try to find some 1930s emulsion? ;o)
I did own for a while the Leica 0, which was a remake of the original Leica but modernized to use current films (sprocket holes changed from original films). The results were interesting and had fairly good results. The film really made a difference in bringing out the best in the cameras.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite That is an interesting experience although I still have a Leica II that I got cheap at an auction some 35 years ago... I tried two rolls with it and went back to my M2 ;o)
I can see why you would feel that way.
Fred Goyeau printed a lot of Salgado’s work and there is a film about him on The Darkroom Rumour. It’s fascinating watching a master printer at work
Good to know, thanks.
Exactly why I'm more than happy with my 40mp camera. I need to work on composition and content more than worrying about pixel-peeping.
Yes, we all do.
4:00 I think it's normal at that time to not take care about the perfect print, he was a magazine photographer, taking pictures all day of different things. He was good at it but it was his job. We care because it's our hobby. Always an amateur (means lover in french) take care about every detail, from gear to what copy lens is sharper or what software is better to edit a Nikon raw. But if this is your daily job, if you are always in a hurry, wanting to go home with your family, it's logical to take it like what it is: a job.
A Uber Eats worker use 10 times more his bike than any bike fan that spends thousands of dollars on a custom handlebar. And he is probably faster and have way more stamina than any amateur biker. For the Uber Eats worker a bike is just a tool that let him do his job. He does not care about if the frame of the bike is carbon fiber or titanium.
Those are great points. A lot of amateur photographers have better gear than pro's ... sometimes because they have more money available to spend on the gear... sometimes because they feel the better gear will make better pictures... and maybe sometimes because they like nice things. A lot of pro's are just trying to get the job shipped on time as well.
PS: on your opening statement, the photograph (Hyères, 1932) by Cartier-Bresson was taken in 1932 with a Leica I and its 1930s lens with 1930s film (pretty low ISO, somewhere between 10 and 40). So that may explain that. He was just starting with his photography and his Leica, and still made amazing photographs. So yes what stands out is the content of his photographs (subject, composition, decisive moment); the technical imperfections can be understood within the context but they do not add to the images and are definitely not responsible for making him famous ;o) Another thing was that he did not like printing and his choices were usually toward low-contrast prints. Fortunately, from time to time, his printer convinced him to let him work and we got, in my opinion, better prints!
Thanks for pointing that out, didn't know.
I have 4 of the Ansel Adams "special edition" 8x10 prints and they were printed by Alan Ross who was one of Ansel's assistants. Ross is an accomplished photographer and printer in his own right and he, apparently, is the only person who has been officially tasked with printing Ansel's "special edition" negatives. I suspect yours were printed by Ross as well.
Yes, I believe they were.
Ross is also an accomplished musician (as AA was) who even composed the score for a movie on A. Adams (by Willard Van Dyke if I remember well). Adams had several assistants among whom Ross but also John Sexton (another wonderful large-format BW photographer and printer) and a few others.
It was such a talented group, doing great work together as well.
"Sebastião Salgado, who turned 80 this month, decided to retire after a career marked by awards and international recognition."
Yes, I read that the other day. It was an interesting article.
I know your jam is black and white, and this video was about black and white prints, but you recounting your experiences with the Selgado or Adams prints made me remember something. I have to say the first time I saw big backlit cibachromes hanged up in a gallery room with otherwise subdued lighting I felt like crying. They were otherworldly. Like windows to some other place. Other people lament the discontinuation of Kodachrome, but I think we lost way more with cibachromes.
Yes, they were wonderful. Such a nice glow to them. They went well with Kodachrome.
By the time they disappeared they had become Ilfochrome (as Ciba-Geigi had sold their shares)... now someone like Jeff Wall who was on the first to use big light-boxes for his work uses digital (on translucent medium) and they are at least as good. Check them out.
@@BrunoChalifour Thank you. They look interesting. I didn't immediately find out how they are made, I will have to look into it. Sadly no exhibitions coming near me that I could find. If they are like cibachromes, I won't understand much just looking at pictures on my screen instead of seeing them live. I am also interested in how long they stay vivid with constant light, like E6 slides seem to fade into nothingness with exposure to light.
@@cabbelos Ciba/Ilforchrome made a reputation for themselves (beside their saturated reds, a recipe for colorful explosion combined with Kodachrome 25) for their longevity, compared to C-prints. I have had three 20"x30" (50 cm x 75 cm) on my wall for 20 years now and they have nor faded, whereas all my framed C-prints in the same conditions have faded.
@@BrunoChalifour I was unclear, I meant I am interested in how long the Jeff Wall print techniques hold up. I have some pictures I definitely would make a light box like that if I will find out how to make one.
Lewis Baltz was the best printer I've ever seen. I was STUNNED to learn that my favorite work of his was NOT in fact shot on 8x10 but rather meticulously shot, processed and printed 35MM!!!.
That's interesting. Just goes to show you.
Kodak Technical Pan but only in his early period. Later he moved to color and did not print it.
Back in the day, there were some b&w films that were super sharp/low grain when used with certain developers. Great image quality but they always had a funny look to them in my view. Something like you get from Ilford XP2. It's nice, it's close, but it never looked just right.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite Agreed for XP2: tried it thinking the absence of grain (or its minimal manifestation) would be interesting but went back to HP5+ and then Delta 400. I suppose the super sharp film you are mentioning is Kodak Technical Pan (the one Lewis Baltz used for a while) in Technidol. A difficult character to deal with! (the film ;o)
I think you need some grain to know that it's film
sorry for the uninitiated, but what does "spotting the prints" mean?
When you print in the darkroom you get dust on the negatives, on the print they appear as white spots. Most photographers colour them in with either a special pencil, a type of paint or a dye. It's common practice.
I have a local darkroom and I am interested in joining, would learning darkroom prints change my photography for the better?
It would change your life for the better. There's a lot of mistakes to make but once you get those out of the way, it's so enjoyable.
I think Henri Cartier Bresson cared more about capturing an idea than sharpness of image
Sharpness is for people who can afford $512 photographic prints.
no hat🤝
As long as we're all having fun.
He never printed any of his negatives after WW II, and was definitely not keen on doing it.
Who can do the most can do the least too? Quality in an image be, it on film or print, rarely kills the message and may allow the receiving party to understand it. True for any kind of message. Esthetics may work differently but regarding content the clarity of its delivery helps.
Interesting that you relate the modern obsession with sharpness as a gauge for quality. If I wanted super sharp images I would shoot digital. I don't shoot B+W film to try and create a poor version of digital. I shoot B+W film for the light and the grain and the overall mood of the image.If the images are too sharp the grain turns to sand so I prefer the image to be less sharp. Those blurry images of Omaha Beach have a mood which would be lost if they were sharp.That is quality. This is obviously just me... Regards.
You're likely right. The pursuit of sharpness is ruining photography.
Shooting film "for the light" does not make sense anymore today as digital allows better rendition and control. Now for grain, nothing like salted paper negatives ;o)
Regarding D-Day photographs by Capa, their story/stories is/are quite interesting. Search for what A.D. Coleman research and wrote on the subject.
"Sharp images" does not mean the grain systematically turns to sand, the size of the grain and sharpness can be two separate things. In fact the sharpest film are the ones with the smallest, and the least visible grain if I remember my film and darkroom days well ;o) Today we get far better control over sharpness (and grain) with digital than with film. What can do the most can also do the least... the opposite does not work. I think people keep on using, or discover film, for its hands-on processes. One has to love the long hours in the darkroom (also how many new film aficionados actually develop their film and print, I wonder) [if so why not go back to daguerreotypes] ;o).
I am not sure that sharpness entails "the grain turning to sand" (increasing contrast is more likely to do it). In fact if I remember my film days well, the sharpest film were the ones with the least grain (Kodak Technical Pan, any 50 ISO film,...).
PS: I am not sure that R. Capa's intention at Omaha was "the mood" ;o), pretty sure it was not as he was more than happy to get away from there. Being sharp would not be detrimental to that particular photograph, only maybe if one finds war and violence romantic, "with a mood" [just joking here].
I'm not sure what he was thinking during D-day, but I wouldn't have been hanging around for long.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite Neither would I have... it was bloody cold and wet. Since my one-year stay in Liverpool in a badly heated house I dread that situation! ;o)
You say noise, I say grain. The biggest curse of contemporary photography is so called pixel peeping.
Too much preoccupation with imperfection. Just look at the image and feel the emotion…✌️
#stillshootingblackandwhitealbeitdigitally
It's too easy with digital to look into the very corners.
99% of this video is about "pixel peeping" the analog way... and it should not prevent focusing on content. One is form the other is content, they should work hand in hand.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite Have we ever photographed with mediocre lenses unless cornered? ;O) Let us face it, given the choice (and the budget) why not pick the best tools ? What can achieve the most can achieve the least, the opposite is impossible.
The great thing about modern photography is there are so many options. It seems there's something for everyone. Of course that doesn't make us happy, but if does offer freedom to do what you want. Glad you watched the show, keep shooting.
6.40 But didn´t Sebastião Salgado use a Pentax 645 for the work you are talking about and not a Leica?
I think he used everything, Leica, Pentax 645m Canon Digital with a custom viewfinder so it produced an 8x10 format instead of a 8x12 conventional 35mm. The stuff in Africa during the droughts were Leica, later stuff for Genesis, likely 645.
Sharpness isn't an issue for some of us, adequate detail is sufficient. If anything, digital cameras are far too sharp with too much detail for the kind of images you mention. but as they say, esthetics follows technology.
Yes, I think you're right.
Any tool that can do the most can do the least, the contrary is impossible. One can make any sharp image whether dial or analog look soft, no-one can make a photographs shot with a plastic lens look better that one shot with good glass. I know it is fashionable to poo-poo quality (and this video is exactly the opposite), and to caricature it (not everyone who values quality thinks it should be done at the expense of content, far from it)... most of the time for the wrong personal reasons.
Digital cameras are as sharp as you want them to be... it depends on the lenses you choose and how you process the images you produce. It is easier (and more likely to get successful results) to blotch a sharp images than to make a blurry one sharp, so why not start with the greatest potential n umber of solutions which quality, and in that case sharpness bring to the table. I would agree that technology is often peripheral to aesthetics but let us face it it is not a tool one should ignore. Paints in tube revolutionised landscape painting. Photography does help painters and painting too.
You're right!!
We have a funny idea of what the word quality means in photography. In the rest of life it means an attribute of something or the degree to which it meets a standard. It is as if there is an absolute standard (probably technical) against which all photographs are measured. What a weird thing to do with art! Imagine talking like this about paintings or literature.
Those are very good points. I think when you look at a photograph, poor quality shouldn't get in the way of enjoying the photo.
Does sharpness actually matter that much? Especially if you’re not doing landscape photography?
Nope, but people appreciate quality in printing and quality work.
Your audience should at least be able to recognise the subject ;o). There are exceptions (Uta Barth but once the novelty has rubbed off, most people lose interest and the current art market has been reflecting that concerning her work). If one cannot see sharp, how can one read? So sharpness can be important, and actually matter.
Sharpness only matters so much. If the lack of sharpness gets in the way of telling the story, then I guess sharpness maters in that case. Of course there are some nice pinhole shots out there, that have no sharpness but still are enjoyable to view.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite Yes, like Boney M versus Bach! ;o)
lol
Image quality with film cameras does not depend - to an extend - on technology used at all. The major factors for image quality was/is the film used, the ability of the photographer to focus correctly and to get the exposure (time and aperture) right at both, image taking and negative enlarging in the darkroom, and finally to use the chemicals at developing of film and paper correctly. It's not the Leica which makes good image quality, it's the skills of the photographer to operate the hardware and to use the chemicals.
When it comes to art, of course it even isn't important to get the image quality perfect. Here it's only the composition of the picture, the timing, the motif, the distribution and extend of light and shadows (or colors) and the relevance of the shot as a description or representation of the time and location it was taken.
You're right, most likely!!
I would defend that image quality depends on technology first. All the improvements in sharpness have been thanks to technology: better camera bodies, better lenses, better film (or sensors), better developers... then the way those tools are being used, yes, granted. It is easier and faster to improve one's technique than the technology one is using.
We currently have some of the greatest cameras, lenses and films available to us, in the history of photography. Plus we have all the older stuff if we want to go down that route.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite Yes but for the second part I do not long for the time I would rebuild an 1839 wood camera and breathe mercury vapours while processing my daguerreotype (I have friends who have done that! Some others who are world-specialists of collodion... I admire their dedication but I do not envy them). ;o)
Photography is just over 200 years old. The technology has exploded over that time period but we still have photographers reaching back to those early technologies, and styles to express their vision. I find it very interesting!!
MFT charts and people doing microsopic pixel peeping on digital photos is so annoying. I wish people talked about the rendering quality of a lens not how sharp an image is.
I think it's just the digital thing, now you can blow up the corners and see the un-sharpness. In the old days you would have to print the corners, which is way to much work. lol
And so far I had been thinking that sharpness in an image was one of the ways to gauge the quality of a lens (that it should not be the essential, seems right, but it cannot be ignored).
For the most part I think people were doing the best they could with the technology available and under their particular circumstances.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite it also goes to show that subject matter matter almost more then pure resolution
For sure that's true. My sharpest, most technically correct photo, is of a brick wall. The most boring photo possible but great to show at lectures when people are thinking image quality equals greatness.
HCB: "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept".
He was likely right.
Yes said someone who was brought up in one of the wealthiest French families. The meaning of "bourgeois" in a grand bourgeois's mouth may have had a slightly different meaning. Context is important. [he said some great things but had a few mishaps too]
@@BrunoChalifour 😉
I think the concept of quality changes with the times and technology. Also the endless pursuit of sharpness is ruining photography.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite Of course we can only deal with what we know and the tools we have. Anything extreme ruins anything.
a bit ironic that in a video on Image quality, you're out of focus (the focus is on the background unfortunately)
Yea, I noticed it jumped around a bit.
Sharpness? It's a myth! Today we all have Ultra sharp with no content! sad! I met Eisie! Great man and photographer. I was only photographer to be allowed to photograph Eisie! Why? I didn't use flash!
Shock! I handled and seen Edward Weston prints! They were unsharp due to lousy lenses!. Does it matter?
Not to me but to some people it does.
A myth?? Amusing. What do you think of potentially great content that no-one can appreciate because of the poor quality of the image... and that is not a myth. I would also be interested to know which of E. Weston's 8x10 contact-printed photographs were unsharp (and living in Rochester NY, I handled many of these prints too). Maybe the ones you saw were from the early 1920s when he was in his pictorial phase and took portraits with extremely soft lenses (on purpose)... look at California and the West (1930s) and show me an unsharp image!
Edwards had a large body of work, might have been some unsharp ones in there. The ones I've seem were nice so can only talk from my experiences. Others mileage may vary.
FYI the Capa negative story about the film being ruined and sliding down the negative is false. Read A.D. Coleman for Exposure magazine on this.
Yes, I've read it. It seems he was only at the landing for about 15 minutes and took the next boat out. Of course that doesn't make much of a story.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite I recommend reading Capa’s autobiography “Slightly Out of Focus” for the rest of the story. It was a horrific experience.
I'll look it up, thanks.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite There is more to that. For a long time a young assistant working at Life lab in London was held responsible for allegedly melting Capa's film in the drying cabinet (which did not explain why some images (very few) had miraculously survived and the others were just blank as in "never exposed"). The myth was long-lived and finally debunked not just by AD but a whole team of helpers who researched the matter for several years.
One of the interesting thing about R Capa is how he worked so hard about creating a myth about himself, when really the work stood the test of time on it's own.
You talk so much about quality You are defining quality with sharpness Nowadays the digital equipments give you the highest sharpness (equals quality) but they can have lousy contents
In the end you still have to admit content is king
You're right. I think that's what I said at the end.
Ditto the last comment hcb was very into composition I've seen photos with lousy quality but mesmerising composition l would say composition beats sharpness or film quality in 90% of all cases remember like lartique hcb was into reportage or street photography if you talk about macro or product photography ok quality becomes more important but photography is an art form Vincent van Gogh was an artist are you going to criticize his work for not being sharp???
Actually I've only seen a couple van Gogh's. Loved his work!
Well if you look at Van Gogh's work, his brush strokes are pretty sharp (understatement here ;o).
I think that in the early years, they were doing the best they could with the materials available to them. It's different now where photographers might choose to use older technology because they like the look. When photojournalism was just starting, there was no older technology to go back to.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite Photography was around 70 years old when publishing photographs became possible. Not to forget that a lot of the very first photographers had been trained as painters (check the members of the 1851 Mission Héliographique, the first government-sponsored photographic survey ever).
I think painters saw it as a way to grab compositions quickly that they could take home and paint.
Great video!
Would you be interested in collaborating with us?
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If yes, how could we get in touch?
Not at this time.
IQ is irrelevant if you can't get THEE shot. I often say the most expensive prints ever made have the worst IQ I've ever seen. IQ imo is for products, and weddings. Outside of those 2 genre's IQ is nearly irrelevant. I know of a photographer who makes excellent images using the max expanded iso full of grain and noise. They look like impressionist paintings.
Yes, you're likely right.
The tools must be at the service of the vision. The more one masters the tools, the more he/she can use them precisely. Sharpness is a means to an end and the end should not be sharpness, agreed, but in most cases in photography sharpness is more than relevant and not merely a fad or a useless luxury.
Sharpness (part of image quality) is also important to get "the" shot. In your image is illegible by others then what is the point. Images always require a minimum legibility, thence IQ to work... as a consequence sharpness as part of IQ does matter and cannot be totally dismissed. As for "the most expensive prints ever made have the worst IQ I've ever seen"... where and when did that happen? My experience is quite the opposite although there might be exceptions but they definitely do not make rules.
You bring up a great point. There are a lot of great photos out there that are great because they're captured at the perfect moment. As you said, they got THEE shot. IQ isn't everything.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite For sure 😅 could you imagine someone setting up an 8x10 during the Vietnam war?
ironically, your background is in focus but you aren't
yeah, had some issues with that one. Ironic as you say.
"Endless pursuit of image quality" does not make sense. Time is far better used pursuing improving one's photography.
Yes, content is king.