Have we gone too far?

<p>This is a purely hypothetical question. I have migrated through three generations of digital cameras and film cameras for nearly 60 years before that. I have two 27 inch monitors that I use to view my images on. I can view detail that would stand up on a billboard. I can produce color and contrast and detail that would have driven art directors mad back in the day. I can do this with a box the size of an old 35 and a lot of computing horsepower. Yet we discuss endlessly on this site the virtue of this lens over that lens. I guess it is my view that computing power can trump most lens input beyond what the human eye can conceive. <br>

We can test and discus nuances until the cows come home, but when we put the results on a 16 x 20 image -- well printed -- can anyone tell the difference? Does it matter? Is it worth the dollars to move from the 99.999th percentile to the 99.9999th percentile?</p>

<p>I agree completely, John. Fact is that many of the gearheads lack the needed skills to produce a first class print....and for them......it's easier to buy gear than it is to <strong><em>learn</em></strong> how to get the most from what they have....Respects, Robert</p>

<p>I had a chance today to supply images I took back in the early '70s for an upcoming book. I also looked at images I took with my Nikon D-1 using lenses that dated back almost that far. I compare those to images with my D7000 and fairly cheap glass and they all stand up for what they are. In technical terms the images from my D7000 are better -- even with the fairly cheap glass -- because of the enhanced dynamic range and my software's capability to capture it, and my computer's ability to process it. However, to say that the images (relatively small files from scanned slides) are of lesser quality than my 20 plus GB files from my D7000 or some of the 200 GB processed files from the D-1 or the truly immense files from 30 image panoramas... it boggles the mind. But does any of it matter to the buyer of viewer?</p>

<p>What I love here on the P.net forums, is the people who get really bent out of shape telling others to not buy a certain camera now, because it is already a couple years old! As if it's not as good as it was when it was introduced. And - pssst - some of the "newer cameras" aren't really any better than the old ones. What I hate is people who think that because the new one has 16 megapixels over the older one that had 12 megapixels, it is automatically going to be better! To me, unless you're doubling your number of megapixels, say from 12 to 24, anything less is a waste of money. I went from 3 to 6,8,10, and now 12 mega pixels. And I really feel I don't need more resolution! I can print gorgeous 12 x 18 inch prints, and don't feel the need for anything larger at all.</p>

<p>Oh for the simple days of a 35mm SLR and a 50mm lens...</p>

<p>It matters when it matters. Only you know if your work will intersect with that sort of audience, or that sort of use. No question it does for some photographers, if not for most.<br /><br />I was in a large department store the other day, waiting for my wife to finish up a purchase at a costmetic counter. So (of course!) I was studying the catch lights in the eyes of the models in the very large prints used to decorate that product line's area in the store. It really was like pixel peeking at 100%, only ... it wasn't. The printed images were spectacular, six feet tall, and help up to just-off-the-nose viewing. These were probably shot on a high-end digital MF rig, or they were drum scans of large pieces of film (though they sure didn't "feel" that way). <br /><br />Never the less, the people who commissoned those photographs certainly wouldn't have tolerated anything less than the bodies/lenses/processes that were used to create the final results. And whether or not the average Joe/Jane passer-by at that display could articulate what they were seeing while looking at the prints, they were very compelling and (of course) makes one think instantly of one's own skin, pores, and all of those other things that drive sales of cosmetics. <br /><br />Too far? Maybe for cat snapshots. But I had a customer order a 36" re-print of something I did for them a couple of years ago, and all I could think about was how I wish I'd used an even larger sensor and an even sharper lens when I took the shot. The customer doesn't think in those terms, but they'd know it if they saw it, and it helps to support the higher price I could ask.</p>

<p>I was looking through Steve McCurry's portraits today, and I'm damned if I could tell the difference between the ones made with film and 'obsolete' lenses, and the recent digital stuff. They all blow me away.</p>

<p>Matt, I had billboard printed from 35mm slides in the '70s. I can produce 20 foot crisp prints from images from my D-1. I love the little dig about cat snapshots, BTW. I made my living for years supplying photography to a dozen large national accounts and a scad of Fortune 500 companies. I do have the joy today of shooting snapshots with myself as the AD and CD. But that doesn't mean I don't understand the craft and can't spot a phony when he shows up.</p>

<p>20-foot crisp prints for what viewing distance?<br /><br />The point, John, is that client expectations have evolved along with the technology. And the expectations aren't just in relation to the final output quality, but also with the speed and cost in getting there. It isn't just the equipment that changes. It's just as true of soccer moms buying print as its for national brands buying the heavy duty stuff. But that's just phony old me.</p>

<p>Matt: you are right about client expectations. They do set the standards of the files they expect. But those standards could be met with the $100 piece of glass and a ten year old digital camera in the hands of a competent photographer with up-to-date computers and software as well as the guy who spends $15K on gear. In terms of the viewing distance of the 20 foot print, if you understand digital imaging you can hold 300dpi on a 20 foot print with a 2 megapixel camera. It is not only pixel density on they sensor that matters. There are a number of very solid and creative tools for building interpolation between pixels into stunning images from rather small files. The image capture is not even half of what it takes to deliver a stunning visual image.</p>

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<p>Never the less, the people who commissoned those photographs certainly wouldn't have tolerated anything less than the bodies/lenses/processes that were used to create the final results. </p>

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<p>I don't believe this. A friend of mine used to shoot for department stores right when that became popular, life-size stuff that was done with consumer digital lenses and SLR. The images were so strong nobody (client or customers) what was used. People would stare at them. He didn't do traditional department store, he used customers (like Esprit used employees), and took spectacular photographs. Nobody cares what is used when it's done better.</p>

<p>FWIW, I have a set of prints up now in an art space, 20x30 inches, shot on a 10.3MP camera, a good one (1DMk3), but still, not as many pixels as people would expect. The owner stopped me the other day to tell me that she was happy to have such great photos on display. It didn't matter to her what it was made with, it was the emotional carry of the images.</p>

<P>John: I don't need a lecture on post production tools (my family contains an actual computer scientist who just got a technical Oscar for work in the technology underlying such areas - I get it, OK?). And I also understand the laws of physics. Software doesn't convincingly create separate eyelashes that a lower resolution sensor or lens can't resolve. Not at the pace/cost that makes just shooting it that way in the first place a better decision.<BR><BR>Jeff: when I say they won't tolerate less than the gear, I mean less than what the gear delivers. A six-foot print really is different than a 30-inch print, though I completely agree with you that the strength of the image often (or usually) trumps that sort of thing.</P>

<p>Yep, it's all just a hoax.</p>

<p>Fred Hoyle once wrote (late 40s early 50s) that astronomy had discovered pretty much all the basics, and only a sort of mopping up was left for future astronomers. About the same time, he coined the vaguely pejorative term "Big Bang" to describe his opponents.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>John said:</p>

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<p>if you understand digital imaging you can hold 300dpi on a 20 foot print with a 2 megapixel camera</p>

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<p>John, to make a 20 foot (288 inch) print from a 2 megapixel camera, with only 1600 pixels of horizontal resolution, you'd have to set the image output resolution to 5.6ppi to avoid interpolation.<br /> Do you think this is acceptable quality? (maybe if you are talking a 30-40 foot viewing distance, otherwise good luck with your clients).</p>

<p>Dave: It depends what you are asked to produce. I have produced images (printed on banners) that are over 30 feet with my D-1. They were printed at 240 DPI -- no one has asked for 300 DPI at that level. However building the image in PS would not be an issue. </p>

<p>By the way Matt, I hold patents in AI, have the science degrees, am the founder and CEO of a data processing company doing work for the government and do understand this stuff.</p>

<p>Matt and Dave: Think PIXAR or Cameron's Avatar. Those images were built from zero pixel bases. Since the '80s we have used what Kodak called the salient image technology. They found that you could use 35mm images to capture more content than a typical 8X10 piece of film. We see some of that in HDR today. Using pattern analysis and wireframes you can make almost any image you want at any size and pixel density. I routinely build file of over 100 MP from a single image that captured only 16MP. With the processing horsepower on most desktops today the upper limits are quite high. You could probably build a gigapixel image with a desktop computer -- it would take a while and you might not have software to view an image that large -- but you could build it.<br>

I guess this gets back to the original thought -- you don't need to spend all that money on the nuances of fine glass, etc. Back in the days of film when you were limited by what you could capture with the chemistry of the sheet of film it was different. With digital images the game has changed entirely. You can put in colors that were never there, you can put in objects that were never there, you can make it any size you want, you can make it as sharp or blurred as you want, you can do whatever you want with the contrast -- the original lens and camera dynamics become almost irrelevant.<br>

I don't know if you've ever played with some of the commercial software packages, like Bryce, for creating completely artificial, but realistic environments -- if you haven't you might enjoy it. The files are compatible with CS software. </p>

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<p>You can put in colors that were never there, you can put in objects that were never there, you can make it any size you want, you can make it as sharp or blurred as you want, you can do whatever you want with the contrast -- the original lens and camera dynamics become almost irrelevant.</p>

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<p>Are you talking photography, or spending time behind a PC?<br>

For many, including me (but I cannot proclaim my credentials, PCs just make me a living anyway), the 2 activities are not even close to being the same. It's fine what Photoshop, Maya and a good renderer together can do. It's just not really the same joy and thrill as getting that photo right with a camera.</p>

<p>I <em>was</em> thinking Pixar, John (my brother is the one with a doctorate in this stuff, and Pixar happens to be where he works - he lives, breaths, and <em>writes</em> RenderMan and the supporting tools that run thousands of servers at a a time crunching on a single frame at a time of things like <em>Avatar</em>).<br /><br /> And I'm sticking by my original point. Asking if a photographer has gone too far in fretting about resolution, because we have tools that can - through careful use of highly specialized tools by sophisticated users - synthesize data that's not originally present, to create skin pores that you couldn't capture, eyelashes that weren't distinct on the sensor, leaves on trees that the lens couldn't deliver, or silk fibers that were lost to the dynamic range limitations of an older sensing technology ... it's silly.<br /><br />When you have an entire ad campaign to shoot, spending a measly couple hundred dollars to rent a lens and sensor that actually deliver <em>real</em> images of that Hermes scarf draped across a model's skin is seriously preferable to synthesizing textile fibers and skin texture after the fact.</p>

<p>People get into photography for a lot of different reasons. I knew a guy with several hundred different cameras who only took test shots in his front yard. He was purely into the technology of photography. Photography attracts folks who like gizmos and gadgets. They get enjoyment from testing the gizmos rather than framing photographs. Plenty of people like to do both. I have friends who are into cars, stereos, and computers in the same way. </p>

<p>I stopped worrying about it when I found people couldn't tell the difference between my large prints from 4x5 film and my large prints from small format DSLRs. Maybe the photo-geeks could spot the difference? I can't, my clients can't, the experienced photographers, gallery owners, and museum curators I ask to try can't. That's good enough for me. </p>

 

<p>Matt L: I'm actually glad that there still are some people who prefer the real Hermes scarf and real skin. It is important to preserve them. However, that is a dwindling small number of people. As Matt N points out there are very few who care or can tell the difference. The post processing capabilities have gone way past the capture capabilities and that truly is the state of the art. </p>

<p>It's the state of <em>an </em>art, John, but in practical terms for real-world photography, synthesizing something like a Hermes scarf, from scratch, is - despite the state of the art - still wildly more time consuming than simply photographing it. And if that photograph needs to be 6 feet tall, and you will be looking at it from a foot away, it's no contest. Why pay someone to wireframe, texture map, and render something that still doesn't cross the uncanny valley, when you can just take a photograph?</p>

<p>The best ads are in no way necessarily the ones with the most detail. Many ads sell the feeling, not the actual product, so it's not about resolution, it's about the creative. Hermes is a good example, they have run plenty of soft focus ads over the years.<br>

<br />The sharpness thing shows up a lot on web forums, but when you sit down and talk creative, it's often not even an issue. </p>

<p>Not debating that, Jeff. What I'm debating is the notion that when detail <em>does</em> matter in (for example) a commercially commissioned photograph where that's what the <em>client wants</em>, that it's better to synthesize it from scratch on a computer than it is to just photograph it with a decent lens. Despite John's assertion, the state of the art in photography is <em>not</em> the avoidance of photography. If what he's saying is true, then it's even <em>more</em> true for easier, cheaper, and faster CGI-from-whole-cloth production of the "feeling" shots you mention. But anyone who has worked directly with serious CGI people will tell you that it's easier, by far, to take a photograph. Easier on the deadline and the budget.<br /><br />In your citing of <em>Avatar</em>, John, you neglected to exaplain why they used actual camera captures of real human actors wherever they could get away with doing so, instead of rendering those characters from scratch. Of course, it's because the state of the art isn't even close to producing convincing humans in detailed motion pictures, and the CGI stills that come at least close to crossing the UV require vastly more time than simply working with a live subject and a camera. To say nothing of creating a couple hundred stills as seen in a typical shoot, with rapidly changing light, pose, hair movement, etc. <br /><br />Replacing commercial photography and videography, wholesale, with CGI is pure fantasy at this stage, and will be for a long time.</p>

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<p>It's the state of <em>an </em>art, John, but in practical terms for real-world photography, synthesizing something like a Hermes scarf, from scratch, is - despite the state of the art - still wildly more time consuming than simply photographing it. And if that photograph needs to be 6 feet tall, and you will be looking at it from a foot away, it's no contest. Why pay someone to wireframe, texture map, and render something that still doesn't cross the uncanny valley, when you can just take a photograph?</p>

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<p>Sing it, brother.</p>

<p>Sometime having more tools at one's disposal doesn't mean the best (most efficient or artistic) are being used.</p>

<p>Matt: you are wrong about Avatar. The reason they used photographs was to build the fractal models of actual people - not just realistic people. Realistic people are constructed with CGI all of the time.<br>

In the technical area in which we operate as a company -- which includes visual information as del as petabytes of other data -- the photographs do provide some basic mapping information that is a small part of the larger situational awareness picture we paint. We use the photographic information not because it is more desirable or fills a need that can't be filled in other ways, but purely because it already exists.<br>

In my own photography I use the camera much like a sketch pad from which I like to create images that go way beyond what the camera could capture. There are certainly many others on here who do the same. One of the most striking pieces I've seen recently was in the bit about the woman who had constructed a view camera from Legos.<br>

I haven't a clue what "Real-World" photography is. But it is an interesting ego boosting term.</p>

<p>John: the human faces you saw in Avatar were - with very few exceptions - actual images of human faces, as seen through the camera lens. Both human and "alien" actors were frequently chroma-keyed for many scenes, and motion capture suits/markers used to guide wireframe models (for later rendering) of the blue people. The human actors were left intact. And of course, many scenes in the movie were just human actors on actual sets, walking around and being filmed around real props, shown <em>as filmed</em>, with no CGI except for some occasional background elements.</p>

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<p>In my own photography I use the camera much like a sketch pad from which I like to create images that go way beyond what the camera could capture</p>

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<p>Which is great, if that's what fits your purpose, vision, schedule, etc. But do you <em>really</em> advocate not using a better lens if the lens is what's keeping you from recording detail that you want in a photograph? You <em>really</em> think that people should learn to operate fractal-based softare and script textures in order to introduce synthetic, missing information, when all they need is a $400 lens instead of a $200 lens ... and they consider their time shooting to be more valuable than their time parked in front of rendering software?<br /><br />You asked if "we" have gone to far, and suggest that creating image content from scratch on the computer is better than just recording it in the first place. I'm suggesting that such an assertion is a mile off for most people, and that your own preference for creating images elements from the desktop has less to do with, for example, commercial product photography, or large-scale landscape, architecture, documentary or other work that some photographers would rather simply <em>photograph</em>. <br /><br />I am a technology nut. It's my career, and I apply it with and without good cause to all sorts of things. I'm speaking here about practical reality, as well as purpose. I don't want to have to <em>synthesize</em> the hair in a canine portrait - thousands of times over years of shooting such subjects - when I can just use a better lens that makes the problem go away. You must see this, surely.</p>

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<p>I haven't a clue what "Real-World" photography is.</p>

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<p>The "real world" is the place where most people do not have the time, equipment, or inclination to <em>manufacture</em> the image they set out to simply record. Some people do, but they are a tiny minority. And I'm not talking about dodging, burning, etc. I'm talking about making up for unrecordable details in an image that requires actual details.</p>

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<p>But it is an interesting ego boosting term.</p>

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<p>Oh, brother.</p>