Sunday musings: working towards getting it right in camera, and zero post-processing

No, there was sentence I wanted to finish. My comment was blunt but I meant no offense. From what I read, the Fuji X-Pro3 is designed as a (digital) 'retro-camera' that looks much like a film camera but has a 'hidden screen'. It seems designed to appeal to film-camera enthusiasts who want a digital alternative and to street photographers. For many years, all DSLR's allow users to adjust the sharpness and saturation of their jpg images. So I wondered how the Fuji X-Pro3 differed from this. In the couple of reviews I've read, I've seen nothing new. More detailed comments on your original post are in-line:

 

A lot of digital cameras allow you to tune your JPEG file internally. You can select b&w modes, tone curves, film simulation profiles, DRO (lifting shadows, single exposure), HDR (like in the iPhone, combining two or more exposures), sharpness, saturation, automatic lens corrections, and so on and on. If the situation allows, you can of course bracket exposures, just like on film cameras. You would be wise to shoot RAW as insurance on certain occasions, of course.

I (and others) always shoot RAW so that I have maximum flexibility in PP.

 

This is not news to anyone, and I assume that many of you prefer to just shoot and share without having to spend time tweaking images.

A bold assumption that doesn't apply to me.

And this philosophy of course does not apply to metaphotography (compositing, retouching, altering) - AKA digital art. It doesn't apply to commercial photography, where the image serves to sell a product, and the image is not intended to be a document.

My guess is that any photographer - and especially commercial photographers - want to deliver their very best photos. They'll review, select and adjust (as a batch) and individually as necessary to achieve this. I do too.

 

But the reason I brought it up now is that I just read a preview of the Fuji X-Pro3 (BTW I am not a Fuji user). It has clarity adjustment (AKA brilliance, alchemy, whatever), which no other camera seems to have yet. When used carefully it does work rather well. And I thought, that's pretty smart. And it's one more way to minimize reliance on post-processing.

I don't read this in the reviews that I've read.

 

So far, you can't do everything in the camera.

Why would you want to?

If you want extreme image quality, which you can get with frame averaging, you're still going to need a computer (unless someone knows of a camera that allows this internally). And if you're shooting at extremely high ISO values, a RAW converter is still the best way to mitigate noise.

Even moderately high ISO values can lead to unwanted noise. There a a number of stand-alone and plug-in noise reduction packages. This has nothing to do with RAW conversion. The Noise-reduction packages work perfectly well (and perhaps better) on RAW images.

 

I've done a few shoots recently where I shot JPEGs only, and all I had to do to some of them was tweak exposure and crop - which can be done either on your phone, or with simple apps like Preview.

Tweaking exposure is better done on RAW images.

 

And if I was a bit wiser and just used AF lenses, I would have been able to adjust exposure more quickly.

Exposure has absolutely nothing to do with AF/MF!

If the lighting wasn't as troublesome I probably would not have had to make a single adjustment to any of the photos.

Except in studios, lighting always varies (over time).

 

I recall reading on this site, many years ago now, about how some photographers would take their digital cameras on road trips. And how some of these photographers would also take along a laptop computer. And I thought: what's the point of digital cameras if you have to carry along extra stuff with them?

There are - I suspect - many reasons. Camera backup, review, selection/culling, PP, delivery via internet.

I also ask, especially now when sensors are so good, and features are so comprehensive: what's the point of sitting in front of your computer after every shoot?

Digital sensors just record a RAW image (or automatically convert to jpg your chosen WB, quality, sharpness and saturation)

 

As you say, one of your favourite photographers selects only his very best frames, then spends a good amount of time figuring out how little post-processing he needs to apply to make the image perfect. Presets - his own, BTW - take him so far, then he adjusts those settings to suit the photo. This is what we do in PP. It's not something that can (easily) be done in-camera.

 

Kind regards,

 

Mike

It seems that you were going to finish the sentence...? I do read all the comments, so please continue.

 

As for not knowing a lot about digital photography, let me put it this way: one of my favourite photographers selects only his very best frames, then spends a good amount of time figuring out how little post-processing he needs to apply to make the image perfect. Presets - his own, BTW - take him so far, then he adjusts those settings to suit the photo. The result is natural imagery that you would swear had no post-processing done to them, but they look very crisp and very refined. So yeah I'm kind of familiar with digital photography. ;-)

You can easily get good images right out of the camera if you know what your camera is capable of and are then capable of utilizing those functions. The absolutely best image out of said camera is still not even close to what your eyes and brain happened to "see". That is where post-processing comes in. Trying to duplicate what you really saw is enjoyable and sometimes rewarding if you get it right. Pushing the shutter is just the beginning in my opinion.

My wife already thinks I spend too much time with the computer.

It seems that you were going to finish the sentence...? I do read all the comments, so please continue.

 

As for not knowing a lot about digital photography, let me put it this way: one of my favourite photographers selects only his very best frames, then spends a good amount of time figuring out how little post-processing he needs to apply to make the image perfect. Presets - his own, BTW - take him so far, then he adjusts those settings to suit the photo. The result is natural imagery that you would swear had no post-processing done to them, but they look very crisp and very refined. So yeah I'm kind of familiar with digital photography. ;-)

"one of my favourite photographers selects only his very best frames, then spends a good amount of time figuring out how little post-processing he needs to apply to make the image perfect. Presets - his own, BTW - take him so far, then he adjusts those settings to suit the photo." A lot of post-processing to get a non post-processing look.

Avedon could have been an acclaimed photographer if he had only learned to get it right in the camera.

People....... they are ALL post processed. By either an algorithm, or an algorithm over which you have some levels of creative control, but they are all post processed by someone. I often like to do it myself for mostly self centered reasons. ;)

From what I read, the Fuji X-Pro3 is designed as a (digital) 'retro-camera' that looks much like a film camera but has a 'hidden screen'. It seems designed to appeal to film-camera enthusiasts who want a digital alternative and to street photographers.

 

The main appeal of the X-Pro series is that you get a clear view optical finder like a rangefinder. For those of us who learned and continued to shoot with rangefinders (and rangefinder-like cameras such as the Hexar), the XPro series, along with Fuji'x X100x series, make it possible to shoot as with a rangefinder. This has nothing to do with film, it has to do with camera type. However, the X-Pro has the advantage that when you shoot with different lenses, you can switch to a digital finder (or use the screen) and get the standard through the lens view. This avoids the issue of accessory finders and tiny outlines in the center of the finder that wide and long lenses can cause.

 

Regarding the topic of the article, this has been hashed over many, many times. JDM's comment about Adams and Brad's comment about Avedon make it clear that many great photographers have always used post-processing, always regarded it as a flexible process from start to finish.

Did you ever have a slide you couldn't use? When did you find out?

A good question! The convenience offered by slides outweighs the occasional botched exposure. YMMV.

 

In addition to that, slide film was the best medium for beginners, price aside. You can't learn exposure, colour, WB etc. as clearly as with negative film. Beginners used to be, and perhaps still are, encouraged to start with b&w negatives. Not recommended.

 

The vast majority of stock images (back in the day) were taken with slide film. Even news photographers used it. The photo of President Clinton embracing Monica Lewinsky was shot on slide film.

 

This is not news to anyone, and I assume that many of you prefer to just shoot and share without having to spend time tweaking images.

A bold assumption that doesn't apply to me.

 

Exposure has absolutely nothing to do with AF/MF!

1. "Many" is not bold. Most photos and video clips are taken on mobile phones, and most are shared as-is.

 

2. Context. ;-)

"Many" is not bold. Most photos and video clips are taken on mobile phones, and most are shared as-is.

Don't need post-processing for cellphone size photos, for that matter they don't use separate camera at all:)

Fred Herzog was mostly shooting slides, one of the reasons why he was little known. He couldn't print his pictures.

You need to align horizon, save overexposed areas, remove face blemishes, adjust black level, so you NEED post processing. I used in-camera JPEG only but I noticed that with my current camera, developed RAW is of better quality. But for primitive purposes, Instagram sharing JPEG might be OK.

There's been a few comments about the "need" to do post processing on images for various reasons. Having made a full-time living in photography since about 1970 (up until a few years ago), I would say that the great majority of professional photography - portrait and wedding work - prior to digital, didn't need this. The normal routine was to shoot on professional portrait/wedding films and have the film processed and printed by a pro lab.

 

Anyone who found that something like Kodak Portra film being optically printed by a pro lab onto a professional portrait paper was adequate would hypothetically be able to repeat nearly the same thing today with in-camera settings. I say "hypothetically" because it's very difficult to keep the exposure nailed down to that precision, even in a well-controlled portrait studio. (Exposure variations as small as about 1/6 f-stop ideally "want" a slight correction at printing.)

 

If one has the luxury of being able to set a manual white balance and fine tune the exposure prior to a shooting session, then one ought to be able to get by with in-camera settings. As a note, it IS necessary to first find the "best" camera settings through experimentation. The only real "weakness" of this for controlled portrait work is in the fine roll-off of tones into the lightest and darkest areas. But this is a relatively fine point. If one wants to, and has the capability, they can fine-tune these in a printer profile, and very high quality portrait work can be done with a straight from camera to printer routine, no interrim image manipulation needed. (But likely small "exposure" adjustments would ideally be done.)

 

I have a great deal of experience with this sort of thing. The very large lab where I spent years as the QC manager color balanced, printed, processed, "spotted," etc., more color prints, primarily 8x10" "units" in one hour than most pro photographers would in their career. Now volume alone may not seem to give experience, but the thing is, with high-volume you will encounter all sorts of problems in a relatively short time. If you are one of the people dealing with them you will accumulate experience much faster than at a lower volume outfit.

 

I understand that a lot of the photographers here don't do this for a living, where time is money, so have the "luxury" of all the time they want to spend playing with an image. But when it's business, and everything has to be paid for, it's beneficial to do experimentation, possibly extensive, ahead of time then somehow build the results into a "process system." Also, I'm specifically talking about studio portrait work where the customers are buying the prints; this is where the vast majority of my experience is. If you're outside this realm, I can't really say too much about it. I can see where a landscape photographer may want to use extensive tonal manipulation, and that sort of thing, or if you are shooting on the fly without the ability to set up. These are not the situations that I'm talking about.

shooting vicious man eating great white sharks underwater

 

Why ever was the vicious man eating the sharks underwater?:rolleyes:

We had to get it right first time.

Photos that “get it right” usually get it wrong. :cool:

Pleased to see this entertaining thread has ended up where it belonged. As Ludmilla alluded Monty Python would be proud :)

OP...all ego. Your obligation is to the image, not ego.