Too sharp, too much resolution, new paradigm

This is an age of "make it show everything and do everything" largely driven

by engineering pride, and I think part of it will break down. It's all too

much detail, too sharp, too much information except to pixel peepers (at one

time 'grain sniffers') for 2D 'art', per se.

 

For the still image or 'motion picture' experience I believe super-high detail

is going to find surprising resistance. I sense a movement to simplicity, less

detail. Why? Well, huge screen displays with infinite detail, stunning

contrast, dynamic range just take away what we have been "filling into" the

two-dimensional image; it takes away the eye's propensity to see what it wants

to see. Imagine seeing a black & white movie from the forties but with every

pore, loose hair, wrinkle, dirt and dust in clear detail. Ugh! It would be

painful, possibly even depressing - for art.

 

For 2d display of art, I predict the new technology will eventually introduce

regression, of sorts, to overcome its inherent high information content

(detail).

 

Documentary work is a different story. Another important exception is how a

large screen with immense detail enables navigation through the monitor

interface, but that is the 3rd dimension, a path thing.

 

Or should I just have a cup of coffee and fuggedaboudid?

I was in the bank the other day and they had huge photos that had large out of focus areas. And fifteen or twenty years ago, we started seeing photo-realistic painting that showed every detail. New technologies do make it possible to display more information - there was a time when this was prized. Maybe it's just a pendulum effect.

"Or should I just have a cup of coffee and fuggedaboudid?"

 

Instead, run with it.

 

We all have choice. Detail or no detail. I've found they're part of the pallet of choices, we as artists have to choose from.

 

A wonderful, yet limited beauty as an example is the Canon D30. Three MP's of pure dynamic photographic power but limited both in pixels and dynamic range. Wow!, the images it can kick out. On the other hand, something I've never had my hands on, is a thirty-nine MP MF back and they're backs up to a hundred and sixty MP and then of course, there's image stitching where the sky's the limit as to how many images and MP's one wishes to stitch together.

 

Everybody has free choice, so run with it. Use some, use all but what ever it is you do, make sure you use those darn pixels..... or they get lonely:)

 

My pixels got used today but I'm afraid they go sick because of the mediocrity of today's effort:O Almost afraid to even screen them.

 

Example below where I used a guassian blur a couple years back to reduce detail an the image made with a D30.<div></div>

Thomas Gardner, "... run with it. We all have choice."

 

I agree 100%. The good news about improving technology is that the proverbial ball is back in the artists court. It's easy to remove information (ex. detail or dynamic range) after the fact, but impossible to add it. I would much rather start off with too much detail and dynamic range, so that the choice is mine about what to remove in order to achive the effect that I want in a given image.

 

Cheers,

 

Geoff S.

I agree with the OP

 

geoff,

 

this whole do it after the fact is what drives me crazy. that sends the wrong message to

people. digital is different than film and you cannot make digital look like (for instance) a

type 665 polaroid negative. you just can't. if one has the inkling to think about what they

want from the shoot and use the appropriate materials in response, then that's using tools

to your advantage. if a client wanted a super sharp image i wouldn't use polaroid or 3200

speed film or or or... i would use digital. if a client wanted something funky and not so

over the top "perfect" i wouldn't use digital, i'd use film. I would get it right first and then

think about post production.

Ironic, isn't it, that with our greater technological control of the image, we sense we're possibly going too far from the essential abstraction of artistic photography. Isn't that a large part of our appreciation of B&W images? A classic example of "less is more." In an age of explicicity, perhaps we're retreationg (or regressing) to an earlier era when works of art were more suggestive and provocative. Suppose we'll get as far as the style of photography when everything was misty and blurry and a bit mysterious?

back to pictorialism?

"I would get it right first and then think about post production."

 

Your above is an example of chained thinking.

 

There is no "right" in the case of artistic expression. Any thing I want to do, and what ever I want to to is "right" in digital or film. If I want to jump up and down all over the neg and then the final print, that's the right thing to do. There are no rules.

 

When I make an image, digital or film, I know what I'm wanting to do with the image before I trip the shutter. The final print is all that matters as how I get there, doesn't. If that bothers some, there's always counseling for these troubled individuals.

 

Go with it dude, you can do it. Don't let the zoo keepers chain your feet until a fine thin thread will do the job in the place of the big heavy metal chain as your artistic mind was made to be free:)

And there's a reason why someone can't do both, sharp and restricted?

 

Why the worry of limits?

 

Geoff put it well in his comment:

 

"It's easy to remove information (ex. detail or dynamic range) after the fact, but impossible to add it."

 

The above is healthy fluid intellectual thinking.

 

Ex: Just because it's raining, doesn't mean you have to come in. Why? Cause one might get wet? Now there's a scary thought. What happens when I go swimming in the cold 58F waters off the Santa Cruz coast? I get cold and wet:)

 

The point, have fun with photography, enjoy, it's okay to get cold and wet. Besides, cold and wet makes the hot chocolate taste better. :)

FWIW, too much details is less of an issue. Too much contrast ofen go with the details can be problematics. Lost shadow details are gone forever. Supressed flare are supressed. Gone forever, good looking or bad. Is a perfect sounding piano perfect?

<p><em>This is an age of "make it show everything and do everything" largely driven by engineering pride,....</em></p><p>It is? Wow, what's happened? Just last week Holgas and Lensbabies were all the rage. How fast fashions change these days.</p>

<i>I would get it right first and then think about post production.</i><p>

 

Thomas didn't quite explain the problem with this enough.<p>

 

If one has actually studied photography and the history of photography, one knows that virtually all great photography has come from photographers aware of and engaged with the post-production process. For example, one only has to be aware of, not even have read, the Ansel Adams books to understand how critical post-production, and envisioning post-production, has always been. The idea that post-production is an "afterthought" is the result of inadequate training.

When I dial down to three MP capture with decreased contrast and less in-camera sharpening, final output looks more like my former color negative film-based prints... less edgy, with smoother tonal transitions. Maybe ratings would fall on these, but I find them a satisfying departure from time to time.

This is one example

Zoe Wiseman, "<i>this whole do it after the fact is what drives me crazy. that sends the wrong message to people.</i>"<br>

<br>

Why does it bother you? What message is being sent?<br>

<br>

If you believe that what I'm espousing is "don't worry, we'll fix it in post", then you didn't read what I wrote very carefully. I was arguing the point that <b>I</b> prefer having a broader palette to work with in creating photograph. Within the physical constraints of a given medium, I don't see any reason to artificially limit my options at any point along the creative chain until the final piece is on display.<br>

<br>

"<i>digital is different than film and you cannot make digital look like (for instance) a type 665 polaroid negative. you just can't.</i>"<br>

<br>

IMO that's about as articulate as saying, "digital is different than watercolor...".<br>

<br>

That snide comment aside, I think I agree with your underlying point.<br>

<br>

Almost without exception, the media an artist chooses for a particular piece are inextricably bound into the appearance of the final artifact. If there are characteristics of Polaroid 665 that give you the look you want for a piece, then by all means use it. Alternatively, if you enjoy the intellectual challenge of creating your art within the constraints of a particular medium (ex. Polaroid 665), then by all means pursue that. But please don't belittle other peoples' choices of media; that's just being close-minded and pedantic.<br>

<br>

"<i>if one has the inkling to think about what they want from the shoot and use the appropriate materials in response, then that's using tools to your advantage.</i>"<br>

<br>

I thought that's what I said in my first response.<br>

<br>

My current choice of medium is digital photography with RAW capture and post-processing - not Polaroid 665, or watercolors, or clay, or any number of other media I might choose to work with. One of the characteristics of the medium is that it is possible (even perhaps, necessary) to combine the tools and techniques available during image capture with the tools and techniques available during post-processing in order to create a particular piece. All I was expressing earlier was <b>my</b> preference for capturing as much spatial detail (sharpness) and dynamic range at image-acquisition time so that I could best apply post-processing to achieve the look I want in the final image.<br>

<br>

Cheers,<br>

<br>

Geoff S.

I sometimes use the "blur" button on my post processing software.

Well, there is a lot of sharpness slider movement going around and its not a bad look but it can reach a point that I might call "crystalline". But the question is can a 150 dpi to 300 dpi print be made that looks as good as the 72 dpi image on a computer screen ?

Pico, I wonder if you're talking about image size so much as depth of field. I think that the use of super-short focal lengths onto tiny media has made an enormous difference to how we view the world as photographers. The problem these days, it seems to me, to be how we reduce depth of field, where before it was how we could extend it. I think you're wrong about how much resistance there'll be to very high definition among the general public but I do agree with you that there will very likely be a counter movement towards a softer, less detailed look in the fullness of time.

Jeff,

 

Than you would say that Ansel Adams didn't care much about the "perfect negative?" Do

you think that Ansel Adams had to do much post production because his "zone system"

was off kilter? No, he probably didn't. Not much of a fan of the Zone System but it was

good for my example.

 

"''The making of the negative is a science; the making of the print is an art'' Ansel Adams

 

Maybe pick up... Ansel Adams' book "The Negative"

 

I seriously doubt that if Ansel Adams needed the look of Polaroid he would have used a

35mm negative and placed polaroid edges or borders around it. He would have just shot

the Polaroid to begin with.

 

Yeah, there was a TON of post production on Adams prints, but not like my aboved

mentioned paragraph. And this is what makes me dislike the digital world... it sometimes

trys so hard to be like the film world... why can't it just be happy to be digital? Polaroid is

happy to be Polaroid, 35mm film truly wishes it was medium format but it's ok with who it

is. Why does digital try so hard to mimic film anyway? If it would be who it was I might like

it better.

<i>It is intersting to note that Photoshop et. al. cannot (CAN-NOT) reproduce the smoothing effects of quality soft focus lenses.</i><p>

 

<b>True!</b> But you will never convince the uninformed photographer or desperate client. I am amused by the transient "How to I make my girlfriend's skin look like beautiful plastic?" queries (not in such words, but that's what they want.)

<i>And this is what makes me dislike the digital world... it sometimes trys so hard to be like the film world... </i><p>

 

What is "the digital world?" What is "the film world?" And how does "it" trys (sic) so hard?

Jeff, are you saying that no great photography has been done on slide film? Because most photographers using slides never post-processed the images in any way, at least before scanners became widespread.

 

I would think that a lot of work that has been done with the slide as the photographer's final product is great.

The number of slides that are looked at as slides is miniscule. Most that are seen are published. There is certainly the capability to change things in publishing. Printing cibas has at times included post processing.

 

However, to more directly answer the question, the vast majority of slides are nowhere near as interesting as prints, and the reason the prints are interesting is what the photographer has done with them. I don't see slides hanging on the walls, so there must be something to that.

That's true but usually when an image shot on slide film is reproduced the photographer is NOT the one doing the post-production work.

 

I don't disagree about the importance of processing to get a good print but to say that slides can't be great photos as themselves is not fair.

What is "the digital world?" What is "the film world?" And how does "it" trys (sic) so hard?

------------------------------------

 

Jeff, I guess you haven't seen what I'm mentioning. I had one digital guy email me about

once a week wanting me to scan a very large res file of my polaroid borders so that he

could use them in his digital works. That's ridiculous. Just shoot the freakin' Polaroid! Or,

those digital images with the "Hassleblad Film Edges" wrapped around their digital photos.

BOGUS. Just shoot with a Hassleblad! See where I'm going?

 

Glenn Wexler is the only digital photographer today that is truly embracing what is

"digital." From what I've seen anyway. He has extremely masterful work.