sk_arts

<p>I think at this point we're all just kind of splitting hairs. Of course art is filtered through our own world view, which is inherently contextual with our surroundings. What I am speaking of is what I think fred meant when he stated that:</p>

<p>"I agree with you that art doesn't first and foremost need to be analyzed. In many cases, weird analyses destroy good art."</p>

<p>Arbitrary analysis to some convention or tradition does not define art.</p>

<p>Jeff- Please accept my apologies for assuming your intentions as being argumentative. Your first reply seemed that way to me, and came across to me as someone who just wanted to defend his practice of submitting photographs to contests :)</p>

<p>Function is an odd nut, I think. If you make a tea kettle, use the tea kettle and after you die the tea kettle ends up in a gallery, never to be used as a tea kettle again the tea kettle no longer serves it's purpose as craft, but as art. What is interesting though, if a gallery attendant saw the tea kettle, and noticed it was tea time and used the tea kettle inadvertently, unaware that it was a Jeff Spirer original kettle it would return to being an ordinary, hand crafted kettle... at least until the curator comes in, and suddenly, just like that, it's a work of art again!</p>

<p>While a photograph can be created with one purpose and repurposed into another, how it is being presented and used influence it as art. Pointing out that "examples in many museums of pieces that were originally built for function" only supports this position. If these pieces were on countertops or living rooms, they wouldn't be art at all. But that does not mean that they are determined to remain in living rooms or countertops either; nor would they ever be in galleries if they appealed to traditional values and conventions. This last bit returns to the premises of the OP, does competition hinder development?</p>

<p>I don't mind people disagreeing, but from my end it seemed that Jeff was just disagreeing to disagree.</p>

<p>All that I am saying here is that artwork does not need to be analyzed in order for it to be valid. The first and foremost relationship the audience has with artwork *is* personal and relates back to the audience's own world view and experiences and how these experiences transect with the artist's world view.</p>

<p>The question was asked in this thread if art and competition can co-exist. It's not that art exists all by itself without context, it doesn't. But that context doesn't affect the validity of artwork. This is precisely the intended outcome of a competition - to judge or determine a piece's value in the context of other pieces in the competition.</p>

<p>This doesn't mean that once a piece of artwork enters competition it looses all artistic merit, but within the competition it does not serve the role of art but rather the role of a contest entrant. In my opinion photographs whose sole purpose is to compete cannot be art, because such hypothetical photographs are not intended to portray the artist's view on the subject, but as I said, the expectations of the judges.</p>

<p>Jeff. You're just being argumentative. This whole thread is about not confining photography into narrow definitions based entirely around conventions set up by New Modernist aesthetics. Maybe inexperienced photographers don't point to Adams specifically, Adam's and the rest of the New Modernists have substantial influence over the goals of most photographers today, with limited experience, these aesthetics become the primary motivation for most photographers: objective representation.</p>

<p>While it is true that collage and photography can be blurred, outright collage is not photography. You don't look at a collage and think "photograph". You think "collage". It's just a different medium, not inferior or superior. But saying collage and photography are inherently one and the same is like saying painting and ceramics are one in the same. Though, you have earned my respect by pointing to Mortensen. :)</p>

<p>I'm not going to say "in my opinion" after every single time I say something. If you cannot figure out where opinion starts and ends, then you'll only find yourself frustrated in these kinds of discussions. At the same time, I am unconvinced you have the slightest clue what I meant by "Artwork must be viewed within it's own context to be validated".</p>

<p>Artwork should never be stood up next to something else in order to determine it's worth, but rather first be seen as an object or experience in it's OWN right. This permits it to exist WITHOUT the confines of pre-existing traditions or co-existing conventions; this prevents it from being "stuff[ed...] into a ridged box". Once the piece has been validated in it's own context can it be analyzed with historic, contemporary, political sociological or other contexts.</p>

<p>Jeff. Please resist from the temptation to assume that this or any other random thread is specifically about you. For someone who doesn't understand this thread, you sure seem to have a lot of interest in it. But I am not writing about any one person, and I am certainly not writing about you specifically. You disliking Ansel Adams is beside the point. The comment I made was about an appeal to tradition that is unmistakably prevalent in today's popular ideas of what "good photography" is about.</p>

<p>The only reason I said "straight photography" is because collage that involves photography has gained acceptance in the art world. But that isn't really photography, it is collage and has an entirely different experience surrounding it.</p>

<p>I do not think art can be competitive, at least not when we art talking about intention. If I make an image with the intent to compete with others that makes the image no different than sport. My intention would not to illustrate or document something about the world I live in, either objectively nor subjectively. It would be to win and manufacturing a scene that fit my assumptions about the judge's ideas and rules of the competition.</p>

<p>Artwork that has been submitted to a competition is not artwork in the context of competition. Artwork must be viewed within it's own context to be validated. By the very nature of competition, this does not occur.</p>

 

<p>It seems that a lot of people out there have this attitude that photography is like hunting big game - that the point is to come home with the trophy shot. It seems to me with more people involved with photography, and the physical limitations of darkroom ownership decreased to what will fit on your office desktop, this conquest attitude has only increased, and to meet this mentality dozens of new photography contests have arisen.</p>

<p>I personally am not terribly interested in competing with anyone, or having been recognized as the greatest photographer in the world. I refuse to submit my work to a judged contest, aside from perhaps a judged gallery show of limited space for entrants.</p>

<p>While my critics would be quick to point out that this is because I suck, I disagree. I may suck, but photography is something personal, introspective and philosophical - and not something competitive.</p>

<p>While I guess this is an issue of process and intent, I do wonder how much these contests and this competitive process limit our expectations of what a good photograph is what what role photography has in the art world. Lately I feel like the issue of art and photography has taken a huge step backwards to an eighty year old New Modernism aesthetic as Ansel Adams worshiping newcomers enter the world of photography en masse thanks to access to digital photography.</p>

<p>Perhaps this is more just an issue on the pages of Popular Photography, but do you think in the general public's eye, do photographers with differing intentions than simply creating aesthetically pleasing images stand a chance at being recognized as talented? Is there any hope for straight photography to exist in today's conceptual art world?</p>

 

<p>Hey guys, thanks. No I am not using a minolta bellows, I am using an inexpensive Vivitar M42 unit. It was cheap, but I wish it had focussing track :/ i'll have to pick one up later.<br>

Anyway, I was thinking about getting a nikon, they're pretty reasonably priced on ebay and I always liked nikon in the darkroom. I'll keep my eye out for the 105mm.</p>

<p>Hello. I'm new to macro and I have a problem. I just got a bellows unit for my a350 to use my 50mm Rodagon had lying around. It works really great and is very sharp with more than pleasing bokeh. But the magnification is, well ridiculous, and seem with no extension it starts at around 1:1, maybe slightly less, but not much.<br>

If I got another enlarging lens to do close ups and macro with less magnification, would I want one with a longer focal length, or one with a shorter focal length? Longer, right?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>On the nikon vs zeiss price issue, people need to remember than the nikon lenses are AF which is a pretty big deal.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well. This is a big deal if you use auto focus. Many photographers who shoot stationary objects who don't "need" AF prefer MF. Furthermore, if you prefer the convenience of AF over the precision of MF then having a tad of extra sharpness isn't going to be worth it.</p>

<p>For others, on the other hand, who prefer the precision of MF over the convenience of AF it does become very important. The bottom line is how much does it really matter in the end?</p>

<p>I shot/will someday continue shooting with Zeiss (I just bought my first DSLR) because of the contrast and color rendering. This doesn't really have anything to do with the objective chartable performance, per-sey, rather, I just like the subjective qualities of the lens design.</p>

<p>If there were a Sony/Minolta A -> C/Y mount adapter, I'd buy cheap, older Contax lenses. But as it stands, I just cannot fork out $1,400 for a lens. Maybe someday.</p>

<p>Also, I really appreciate that people here have resisted the temptation to go on about "overpriced japanese zeiss lenses" I was in another forum that went of on a nasty and racist tangent. We're not talking about pre-war Japan here, Japan is a first-world country at the very top of technology and manufacturing. I have absolutely no reservation about buying a Cosina-made zeiss lens. Most of the BMW's bought in the US are made in the US and central america. But nobody says that BMW isn't a German-engineered car.</p>

<p>Just like cars, Zeiss optics are good because of the talent of the engineers in Germany. Who puts them together, so long as quality control can be achieved, does not really matter. Are US or Mexican built BMWs any less safe? Being that, even if we happen to be using a german-built digital camera, 97% of the components of that camera will be Japanese made. If the Japanese can handle microprocessors, I'm pretty sure they can handle manufacturing optics.</p>

<p>I figured this was the case, and no, this will not help. Thanks for your answer :)</p>

<p>I would darken as well, was this shot JPG or RAW? If by chance RAW, you might be able to get a bit of detail further back into the highlights if you have something that will process highlight recovery.</p>

<p>Having a child, I do understand the tilt effect, though it is very extreme. I'd rotate it clockwise to be less topsy-turvy. Currently it appears greater than 45°, so it looks like it's going to fall over. Maybe, I don't know, crop the top a bit tighter, the window is a bit too hot for my taste, though it the crop as is might be the best option.</p>

<p>This might be a dumb question, though I was wondering if you processed an identical RAW image twice using the same software would the noise profile of the image also be identical? I realize that noise originates in the camera, so I am assuming that this is not the case, but does the processing take any effect on how (and where) the noise is rendered?</p>

<p>I realize that this is probably a really stupid question, the reason I am asking is because I have been experimenting using Blender as an image processor (with excellent results, 2.5 will have color management!) and have a node setup for noise reduction that averages noise profiles from four exposures of the same subject. Simulated tests seem to work very well (no real world tests, just yet). If the noise profile changes each time the image is processed, then I would only need to process the RAW four times and pass it through my NR routine rather than exposing four times on a tripod.</p>

<p>For the sake of lurking - Asiva Photo appears to be a very good little application at $200. There might be a bit of a learning curve if you do not understand HSL color theory, but, from what I have seen (and I have been watching this program for some time) the learning curve would be well worth it.</p>

<p>I personally hate The Gimp. I really don't know why people even consider it. It is clumsy, supports only RGB and Greyscale (maybe CMYK?) and is really designed for web development.</p>

<p>Equally, I think everyone has "Adobeitus". The application is bloated, over priced, and while very powerful, is also missing many features which I'd like to see. Around v. 7 Adobe pretty much halted photography-oriented development for web designers. As a result, you end up paying for a lot of features which you just don't need as a photographer.</p>

<p>I have not used Krita much since it was in beta, but I intend to use it a lot. I really like the prospect of editing directly in HSL, the interface is very good, supports 16 and 32-bit, and might be a good option until/if I get around to buying Asiva Photo.</p>

<p>That all said, I have yet to find the "perfect" application. While Adobe Photoshop does come very, very close, I do have my reservations. I plan to write a review of Krita in the future.</p>

<p>Thank you all for your insight. I appreciate your input, Nick, however, I shot ISO 50 and 100 because of grain, resolution and color fidelity - which are many of the concerns I have with DSLR noise. So, I think in this case comparing how I shoot with film applies to digital.<br /> <br /> I don't do a lot with zooms or telephoto, and I am not a concert photographer. I pretty much stuck with a 50mm, 1.4 (w/35mm anyway) and mostly shot in day and early evening. I can understand why people might want High ISO with smooth grain, and I didn't really mean to imply that people don't have any purpose for this feature, but I do wonder how much this feature is over-embellished in reviews.</p>

<p>What is all the fuss about high ISO noise? I just bought my first DSLR (brand not important) and found that a complaint about it is that it has more noise above iso 800 than some of it's competitors.<br>

When I shoot film, I usually use iso 160 or slower, and I really don't see this changing. From what I can tell most cameras in my price range don't perform particularly well at ISO higher than 800, and I feel a bit like people are comparing crappy, crappier and crappiest when it comes to entry and mid-level DSLR noise performance.<br>

Is there something I am missing here? Do I need to be particularly worried for some reason about how my new camera will perform at iso 800 when I don't anticipate using it at that sensitivity? In all other regards, it seems to compare well with the competition and has features which I am pretty excited about. Is the DSLR community just expecting too much?<br>

When I was shooting 35mm film, I wouldn't shoot at iso 800 and expect smooth 8x10's. Why should I expect the same from my dslr? I understand and appreciate that film grain is far more organic and natural than digital noise, that it has much higher acutance and does not degrade resolution to nearly such a high degree. Digital noise is often blotchy, aesthetically unattractive, generally artistically useless, and under nearly all circumstances undesirable. By comparison, film grain is often sharp(er), can be aesthetically attractive, often artistically useful and can even be desirable with the right subject.<br>

 

<p>Still, if digital camera manufacturers can improve noise quality so that it more resembles the natural aesthetic of high ISO film, it doesn't make any sense to intentionally produce an image which has irreversible data loss due to noise. For this effect, simulating film grain would be far more appropriate as you are purposely degrading a copy of the image in a controlled fashion rather than starting out with less data in the first place. <br>

Am I off my rocker.</p>

</p>

Again, thanks to everyone for their insight. Now it is up to me to ponder what i want to do next. I have looked at a bunch of uncropped results, most of which had noise reduction and some did not.

 

IMO the quantity as far as grain/noise at ISO 800 was more suitable for me than film, so it doesn't really matter what camera I choose, it should be an improvement.

 

I am also guessing, and I could be wrong, that less one uses a loupe, the noise/noise reduction artifacts won't be an issue in the finished product at 300ppi and after pushing it through an inkjet stochastic screen, perhaps not a problem even with a loupe.

 

...brain thinking... Since the noise pattern is more uniform than film, might moire patterns emerging noise interfering with an inkjet printer screen be more an issue? This is more just for conjecture, grain moire is pretty easily fixed with a slight blur and/or add noise filter.

Thank you all for your input. I am guessing that the final verdict is this:

 

The A-100 will have more noise than it's competitors from Canon and Nikon, but a digital camera will perform better in low light than film, with less grain, correct?

 

Now again:

 

I am willing to believe that in theory film might be less than digital in some cases. However, being that a roll of quality 35mm slide film is going to cost between $5 and $14, professional processing is at $7 minimum (without push/pull or cross processing) and, being that I print digital anyway, the cost of paper is beside the point, digital is cheaper in the long run.

 

In my opinion, claiming otherwise is a bit strange to me, even in black and white where even some of the most proficient printers out there go through several sheets of paper in test strips and test prints before they produce just one image ... now I know that test prints are still going to be there for digital, but the number is greatly reduced. I enjoy having the control of working in my own darkroom - digital or traditional.

 

Plus, I hardly consider myself exceptionally "proficient" in the darkroom (I am still fairly young and inexperienced), so then there is always the potential issues of errors in film processing - loosing or nearly loosing my entire roll.

 

The way I see it most professionals would not have switched to digital if convinience was the only factor.

 

That said, I love film and I will miss the more subjective qualities.

Thank you all, and I do appreciate all your input. I gave my question some thought and realized it is really too vague to be answered, so this is what I am asking in more precise terms:

 

Shooting a greycard at ISO 800, 5000ﾰ K with a proper exposure of 1/125 F8, which will have more visible grain/noise: the typical color negative film or the typical prosumer ($500-1000 price range) DSLR - say the latest Digital Rebel for example - printed at maximum resolution (for digital) and the best possible optics (darkroom) for an 11x14" print?

 

And to continue with the less topical dialogue:

 

Film by itself isn't terribly expensive, especially not black and white. However, I shoot a lot of color and when you account for chemistry/lab costs and film and my current income, I just cannot justify the long-term costs. Then to top it off, with color I always scan in the slides or neagtives anyway because I just don't have the resources, or the desire, to start my own color darkroom.

 

At one time when the dynamic range and resolution of digital cameras were substandard it was worth the ongoing cost and trouble. In my opinion (and this is plenty debateable), that day may be long over with in most regards, and certainly given the flexibility of RAW processing.

 

At any rate, I don't really want to turn this into a "well, I shoot film/digital because" debate. I think that the advantages for digital over 35mm are obvious in reference to the goals I personally intend to acomplish are a no brainer.

 

As far as ISO 800 being too grainy, I usually print at 11x14, minumum. (I had in the past shot a lot of 4x5) Again this is a personal preferance and many disagree and might call me a "pixel sniffer", I always print at 266-300 ppi, uninterpolated and I sincerely believe it makes a big difference - I do not believe in pushing equiptment beyond it's capabilities, and have never been impressed by Real Fractals, ect. I saw needing a 10mp camera as a big set back finacially up to very recently.

Well. I have finally decided on a my first digital SLR. I realize I am a bit

late in the game, but at last, I cannot afford to shoot 35mm any longer as i

feel the price/performance ratio is too steep and scanning 35mm just seems like

an unneccisary generation with inexpensive DSLR's in the 7mp+ range.

 

The camera I chose is the Sony A100, and I plan to use Aperature or Capture One

LE for development (still need to research that department).

 

However, after reading many reviews I am finding that folks are complaining

about noise at ISO 800+, some even at ISO 400. Now, I don't usually go above ISO

400 because of the grain issue and I always shoot with primes so it hasn't been

an issue (nothing against zooms beyond typical speed constraints, just a

shooting preference, really). Still, it would be nice to know that if I do go

above ISO 400, I can expect similar *quantity* of noise as I could have expected

from film.

 

I realize that the number of A100 users out there are few, but what are people's

opinions about film grain verses noise artifacts in terms of quantity? (i.e. not

aesthetic opinions about the two). My experience has been that ISO 800 tends to

be pretty grainy, too grainy for my taste.

 

I also realize that this is a bit like apples and oranges, so I am asking only

for opinions of typical experiences, not some kind of precise scientific

analysis on the matter.

 

I apologize if I am not being very clear.

Hi donald- it is good to hear from you again.

 

What would you all do though to minimize fog? Increase dilution? Ignore it?

 

I am thinking the blotching I am talking about is more of a accutance issue, than a drag issue. The grains themselves look bloated, kind of like what I have seen when the film goes from very hot to very cold - forgot the technical term.

Lately I have been playing with stand and semi-stand development

with 4x5. After a many failures with Ethol UFG, and running low on

this hard-to find developer, I tried using dektol, but didn't like

the blotchy grain - and over-all quality.

 

I mixed a batch of 1 part Microphen, 1 part dektol with 10 parts

water. For some reason, I decided to agitate sporatically over time

I developed, after fixing one negative after 30 minutes, 30-45

minutes seems good.

 

The negatives looked really cool. Very sharp, with great contrast -

minus moderate fogging.

 

I tried without agitating, but the negatives were blotchy again,

much flatter, and had lots of streaks.

 

How should I remidy this problem? Is the issue with my dilution?

Should I decrease time when agitating? Should I decrease developer,

increase time and let it stand? I could do some trial and error, but

i only have so much time and money. I figure I'll be doing enough of

that anyway :)

 

Advice would be much appreciated.

what kind of tests did you run? i have no trouble accepting this so long your

tests are accurate.

 

I am doing a project on the quantitative analysis between dichromated gum

arabic and several other colloids, trust me, it is not easy.

Ok, i don't use Leica, but if i can find a way to get a noctilux on my contax body, I think i

probably would, assuming I could afford one.

 

I don't need numbers and figures, charts, ect, to tell me that it's a cool lens! That very high

DOF makes for some really interesting effects which could add to my toolbox.

 

Is it sharper, no. It is faster .. but that isn't really a concern for me. It does have a really

interesting (yes i said it) bokeh. Is the bokeh "better" *shrugs*. But, it definitely has a

quality i envy.

PS- it'll prob be a Kodak 14c.

after looking at how much optics cost for the R, that is exactly what i am going to do, only

get a C/Y adapter so i can keep my lenses.

I don't know if this has been reported yet, but I called about getting a used R8/9 as i am

thinking about switching to Leica because of the R-Rigital mod.

 

The guy said that he has a waiting list and that the R-Digital will cost about $4500. Not

too bad considering I have heard that it'd cost over $6,000, guess leica feels they cannot

compete with canon when the body is already over $2,000.

 

We'll see, like everyone else, I am skeptical. Not going to buy an R9 just yet.