261–270 of 291 posts
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He does break down technical stuff is average Joe language. But, one this that does tick me off is his lens analysis does not consider larger formats.
is that because the limitation of his testing insurgents?
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Canon's L-series (red bands) have metal casings. The glass is also nicer, the barrels are rated much higher for dust/moisture protection. This is reflected in their much higher price tags.
I tried a couple L lenses and they were plastic, felt cheap as fuck, and horribly difficult to focus. Even tried a 50mm f/1.2 L and returned it within an hour of unboxing it. That thing, despite costing 3X as much, felt like a cheap toy in comparison to a Rokkor 58/1.2 or a Nikkor 50/1.2 (both of which are 1/3 of the price in perfect condition), and at the end of the day I still liked the rendition and hand feel of m…
FWIW, I've noticed that Hasselblad lenses have the longest focus throws of any lens I've ever used.
I have a bunch of full frame lenses. Recently I looked at some very old ones I haven't used in a long time. I thought they are faulty (soft). After some diagnosing I found that it is not the fault of lenses but rather in the meantime I have started looking at images at 1:1 in Lightroom and gotten used to ridiculously sharp images from new cameras. Have you ever watched an old TV show and despaired how unwatchable it…
>Have you ever watched an old TV show and despaired how unwatchable it is because of low quality of image? Yes, that's the same thing -- our tastes change. I've had the opposite reaction - I'd watch something I've seen before in 4k remastered or something and it would be a worse experience because the extra details reveal the low quality tricks you can get away with on lower reproduction quality. I've even noticed po…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/acomjean/35581239466/in/photos...
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>Have you ever watched an old TV show and despaired how unwatchable it is because of low quality of image? Yes, that's the same thing -- our tastes change. I've had the opposite reaction - I'd watch something I've seen before in 4k remastered or something and it would be a worse experience because the extra details reveal the low quality tricks you can get away with on lower reproduction quality. I've even noticed po…
I had the opposite reaction too. One weekend an old friend was watching Back to the Future in High Def. It took away from the experience, it was like watching a play the resolution was so sharp. I couldn't enter into the fiction of the story any longer, it prevented the suspension of disbelief because it was so realistic. I think that grainier lower quality medium facilitated the imagination somehow, much like readin…
People here blame it on age, but very high resolution always screams it was shot on video. I don't need to see every pore on an actor's face. I'm usually wanting to get away from reality when watching a movie, or a tv show too.
I am very content with the visual quality film gave us.
I love black, and white film for the same reasons, and others, even more.
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> DPReview largely seems to write for the crowd that doesn't even care about the art aspect and just wants validation that they have better photo gear than others. DPReview, FStoppers, PetaPixel, and back in before the web the Popular Photography and Modern Photography magazines. There's a big market for prosumer gear that costs a lot, has ideal technical specs, and hangs around the owner's neck like a prize. Of cour…
As an amateur, and speaking at the amateur level, I always find myself disagreeing that with that last statement whenever I see it. I've used a bunch of cameras ranging from smartphones to high end point-and-shoots all the way up to full frame "prosumer" mirrorless. While I have no doubt someone whose work gets featured in say, NatGeo, can take an iPhone4 and make wonderful shots, I can't help but feel the rest of us…
Define "better"
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It's 100% true. HD changed everything from the makeup to how sets are constructed, painted and lit. Even at the level of your local newscast.
Did it also change air conditioning? I have been on sets thrice in my life, and everytime it has been uncomfortably hot.
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As someone who sometimes shoots medium format film, sometimes shoots digital—I am a bit skeptical about claims that digital “easily beat the resolution of classical medium format film”. I shoot with a nice, but old, MF camera and prime lens on a tripod and then do wet prints (usually) or drum scans (rarely). Based on close examination of drum scans, I estimate my setup gives images of around 60-80 megapixels. Knock t…
My experience mirrors yours. 50MP off of medium format and a flatbed scanner is easy. 1980s lenses look great, even with color film. I have one shot I took off the roof of a building, and you can read street signs many blocks away in the final scan. With 4x5, 100MP is pretty achievable, and even with very "inferior" lenses, the resolution is incredible. I have a picture of the Manhattan Bridge from the Brooklyn side,…
The particle nature as well. Because light arrival is a poisson process, your pixels need to be big enough that their “backing capacitor”, so to speak, can fit at least a few tens of thousands of electrons for acceptable noise levels.
If your pixel capacitor maxes out at 100 electrons, your SNR will never exceed 10, even under optimal conditions (or, at least, you have to downscale, and then you would be better off with bigger pixels in the first place).
What I don't understand isn't the design of the lenses, which are chasing ever-tightening windows of precision in a competetive market with high margins and discriminating consumers. Of course they're going to be overdesigned. What gets me is that lens distortion is a fully reversible convolution. It's not lossy, at all. Or rather, it's only lossy in the sense that the existing quantization in the sensor is already l…
Lots of m43 cameras do some of the corrections in software, which does keep lens sizes and prices down.
Such corrections are all but essential for affordable zooms, but I'm still split on the potential for over-use in primes. I'll point to the Sony 16/2.8 E as an example; the use of correction in JPEGs is pretty evident compared to shooting raw, and you can see the correction softening the corners.
I have a bunch of full frame lenses. Recently I looked at some very old ones I haven't used in a long time. I thought they are faulty (soft). After some diagnosing I found that it is not the fault of lenses but rather in the meantime I have started looking at images at 1:1 in Lightroom and gotten used to ridiculously sharp images from new cameras. Have you ever watched an old TV show and despaired how unwatchable it…
>Have you ever watched an old TV show and despaired how unwatchable it is because of low quality of image? Yes, that's the same thing -- our tastes change. I've had the opposite reaction - I'd watch something I've seen before in 4k remastered or something and it would be a worse experience because the extra details reveal the low quality tricks you can get away with on lower reproduction quality. I've even noticed po…
https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/what-is-the-soap-...
Basically, we (over the age of about 25 anyway) are used to associating 24 FPS with “high quality” content like movies and higher FPS with cheap content like soap operas.
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>Have you ever watched an old TV show and despaired how unwatchable it is because of low quality of image? Yes, that's the same thing -- our tastes change. I've had the opposite reaction - I'd watch something I've seen before in 4k remastered or something and it would be a worse experience because the extra details reveal the low quality tricks you can get away with on lower reproduction quality. I've even noticed po…
The 4K issue may actually be the “soap opera effect” https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/what-is-the-soap-... Basically, we (over the age of about 25 anyway) are used to associating 24 FPS with “high quality” content like movies and higher FPS with cheap content like soap operas.