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Honestly it's just a different media. There's no need to think too hard about it. Might as well compare oil pastel to charcoal Personally I think almost all of

by tomc1985 5y ago

Honestly it's just a different media. There's no need to think too hard about it. Might as well compare oil pastel to charcoal Personally I think almost all of the output of phone cameras (except what's in their glossy ads) is missing a certain je ne sais quoi that distinguishes Photography (note the capital P) from an ordinary photo. That and you can pry the amazing bokeh from a high-quality SLR lens from my cold dead hands.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> Honestly it's just a different media. There's no need to think too hard about it. Might as well compare oil pastel to charcoal You might, but even then you might also consider that learning from one medium can translate even to a very different medium. But in any case here we're not talking about quite different media. The images are processed and edited in fundamentally the same way. As a result, many photographers tend to perceive the one (mobile phone digital photography) as an inherently inferior subset of the range of the other (large digital sensor photography). This is because photographers -- particularly in the digital era -- do not ordinarily consider the creative advantages of self-imposed restrictions. And when deliberate creative restrictions are suggested, the immediate response is to dismiss them or to suggest that they are wasteful (you're losing information at capture), better achieved in post-processing (so you have more "flexibility"). So there is a "precision maximalist" and "gear maximalist" default to most contemporary photography. Use the sharpest, fastest, least quirky lens you can get, shoot at the highest resolution, buy the latest if you can. All of these things are narrowly valuable in some area of photography, but they get glommed together to make a giant assumption. The mobile phone presents a convenient, nearly unavoidable way to question many of the impacts of that maximalist position. One of the things I often want to do is ask photographers "why are your DSLR photos better than your friend's mobile phone photos?" and then poke them in the ribs each time they mention the technical advantages of their kit. But it would generally get quite violent.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  > So there is a "precision maximalist" and "gear maximalist" default to most contemporary photography. Use the sharpest, fastest, least quirky lens you can get, shoot at the highest resolution, buy the latest if you can. I wouldn't conflate "buy the latest you can" with gear maximalism. My own journey with that started with dissatisfaction of the quality of the output that I had, and, as I became a better photographer, running up against the limits of my camera and lens. Then, after understanding what I was experiencing was indeed the hardware and not a limitation of my skill, I upgraded, and the hardware leapfrogged my abilities. Then I got better and I once again started hitting the limits of my hardware. Though I am now at a point where the hardware and my abilities are so good that I am content with the output as one can reasonably expect for a hardcore amateur. My point is that "gear maximalism" is not always just mere materialism. As for the phone, it's convenient. I can guss it up and if the output is sufficiently pig-like I can put lipstick on it til it looks good enough. With the right software I can even output RAW files and theoretically feed them into Lightroom like my normal workflow. But it will never be as good, and there are so many techniques that I simply can't do with it. "The best camera is the one in your hand" is true and all, but it's flooding the world with shit photos. Good is the enemy of great, after all.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    > there are so many techniques that I simply can't do with it. But that's the point of what I'm getting at, concerning limitations and maximalism. We've got into a mindset where we seek to push the edges of the kit we have -- we are urged to shoot faster lenses, shallower depth of field, lower and lower light. But it doesn't get you a higher rate of good photos. A good photo is a good photo regardless of kit, and it's possible to flounder creatively when you have more scope. As a photographer I think we should be able to creatively progress with whatever photographic tool we have in our hands. See a creative angle, refine it, improve on it, etc. Finding a way to be creative within a set of limitations is all that matters, and therefore starting with a serious set of restrictions is good practice. FWIW I am a fairly good portraitist, a long-standing small-venue gig photographer, and I'm pretty technically-minded. But thinking back to the first DSLR I owned (a secondhand Fuji S2 Pro), I can think of precisely one photographic limitation I'd run into regularly even now: its high ISO performance was not that good. Otherwise I'd have that camera back to shoot with, even now, especially in the studio. Though I might rage at the maximum card capacity. I'm regularly surprised to hear people talking of hitting the photographic limits of the kit they use; it suggests to me very specific niches or unusually rubbish kit lenses (I've owned one of those, and even then I got some results I liked). Because I can't think of a popular DSLR made after about 2005 that is bad; certainly not after 2008. I can think of only a couple of entry-level DSLR or mirrorless cameras with limitations that would trouble me (the lack of a depth of field preview being the main one, aside from glasses-unfriendly viewfinders). I still shoot with digital kit I bought 13 years ago, and got some of my best results in the last few years with the oldest of those cameras that is now so cheap I'm better off not selling it. I've only bought secondhand, old-model equipment since 2011. I probably won't ever buy new again -- except maybe a Cambo Actus. The same is true of lenses. I'm currently doing a bit of work with an early 1980s Vivitar wide-to-standard zoom that cost me £30. Crap in the corners, gorgeous otherwise. I don't plan to buy a new lens ever again. I'd always recommend going back to your former kit (buy it again, cheap on eBay) and testing those beliefs about limits in retrospect.
astrange 5y ago
A lot of people (including this comment) seem to think that DSLR=“good camera” and all real photos are taken on 35mm format SLRs, but none of that is true. SLR is a specialized format designed for fast autofocus used by news/sports photographers and 35mm “full frame” is not the largest film size. Rangefinder and mirrorless formats actually have a much easier time with lens design and don’t need such gigantic lenses, which might make them less impressive looking than an SLR, but I have a cheap Mamiya medium format rangefinder that takes better street photos than they do. And if you’re doing product or landscape photography, you want a large format digital back like Phase One or a view camera, which really are the top of the line.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > SLR is a specialized format designed for fast autofocus used by news/sports photographers Designed for, no. Optimised for and evolved for, yes! :-) When the SLR emerged it was definitely slower than the cameras press photographers were using. Even the later instant-return-mirror models, probably. Press photographers didn't switch to SLRs until the Nikon F arrived fifteen years later, in the first few years of the Laos and Vietnam wars. Press shooters mostly hadn't been shooting 35mm for more than a decade before that. The rest: I'm not convinced at this point, and I think high-end mirrorless really blurs most of those boundaries pretty conclusively. We're definitely stepping towards a formatless world in the sense of distinct boundaries, with computational photography being a big part of it. Which is precisely why I'd urge really any digital photographer to spend as much time learning to get the best out of their mobile phone as possible. It is one point on the continuum; small sensors but a lot of computation.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

> Honestly it's just a different media. There's no need to think too hard about it. Might as well compare oil pastel to charcoal You might, but even then you might also consider that learning from one medium can translate even to a very different medium. But in any case here we're not talking about quite different media. The images are processed and edited in fundamentally the same way. As a result, many photographers tend to perceive the one (mobile phone digital photography) as an inherently inferior subset of the range of the other (large digital sensor photography). This is because photographers -- particularly in the digital era -- do not ordinarily consider the creative advantages of self-imposed restrictions. And when deliberate creative restrictions are suggested, the immediate response is to dismiss them or to suggest that they are wasteful (you're losing information at capture), better achieved in post-processing (so you have more "flexibility"). So there is a "precision maximalist" and "gear maximalist" default to most contemporary photography. Use the sharpest, fastest, least quirky lens you can get, shoot at the highest resolution, buy the latest if you can. All of these things are narrowly valuable in some area of photography, but they get glommed together to make a giant assumption. The mobile phone presents a convenient, nearly unavoidable way to question many of the impacts of that maximalist position. One of the things I often want to do is ask photographers "why are your DSLR photos better than your friend's mobile phone photos?" and then poke them in the ribs each time they mention the technical advantages of their kit. But it would generally get quite violent.

tomc1985 5y ago
> So there is a "precision maximalist" and "gear maximalist" default to most contemporary photography. Use the sharpest, fastest, least quirky lens you can get, shoot at the highest resolution, buy the latest if you can. I wouldn't conflate "buy the latest you can" with gear maximalism. My own journey with that started with dissatisfaction of the quality of the output that I had, and, as I became a better photographer, running up against the limits of my camera and lens. Then, after understanding what I was experiencing was indeed the hardware and not a limitation of my skill, I upgraded, and the hardware leapfrogged my abilities. Then I got better and I once again started hitting the limits of my hardware. Though I am now at a point where the hardware and my abilities are so good that I am content with the output as one can reasonably expect for a hardcore amateur. My point is that "gear maximalism" is not always just mere materialism. As for the phone, it's convenient. I can guss it up and if the output is sufficiently pig-like I can put lipstick on it til it looks good enough. With the right software I can even output RAW files and theoretically feed them into Lightroom like my normal workflow. But it will never be as good, and there are so many techniques that I simply can't do with it. "The best camera is the one in your hand" is true and all, but it's flooding the world with shit photos. Good is the enemy of great, after all.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > there are so many techniques that I simply can't do with it. But that's the point of what I'm getting at, concerning limitations and maximalism. We've got into a mindset where we seek to push the edges of the kit we have -- we are urged to shoot faster lenses, shallower depth of field, lower and lower light. But it doesn't get you a higher rate of good photos. A good photo is a good photo regardless of kit, and it's possible to flounder creatively when you have more scope. As a photographer I think we should be able to creatively progress with whatever photographic tool we have in our hands. See a creative angle, refine it, improve on it, etc. Finding a way to be creative within a set of limitations is all that matters, and therefore starting with a serious set of restrictions is good practice. FWIW I am a fairly good portraitist, a long-standing small-venue gig photographer, and I'm pretty technically-minded. But thinking back to the first DSLR I owned (a secondhand Fuji S2 Pro), I can think of precisely one photographic limitation I'd run into regularly even now: its high ISO performance was not that good. Otherwise I'd have that camera back to shoot with, even now, especially in the studio. Though I might rage at the maximum card capacity. I'm regularly surprised to hear people talking of hitting the photographic limits of the kit they use; it suggests to me very specific niches or unusually rubbish kit lenses (I've owned one of those, and even then I got some results I liked). Because I can't think of a popular DSLR made after about 2005 that is bad; certainly not after 2008. I can think of only a couple of entry-level DSLR or mirrorless cameras with limitations that would trouble me (the lack of a depth of field preview being the main one, aside from glasses-unfriendly viewfinders). I still shoot with digital kit I bought 13 years ago, and got some of my best results in the last few years with the oldest of those cameras that is now so cheap I'm better off not selling it. I've only bought secondhand, old-model equipment since 2011. I probably won't ever buy new again -- except maybe a Cambo Actus. The same is true of lenses. I'm currently doing a bit of work with an early 1980s Vivitar wide-to-standard zoom that cost me £30. Crap in the corners, gorgeous otherwise. I don't plan to buy a new lens ever again. I'd always recommend going back to your former kit (buy it again, cheap on eBay) and testing those beliefs about limits in retrospect.

astrange 5y ago

A lot of people (including this comment) seem to think that DSLR=“good camera” and all real photos are taken on 35mm format SLRs, but none of that is true. SLR is a specialized format designed for fast autofocus used by news/sports photographers and 35mm “full frame” is not the largest film size. Rangefinder and mirrorless formats actually have a much easier time with lens design and don’t need such gigantic lenses, which might make them less impressive looking than an SLR, but I have a cheap Mamiya medium format rangefinder that takes better street photos than they do. And if you’re doing product or landscape photography, you want a large format digital back like Phase One or a view camera, which really are the top of the line.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> SLR is a specialized format designed for fast autofocus used by news/sports photographers Designed for, no. Optimised for and evolved for, yes! :-) When the SLR emerged it was definitely slower than the cameras press photographers were using. Even the later instant-return-mirror models, probably. Press photographers didn't switch to SLRs until the Nikon F arrived fifteen years later, in the first few years of the Laos and Vietnam wars. Press shooters mostly hadn't been shooting 35mm for more than a decade before that. The rest: I'm not convinced at this point, and I think high-end mirrorless really blurs most of those boundaries pretty conclusively. We're definitely stepping towards a formatless world in the sense of distinct boundaries, with computational photography being a big part of it. Which is precisely why I'd urge really any digital photographer to spend as much time learning to get the best out of their mobile phone as possible. It is one point on the continuum; small sensors but a lot of computation.