Good, Better, Best (Or are we just chasing our tail)

pdh said:
I think people's responses so far just underline my sense (which I perhaps am not articulating clearly) that what people value is not the photograph but the activity; thus "richer, easier to handle in post", "better results in more challenging conditions", "not because of the ultimate appearance of the photograph" and so on.

Now obviously I have a position too, which is that I don't care very much about what a camera does or how it does it, so long as I want to pick it up and take photographs with it, and I have almost zero interest in cameras as technology (but I do have an interest in their aesthetics - I don't like to use a camera I consider unattractive).

But what I am also interested in is looking at pictures, thinking about photography, and how images look, and whether they work as images. Yet the endless threads I see devoted to the latest, newest, betterest, superiorest cameras (not just at the moment, it's been going on since the dawn of photography, but recent developments in imaging have boosted it almost beyond my comprehension) go on and on repeatedly and without cease about the "features" and specifications, sensors, pixels, bit depths, post processing, "sharpness", "100% crops", menu systems, AF speed ... well, you know, you name it, it gets discussed.

Now all these discussions tend to get couched in terms of "IQ" - better IQ, superior IQ, improving IQ, unsurpassed IQ - while at the same time, as a non-participant in any of this discussion, I just look at the pictures and yet I can't tell from looking at a picture (without using "100% crop" mind, on Flickr, or on the wall in someone's home, or in a gallery) whether it was taken with a camera older than I am, with Kodachrome 25, with an RX1 or with a camera made out of toilet rolls and the bottom of a coke bottle.

All I'm noticing (because I'm interested too in the way people think and act) is that the activity of acquiring, discussing & comparing camera equipment and the activity of how photographs are captured, processed and compared technically is quite different from the way the photographs these cameras and camera owners produce are then discussed.

Enormous amounts of heat are generated during this activity, to the point that sometimes personal abuse is hurled about when two people disagree about a camera ... yet the photographs themselves never seem to generate much more than "nice capture" (or if you're really lucky, "great capture"). And still, to repeat myself, those hot discussions are all couched in language that suggests that it is "IQ" that matters, that these features, this sensor, this algorithm, this lens, this really fast AF will lend itself to producing better photographs.

So ... what I'm noticing is a disjunction between what people seem to think they are talking about, and what they appear (from outside the discussion) to be talking about. Not that this is a criticism, or a judgment: it really is just a noticing.

What people seem to say is: "This camera is better because it makes better photographs" ... Whereas what seems to be going on is that this means: "I like this camera better because the activity of using it, talking about using it, taking photographs with it, talking about taking photographs with it, processing the photographs and talking about that is more fulfilling to me (or seems more likely to be more fulfilling, if I haven't bought it yet, or it isn't even on sale yet) than this other camera that I could buy (or you own and think is better)"

And that is fine, it really is.

It's sort of worth remembering, though, that it only matters to the person who owns the camera.

Similar discussions probably took place in a hut circle about which flint-pit made better axe-heads, of course ... except of course whether you had a sharp axe might be a matter of life and death, whereas how "good" your camera is, isn't
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I think the short response here is that the end product means a lot, probably to all of us. And it's what lives on beyond all of the process and technologies that come and go. So that's ultimately the point - and is probably why you and Luke started this sub-thread by comparing my old street shots taken with lesser gear to my newer stuff taken with better gear. BUT.... It's much more difficult to talk about photography in a meaningful way, particularly online, than it is to talk about gear. We usually either say "nice image" if we like something or say nothing if we don't or very occasionally offer some very politely couched criticism that's hopefully both constructive and perceived that way by whoever it's intended for.

The tech end, as I noted above, means different things to different people. To some, it means the accuracy of colors, to some the resolution and clarity, to others the indescribable "character" of a lens, to others the dynamic range, to some the burst rate and accuracy of tracking AF, etc, etc, etc. To me it's mostly not about the image quality in terms of what the photo ends up looking like, but the way it makes it easier or possible for me to get a shot I like out of a difficult situation. That's my primary focus in terms of camera tech. Those things are much easier to discuss than my artistic tastes (or lack thereof). As for my photographs, I'm happy to put them out there if I like them and if others do, that's nice too and if yet others don't, oh well - they'll know better than to look next time. But ultimately if I like 'em then it's been a good day photographically. And if I enjoyed the process of finding and making them, that's huge, because if I didn't I wouldn't keep doing that. The gear is one determinant of whether I did or didn't, and it's the least personal part of the whole process, and something we can all relate to. So it's what we discuss.

Particularly on a gear forum!

-Ray
 
I'm with Paul, I rarely if ever contribute to the discussions on gear. I tend to buy secondhand when the gear has been superseded by the newest and latest and prices have dropped significantly.

For me photography is about the images produced. Since moving house I have joined a local camera club, my first venture into such territory. The main focus is on in club competitions, from what I've seen so far, on a friendly basis and on practical events, such as the recent portrait evening, designed to allow one to practice and improve ones technique, or in my case with portraits, to do something I've no real experience of.

The chairman is a photography judge, a breed that I've always been suspicious of from a distance, but I've found it most interesting to see others work and to hear what are in the main constructive comments being made with respect to cropping, angle of view, composition etc. The only time I've heard image quality issues raised are where photographs are not sharp due mainly to focus issues.

When viewing such images either as a projected digital image or as a print no mention has been made about the camera that has been used to take the image, it's all about the image and I'm finding it both very enjoyable and enlightening. There was a very wide range of cameras in use on the portrait evening, the first time I've seen some of the members gear, ranging from small sensor serious compact cameras right up to full frame beasts.

Barrie
 
Armanius said:
When I see a photo, I either like it or I don't. I could sit there and discuss in length how the angles of the converging lines create this effervescent feel as sky clashes into the mountain in the horizon. But chances are that I don't think anyone who posts a photo wants to hear me say that.
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Actually I'd love for people to talk about that stuff more - whether it's about my photos or someone else's :)
 
bartjeej said:
Actually I'd love for people to talk about that stuff more - whether it's about my photos or someone else's :)
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Maybe Amin should start a forum dedicated to photography rather than gear - I think he's mentioned the possibility in the past but thought the better of it, for reasons I'm not sure of.

If we were gonna discuss photography rather than gear, it shouldn't just be "serious compact" photography, it should be open to all comers. And I'll bet you a dollar it would either be too polite or would get contentious as hell pretty quickly... And occasionally there would be some really nice and useful constructive criticism. But I seriously doubt it would go all that well...

-Ray
 
Well, I just updated my signature to make clear that constructive criticism is always welcome when my photos are concerned :) maybe all those who are happy to have their photos discussed thusly can do something similar?
 
Armanius said:
I'll add a line to my signature stating "Only praises welcome!"
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:laugh1:

carlb: the critique forum is definitely useful if you wonder how a specific photo could be improved, but I'd like people to comment whenever they have something specific to say - good or bad - about any of my photos, wherever I posted it.
 
I suppose I'm a bit disappointed that some of the responses to what I've written seem to assume that I'm suggesting either that "gear" shouldn't be discussed, or that discussing or liking "gear" for it's own sake is somehow morally reprehensible.

Neither is the case.

All that's being suggested is that I've observed that "gear" discussions are almost always predicated on something called "IQ", which is assumed to relate somehow to the goodness of a photographs taken with the "gear", while at the same time few, if any, of the criteria for "IQ" bear the smallest relationship to whether a photograph is worth looking at or not.

As I have a prediliction for obscure analogies, it's a bit like discussing whether it's better to have caught a shark using a hook and line or with a net, when the purpose of doing so was to create "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" ...

I'll also briefly note that in the world I worked in for a long time "gear" was a cant word for Heroin ... highly addictive, very expensive and leading to misery and degradation ... :D
 
pdh said:
All that's being suggested is that I've observed that "gear" discussions are almost always predicated on something called "IQ", which is assumed to relate somehow to the goodness of a photographs taken with the "gear", while at the same time few, if any, of the criteria for "IQ" bear the smallest relationship to whether a photograph is worth looking at or not.
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Well, no, because whether a photograph is worth looking at or not bears almost no relationship to the camera used - only to the shooter using it. No gear in the world will ever create a photo worth looking at without a good photographer operating it, so such a discussion would have nothing at all to do with gear. Which is fine if that's what you want to discuss, although it can be a thorny discussion if not handled with extreme tact or extreme generality, ie - nice image! So, it's not really germane to ANY gear discussion. And any discussion of gear should be about what we like about the technical quality of the photos made by the gear or how it helps us get the shot in the first place, or whatever. But we can't very well talk about whether an RX1 or a Kodak Instamatic makes images worth looking at because any camera is fully capable of producing both images that are and are not worth looking at....

-Ray
 
Good, better, best
Never let it rest
'Til the good is better
And the better is best.

I learned this ditty as a child, but as someone now eligible in some establishments for the senior discount, I still find it useful --and a consoling mantra (and justification) during moments of serious GAS.
 
pdh said:
Ray, you need to read my post again. You are disagreeing with something I have not said
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Well I'm going on this:

pdh said:
All that's being suggested is that I've observed that "gear" discussions are almost always predicated on something called "IQ", which is assumed to relate somehow to the goodness of a photographs taken with the "gear", while at the same time few, if any, of the criteria for "IQ" bear the smallest relationship to whether a photograph is worth looking at or not.
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I think we discuss IQ as something that relates to the technical portion of how a photo was taken and how it looks but not to its "goodness" as a piece of art, which is all about the content, the composition, etc. These are two separate things that both contribute to the "goodness" of a photo - the camera is partly responsible for the first part and not at all responsible for the latter.

To the extent I'm mis-reading this part of what you wrote, then I'm not sure what you're saying or how to respond to it.

-Ray
 

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