doing something wrong
I must be dong something very wrong when more than one or two or three persons on Facebook find to ask me what camera I am using to take the pictures that are posted to my Facebook photo albums. If I was doing the right thing I believe that nobody would have asked at all. I am of the view that my photos are looking normal even though I have not run them through Photoshop or Lightroom, which seem to be hailed as the professional photographic software that separate the men from the boys, or rather the professionals from the amateurs and/or whoever else, in the field of photographic reproduction.
I am just making a 'comeback' into photography and really don't have the time to tangle with Photoshop and its alleged steep learning curve. I still have to learn why I must use Photoshop to alter the reality captured by my camera. Nature has spoken, but the thinking seems to be that Nature has erred and we must therefore fix it, to what we believe to be the right thing. I could see that the camera and photo system cannot truly reproduce Nature's high dynamic range, when it exists, and some form of interface software is needed to help out. But every thing is not HDR, and some folks feel the need to deal with LDR also. I guess the more professional one feels they are the greater their need for sophisticated cutting edge software to process their digital negatives.
Digital cameras are stand alone devices and are built to produce an image for immediate use, that is, you don't have to process it before use. The camera is also built to produce another image for those who feel they want to process a digital negative and to extract every 'nuance' known to photography, whether or not you could see it or even imagine it was there. At the end of day it is all about the reproduction media, screen or print, and the camera comes with a toggle switch to select your color space. It is good to know something about photography and color management, but it is not crucial to setting up the camera to get photos that look better than usual all the time, and I am speaking about Canon cameras because that is what I use.
In my camera Canon allows me to increase and decrease contrast, color tone, saturation and sharpness. Anyone can play around with these settings until you get the photos looking how you want. It is as simple as that. If, for example, you have a high contrast scene, you should be able to adjust the contrast in the camera to get it more to how you want it in the final snap, and vice versa. The histogram feature in the camera should be quite helpful here. The camera handbook is your best friend, and you should always keep it with the camera.
So there is no rocket science to it. A knowledge of photography could prove useful, but I suspect that the ease of digital photography suggest to most of us that no prior knowledge is required. I guess for most people the bottom line is to get an image that looks good, and the electronics in the camera will see to that with a perfect exposure almost every time, but the content of the photo is a whole different matter. But who cares? It only has to look good enough to carry the information to your brain. It is like a quick snap of a fancy sports car. No matter how it is snapped it will appeal to most people. Putting a lot of work in the lighting and posing may not attract any more viewers, and may even subtract.
I am of the view that photos directly from the camera are not perfect, but you can get away with it, if you pump up the saturation and tweak the other settings in the camera, if it is a Canon DSLR like the EOS20D. I don't know about any other models , but suspect the Canon DSLR's are almost all alike. Free software like Picasa3 also have setting for customizing the photos and are identical to those set in the camera and maybe with greater range too. So if you don't have the Canon you can still customize your photos and it is no rocket science at all. So play around with the camera setting and Picasa and when you have found the right combination your photos may begin to look somewhat like mine ....
[above] Port Zante
[above] Port Zante, cruise ship passenger takes her photos with the vervets
[above] Independence Square with the Co-Cathedral in the background.
[above] The Poinciana, the National Flower of St Kitts and Nevis
[above] Port Zante
[above] Port Zante, view of Fortlands over the Marina
I am just making a 'comeback' into photography and really don't have the time to tangle with Photoshop and its alleged steep learning curve. I still have to learn why I must use Photoshop to alter the reality captured by my camera. Nature has spoken, but the thinking seems to be that Nature has erred and we must therefore fix it, to what we believe to be the right thing. I could see that the camera and photo system cannot truly reproduce Nature's high dynamic range, when it exists, and some form of interface software is needed to help out. But every thing is not HDR, and some folks feel the need to deal with LDR also. I guess the more professional one feels they are the greater their need for sophisticated cutting edge software to process their digital negatives.
Digital cameras are stand alone devices and are built to produce an image for immediate use, that is, you don't have to process it before use. The camera is also built to produce another image for those who feel they want to process a digital negative and to extract every 'nuance' known to photography, whether or not you could see it or even imagine it was there. At the end of day it is all about the reproduction media, screen or print, and the camera comes with a toggle switch to select your color space. It is good to know something about photography and color management, but it is not crucial to setting up the camera to get photos that look better than usual all the time, and I am speaking about Canon cameras because that is what I use.
In my camera Canon allows me to increase and decrease contrast, color tone, saturation and sharpness. Anyone can play around with these settings until you get the photos looking how you want. It is as simple as that. If, for example, you have a high contrast scene, you should be able to adjust the contrast in the camera to get it more to how you want it in the final snap, and vice versa. The histogram feature in the camera should be quite helpful here. The camera handbook is your best friend, and you should always keep it with the camera.
So there is no rocket science to it. A knowledge of photography could prove useful, but I suspect that the ease of digital photography suggest to most of us that no prior knowledge is required. I guess for most people the bottom line is to get an image that looks good, and the electronics in the camera will see to that with a perfect exposure almost every time, but the content of the photo is a whole different matter. But who cares? It only has to look good enough to carry the information to your brain. It is like a quick snap of a fancy sports car. No matter how it is snapped it will appeal to most people. Putting a lot of work in the lighting and posing may not attract any more viewers, and may even subtract.
I am of the view that photos directly from the camera are not perfect, but you can get away with it, if you pump up the saturation and tweak the other settings in the camera, if it is a Canon DSLR like the EOS20D. I don't know about any other models , but suspect the Canon DSLR's are almost all alike. Free software like Picasa3 also have setting for customizing the photos and are identical to those set in the camera and maybe with greater range too. So if you don't have the Canon you can still customize your photos and it is no rocket science at all. So play around with the camera setting and Picasa and when you have found the right combination your photos may begin to look somewhat like mine ....
[above] Port Zante
[above] Port Zante, view of Fortlands over the Marina
Comments
I have moved up a notch to the EOS-7D after spending some time with the EOS-40D, and my pictures still look the same to me. So maybe this has nothing to do with the camera, but with my Image Editor, Made in Switzerland, and which is now no longer available.
The Image Editor is necessary because I shoot RAW. This provides me the ability to manipulate the image [if I feel so led to do] so as to create the best possible picture or visual imagery that I can hope to conceive.
So for these last few years it seems that I am still not "doing something wrong".
The cameras have changed over the years but the images are still looking as crisp as ever, and still attracting the favorable comments. The Canon EOS-70D is added to the lineup to improve on my night photography. All the fancy features are great, but in hind sight I just needed to come to grips with my dislike for walking around with a heavy tripod, and pick up an L series lens instead.
So I am slowly developing a liking for my heavy tripod and an assistant. I could shoot some video as a bonus. I always hated video but given the new DSLR technology I find that video is not so bad after all, but it is just that much more expensive. Maybe I could outsource production to keep costs down. Problem is finding someone who can deliver the unparalleled quality that I would need.
Over the last year I have contemplated using other image editing software programs already on my computer. I have finally decided to try out LR/CC. I am into the easy life, but I plan to stick out the allegedly 'steep learning curve'. So we will see what can happen shortly.
If you are not following on Facebook please do so, you could be missing out on something life changing.
http://www.facebook.com/keeth.france
Have a nice day.