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The Presidential Portrait Goes Digital
alphadogg writes "Barack Obama's election to US president has already brought a string of firsts, and on Wednesday there came another. The official presidential portrait was shot on a digital camera for the first time. The picture was taken by the White House's new official photographer, Pete Souza, and issued by The Office of the President Elect through its Web site. It was taken on Tuesday evening at 5:38 p.m. using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, according to the metadata embedded in the image file."
...and so the reign of photoshop begins...
http://www.beanleafpress.com
every time obama wipes his arse?
...but this. Come on. I get this being newsworthy at Gizmodo etc. But Slashdot? Seriously... Cool, yes. Newsworthy? Not buying it. ;)
.: Max Romantschuk
Just heard an interview with the photographer on NPR. It's semi-off-topic in that it doesn't have to do with the medium used for photographs but still an interesting piece I think. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99353598
http://www.dpreview.com/
.: Max Romantschuk
And here I always thought he looked his best at 5:39.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
He's not the first black President.
He's the first hipster President.
In the early 70s the motion picture industry (including television) began to move away from film and towards video tape as the recording/storage medium. You can really see the difference in quality as the video tape lacked all the subtlety and clarity that film had. As time wore on, the limitations of video tape grew apparent because it was clear that the quality recorded onto the tape was already at a maximum. Whereas film could be re-mastered to higher quality, video was essentially stuck at the low-resolution, low-quality that it was recorded with.
As we move towards digital photography, the limitations of the format are going to become apparent as the technology progresses to the point where today's 16MP shots simply don't have enough detail to compete with 8x10 sheets of Kodachrome.
What is it that you are attracted to about photography? What can't you do with a P&S or "prosumer" camera?
No more negatives. I've recently gone back to film and hand processing. Yes it's a real pain but there is a distinctive film look that digital just doesn't create.
"Technology.....the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it." Max Firsch
That is change we can believe in!
(Disclaimer : not intended to be politically charged)
You just got troll'd!
In the white house? What will it be used for now? Maybe they will put a picture server in there for all the digital pics they will be taking of the Obama. At least when they photo shop the Halo around his head it will be a lot easier as they won't have to scan the picture in from the Negative, just upload the pic from the memory stick.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
One acronym will suffice as an answer to your question : RTFA.
You just got troll'd!
The 5D Mark II is amazing.
I'm no photographer but I paid a bit of attention to digital cameras over the past decade and I think I can safely say that by picking a popular model by either Nikon or Canon within your price range you can't go wrong.
You just got troll'd!
Well, there's one obvious answer: ask Barack. According to the article, he has some experience of this kind of thing, having just had his portrait taken using a digital camera. I'm sure if you call him, he'll be more than happy to discuss his experiences of photography using modern photographic methods.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
...what about the Geotagging? THAT's what we really want to know... WHERE was it taken? ;P
Um, I've been using digital pictures/cameras for near over a decade now. I think that it is more news that this hasn't already been done the last ten years rather than this one new guy is "the first" to use it.
What next? The first president to create his own daily you tube channel, blog, website/forum, on-line poll asking the public who he should pick for cabinet positions, or owning/using his own PDA/Cell phone?
A Republican NOT wearing a flag pin is no big deal.
A Democrat NOT wearing a flag pin is a traitor.
-- Boycott Shell
Whether or not Obama wants this occur, there is a full-fledged cult of personality developing around the guy.
He is the cult of, he is the cult of, he is the cult of...per-son-al-ity-y.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
...when the photographer wanted him to hold a number plate, and insisted on front and side views.
I don't know how you can even walk with such a big chip on your shoulder.
At least we've still got a physical human being for a President.
Next step, the Virtual President. Sims expansion pack, anyone?
-kgj
use a loop of packing tape sticky side out...
Is the posted 1916 x 2608 version not sufficient?
It makes sense to use a digital camera since 99.99% of the use of that picture is going to be put on .gov websites or sent to post offices so they can change the picture in the frame, or in publications that are probably made with something like InDesign. I'd imagine whatever advantages you got out of the film photo (which I was never a believer in until out wedding photos were done on an antique camera with the crank and everything out of a 50's period movie), would be lost in the scanning process.
If I was president I'd just have them take a picture with a polaroid. I can just see the huge ornate frame with a tiny polaroid taped in the center. All the other world leaders would either find it humorous and say "this guy is cool" or think I'm crazy enough not to mess with.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
I propose that we work on lamer and lamer stories until we find something that slashdotter have no opinion of or just can't be bothered to comment.
Careful with that line of reasoning. A lot of what a camera with better manual modes does is simply make you aware of what is happening. As you try to make your photos look better, awareness of things like aperture and focal length and shutter speed will help. I'm aware that for many people, goal-directed learning works better -- but for some, especially geeky types, just paying attention and observing the differences between (eg) comparably exposed shots with different aperture settings will be very helpful. It's not (so much) that there are things the SLR can do that the P&S can't; it's that you'll be more aware of what the camera is doing.
So, if he wants to take better pictures, and is willing to put effort in, a more manual camera is a good investment early on. Having to fight with the camera is a big turnoff. Of course, the more expensive camera isn't better if you don't use what it gives you. It's *part* of how you learn about photography, and it certainly won't teach you by itself.
Does anyone make a (reasonably priced...) digital equivalent of the old standard learning camera -- fully manual, no gobs of features, just shutter, aperture, focus, and an exposure meter? Probably SLR, though not required, and ideally with a fixed length lens in the basic package. It seems these days the designers observe they have a microprocessor available and pack everything in, and it's hard to find that older elegant simplicity.
Depth. Of. Field.
Beware, that could be seen as a threat to national security.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Why does everyone keep calling Obama's position as the Office of the President Elect? He doesn't have any power yet or anything, he's just the president elect... yeesh.
Your side doing/not doing someinthg = bad
My side doing/not doing same thing = ignore
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Jesus, who the fuck cares? I do not live in the USA and I don't give a fucking shit! I'm not trolling, but this is just not news!
I'm shocked I tell ya!
fvck b3ta!
The article states that the "5D" camera used for the photo has 12.8mp and costs $2K. This is true for the 5D, but the 5D Mark II has ~21MP and costs considerably more than $2K. If it cost $2K I'd get one!
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Go to a store, pick one up and hold it. Find where the buttons are, how the weight is distributed, and how the menu is laid out. You can base your choice on features that you don't know the difference between, yet, or you can pick the camera that you are going to be comfortable using.
The difference between the Nikon D80, a Canon Rebel XS, a Pentax K200D, and a Sony Alpha 300 are mostly what lenses you can get from third parties. Sigma and Tamron make a lot of lenses to mount on Canon and Nikon bodies, and are starting to stock more Sony and Pentax ones.
Does anyone make a (reasonably priced...) digital equivalent of the old standard learning camera -- fully manual, no gobs of features, just shutter, aperture, focus, and an exposure meter?
Nope. But then again, K1000s aren't especially pricey. Neither, for that matter, are those flimsy FM10s. But personally I'd rather get one with a little more heft and go with an FM3a or FE2.
But the goal is to take pictures, I hope. You don't need a bare-bones all-manual film rig. And you sure don't need a full-featured whiz-bang dSLR. You just need something that you're going to take with you and not regret. For me, that's this guy. No worry about memory cards, no worry about lens caps, it doesn't weigh a ton. I take it and use it and have fun with it.
I used to use an FM3a, but found that I was leaving it at home more often than not. It's a great camera, but it didn't help me reach my goals. Then again, the goal of some people is to fondle cameras, so who am I to judge?
Yeah, DP Review, or Thom Hogan for a good set of reviews on Nikon stuff. Get a tripod (seriously). Go outside.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Jeeeez...
In what kind of a backwater-hillbilly-hicktown do you live and work if "takin pichers de-je-telly" is considered cool?
Does your modem come with a cradle for your telephone handset?
Do you have to "crank-up" your telephone before going online?
Is the monitor you are reading this on black and white?
I mean... come on.
I can understand going old-tech as a part of "geek pride"-thing, but there ARE limits.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Does anyone make a (reasonably priced...) digital equivalent of the old standard learning camera -- fully manual, no gobs of features, just shutter, aperture, focus, and an exposure meter? Probably SLR, though not required, and ideally with a fixed length lens in the basic package. It seems these days the designers observe they have a microprocessor available and pack everything in, and it's hard to find that older elegant simplicity.
Leica and Canon make good rangefinder-style cameras - the Canon G10 is a particularly good implementation of the concept.
Most prosumer camera models have aperture priority, so this point is moot.
The Office of the President Elect
And what, the heck, is that?
It isn't an official portrait, it's a picture of the guy who's gonna be president by his made-up official sounding transition team. The official portrait is taken of ACTUAL presidents, period.
Ken
I can tell this is a 'shop from some of the pixels and from having seen quite a few photoshops in my time.
Not specifically, but any decent base model DSLR run in manual mode will do the same thing. You can pick up a Nikon D100 for next to nothing. I've had one since 2004, banged the crap out it, gave it to my stepdaughter, had her bang the crap out of it an it still works.
I'm partial to Nikons if for no other reason that the lower end machines have spot metering (Canon, what are you thinking?) and Mirror Lock Up functions.
But DSLRs are great ways to 'learn' photography. You can take thousands of pictures without additional cost. You can take a whole series of pictures changing the aperture of the lens to see what affect it has on exposure time and depth of field. Sure, you could have always done that with film, but it would have cost you - both in time and money.
And best of all, you can retire to your basement and spend hours with your computer fiddling with the pixels.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Ceeeeeelebrate good Obama, come on!
..It's Obam-Obama!
This is so boring, and I'm only wasting my time responding because I want to encourage people not to post stuff like this. Every President is historic. They all make it in the books. Most of you were applauding Bush after 9/11 and now most of you have changed. Some day, people will look back at Obama and yawn. There will be many more Presidents. Remember how excited many people were when the Republicans gain majorities in Congress? What came of that? You think Obama is our savour?
Please don't create a post when Obama is the first Pres to use a specially recycled toilet paper made from a process that doesn't create any global warming gases or pollute our rivers and streams. I'll have to look elsewhere for my tech news...
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
That lack of complicated menus is *specifically* the feature I'm looking for. I don't want lots of options. I don't want to have to worry about whether the auto white balance is on. I don't want to have to hunt through menus -- ever. About the only thing I'd like from the usual collection of digital camera features is a decent quick review mode, but if I have to give that up I'm not overly concerned.
One part of learning to take great photos is simply taking lots of photos; no argument that the simple lightweight point and shoot has its place there. But another part is learning what happens to the light, and how that impacts what the final product looks like. And for that, I don't want lots of automatic features hiding the details, and I especially don't want to have to think about things like menu options instead of how I want the camera to behave.
It's not (so much) that there are things the SLR can do that the P&S can't;
I disagree.
There are two big things P&S cannot do:
1) Low light photography
2) Getting a decent bokeh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh)
Besides, lens on most P&S are lower resolution than the sensor itself, your mighty gazillion megapixel P&S has a lens that resolves to only 3 megapixel.
All this has a lot to do with sensors on P&S, they are about the size of the nail on your pinky finger.
Canon EOS 1D Mark II on the other hand has a 35mm full frame sensor. You will make about 10 P&S sensors with same amount of silicon.
I want the .raw for manipulatory purposes.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Larger sensors make for lower noise, higher sensitivity, and more depth of field control. Larger camera with more knobs and buttons is easier to manage on the fly. The SLR configuration lends itself to alternate auto focus modes. It's fun to slap an old all-manual lens onto the camera, run out and shoot some pics.
Those features aren't that important for the early learning. Learning about taking pictures involves getting an intuitive feel for what shutter speeds and apertures do, learning about framing, what makes a good background, what sort of lighting will look good in the final version, etc. These are not things that demand a top of the line image sensor or lens. They do, however, require you to be aware of what is going on inside your camera.
Eventually, yes, you'll want those things. And there's certainly some benefit to having them early on. But they aren't actually that important for the learning process.
fast autofocus?
change lenses?
decent manual focus?
high iso modes?
real time picture preview?
there are lots of things that speak for dslr.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
What can't you do with a P&S or "prosumer" camera?
That you should even ask such a question highlights the depths of your ignorance. Slashdot requiring analogies, you're asking why someone would want a desktop running linux instead of a simple calculator. I mean, what can't you do with a simple calculator? That sudden flood of answers that comes to your mind? Very akin to flood of answers that come to mind given your question about P&S cameras.
Is anyone else sick of getting the links 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th hand?
Here's the direct one for those interested.
Question everything
You must be new here.
The flag is a little annoying... but that stray hair about an inch below the flag is what really throws me!
That's the funniest story I've seen in a long time. 1) New President 2) Official portrait 3) Digital camera!
Seriously though, while a 5D Mark II isn't bad it's odd that the photographer didn't use a EOS-1Ds Mark III or the new Nikon D3x which offers 24.5 Megapixals.
I bought a Pentax K100 Super, and have been very happy with it. Around $500-600 with a good basic lens, has the automatic features but also manual modes. Its shake reduction feature works with all the old K series lenses, so you don't have to buy only new lenses.
As an alternative, on the cheap side, I'd recommend the Olympus Camedia C5050. I have a C3030, which is a great camera, but the C2000-4000 series used the older SmartMedia wafer cards, which are getting scarce. I noted a C720 on eBay for around $50 (similar series).
The C5050 used xD cards in addition to the SmartMedia wafer cards, allowing more flexibility and storage.
The nice thing is, these Olympus cameras do have the manual settings, a nice sized lens for light gathering, and manual white balance. If you get the card with the camera, and just download through the USB cable, then you'll be fine.
An alternative would be the the Olympus E10/E20 series, which has nice large lenses and uses Compact Flash cards, so it's possible to adapt them to other media.
The media isn't reporting it, but there are some other firsts in this photo as well:
â First African-American to receive a presidential portrait. ...seriously people...a digital camera and a blackberry aren't news.
â First Digital Presidential Portrait of a native Hawaiian
â First Presidential Portrait of 2009
Depth of field manipulation, high-ISO quality, RAW, better exposure latitude, better build quality, more precise manual focus, easier to manipulate manual controls, higher quality optics, prime lenses, battery grips (vertical shooting), wide-angle/fish-eye lenses (below 28mm equiv. focal length), long telephoto lenses (above 300mm focal length), dual memory card support, higher frames per second count (10+ on newer models) and interchangeable lenses.
Maybe I've missed a few things.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
There are significant differences between an SLR and a P&S, mainly the size of the sensor, which affects the DOF possible. A lot of P&S cameras can't achieve the narrow DOF that a P&S can.
In addition a P&S will be a lot noisier, and is significantly slower in terms of reaction time.
The ability to change out your lenses is also a big plus.
Thanks for all the good advice on the thread. :/
Worth losing 3 mod points for
I don't know why, but I find this strangely fascinating. I guess it's the little things that point to Obama as a technology friend. It's interesting that they made a rather big deal over it being the first official digital picture of a president.
At 21 Megapixels and excellent optics, the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is a fine camera. However for Presidential use (elect or inaugurated) I think something more upscale would have been more appropriate such as the 50-megapixel Hasselblad H3DII-50 would have been more appropriate.
Hey, put a warning when you post things like that! I was lost in his dreamy eyes for a good 20 minutes.
Wrong! If you know anything about cameras, you'd know that the original is 35 megapixels. But available version is lower resolution. The grandparent is not redundent.
Not moot at all. When a P&S camera can achieve this or this, with the same subject distance and perspective compression (due to focal length) please let me know.
First shot was taken with a Canon 5D and a manual focus 58mm f/1.2 lens, the second with a film Nikon F3 with a 35mm f/2 lens. Both at wide-open apertures.
Only that combination of focal length, film/sensor area (36*24), focus point and subject distance would render an image with that kind of perspective and out of focus blur (called bokeh). Perspective and subject isolation are important in the artistic side of photography.
These images are not possible with point and shoot cameras.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
Not only is it the first official digital picture of a president elect.
It's first official digital picture of an african american president elect. And the first official digital picture of a president elect married to an african american woman. And the first official digital picture of an african american president elect with african american children.
I think Jon Stewart said it best - "it's going to be a lot of firsts"
Not a particularly good shot, but it shows similar DOF using what you'd call a P&S.
http://flickr.com/photos/inotion/3198341477/in/pool-843626@N22/
1) Get a tripod and use it, even if you dont think you need to! Even the cheapest POS camera can take okay stuff if you have a tripod.
2) For got your tripod? Use a rock, a stick, a mailbox. Use something besides your body to stabilize your camera.
3) *Learn The Rule of Thirds*!! Most. Important. Thing. Ever.
4) Visualize what the picture will look like before you take it. Move yourself and your camera until you like what will show up in the final result.
5) Move! Get that damn kid out of the way. Move until an annoying shadow is out of your shot. Look out for that wire that will show up in the middle of the mountain shot. This is #4 restated. Think about what you compose.
6) Dont use Photoshop. At least until you take good stuff without using it.
A good camera isn't important. Knowing how to compose a shot is the most important.
lol, well the GGP didn't make it clear, but why would you want that? You can already count the hairs on his head with the one that's available. Or do you have some sick fetish about poster-sized close-ups of American president pores?
You just got troll'd!
I have a 10 Megapixel Canon DSLR, not the top end one, the one right below that. It has all of the settings you mention available through menus. A friend of mine owns the top of the line model in the 8 megapixel version. That version has all of the knobs for changing all of the settings without going into the menu. He showed me what all of my menu options do, but I never use them, the camera takes much better pictures than I ever could. I just point the camera at interesting subject matter and take 2-3 snaps to compensate for my hand shaking, or the wind, or me breathing. There will almost always be a really great shot amongst the ones I took.
Take these pictures from Anime Expo 2007, seventh and eighth ones from the bottom of the page, I took nearly 30 pictures of this cosplay group while standing behind 75 other people, holding my camera above me at arms length and spamming the button.
http://www.evilrobotgames.com/Expo2.html
I have a 2GB CF card I use most of the time, and I throw away a lot of stuff, but I have more shots that I like using digital than I did with traditional film. I think eventually the batteries won't be able to keep up if I get an 8GB card.
I tried to do some photosynth galleries, but found out I wasn't taking -enough- pictures. So now I will have to get the 8GB card before my next outing.
Dont forget they'll have shutter priority too so you can at least blur the waves or take decent night shots.
I think you and dittobox are confusing what "P&S" mean. When I think of "Point and Shoot", I'm thinking of basically the ones that are shaped like square boxes. You can get mid-level cameras that have quite a bit of the functionality of a real SLR--manual focus, full control over your shutter/apature, probably even RAW modes. I wouldn't call these models point & shoot, but they aren't SLR's either.
What you won't see on anything without an interchangeable lens is quality optics. Good optics make a huge difference in your final result--giving it a level of crispness and focus that just can't be had in the cheaper stuff.
That said, if you've never touched anything besides your camera phone, you'd be pissing a way good money buying a real SLR. Better to get a cheaper camera with at least the ability to manually set your shutter and aperture and learn on that. Eventually you'll either abandon the hobby or hopefully enjoy it so much you get pissed at the limitations of what you bought. It is no different then anything else, really--would you buy the most expensive snowboard and best gear if you've never gone snowboarding? Would you buy custom golf clubs if you've never played? Same deal.
I dunno. I am trying to keep prosumer and P&S clearly separate, but dittobox wants to lump them all together.
Which is fine, I suppose. But it also means that you need to consider cameras like the Leica Digilux and Panasonic LX3 as P&S when they are clearly an intermediate form between P&S and full-blown dSLRs.
You can fake those auto-focus modes in even cheap cameras. As long as you know what auto-focus is trying to do, give this a shot:
0) I think even the cheapest models have a "focus on the center" mode--you might want to use that. If it doesn't, that is okay.
1) Get the camera to auto-focus on what you want by pressing the shutter button down half-way.
2) Keep holding the button down (but dont press it all the way so it takes a shot). Holding it down will lock the focus, apature and shutter.
3) Slightly move the camera side to side until you compose your shot. Moving forward or back from the subject will probably blur it.
4) Take the shot.
5) ???
6) Profit.
Obviously this method isn't perfect and depends on a lot of things like your distance to the subject. But if you know your camera, you can usually use this technique to fake the different auto-focus modes in higher end cameras. For those who haven't played with higher end stuff, they will usually let you specify exactly what position in the scene the camera should try to auto-focus on. My camera, for example, shows a square bracket that I can move around on the screen to tell it where to focus.
I am a photographer (mostly for fun, although I have done a few shoots for money). While I agree that Canon or Nikon are somewhat the defacto standard which you cannot go wrong with, there are other alternatives which can work very well for you as well. Personally, I use Olympus dSLRs for the most part, and find them quite good. Upsides with Olympus are the quality of the lenses (even the kit lenses are very good as compared to Canon / Nikon's kit lenses), good telephoto performance, image stablization in the camera body (as opposed to the lens, like Canon / Nikon - this means that all of your lenses are stabilized, not just the expensive ones), etc. Downsides to Olympus are fewer third party accessories (flashes, etc), smaller sensor (which means more noise and less low light performance).
;-)
Not trying to convince you to go with something other than Canon / Nikon, as there is no doubt that they both make very good cameras; just letting you know that there are alternatives, which may fit your shooting style better. Kinda like the Windows vs. Linux debate
Cheers
The availability if digital cameras is not news. But the use of a digital camera for a demanding, high-profile portrait does give us a good excuse to reminisce about how far technology has advanced during just one president's time in office.
Before this story, I had forgotten that I didn't buy my first digital camera until 2001 (although I had used a CCD camera for scientific work in 1995). What else is common today that was rare or unimagined in January 2000?
I'll start the discussion with a list: intrusive screening at airports, hybrid cars, iPods, streaming Internet radio, streaming Internet video, HDTV.
That Leica looks like a really cool camera!
Dunno what you call that stuff (besides cool). It ain't P&S though.
My whole point was that I don't want to play with menu options. I want to have to think about the photo, and what I want the camera to do, and not spend mental resources on making it do it. Getting a user interface that you literally don't have to think about takes work -- and it also takes keeping it minimal. Yes, all those features can be handy -- but they can also be distracting. Finding a camera that has those features is trivial; finding one that doesn't have extra ones isn't.
Hehe, yeah, I know the choice doesn't all just come down to Nikon/Canon, but oh well, right now all I can afford anyways is a Nokia ;-).
You just got troll'd!
It's based on a new lens mount system called Four Thirds. There are a handful of companies supporting it now, including Leica, Panasonic, Fujifilm, and Ricoh. It doesn't have a mirror, so it can't be called an SLR.
The latest ones use an extremely high resolution LCD screen in the viewfinder. It's not quite SLR-perfect yet, but the models I've seen are very impressive.
They might want to crop it. If you cut out 3/4 of your 16mp image, you've only got 4mp to play with. And that ain't much if you plan to print.
Well if someone wanted to make a large print, they would probably want a higher res.
Personally, I'm surprised they didn't 'shop the stray hairs off his lapel.
None of that is archival until it stores the RAW data from the camera. 8-bit color isn't archival when your camera is 14-bit (like the Mark II).
But now I'm being a pedant. Still, neither JPEG nor PNG is a good format to store anything but quick copies for email and web. Always store the RAW, copy it and work from a copy.
Also, neither Picassa or iPhoto does more than 8-bit color.
Jesus... How much Photoshop editing have they done? The U.S. president looks like a black dude!
At least on my old digital, while I can stretch the shutter to 15 seconds, there is a *lot* of noise from the CCD. My guess is this has improved somewhat in new stuff, but I doubt you'll be able to hold the shutter open on all but the most expensive dSLR's for more then 30 seconds.
And this is what I'm talking about for time-lapse. Interestingly, Troy (the guy behind Lost America) has been shooting most of his stuff digitally for a while now.
To quote:
In otherwords, I'm probably wrong :-)
Subby has it wrong. These are not 16 megapixel. You went through all that trouble to mention it's a Mark II. ( They are in the 21 megapixel range. )
The JPG on the official page has the Adobe RGB color profile embedded in it. Most browsers don't pay attention to this and assume sRGB, which is why people are generally told to convert to sRGB before uploading to the web. If you look at this side by side in Firefox 2 and Safari on a Mac, you'll see the difference. It's huge.
What you seek isn't "not a lot of features" but "has a good UI". You can have a lot of features as long as the UI doesn't suck. Pedantic? Yes. But a lot of software nerds seem to equate "More Features" = "Harder to Use".
And on good cameras, most of the features are actually useful and not bullshit (i.e. "change the sound of the shutter to Bird Chirp" or "add a frame to the picture"). The features you want are the ability to fuck with the white balance, ISO speed, auto-focus mode, self-timer length, bracketing, etc. The reason you are having such a hard time is because there is actually a lot of knobs that are really useful to turn. The better the camera, the more the camera lets you override. And to learn photography, you want to turn off the auto-anything and do it yourself. You gotta have a menu to do that :-)
I don't know whether it's a comfort or cause for fright to consider that the role of President might be the last celebrity that doesn't feel obligated to slather make up on or have their pores digitally removed. . .
Or maybe they already do
[The picture] was taken on Tuesday evening at 5:38 p.m. using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, according to the metadata embedded in the image file. [...] In contrast, the EOS 5D used for Obama's portrait has a 12.8-megapixel resolution and costs about $2,000.
Canon EOS 5D (2005, 12.8 MP): 2000 dollars.
Canon EOS 5D mark II (2008, 21.1 MP): 3700 dollars.
Being unable to tell the two apart: priceless.
Fark that sucka!!!
The "out of focus" area is still pretty much in focus...it's not dissolving into nothing.
Here's an example of a picture of one of my dogs. Notice how quickly the background blurs into an even smear.
Should be instructive to compare the number of grey hairs now and in 8 years. With this shot, you actually can count them...
Methinks the author of the original article got some facts wrong...the 5D Mk II is a 21MP camera...not a 12.something like the original 5D. Both cameras rock, however...
Barack Obama as become the first president to use a 8-core laptop. ------ First to use a 4G cellphone. ------ I'm sorry but technology changes, that is news?
This is an apples-to-oranges comparison. "Film" is simultaneously a medium and an encoding of information, while in this context, "digital" is only an encoding of information. The actual media in which you can store digital images does degrade.
The advantage of digital is that you can make bit-perfect copies and store them in many different kinds of media. The disadvantage of this regard is that the encoding doesn't degrade as gracefully; while film fades by becoming a fainter, less contrasting encoding of the same scene (i.e., gradual loss of information), when digital fails it can more easily become completely garbled.
Are you adequate?
It's not (so much) that there are things the SLR can do that the P&S can't; it's that you'll be more aware of what the camera is doing.
Being able to see the actual image through the viewfinder is awfully important. Other features which might be possible on a P&S but are certainly uncommon would be interchangeable lenses and reasonable results at high ISO settings.
Does anyone make a (reasonably priced...) digital equivalent of the old standard learning camera -- fully manual, no gobs of features, just shutter, aperture, focus, and an exposure meter? Probably SLR, though not required, and ideally with a fixed length lens in the basic package.
Gobs of features are cheap on the margin (costs money to build the technology, but very little to mass produce once you have the technology). I doubt it makes economic sense not to include them.
What's reasonably priced? Just buy a DSLR with a package lens, put the camera in manual mode, and set your lens to manual focus.
So you're saying Obama's ass does look fat in that picture?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
One part of learning to take great photos is simply taking lots of photos; no argument that the simple lightweight point and shoot has its place there.
Sort of, but not really. You can take a lot of photos with a point and shoot, but unless you're working with a lot of light or off a tripod, they're going to suck. Even then, forget about trying to shoot a moving subject. You can't frame a moving subject through a digital viewfinder.
But another part is learning what happens to the light, and how that impacts what the final product looks like. And for that, I don't want lots of automatic features hiding the details, and I especially don't want to have to think about things like menu options instead of how I want the camera to behave.
I learned photography on a point and shoot in manual mode. About a week into my lessons I couldn't stand the limitations. My wife happened to have an old 1970s Canon AE-1 (film SLR), and after a couple of weeks of playing with that (and getting better pictures more easily than my P&S) I was hooked and bought a DSLR.
Nowadays you can get half-decent quality from an expensive P&S. I still doubt you're going to be satisfied with it a couple months down the road.
Such as?
Shooting in RAW is great, and I do it all the time, because it helps me adjust exposure, white-balance, etc.
I'm not quite sure why you'd want to any of those things to a professional portrait that's already been through post-processing.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Typically, an image produced on an SLR will have a tad bit more dynamic range. This can be huge, although there's still a ton of room for improvement in this regard.
Also (somewhat included in your original post) are lower noise and wider apertures.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
"The Office of the President Elect" .. what the ?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
They SHOULD have scanned him to 3D to be embedded in a digital picture frame running a 3D animation program on a thin computer, driven byh some simple AI that would recognize that someone is standing in front of the frame, causing him to smile, wave, maybe say hello or tell the person "We can do it!", etc.
Too bad he's using a Canon camera.
actually, that's too much digital detail, every pore and hair follicle and mole and zit and even strands of lint on his suit are visible. Maybe we should go back to oil painted portraits.
I had a look at the article to see what the portrait looked like. And then I realised that it'd probably look like Obama.
I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar...
-Lucy-
Hardly a fair comparison, eh? The background is clearly further in the distance from the dog than the rock is to the crab. Not to mention that the dog's whole face is in focus, so your depth of focus is not as narrow in this shot as you're claiming.
Here's another shot from a prosumer camera showing the transition of focus.
http://flickr.com/photos/jfleming701/3175553385/in/pool-895363@N21/
Note that these shots are just random ones that I'm pulling from Flickr. Not anything of my own.
His ears are out of focus zomg. If you have a chance to shoot the president, don't you practice portrait first?
What a mk2 wastage.
*slowly clicks my Leica M2's shutter* :) totally bro, I find remember exactly what you did for each frame teaches me more than anything else. And the fact that the camera doesn't have EXIF forces you to remember.
When the decisive time comes, such as shooting the president, you don't use a silly DoF that doesn't cover his ears.
http://change.gov/page/-/officialportrait.jpg
I spent a year shooting film and I found it helps me shoot faster. We all know what faster means ;)
Besides your point, I think the most important thing about taking pictures is "holding the camera steady". Takes practice, just like sniping.
If you're not getting a full frame DSLR anyway, get the cheapest non full frame (APS-C) DSLR you can find. The D80 takes absolutely the same picture quality as the D40x. The only difference is the D40x doesn't have internal motor to focus your nikkor D lenses.
The D40x does have a manual focus confirmation light that helps you manual focus. Once you master depth of field, manual focus is no problem really. The camera of course supports auto focus in all nikkors with a DX marking on them, denoting that these lenses are only built for the APS-C form factor.
The reason why you shouldn't get a "mid" level DSLR is sooner or later you will go full frame anyway, and these digital toys don't retain value as well as the second hand Contax and Leica. You'll end up losing more money when you sell if you choose a D300 for example.
For a cheap full frame experience and if you're into SLR's, pick up a Nikon FG, FE, film camera and enjoy the simplicity. Cheap on ebay. If you're into rangefinders, pick up a Yashica GSN, Canonet QL17, or a Minolta Hi-matic. Super nice price, full frame goodness.
The price of a D80 with a decent DX lens can get you a Leica M3 with a Summicron bro. Check flickr.
my question is, how the heck can they have a story about the picture being taken digitally, and then have the gall to not post the picture?
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
If you learn about about depth-of-field, you'll find out that it is not linear, but is relative.
If you are a very short distance away from a subject, the absolute depth-of-field is smaller than if you are far away, but the ratio of out of focus near/in focus/out of focus far remains very similar.
The key is, in the out of focus part, anything without sharply defined lines should quickly blend into a blur, especially for anything with any repeating pattern (including something fractal like a rock surface). This is especially true for the out of focus far portion of the picture, as that's what gives a picture "good bokeh".
Thus, the rock in the crab shot should be fairly close to nothing but a blur, but it isn't.
Part of the reason is that most P&S cameras (including the one taking the crab shot) can't open the aperture, focus at a short distance and get a longer focal length. This is what you need for extremely short DOF. For more information, use this DOF calculator.
In the other direction, most P&S can't close down the aperture enough to get really deep DOF, although the smaller sensors do help this a bit.
Way to completely avoid answering the question while being a condescending jackass. Bravo. The reply below yours has a wealth of good information in about the same amount of text.