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The Difference Between Film and Digital Photography (Video)
Sally Wiener Grotta and her husband Daniel wrote some of the first books and articles about digital photography. Sally was an award-winning photographer in film days, and has maintained her reputation in the digital imaging age. In this interview, she talks about how to buy a digital camera -- including the radical idea that most people really don't need to spend more than $200 to take quality photos. (We had some bandwidth problems while doing this remote interview, but the sound is clear so we decided to run it "as is" rather than try to remake the video and lose the original's spontaneity.)
I read that as "The Difference Between Film and Digital Pornography (Video)"
At this point dSLRs should only be used by professionals,
Thank you for pointing out your beliefs that only certain people should be able to use certain products. I guess your opinion is also that only those who drive for a professional living should be allowed to buy a Porsche or those who make their living from cooking should be allowed to buy $300 knives.
Apparently it's your belief people shouldn't be allowed to buy what they want with their own money just because they enjoy a product.
A dSLR camera is useless if no one sees your photos.
Yup, there's the confirmation.,
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
We're nerds. Not blind consumer-sheep. We want to know what she thinks, how the sensors work, what makes the cameras good. We don't want to know that the interviewer has a smartphone with an integrated camera, and that he's about to buy his new camera as a phone from BestBuy because he dropped his old camera.
This is a professional here, stop thinking you know *anything* about the intricacies of her job and show some respect. Imagine interviewing Linus or Wozniak and telling them that you're going to buy a new keyboard because you spilled coffee on the old one. Then asking them for recommendations on what brand of bluetooth keyboard you should get to go with your $120 tablet. I'm surprised she didn't hang up out of sheer frustration.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
dSLR's "should" be used by whoever the hell wants to use them. That's as absurd as saying that pianos should only be used by professional pianists because anyone else can get a harmonica. Who says?
Taking advantage of the conversation audio was probably much better than trying to reshoot it while reading off a transcript. Good call there. That said, cutting from video of a person to a similarly framed still of a person is not a big improvement from a cinematic perspective. If you want to do more of these, and you want something to show when the video goes wonkey, you should get some other cutaway material. A great example in this case would have been some stills from her portfolio, Ken Burns style, with some simple annotations of what we are seeing. Another easy option would be occasional reaction shots of the interviewer. Obviously, you have4 complete control over that half of the connection so you can always capture decent quality video on your side. (It's a good excuse to clean up your bedroom, if nothing else.) You could also have images of the things that are being talked about. Pictures of cameras, screenshots of software, etc. At around 10:30, you say "I will have this cheapie as a spare" as you cut away from the video. Would have been perfect to cut away to a shot of the cheapie tos how what was being talked about. Or a shot from the cheapie. Etc.
And of course if you have more technical interviewees, you can ask them to record video of themselves on the call and send it to you after, while you have an audio Skype call for the interview. You can spend as long as you need downloading the already recorded video after the fact.
That said, good job providing the transcript below the video. Excellent model to follow.
At this point dSLRs should only be used by professionals,
Thank you for pointing out your beliefs that only certain people should be able to use certain products.
I read that not so much as 'should be able to' as 'will be able to benefit from'.
Or, in other words, unless you really know what you're doing, you're probably wasting your money.
For myself, I tend to buy the cheapest item available of any category until I understand why the other ones are more expensive.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
For 95% of what people take pictures of in the real world, yeah, a camera built into a smart phone is probably good enough. However, if you're shooting:
Then you need something like a DSLR with a real shutter & aperture and honkin' big sensor, and hopefully expensive lenses that can take advantage of all of the above. Spending $200 on a hands-on photography class will have much more impact for most people than spending the money on an expensive camera, and then hoping you getting better results when you push the button (which ain't happening).
I'm not a professional photographer, but I do not like point-and-shoot cameras, shutter lag, limit of lens choices (actually no choice just the one), terrible f-stop range, terrible noise on sensors, tiny sensors, and they are way too light to be able to make steady shots, and not seeing through the lens at what you're shooting is totally weird with the electronic lag of CCD to LCD display.
With a DSLR I can shoot with very high shutter speeds, having the ability to change lenses allows me to get either macro close or very far objects closer up. You can also clip on filters to change the image, like polarisers.
Most people will not need a DSLR, but to claim that those cameras are only for professionals is rubbish. Even a cheap DSLR will out do a point-and-shoot. And let's not even get into thiny pinhead size sensors in mobile phones and claim that it's genuinely 8MP+.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I liked what she had to say, especially: "The camera doesn't take the picture, the human does." -- that's very important. It's always been possible to take *great* photos with very inexpensive gear, if the composition, subject and lighting are all great.
Most people don't need anything more than a decent $200 or even $100 camera. The trouble is that if you want to go to the "next level" -- you need to spend two or three times that (or lots more), and you can then get into low-light territory, which (IMO) is where all the excitement is. A truly *usable* 6400 or 12800 ISO is unbelievably liberating, and that's now here for well-under $1000.
Well, there's a lot of different mindsets on things.
Me? I've always been one of those that when I set my mind to something or wanting something, a nice camera for instance...I'd research the hell out of it, drive everyone around me mad incessantly talking about it, and then saving and buying the absolute best of xyz I could afford. I never liked much the idea of compromising and buying something 'small' or cheap, learning to use it, then buying slightly better...then upgrading that...etc.
That may work in some cases, but I just never wanted to go that route....I'd much rather put off immediate gratification, and save and buy NICE and QUALITY the first time around, as best I could.
I've been that way on lots of things. My cookware, is mostly All Clad SS. My knives are Wusthof Trident. Yes, each piece can be pretty $$. I didn't buy the whole set at once....but piece by piece as I could afford it. And along with some choice cast iron stuff, I will have cookware that will last my lifetime and is quite good as a kitchen tool.
I've done the same with my camera. I got the bug about a year and a half ago. I ended up on a video shoot I saw them filming with a Canon 5D2...I'd never seen a DSLR used for video and was curious.
I researched and was getting close to pulling the trigger on one, and found the new 5D Mark III was coming out...so, I waited about 6 more mos...saved and bought one in June after their release.
I have been THRILLED with my choice. A whole new world has opened up to me. I'd never had a real digital camera before, aside from phone and one old point and shoot someone gave me a decade ago. But this new 5D3 is amazing. It can shoot in extremely low light conditions.
I've since then, been learning lighting (both video and stills), I've been learning the post processing tools now...I work with Davinci Resolve for color grading. I got the Adobe Production Premium CS6 suite of tools to learn PS, Premier, AE, etc....
So, I think the thing is...if you're really interested in something...research it, find what you really want....save and buy the best you can. Good tools will last you longer, and in some few cases, can save you money in the long run if it is something you will stick with.
I don't generally fritter my money away on crap. I save and when I have enough for something I want, I pull the trigger and buy something VERY nice, once or twice a year usually. I never have buyers remorse either.
At this point, I'm spending even more money (photography *is* an expensive hobby if done right) on lighting equipment for video, flashes and soon strobes for stills. And glass...that is where you DSLR money is best spent. I just rented the Canon 50mm f/1.2 lens, for a video shoot I did recently for charity. I hate sending that lens back, but I know now...next thing I'm saving for, is a copy of that lens for myself.
If you're not into photography, don't bother buying something nice....but for any hobby or any thing you like doing and appreciate quality and being able to do things....save and buy the best.
Ever since I was a young kid, I worked and saved...and have always had nice stereos (still important to me), nice cars, etc...and now cameras.
In many cases, you get what you pay for.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
http://xkcd.com/1014/
> Or, in other words, unless you really know what you're doing, you're probably wasting your money.
Ignorant nonsense.
A better device allows for taking photos under conditions that a lesser device is simply incapable of managing. As a camera, a phone is actually a step backwards from film cameras in terms of features and ease of use.
While it's true that more expensive "pro" cameras are a matter of greatly diminishing returns, they too have their uses and situations for which they product useful output rather than a pointless blur.
It doesn't take a lot of skill to benefit from better gear. That's one of the great things about modern technology.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"People who don't make their living from pictures but insist on using equipment this expensive have more money than sense"
A lot of fancy cameras could be considered jewellery given how many are owned but never used to their potential. Lots of camera enthusiasts think of Leicas as jewellery no matter who is using them (thanks to their hilariously high prices)
What's obscene here is the idea that you have to buy a device with Facebook built into it in order to publish things via Facebook. One should be able to easily combine devices that conform to open standards to achieve things with technology the engineers never thought of.
Profanity is not an inappropriate response to proprietary walled garden nonsense.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
For myself, I tend to buy the cheapest item available of any category until I understand why the other ones are more expensive.
While this works for a great deal of things, there are some that this shouldn't apply to. Such as cars, parachutes, chainsaws, fire extinguishers....
Selection bias. When sharing photos was expensive, only incredibly sharp photos were shared. Digital photo-taking developed with digital photo-sharing, cheap and easy.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Or, in other words, unless you really know what you're doing, you're probably wasting your money.
For myself, I tend to buy the cheapest item available of any category until I understand why the other ones are more expensive.
I did the opposite and started out by buying one of the more expensive consumer-level dSLRs (a Nikon D7000) without having a clue about photography. The idea was this:
a) A camera like that will not be the limiting factor - my own skills will be
b) It's expandable by a myriad of objectives and accessories if I want to get more advanced
c) If it turns out this photography thing wasn't really for me, I'll still get great vacation pictures with the auto mode!
I think some hobbies are just like that - you can't have gear with too poor quality or it will affect your experience so badly you'll lose interest. Learning to play the guitar on a cheap guitar that can't keep the tuning sucks. Learning astronomy on a cheap toy-level telescope is just as bad. Photography might be a different beast, but to me it seems you can't go wrong by buying quality gear from the outset.