Another nail in the view camera coffin?

Robert Feinman wrote:

Leaving aside film size, the two features that view cameras still
have over other formats are the ability to adjust perspective and
the plane of focus.
By using a digital editor one can generate the same perspective
effects from an image taken with a conventional camera afterwards.

With a HUGE loss in quality. It resamples and "fills in the blanks" for the
information that isn't there.


I've been playing with this feature in Photoshop and have put up
an additional tip about this on my web site.

Have you tried doing it in camera and in photoshop, printed both and looked
at the final results? I'm guessing not or you wouldn't have posted this.
--

Stacey

Robert Feinman wrote:

Leaving aside film size, the two features that view cameras still
have over other formats are the ability to adjust perspective and
the plane of focus.
By using a digital editor one can generate the same perspective
effects from an image taken with a conventional camera afterwards.

With a HUGE loss in quality. It resamples and "fills in the blanks" for the
information that isn't there.


I've been playing with this feature in Photoshop and have put up
an additional tip about this on my web site.

Have you tried doing it in camera and in photoshop, printed both and looked
at the final results? I'm guessing not or you wouldn't have posted this.
--

Stacey

Robert Feinman wrote:

Leaving aside film size, the two features that view cameras still
have over other formats are the ability to adjust perspective and
the plane of focus.
By using a digital editor one can generate the same perspective
effects from an image taken with a conventional camera afterwards.

With a HUGE loss in quality. It resamples and "fills in the blanks" for the
information that isn't there.


I've been playing with this feature in Photoshop and have put up
an additional tip about this on my web site.

Have you tried doing it in camera and in photoshop, printed both and looked
at the final results? I'm guessing not or you wouldn't have posted this.
--

Stacey

Ach, just another Burried Alive story. Boooring.

Ach, just another Burried Alive story. Boooring.

Ach, just another Burried Alive story. Boooring.

Now see, this is what is so disturbing about pixelographers. They find
a PS tool that more or less simulates good photography and they hail
it as the replacement of good understanding of the way some things
works.

Lets start with the term "perspective," as Bob Solomon got tired of
saying, perspective is how large the object looks depending on the
focal length used, it is not the same as distortion of the image such
as keystoning (the example in the web site).

Anybody who knows how to use a view camera would have also applied
back swing to correct the converging horizontal lines, not just a back
tilt to correct keystonning or converging vertical lines. Even with
the distortion correction applied in the website, it is clear the
correction is still not accurate. Although the church face is
corrected, the bell tower (or whatever this is) still appears to have
some keystonning and what is even worse, by failing to correct
converging horizontal lines it gives it an appearance of "leaning" out
toward the right. Anybody striving to be an architectural photographer
would have been laughed out of a client's office if they had shown
this example.

It is not another "nail" in the coffin, in fact it is the opposite. It
reaffirms that the notion that "I can take a picture and later fix it
with PS" is not the right approach and that some things still require
knowledge and knowing when to apply that knowledge. Knowledge of
photography that is, not of PS.

Personally, I welcome these kind of "tips" and strident arguments for
pixelography, they just make my photography look that much
better...:-)





Robert Feinman wrote in message . ..
Leaving aside film size, the two features that view cameras still
have over other formats are the ability to adjust perspective and
the plane of focus.
By using a digital editor one can generate the same perspective
effects from an image taken with a conventional camera afterwards.

I've been playing with this feature in Photoshop and have put up
an additional tip about this on my web site. This one shows the
creative uses the extreme perspective adjustments can yield.
Just follow the tips link on my home page, if you are interested.

I still haven't solved the plane of focus problem, however...

Now see, this is what is so disturbing about pixelographers. They find
a PS tool that more or less simulates good photography and they hail
it as the replacement of good understanding of the way some things
works.

Lets start with the term "perspective," as Bob Solomon got tired of
saying, perspective is how large the object looks depending on the
focal length used, it is not the same as distortion of the image such
as keystoning (the example in the web site).

Anybody who knows how to use a view camera would have also applied
back swing to correct the converging horizontal lines, not just a back
tilt to correct keystonning or converging vertical lines. Even with
the distortion correction applied in the website, it is clear the
correction is still not accurate. Although the church face is
corrected, the bell tower (or whatever this is) still appears to have
some keystonning and what is even worse, by failing to correct
converging horizontal lines it gives it an appearance of "leaning" out
toward the right. Anybody striving to be an architectural photographer
would have been laughed out of a client's office if they had shown
this example.

It is not another "nail" in the coffin, in fact it is the opposite. It
reaffirms that the notion that "I can take a picture and later fix it
with PS" is not the right approach and that some things still require
knowledge and knowing when to apply that knowledge. Knowledge of
photography that is, not of PS.

Personally, I welcome these kind of "tips" and strident arguments for
pixelography, they just make my photography look that much
better...:-)





Robert Feinman wrote in message . ..
Leaving aside film size, the two features that view cameras still
have over other formats are the ability to adjust perspective and
the plane of focus.
By using a digital editor one can generate the same perspective
effects from an image taken with a conventional camera afterwards.

I've been playing with this feature in Photoshop and have put up
an additional tip about this on my web site. This one shows the
creative uses the extreme perspective adjustments can yield.
Just follow the tips link on my home page, if you are interested.

I still haven't solved the plane of focus problem, however...

Now see, this is what is so disturbing about pixelographers. They find
a PS tool that more or less simulates good photography and they hail
it as the replacement of good understanding of the way some things
works.

Lets start with the term "perspective," as Bob Solomon got tired of
saying, perspective is how large the object looks depending on the
focal length used, it is not the same as distortion of the image such
as keystoning (the example in the web site).

Anybody who knows how to use a view camera would have also applied
back swing to correct the converging horizontal lines, not just a back
tilt to correct keystonning or converging vertical lines. Even with
the distortion correction applied in the website, it is clear the
correction is still not accurate. Although the church face is
corrected, the bell tower (or whatever this is) still appears to have
some keystonning and what is even worse, by failing to correct
converging horizontal lines it gives it an appearance of "leaning" out
toward the right. Anybody striving to be an architectural photographer
would have been laughed out of a client's office if they had shown
this example.

It is not another "nail" in the coffin, in fact it is the opposite. It
reaffirms that the notion that "I can take a picture and later fix it
with PS" is not the right approach and that some things still require
knowledge and knowing when to apply that knowledge. Knowledge of
photography that is, not of PS.

Personally, I welcome these kind of "tips" and strident arguments for
pixelography, they just make my photography look that much
better...:-)





Robert Feinman wrote in message . ..
Leaving aside film size, the two features that view cameras still
have over other formats are the ability to adjust perspective and
the plane of focus.
By using a digital editor one can generate the same perspective
effects from an image taken with a conventional camera afterwards.

I've been playing with this feature in Photoshop and have put up
an additional tip about this on my web site. This one shows the
creative uses the extreme perspective adjustments can yield.
Just follow the tips link on my home page, if you are interested.

I still haven't solved the plane of focus problem, however...

Robert Feinman wrote:
Leaving aside film size, the two features that view cameras still
have over other formats are the ability to adjust perspective and
the plane of focus.
By using a digital editor one can generate the same perspective
effects from an image taken with a conventional camera afterwards.

You can also use rise and fall, and shifts.

Consider the case of subject a nude woman holding a towel in front of her
for modesty purposes. If you photograph her head on, you see her face,
shoulders, knees, and feet. Also hands holding the towel.

Let us place two photographers essentially next to one another and they
both prepare the exposure. One thing the view camera user does is adjust
the height of the camera to peek over the top edge of the towel and drops
the front to frame the image as intended. The digital photographer not
using a view camera cannot do that in the computer darkroom.

Or let us say the two photographers need to photograph an antique mirror
with no perspective distortion. Easily done: both could place their
camerae directly in front of the mirror at the right distance to almost
fill the frame and at the proper height. The view camera user might adjust
the back tilt to correct for the mirror's leaning slightly forward from
the wall, and the digital guy could fix that in the digital darkroom.

But the view camera user would not stop there. Noticing his own image, and
that of his camera, in the mirror, he instead moves the camera
sufficiently to the right or left of the mirror so as not to appear in it,
and then uses front and perhaps also rear shifts to take the picture with
the proper perspective. How would the digital darkroom photographer get
rid of the image of the camera and photographer from the mirror image and
put whatever was behind the photographer and camera in?

--
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