Pixel Peeper Anomalies - They're Totally Missing the Big Picture

Camera enthusiasts are not necessarily photographers.

(Ray Fischer) wrote in
:

Alan Browne wrote:
Brad Sanborne wrote:
I started to wonder how all this brouhaha over sensor-noise and
resolution came to be the determining factor in quality photography.
Then it dawned on me.

Before digital cameras only people working in their own darkrooms
studied their negatives and slides with a good powered loupe.
Usually only 5x, 8x, or at the most 10x power. In fact I have my old
8x loupe sitting beside me right here, a little desktop reminder of
my darkroom days. The average photographer and snapshooter, of which
there are millions today, used to be happy with recovering their
pack of prints or 8x10s from the local lab.
crud snipped

They have totally missed the big picture .... and probably always
will.

And you're missing a much more important point.

High quality gear is expected to provide high quality results.

Today's pixel peeper have no idea what "high quality" even means.

Dimwitted blanket statement so nebulous it means nothing.

Rich wrote:
(Ray Fischer) wrote in
:

Alan Browne wrote:
Brad Sanborne wrote:
I started to wonder how all this brouhaha over sensor-noise and
resolution came to be the determining factor in quality photography.
Then it dawned on me.

Before digital cameras only people working in their own darkrooms
studied their negatives and slides with a good powered loupe.
Usually only 5x, 8x, or at the most 10x power. In fact I have my old
8x loupe sitting beside me right here, a little desktop reminder of
my darkroom days. The average photographer and snapshooter, of which
there are millions today, used to be happy with recovering their
pack of prints or 8x10s from the local lab.
crud snipped

They have totally missed the big picture .... and probably always
will.

And you're missing a much more important point.

High quality gear is expected to provide high quality results.

Today's pixel peeper have no idea what "high quality" even means.

Dimwitted blanket statement so nebulous it means nothing.

Whiny non rebuttal. Define "quality".

--
Ray Fischer

On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 14:51:28 -0400, Alan Browne wrote:

What a butt kissing reply. LOL!

Hey, I'm not the one named Browne, LOL.
--
Mike Russell - http://www.curvemeister.com

Mike Russell wrote:
On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 14:51:28 -0400, Alan Browne wrote:

What a butt kissing reply. LOL!

Hey, I'm not the one named Browne, LOL.

Alan's on the rag this week.
Crikey, mate!

--
John McWilliams

In rec.photo.digital.slr-systems John Navas wrote:
On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:11:52 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote in
:

Brad Sanborne wrote:

They have totally missed the big picture .... and probably always will.

And you're missing a much more important point.

Anyone serious about anything wants to understand it more profoundly for
both the understanding and to both eek out maximum performance or
establish generous margins.

If all you want is to print at 8x10, then pixel peeping a 10+ MP image
is a total waste of time.

Unless you happen to be cropping a lot, or working out the best noise
reduction strategy for a high ISO image. One of the advantages of a
10+ MP image is being able to shoot fast action opportunistically,
often with no time to compose or adjust settings, and then use
cropping and noise reduction to end up with well composed clean 8x10
prints.

--
Chris Malcolm

"Chris Malcolm" wrote in message
...
In rec.photo.digital.slr-systems John Navas
wrote:
On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:11:52 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote in
:

Brad Sanborne wrote:

They have totally missed the big picture .... and probably always will.

And you're missing a much more important point.

Anyone serious about anything wants to understand it more profoundly for
both the understanding and to both eek out maximum performance or
establish generous margins.

If all you want is to print at 8x10, then pixel peeping a 10+ MP image
is a total waste of time.

Unless you happen to be cropping a lot, or working out the best noise
reduction strategy for a high ISO image. One of the advantages of a
10+ MP image is being able to shoot fast action opportunistically,
often with no time to compose or adjust settings, and then use
cropping and noise reduction to end up with well composed clean 8x10
prints.

See "Contrary to conventional wisdom, higher resolution actually compensates
for noise":
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Insights

On Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:24:15 +0200, "OldBoy" wrote:

"Chris Malcolm" wrote in message
...
In rec.photo.digital.slr-systems John Navas
wrote:
On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:11:52 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote in
:

Brad Sanborne wrote:

They have totally missed the big picture .... and probably always will.

And you're missing a much more important point.

Anyone serious about anything wants to understand it more profoundly for
both the understanding and to both eek out maximum performance or
establish generous margins.

If all you want is to print at 8x10, then pixel peeping a 10+ MP image
is a total waste of time.

Unless you happen to be cropping a lot, or working out the best noise
reduction strategy for a high ISO image. One of the advantages of a
10+ MP image is being able to shoot fast action opportunistically,
often with no time to compose or adjust settings, and then use
cropping and noise reduction to end up with well composed clean 8x10
prints.

See "Contrary to conventional wisdom, higher resolution actually compensates
for noise":
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Insights

This was proposed by someone in these forums about 10 months ago. Nobody
wanted to believe him but it made perfect sense to everyone with a mind
capable of thinking on their own. The amount of image quality gain is even
more apparent when you compare vastly different sensor sizes and photosite
sizes with the number of them. DXO is only comparing large sensors with
meager photosite size and quantity differences--to find out the very same
benefit that P&S camera owners have been enjoying for many years. So much
for those who mindlessly repeat their tech-head worshippers' mantra of
"larger photosites always equals better images".

Then again, throw in the printer and the ink's dpi factors and all this
noise about "noise" is meaningless. Pixel-peepers who love to mentally
masturbate over numbers and theoretical equations rather than finding
anything worth photographing. Images where the composition and impact of
the subject won't care at all how many "quality" pixels are representing
them.

CONTENT TRUMPS QUALITY EVERY TIME.

It bears repeating whenever some fool goes on and on about resolution,
noise, and image quality. Some of the most famous images in the world were
shot with low-resolution drugstore cameras on noisy, high-ASA, B&W films.
The resolution and sharpness no greater than needed to print in newspapers
around the world with a 3"x3" image size, with a coarse half-tone dithering
thrown in on top of it to boot. Highlights and shadows blown to hell, but
still they are the most famous images in the world, winning many Pulitzer
prizes. All due to CONTENT.

Think they'll ever figure this out? No, not at all. They're brain-dead
hardware worshippers, and desperate beginner snapshooters who listen to
those brain-dead hardware worshippers. They are not photographers nor will
they ever be.

I bet they would even fear giving away their very first 640x480 noisy P&S
camera to some impoverished 7-year old prodigy. The kid would outdo their
$50,000 full-frame boring snapshots on the first time, every time. Leaving
them hanging their heads in shame over why they wasted that much of their
lives striving for "image quality". They have zero talent so they spend
their lives trying to find a camera that might hide this fact. Lost and
drowning deep within their obsession over pixels, numbers, and equations
instead of worthy photographs.They'll never see the forest for the trees.

"The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men but
that men will begin to think like computers." - Sydney J. Harris

It's already happened. Right here in these newsgroups. You see perfect
evidence of it in every argument about pixels, noise, and image "quality".

Here's a hint for everyone, your image has no "quality" at all if nobody
wants to see it more than once. In all those cases your $50,000 worth of
camera gear's "image quality" has just been reduced to zero, by you.

Crossposts trimmed

In article , RPD
wrote:

On Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:24:15 +0200, "OldBoy" wrote:

"Chris Malcolm" wrote in message
...
In rec.photo.digital.slr-systems John Navas
wrote:
On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:11:52 -0400, Alan Browne
snip
And you're missing a much more important point.

Anyone serious about anything wants to understand it more profoundly for
both the understanding and to both eek out maximum performance or
establish generous margins.

If all you want is to print at 8x10, then pixel peeping a 10+ MP image
is a total waste of time.

Unless you happen to be cropping a lot, or working out the best noise
reduction strategy for a high ISO image. One of the advantages of a
10+ MP image is being able to shoot fast action opportunistically,
often with no time to compose or adjust settings, and then use
cropping and noise reduction to end up with well composed clean 8x10
prints.
Well said!

See "Contrary to conventional wisdom, higher resolution actually compensates
for noise":
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Insights

This was proposed by someone in these forums about 10 months ago. Nobody
wanted to believe him but it made perfect sense to everyone with a mind
capable of thinking on their own. The amount of image quality gain is even
more apparent when you compare vastly different sensor sizes and photosite
sizes with the number of them. DXO is only comparing large sensors with
meager photosite size and quantity differences--to find out the very same
benefit that P&S camera owners have been enjoying for many years. So much
for those who mindlessly repeat their tech-head worshippers' mantra of
"larger photosites always equals better images".

Then again, throw in the printer and the ink's dpi factors and all this
noise about "noise" is meaningless. Pixel-peepers who love to mentally
masturbate over numbers and theoretical equations rather than finding
anything worth photographing. Images where the composition and impact of
the subject won't care at all how many "quality" pixels are representing
them.

CONTENT TRUMPS QUALITY EVERY TIME.

It bears repeating whenever some fool goes on and on about resolution,
noise, and image quality. Some of the most famous images in the world were
shot with low-resolution drugstore cameras on noisy, high-ASA, B&W films.
The resolution and sharpness no greater than needed to print in newspapers
around the world with a 3"x3" image size, with a coarse half-tone dithering
thrown in on top of it to boot. Highlights and shadows blown to hell, but
still they are the most famous images in the world, winning many Pulitzer
prizes. All due to CONTENT.

Think they'll ever figure this out? No, not at all. They're brain-dead
hardware worshippers, and desperate beginner snapshooters who listen to
those brain-dead hardware worshippers. They are not photographers nor will
they ever be.
snip

Leaving aside your colourful, if clichŽd, use of metaphor your ¬CONTENT
TRUMPS QUALITY EVERY TIME¬ is true enough. It is *so* obviously true
that one wonders why you find time to repeat it.

However, while getting the content, surely it helps to know what you
can get away with. If you know what your camera can do, are you in a
worse or better position as a photographer?

Similarly, if you can do the maths, are you better or worse off having
read and understood the fairly poor and outdated
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Insights ?
Or would you have preferred, as I did
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...ormance.summar
y/
OK, the sums are harder, but it is worth the effort. Indeed, it is a
fun read in its own right.
Are you going to be a better photographer, and get better pictures when
you know how far you can push it and why?

Suppose you are in a public place, with low light, in the middle of a
jostling mob and there is a stunning picture opportunity in the middle
distance. If you know that your camera has the resolution and noise
performance, you can choose the right settings, hold the damn thing
over your head, aim in the general direction, and blaze away on
continuous. Plenty of paps make good money doing that don't they? Back
at your computer you have the chance to turn an accident into a good
picture. Are you a poor photographer for being able to see the
opportunity, operate your equipment properly and realise the art back
in Photoshop?

Therefore ¬Totally Missing the Big Picture¬ is either a wild
overstatement by an aggressively innumerate wannabe artist or a very
sly irony to amuse those with a good eye AND technical and mathematical
skill. There is often a very good small picture in the big picture you
might have totally missed if you didn't know how to push your camera.

Pixel peeping is pretty much on charter here. RPD, if you don't have
enough Kleenex handy, you can always go and annoy people in some other
group you crosspost to.

Sorry folks. I don't suffer fools gladly before the fourth espresso of
the morning.

Am I getting the hang of standard behaviour here?

--
To de-mung my e-mail address:- fsnospam$elliott$$
PGP Fingerprint: 1A96 3CF7 637F 896B C810 E199 7E5C A9E4 8E59 E248

On Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:23:20 +0100, Elliott Roper wrote:


Am I getting the hang of standard behaviour here?

Yes, you fit right in with all the bit-heads and tech-heads here that will
never produce more than remedial snapshots.