DSLR vs P&S a replay of Film vs Digital?

In rec.photo.digital.zlr Neil Harrington wrote:
"Mr. Strat" wrote in message
...
In article , Neil
Harrington wrote:

"Decades of experience" in film is one thing. Digital is quite different
in
many respects, and none of us have "decades of experience" in it.

It's just a different kind of film with specific properties and
limitations.

Quite different processing and post-processing, incomparably more complex
control over the final image. Personally I think the technology is
fascinating and I've learned a great deal here in the newsgroup(s). I've
worked fairly seriously with film since 1951 -- i.e., started doing my own
developing and printing in that year, and to me digital seems a whole
different world.

You've a few more years in the darkroom than me. I'm familiar with
different kinds of film and how to exploit and vary their
characteristics by development etc.. Digital is so very different it's
going to take me years of study to master.

Apart from the differences in the way the sensor behaves, very
different indeed from any film, computer post-processing is forcing me
to revise lots of stuff I thought I'd well mastered. For example,
simply because of cost and my use of 35mm film I only rarely enlarged
an image more than A4 (8x12). I now routinely examine every image I
don't dump straight away at the equivalent of sticking my nose very
closely into a 16x24 print, and I'm discovering that many things I
thought I had well mastered were only low resolution approximations.

I considered taking a photography degree course, and looked around for
one that would devote at least one full time year purely to digital,
but talking to local photography students I discovered firstly that
the photographic professional bodies insisted that most of the
curriculum was film, and secondly that most of the lecturers regarded
digital cameras as just a different kind of film camera. I noticed too
that despite more than 3/4 of the various local academic photographic
curricula being devoted to film, more than 95% of the photographs
displayed by students in the graduation exhibition were digital, and
while the college darkrooms were often empty, there were long waiting
lists to book out the Mamiya digital kit.

I guess the technology is still too young to have properly penetrated
the cloisters of photographic academe.

--
Chris Malcolm DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

["Followup-To:" header set to rec.photo.digital.]
On 2007-11-30, Chris Malcolm wrote:

I considered taking a photography degree course, and looked around for
one that would devote at least one full time year purely to digital,
but talking to local photography students I discovered firstly that
the photographic professional bodies insisted that most of the
curriculum was film, and secondly that most of the lecturers regarded
digital cameras as just a different kind of film camera.

I just finished the degree at Newcastle College. Printing my 5x4 negs
for the final show was a race against time as they decided to rip out
the colour darkroom before the end of term because "nobody was using it."

Their degree programme is now b+w darkroom, digital colour (whether
scanned or digitally captured). My degree was vslidated by Northumbria
University, in the first year we had lectures in all that boring stuff
about exposure and film types and digital capture, blah blah blah. Ours
was the last Northumbria-validated year. They switched to Leeds
Metropolitan and now do not teach exposure, etc.etc.

My experience of other, fine art focussed, degrees is that they aren't
remotely interested in teaching any photographic technique, Parr, Goldin
et.al. have put an end to any necessity for such boring trivia.

When the only experience I had was City&Guilds, where one still had to
sit real examinations to show that one knew which bit of glass to look
through and what effect all those dials have, I thought the portrayal of
photography class on 'Six Feet Under' was laughably dumbed down for TV.
It wasn't. You really can get a real BA from a real British university
without learning anything about composition, exposure, lighting,
printing, ....

I guess the technology is still too young to have properly penetrated
the cloisters of photographic academe.

It never will. As long as you can write a bit of Derrida-esque pomo
bull**** justification you can just point your camera haphazardly at
whatever gets in your way on the way in to college on the day of
hand-in.

You might even win a prize
http://www.fujifilmstudentawards.co.uk/previous06.html


--
Chris Savage Kiss me. Or would you rather live in a
Gateshead, UK land where the soap won't lather?
- Billy Bragg

Scott W wrote:
John Navas wrote:

Specular highlights are actually easy to spot on a histogram as a far
brightness spike, whereas burned out highlights are a tail.

Ok, I don't understand the part of burned out highlights
being a tail, why not levels pushed up against the right
side of the histogram?

The spike of course happens if there is a significant
area of high and equal brightness, hence the larger the
area that is actually blown, the more apparent the
spike... but it is apparent *only* if there are no
significant bright areas at just below maximum. If
there are, there is no "spike", and it is impossible to
interpret the histogram (without reducing exposure to see
what the effect is). In other words, it requires time
consuming analysis and is not as good as a blink on over
exposure display for purposes of chimping.

(I suspect John has no experience with using this on
a DSLR, and is attempting to project his experience
either using PC software or on a live view display.
Each are a little bit of a different beastie.)

The tail happens *only* when there is _insignificant_
area blown *and* only when there are no significant near
maximum bright areas. That pattern does not mean there
are blown highlights, it means that if you do increase
exposure, some small area will be blown.

The problem is that in many instances when a histogram
does look the way Navas describes, it is neither assured
that the pattern is produced by blown highlights, or
that blown highlights will produce that pattern. It is
sometimes impossible to know, and often it requires a
bit of study to determine, and of course neither would
be useful for someone wanting to "chimp".

One quick glance at a blink on over exposure display
indicates that exact status. You can practically build
the memory for what to do into the muscles of your hand.
No brain required, it doesn't even get to the spinal
cord!

I don't know what your histogram looks like, but when I
am raw converting the histogram will tell me if I have
blown larger areas, like the sky, but a small area, like
a bit of white shirt on a sunny day will often be too
small to show up on the histogram. Most all raw
converter have a mode to show you where areas are blown,
both in the highlights and the shadows, and this often
works far better then the histogram.

I use UFRAW to convert NEF raw files. It additionally
shows a percentage for each of the RGB channels that is
over/under exposed. I find the blinking display most
useful, the percentage indicator the next most useful,
and I rarely ever make anything other than initial broad
adjustments based on the histogram. Hence, if something
is 2 stops off, the histogram is used. At less than 1
stop, the percentage indicator is probably about equal to
the blinking display, but the fine tuning at less than 1/2
fstop is virtually always a function of the blink on over
exposure.

The histogram on my DSLR works about the same, I can get
a good idea if the sky is blown buy looking at it, but
for small areas I need the blink thing.

I routinely use the blink on over exposure to set
exposure (in manual mode, which is more than 90% of the
time).

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On 2007-11-29 13:07:16 -0700, "Mr. Strat" said:

In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote:

I use the blink-on-overexposure about 95% of the time.
It is usually the quickest way to get it dead on right
every time, as long as the lighting isn't changing as
fast as one shoots. For situations where lighting does
change rapidly it isn't nearly as useful. There are
probably other examples too.

But then, you don't know ****.

Digital is just another kind of film with its own unique properties.

A lot of what you say indicates a basic lack of
comprehension, and that statement is one of them. It
means exactly *nothing*.

Yeah, why not keep it simple? Or I could be like you and post endless
pages of techno-babble.

Way too heavy on grand concepts, but much too light on
specific implementation detail. Just like the claims of
years of experience that allow you do "get it right"
every time the first time in the camera. You won't even
define what "it" is, much less what "right" is.

Well, I do have over four decades of experience, may of them
professional. Back in film days, it was rare when I'd need to have a
custom print made of something. Everything was machine printed because
composition, exposure, and everything else that made up the image was
on the negative. That's what "it" is. If you're expecting a detailed
explanation in print, there's no way to sum up decades of experience in
a few paragraphs.

Which is part of the reason you are asked (challenged?) to post some
samples. Another aspect is the fact that hyperbole reigns here. I've
read everything from people who have cameras any reasonable person
would be astonished to see the claimed output from (no examples),
"pros" who not only have an inordinate amount of time to spend posting
in a newsgroup (no professional web site to share) and wildlife
photographers who are nothing short of St. Francus with a lens (still
no examples).

Still, I suppose you could post perfectly-exposed shots and still not
receive the sort of acclamation you would find satisfying. First, how
to prove you nailed the solution by eye on the first try? second, what
if the photo is technically fine, but aesthetically lacking? As an art
director, I waded through many a portfolio that left me cold, and only
rarely were there problems with focus, camera shake, or exposure.
--
M: Yes I have. If you're arguing, I must have paid.
A: Not necessarily. I could be arguing in my spare time.

In article , Scott W
wrote:

I have yet to see you speak in anything but the most general terms,
which is pretty useless. I would agree that John's camera is very
limited, but you don't seem to want to tell use how and why, you input
is not real useful.

I've been very specific. You expect me to condense 40+ years of
experience into a few paragraphs?

It takes time, learning from your mistakes, and experience with a wide
variety of situations.

In article , Neil
Harrington wrote:

Quite different processing and post-processing, incomparably more complex
control over the final image. Personally I think the technology is
fascinating and I've learned a great deal here in the newsgroup(s). I've
worked fairly seriously with film since 1951 -- i.e., started doing my own
developing and printing in that year, and to me digital seems a whole
different world.

There was a period of adjustment when I moved from film to digital, but
it wasn't all that painful.

In article , Scott W
wrote:

The biggest mistake I see film photographers do when moving to digit is
to assume it is like shooting film, it is not and a person who treats it
as such will not get the best results.

I didn't say that it was the same as film...but you learn how to work
with it, learn the limitations, and it's not that much different than
just a different kind of film.

I didn't create images the same way with B&W as I did with color
negative as I did with transparencies. Same difference.

On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:56:52 -0900, (Floyd L. Davidson)
wrote in :

Scott W wrote:
John Navas wrote:

Specular highlights are actually easy to spot on a histogram as a far
brightness spike, whereas burned out highlights are a tail.

Ok, I don't understand the part of burned out highlights
being a tail, why not levels pushed up against the right
side of the histogram?

The spike of course happens if there is a significant
area of high and equal brightness, hence the larger the
area that is actually blown, the more apparent the
spike... but it is apparent *only* if there are no
significant bright areas at just below maximum. If
there are, there is no "spike", and it is impossible to
interpret the histogram (without reducing exposure to see
what the effect is). In other words, it requires time
consuming analysis and is not as good as a blink on over
exposure display for purposes of chimping.

A spike at the right edge of the live histogram graph from clipping of
highlights is an effective over exposure warning that's actually obvious
unless (a) there is too little clipping to matter and/or (b) the image
is so bright (washed out) that the amount of clipping is irrelevant.

(I suspect John has no experience with using this on
a DSLR, and is attempting to project his experience
either using PC software or on a live view display.
Each are a little bit of a different beastie.)

I could say I suspect you have no real experience with using live
histogram on an advanced compact camera like my FZ8, but that wouldn't
be nice either, and might even be as mistaken as you are. I don't lack
dSLR experience -- I just find the live histogram in my FZ8 to be more
useful than a crude warning that's otherwise unhelpful. I lose far more
time trying to figure out what a crude warning means than adjusting from
a live histogram. A crude warning is better than nothing, but nowhere
near as useful as a live histogram. Of course, "When all you have is a
hammer, everything looks like a nail."

The tail happens *only* when there is _insignificant_
area blown *and* only when there are no significant near
maximum bright areas. That pattern does not mean there
are blown highlights, it means that if you do increase
exposure, some small area will be blown.

The tail is actually just a good way to distinguish unimportant specular
highlights (isolated spike) from important burned out highlight detail
(tail).

The problem is that in many instances when a histogram
does look the way Navas describes, it is neither assured
that the pattern is produced by blown highlights, or
that blown highlights will produce that pattern. It is
sometimes impossible to know, and often it requires a
bit of study to determine, and of course neither would
be useful for someone wanting to "chimp".

When you learn how to use live histogram effectively, you find it does
very well indeed under a wide range of conditions. No tool is perfect,
of course, but it's far better than not having live histogram. Claiming
that something much more limited is actually better is (as Spock would
say) illogical.

One quick glance at a blink on over exposure display
indicates that exact status. You can practically build
the memory for what to do into the muscles of your hand.
No brain required, it doesn't even get to the spinal
cord!

It actually doesn't tell you much in the way of useful information, so
you have to go through time-consuming gyrations to figure out if it
matters and what to do. Much easier and faster with live histogram.
Even better with zebra pattern.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

In article , John Navas
wrote:

But you might have lost the shot. Best of all is live histogram with
zebra pattern that shows the areas out of range. The Nikon blinking
warning is very crude by comparison.

And I'm sure your kiddie toy Panasonic is as close to perfection as it
gets.

In article , Wilba
wrote:

OK. Let's start with exposure. How do you set an exposure based on your
experience?What do you actually do before you press the button?

An appropriate answer to my question would sound something like, "I shoot in
full manual mode and guess the exposure without the assistance of any
metering device", or, "I shoot in aperture priority mode and guess an
exposure compensation based on my experience." See what I'm trying to
understand?

My preference is for shutter priority, but that's just the way I've
gotten used to working through the years...in most cases I'd set the
shutter speed first and go from there. But, it all depends on the
situation.

I'll look at the situation, see where the highlights and shadows are,
determine how much of a dynamic range I'm dealing with (no meter
necessary), and then determine camera settings based on experience with
similar situations. Through the years, I've just gotten used to judging
a scene with my eyeballs and determining from there what has to be done
to properly capture it.