How To Detect Snapshooters from Photographers (was: Reason for so many focus errors we see today?)

On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:50:05 -0700 (PDT), RichA
wrote:

Plastic? Thermal expansion of plastic is much greater than metal and
it could very well be why we are seeing focus issues that need "lens
re-calibration" at service depots or that we see the need for in-
camera focus fine-tuning. Even cameras and lenses that appear to be
metal today may have plastic cells holding lenses, components in
cameras. The cameras are produced in a control temp environment but
that isn't real life use where temps can vary by 10's of degrees. I
don't remember all metal AF SLRs needing focus fine-tuning (or having
that facility) in the film days.

The top #1 reason for so many focusing errors:

Idiots who have become dependent on automated focusing systems. Especially
those snapshooters who are so stupid as to justify their common user-error
by blaming it on materials, focusing systems, or camera designs.



Do you honestly think that any automatic focusing system in the world is
ever going to be smart enough to figure out if you want the leading edge of
that small-butterfly's wing, the antennae, or the further wing edges in
precise focus?

There's only so much that any auto-anything system will ever be able to do.
This is why you have Snapshooters and Photographers. No photographer worth
his salt will ever depend on any automated focusing system. Nor do they
ever expect that some point and shoot feature in any camera, all DSLRs
included, should be expected to do the work correctly for them. They know
better. Do you ever wholly depend on your camera's automatic metering
system too? That makes you a point and shoot Snapshooter, whether you use a
P&S camera or DSLR. Every real photographer on earth knows that the camera
will never be able to select the proper exposure for them. That's why they
like cameras with a handy EV compensation dial or toggle, always at the
ready. The camera might get you in the ballpark for focusing and exposure
settings but then you have to take it from there. That's what real
photographers always do. That's what snapshooters won't ever comprehend.
Instead they would rather loudly proclaim the meager benefits of RAW to try
to recover their badly exposed and color-shifted shots, because they're
nothing but snapshooters in the first place.

People reveal much about their total lack of talent by what they find most
important in their cameras.


Snapshooter-Detection System
_________________________________________

What their camera requires or is already best at = what it really means
when they say it.


High ISO = I don't know how to pan properly to give my photo a much needed
sense of motion and action, nor do I know how to predict when to capture
the right shot at the peak moment. High ISO lets me use very fast shutter
speeds in dimly lit sports-fields so I don't have to do all that, then each
and every one of my shots look sterile and lifeless. So what if all those
masters took all their sports shots at ISOs of 64 or less. Big deal. They
probably didn't realize why you NEED ISO3200, or even know what they were
doing and why they were doing it. But *I* do! Because I'm so much better at
photography than they ever were.

High-Speed Burst Rates = I can't get any shot for the life of me, ever. Nor
do I ever know when to shoot an image. I can now machine-gun my way through
life and see if I can find any so-so photo later in my talentless pile of
garbage. Sure, the loud sound of my camera is annoying as hell to everyone
for a block around, but so what? Only PRO photographers with PRO cameras do
what I do. We don't care about anyone else as long as we get some good
photos ..... someday.

Fast Auto-Focus = Huh? You're supposed to know how to focus these damn
things too or know what part of your subject that you want in focus? Go on.
You must be kidding me. You're insane. NOBODY who is a real photographer
EVER focuses their own cameras these days! My camera knows EXACTLY what I
want in focus! Besides, my camera has an optical viewfinder! I can tell
exactly what's in focus in that dim tunnel-view image. So what if the
shallow DOF of my camera didn't allow me to see that my main subject was
really out of focus in the small image in my superior optical viewfinder.
It looked like it was, everything around looked like it was in focus, so
shouldn't the main subject be in focus too? It must be an auto-focusing
defect. I bet that's what it was. I'll send my camera in again to have my
auto-focusing system recalibrated. After all, look at how much money I
spent! A camera this expensive shouldn't fail on some simple point and
shoot feature like this. You get what you pay for and I'm going to prove
it! No matter how many times I have to send it in to have its
phase-detection focusing system recalibrated!

Evaluative Metering = Oh, c'mon now. You expect me to be able to tell when
my subject is underexposed due to backlight too? My camera is supposed to
do that for me with all its fancy point and shoot features. Isn't it? ISN'T
IT? You get what you pay for, right? RIGHT?! My camera even relies on a
built-in database of the most commonly lit scenes so my Evaluative Metering
can make the right choice for me based on what every other snapshooter has
ever done before. Surely that MUST be a good system. Right? I don't want to
have to think and reason, I just want my photo done correctly for me by the
camera, based on a database of simple snapshots. That's why I paid so much
for that new point and shoot feature. Only an idiot would buy a camera that
didn't have this.

Fastest Start-up Time = Sorry, but I totally fail to comprehend why any
camera that is ready by the time I touch it and bring it up to my eye is
all the speed it ever needs to have for start-up time. So I buy cameras
with just the fastest, latest, and greatest, then relentlessly try to
justify why I spent $5000 more on my camera gear than anyone else, by
posting about it on-ad-infinauseum in news-groups. Hang on a minute ... my
camera started up just fine, super fast, but let me rummage through my
camera bags and find the right prime lens to use on it, after it started up
so fast. It's in here somewhere, I know it is ... damn, I left that one
back home. Never mind. See how fast my camera started up though? SEE! Now
THAT'S a camera worth buying!

Shallow DOF = I don't know how to compose any scene properly so I MUST
depend on a very shallow DOF, to isolate my subject from the very scene
that gives the subject its reason for being there. Nor do I realize that
for all macro shots I'll never be able to get even a whole flower or insect
in focus. I'm that amazingly stupid. Some idiots talk about how you can
decrease the DOF the very same way if needed by just using longer focal
lengths, but then that would require I change lenses or carry
poorly-figured 10 lb. monster glass that costs over $10,000. Losing my shot
in the time needed to change the lens, then getting dust all over my sensor
so all my shots are ruined. No, I need shallow DOF with the only lens that
I'm willing to carry and keep on my camera all day. I'm actually that poor
at this "photography" stuff. I really don't have one clue about how optics
and well done compositions are related. I'm just so overwhelmed and proud
of how blurry I can make everything! That's the sign of a good camera. The
only kind worth having and paying a small fortune for. REAL PROs even go on
and on about how the blurry parts of their photos are better and more
important than the in-focus parts. They even came up with a name for it,
calling it "bokeh" today, because it's more important than what's actually
in focus in any of their photos. That's the sign of a REAL PRO. Umm ...
isn't it? You know, the same PROs that go on and on about how much detail
is in some other image, because the whole image itself isn't worth talking
about nor worth looking at. You know. Those kind of "PRO"s.

RAW = Yeah? So what if the JPG output from my expensive camera sucks
big-time. So what if I don't know how to set exposure or white-balance
properly. I can shoot any image any way I want and then spend hours trying
to recover something, well, maybe something, from my superior RAW data. So
there! That's why I'm a better photographer than you'll ever be! Even
though all digital cameras made today have more dynamic range than most any
film of the past. Even 1/2.5 size sensors can have 10 stops of dynamic
range, film only 7 stops. So what if those films provided proper exposures
and dynamic range for all photographers for a century because they knew how
to expose them properly in the first place. This doesn't mean that I don't
need more dynamic range. Remember, I don't know how to expose the image
correctly in the first place. I've become dependent on my camera's point
and shoot "Evaluative Metering" system. It's doing it all correctly for me.
Right? Isn't it? OH well. If not, I have RAW to try to recover from my
camera automatically under-exposing or over-exposing all my shots by 3 or
more stops. So there.

Highest Resolution = I never capture any images with any content worth
seeing, but look how sharp and clear it is! Well, the small parts that I
can view at any one time on my much smaller resolution monitor. So what if
it's been proven that even 3 megapixels can rival the best 35mm film. So
what if no publication on earth ever prints photos larger than the pages in
it. So what if no web page shows the "large size" selection over 1024
pixels wide or high. So what if I do have the full resolution original
image and I can never view it on any monitor that exists on earth at full
view at 1:1 resolution. So what if that award-winning image can be fully
appreciated in just 640x480 pixels on my monitor because the content is so
striking and the original resolution really means nothing. I can even make
poster-size prints of my snapshots that nobody else ever wants to look at!
Besides, the most important use of all -- if really lucky I can crop out
something interesting from my snapshot that royally-sucked when I first
shot it. I'm that bad at photography that I don't know how to compose a
good shot worth viewing or printing in the first place. All that useless
and unnecessary resolution in my hands is what makes me a PRO! You're not a
PRO unless you choose the same camera as I have! No PRO would ever use
anything less. I read all about that on the internet so it must be true.
Right?

_________________________________________


The list goes on and on. All you have to do is stop to realize why they
NEED those camera features. Each and every time it points directly to them
being nothing but a talentless-hack, point and shoot, snapshooter; or total
gear-head, not even a lowly snapshooter; crippled and dependent on their
automated point and shoot cameras.

"Truer Dat" wrote in message
...

[Demented ramblings deleted]

The list goes on and on. All you have to do is stop to realize why they
NEED those camera features. Each and every time it points directly to them
being nothing but a talentless-hack, point and shoot, snapshooter; or
total
gear-head, not even a lowly snapshooter; crippled and dependent on their
automated point and shoot cameras.


The list may go on and on but so do you. This smells like that pompous
blowhard, Semi-Yawning from the "Anything for a Perfect Shot" thread.

LloydW.

Truer Dat wrote:
On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:50:05 -0700 (PDT), RichA
wrote:

Plastic? Thermal expansion of plastic is much greater than metal and
it could very well be why we are seeing focus issues that need "lens
re-calibration" at service depots or that we see the need for in-
camera focus fine-tuning. Even cameras and lenses that appear to be
metal today may have plastic cells holding lenses, components in
cameras. The cameras are produced in a control temp environment but
that isn't real life use where temps can vary by 10's of degrees. I
don't remember all metal AF SLRs needing focus fine-tuning (or having
that facility) in the film days.

The top #1 reason for so many focusing errors:

Idiots who have become dependent on automated focusing systems. Especially
those snapshooters who are so stupid as to justify their common user-error
by blaming it on materials, focusing systems, or camera designs.



Do you honestly think that any automatic focusing system in the world is
ever going to be smart enough to figure out if you want the leading edge of
that small-butterfly's wing, the antennae, or the further wing edges in
precise focus?

There's only so much that any auto-anything system will ever be able to do.
This is why you have Snapshooters and Photographers. No photographer worth
his salt will ever depend on any automated focusing system. Nor do they
ever expect that some point and shoot feature in any camera, all DSLRs
included, should be expected to do the work correctly for them. They know
better. Do you ever wholly depend on your camera's automatic metering
system too? That makes you a point and shoot Snapshooter, whether you use a
P&S camera or DSLR. Every real photographer on earth knows that the camera
will never be able to select the proper exposure for them. That's why they
like cameras with a handy EV compensation dial or toggle, always at the
ready. The camera might get you in the ballpark for focusing and exposure
settings but then you have to take it from there. That's what real
photographers always do. That's what snapshooters won't ever comprehend.
Instead they would rather loudly proclaim the meager benefits of RAW to try
to recover their badly exposed and color-shifted shots, because they're
nothing but snapshooters in the first place.

People reveal much about their total lack of talent by what they find most
important in their cameras.


Snapshooter-Detection System
_________________________________________

What their camera requires or is already best at = what it really means
when they say it.


High ISO = I don't know how to pan properly to give my photo a much needed
sense of motion and action, nor do I know how to predict when to capture
the right shot at the peak moment. High ISO lets me use very fast shutter
speeds in dimly lit sports-fields so I don't have to do all that, then each
and every one of my shots look sterile and lifeless. So what if all those
masters took all their sports shots at ISOs of 64 or less. Big deal. They
probably didn't realize why you NEED ISO3200, or even know what they were
doing and why they were doing it. But *I* do! Because I'm so much better at
photography than they ever were.

High-Speed Burst Rates = I can't get any shot for the life of me, ever. Nor
do I ever know when to shoot an image. I can now machine-gun my way through
life and see if I can find any so-so photo later in my talentless pile of
garbage. Sure, the loud sound of my camera is annoying as hell to everyone
for a block around, but so what? Only PRO photographers with PRO cameras do
what I do. We don't care about anyone else as long as we get some good
photos ..... someday.

Fast Auto-Focus = Huh? You're supposed to know how to focus these damn
things too or know what part of your subject that you want in focus? Go on.
You must be kidding me. You're insane. NOBODY who is a real photographer
EVER focuses their own cameras these days! My camera knows EXACTLY what I
want in focus! Besides, my camera has an optical viewfinder! I can tell
exactly what's in focus in that dim tunnel-view image. So what if the
shallow DOF of my camera didn't allow me to see that my main subject was
really out of focus in the small image in my superior optical viewfinder.
It looked like it was, everything around looked like it was in focus, so
shouldn't the main subject be in focus too? It must be an auto-focusing
defect. I bet that's what it was. I'll send my camera in again to have my
auto-focusing system recalibrated. After all, look at how much money I
spent! A camera this expensive shouldn't fail on some simple point and
shoot feature like this. You get what you pay for and I'm going to prove
it! No matter how many times I have to send it in to have its
phase-detection focusing system recalibrated!

Evaluative Metering = Oh, c'mon now. You expect me to be able to tell when
my subject is underexposed due to backlight too? My camera is supposed to
do that for me with all its fancy point and shoot features. Isn't it? ISN'T
IT? You get what you pay for, right? RIGHT?! My camera even relies on a
built-in database of the most commonly lit scenes so my Evaluative Metering
can make the right choice for me based on what every other snapshooter has
ever done before. Surely that MUST be a good system. Right? I don't want to
have to think and reason, I just want my photo done correctly for me by the
camera, based on a database of simple snapshots. That's why I paid so much
for that new point and shoot feature. Only an idiot would buy a camera that
didn't have this.

Fastest Start-up Time = Sorry, but I totally fail to comprehend why any
camera that is ready by the time I touch it and bring it up to my eye is
all the speed it ever needs to have for start-up time. So I buy cameras
with just the fastest, latest, and greatest, then relentlessly try to
justify why I spent $5000 more on my camera gear than anyone else, by
posting about it on-ad-infinauseum in news-groups. Hang on a minute ... my
camera started up just fine, super fast, but let me rummage through my
camera bags and find the right prime lens to use on it, after it started up
so fast. It's in here somewhere, I know it is ... damn, I left that one
back home. Never mind. See how fast my camera started up though? SEE! Now
THAT'S a camera worth buying!

Shallow DOF = I don't know how to compose any scene properly so I MUST
depend on a very shallow DOF, to isolate my subject from the very scene
that gives the subject its reason for being there. Nor do I realize that
for all macro shots I'll never be able to get even a whole flower or insect
in focus. I'm that amazingly stupid. Some idiots talk about how you can
decrease the DOF the very same way if needed by just using longer focal
lengths, but then that would require I change lenses or carry
poorly-figured 10 lb. monster glass that costs over $10,000. Losing my shot
in the time needed to change the lens, then getting dust all over my sensor
so all my shots are ruined. No, I need shallow DOF with the only lens that
I'm willing to carry and keep on my camera all day. I'm actually that poor
at this "photography" stuff. I really don't have one clue about how optics
and well done compositions are related. I'm just so overwhelmed and proud
of how blurry I can make everything! That's the sign of a good camera. The
only kind worth having and paying a small fortune for. REAL PROs even go on
and on about how the blurry parts of their photos are better and more
important than the in-focus parts. They even came up with a name for it,
calling it "bokeh" today, because it's more important than what's actually
in focus in any of their photos. That's the sign of a REAL PRO. Umm ...
isn't it? You know, the same PROs that go on and on about how much detail
is in some other image, because the whole image itself isn't worth talking
about nor worth looking at. You know. Those kind of "PRO"s.

RAW = Yeah? So what if the JPG output from my expensive camera sucks
big-time. So what if I don't know how to set exposure or white-balance
properly. I can shoot any image any way I want and then spend hours trying
to recover something, well, maybe something, from my superior RAW data. So
there! That's why I'm a better photographer than you'll ever be! Even
though all digital cameras made today have more dynamic range than most any
film of the past. Even 1/2.5 size sensors can have 10 stops of dynamic
range, film only 7 stops. So what if those films provided proper exposures
and dynamic range for all photographers for a century because they knew how
to expose them properly in the first place. This doesn't mean that I don't
need more dynamic range. Remember, I don't know how to expose the image
correctly in the first place. I've become dependent on my camera's point
and shoot "Evaluative Metering" system. It's doing it all correctly for me.
Right? Isn't it? OH well. If not, I have RAW to try to recover from my
camera automatically under-exposing or over-exposing all my shots by 3 or
more stops. So there.

Highest Resolution = I never capture any images with any content worth
seeing, but look how sharp and clear it is! Well, the small parts that I
can view at any one time on my much smaller resolution monitor. So what if
it's been proven that even 3 megapixels can rival the best 35mm film. So
what if no publication on earth ever prints photos larger than the pages in
it. So what if no web page shows the "large size" selection over 1024
pixels wide or high. So what if I do have the full resolution original
image and I can never view it on any monitor that exists on earth at full
view at 1:1 resolution. So what if that award-winning image can be fully
appreciated in just 640x480 pixels on my monitor because the content is so
striking and the original resolution really means nothing. I can even make
poster-size prints of my snapshots that nobody else ever wants to look at!
Besides, the most important use of all -- if really lucky I can crop out
something interesting from my snapshot that royally-sucked when I first
shot it. I'm that bad at photography that I don't know how to compose a
good shot worth viewing or printing in the first place. All that useless
and unnecessary resolution in my hands is what makes me a PRO! You're not a
PRO unless you choose the same camera as I have! No PRO would ever use
anything less. I read all about that on the internet so it must be true.
Right?

_________________________________________


The list goes on and on. All you have to do is stop to realize why they
NEED those camera features. Each and every time it points directly to them
being nothing but a talentless-hack, point and shoot, snapshooter; or total
gear-head, not even a lowly snapshooter; crippled and dependent on their
automated point and shoot cameras.





I think you will find that the focusing systems on modern cameras are
faster, and more accurate than most humans. Now if you have something
like a case where something large is closer than your subject, the
camera can be confused, and the photographer can compensate. I always
take note of this situation, and allow the camera to focus on my
subject, then lock the focus, and recompose the shot.

Please don't feed the pests.

--
lsmft

"Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept
along the East wall: 'Andre creep ... Andre creep ... Andre creep'."

On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:17:43 -0500, Ron Hunter wrote:

The list goes on and on. All you have to do is stop to realize why they
NEED those camera features. Each and every time it points directly to them
being nothing but a talentless-hack, point and shoot, snapshooter; or total
gear-head, not even a lowly snapshooter; crippled and dependent on their
automated point and shoot cameras.

I think you will find that the focusing systems on modern cameras are
faster, and more accurate than most humans. Now if you have something
like a case where something large is closer than your subject, the
camera can be confused, and the photographer can compensate. I always
take note of this situation, and allow the camera to focus on my
subject, then lock the focus, and recompose the shot.

I can tolerate your ridiculous insistence on quoting an entire
reply even when your reply is only to a single sentence of it. But
quoting neary 200 lines of an easily identifiable troll is pathetic.
In some ways the "better half" that you occasionally ridicule is
probably *really* your better half. Or do you think that she'd also
share your stubbornly held style? If you were younger I'd ask you
to grow up. Is it too late to try, Ron?

ASAAR wrote:
Is it too late to try, Ron?





Her is what trimming looks like. It takes 10 times as long, and results
in little information for the person who reads the post. What were we
talking about? Sigh.

John Navas wrote:
On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:17:43 -0500, Ron Hunter
wrote in :

Truer Dat wrote:
On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:50:05 -0700 (PDT), RichA
wrote:

[HUGE SNIP]

I think you will find that the focusing systems on modern cameras are
faster, and more accurate than most humans. Now if you have something
like a case where something large is closer than your subject, the
camera can be confused, and the photographer can compensate. I always
take note of this situation, and allow the camera to focus on my
subject, then lock the focus, and recompose the shot.

Please trim huge quotes to just a relevant portion, not the whole thing.
Thanks.

John,
Maybe you have the time to do that, or a newsreader that makes it
easy, but I have neither. Skipping to the end is vastly easier, and
unless you are one of the 5% of people who are still using dialup for
newsgroup access, why bother?

Ron Hunter wrote:
John Navas wrote:

Please trim huge quotes to just a relevant portion, not the whole thing.

Maybe you have the time to do that,

Oh, your time is more important than the time of your readers? Good to
know.

or a newsreader that makes it
easy, but I have neither.

According to your headers you are using Thunderbird. To the best of my
knowledge you can just position the cursor, hold down the shift key, and
either click at the other end of the text or use the down arrow to
select a region. Then just hit the Delete key and the selected text is
gone.
Could hardly be easier than that.

Skipping to the end is vastly easier, and

For you obviously yes, but what about our readers?

unless you are one of the 5% of people who are still using dialup for
newsgroup access, why bother?

Oh, you mean your readers are using newsreader, which automatically jump
the end of posting if and only if the posting originates from Ron
Hauser?

jue

Ron Hunter wrote:
ASAAR wrote:
Is it too late to try, Ron?

Her is what trimming looks like.

If done dumb, sure.

It takes 10 times as long, and results
in little information for the person who reads the post. What were we
talking about? Sigh.

Yeah, meaningful quoting seems to become a lost art.

jue

Ron Hunter wrote:
ASAAR wrote:
Is it too late to try, Ron?

Her is what trimming looks like. It takes 10 times as long, and results
in little information for the person who reads the post. What were we
talking about? Sigh.

We're talking etiquette for one thing. The ten seconds it takes you will
save each of your thousands- or dozens- of readers a second or two.
That's being thoughtful. Courteous. Whatever.

--
john mcwilliams

Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The
flight attendant looks at them and says, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, only one
carrion allowed per passenger."