Shoot out: Smart phone vs Canon EOS 5D Mark III

On 10/14/2014 3:51 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2014-10-14 16:44:28 +0000, Ron C said:

On 10/13/2014 5:05 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2014-10-13 18:37:35 +0000, philo said:
On 10/12/2014 09:17 PM, Savageduck wrote:
snip

Try this for size.
https://db.tt/wZ8ds2ot

...and it's OK, you don't have to like it.

Ok now I see what the problem is. You and I will never agree on what
makes a good photo.

Obviously.

That one is way over processed.

It is processed just enough for that particular capture.

Yes, it's a nice enough image but it's so obviously over processed I
would never do something like that. I tend to do minimal
processing...usually not much more than I would have been able to do
in a dark room.

Philo, I suppose being a neo-Luddite minimalist is a valid artistic
nitch, but
I find that mind set somewhat limiting.

I like the added edge the processing provides. Actually, I'd like to
know
more about that effect so I can throw it in my bag of tricks.

I use whatever amount of processing is needed to reach my desired
result.
For example, here is the same scene from a slightly different angle a
few frames before the pre-occupied texter showed up.
https://db.tt/5irZUWcx

I find both photos interesting and (though essentially the same subject
matter) they project very different moods.

Very much so, that is one reason I return to them from time to time.

I did a lot of black and white stuff back in the 70's, then work got
in the
way. Since jumping back in to photography I find that I'm quite
distracted
by the many effects and all the pretty colors:

Yup! I did a lot of B&W in the 50's, 60's, and into the 70's, first in
my father's darkroom, then my own, before life got in the way of
maintaining a wet darkroom.

~~
http://tinyurl.com/onl76re
http://tinyurl.com/mhprbf5
http://tinyurl.com/ljctfh9
~~
...and don't envision the B&W potential.

Probably not with those shots, but here are a couple of thoughts when it
comes to producing B&W images from digital sources.

I picked those shots to show some of my distractions. Seems I've always
had a thing for high contrast and saturated colors. It all goes back to
learning
to make printed circuit boards, Kodalith and photo-resist at about the same
time I was starting out in photography. Um, that and all the psychedelic art
of the time. ...old habits and all that. :-)

Some subjects and events do not lend themselves to B&W interpretation,
and in those cases only color or a duo-tone treatment will work.

Looking for B&W subjects, selecting and capturing them as B&W originals
to be presented to their best effect, takes a reasonable amount of
preparation (even if you are a Cartier-Bresson or Weegee) and subsequent
darkroom work as demonstrated by Adams & Weston. Shooting intentional
B&W with a digital camera requires similar selection, preparation, and
post processing, only these days the darkroom is your computer.

The wonderful thing about photography today is a lot of that painstaking
work regarding the mechanics has been simplified. So while some subjects
& images might not initially appear as potential candidates for B&W
processing, the digital darkroom gives one the tools and freedom to
experiment to find that potential.

That said, I'm wondering what your shots looked like in color.
I suspect they have a much larger impact in B&W.

They have a different mood & feel in color, so the impact is different.

https://db.tt/6STtc1jB
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1295663/FileChute/screenshot_962.jpg
https://db.tt/t4mKtPM1
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1295663/FileChute/screenshot_963.jpg

Very interesting. From the B&W I'd imagined the window as being
a rich deep mahogany.

Then you can get an image captured in the most unlikely locations &
circumstances and use the digital darkroom (in my case Photoshop) to
get something beyond the original. This was an opportunistic shot taken
in the back of a car with the window rolled down. A mobile studio if you
will. This one involved selection, extracting, masking, adding a
texture, and then making the B&W conversion.
The result:
https://db.tt/sU8pOMbA
The progression from original, to extracted color with added texture, to
B&W:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1295663/FileChute/screenshot_964.jpg


I'm rather enjoying the technical content of this thread, or at least
this sub-thread.

Thanks for filling in some background and details.

==
Later...
Ron C
--

On 2014-10-14 20:59:27 +0000, Ron C said:

On 10/14/2014 3:51 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2014-10-14 16:44:28 +0000, Ron C said:

On 10/13/2014 5:05 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2014-10-13 18:37:35 +0000, philo said:
On 10/12/2014 09:17 PM, Savageduck wrote:
snip

Try this for size.
https://db.tt/wZ8ds2ot

...and it's OK, you don't have to like it.

Ok now I see what the problem is. You and I will never agree on what
makes a good photo.

Obviously.

That one is way over processed.

It is processed just enough for that particular capture.

Yes, it's a nice enough image but it's so obviously over processed I
would never do something like that. I tend to do minimal
processing...usually not much more than I would have been able to do
in a dark room.

Philo, I suppose being a neo-Luddite minimalist is a valid artistic
nitch, but
I find that mind set somewhat limiting.

I like the added edge the processing provides. Actually, I'd like to
know
more about that effect so I can throw it in my bag of tricks.

I use whatever amount of processing is needed to reach my desired
result.
For example, here is the same scene from a slightly different angle a
few frames before the pre-occupied texter showed up.
https://db.tt/5irZUWcx

I find both photos interesting and (though essentially the same subject
matter) they project very different moods.

Very much so, that is one reason I return to them from time to time.

I did a lot of black and white stuff back in the 70's, then work got
in the
way. Since jumping back in to photography I find that I'm quite
distracted
by the many effects and all the pretty colors:

Yup! I did a lot of B&W in the 50's, 60's, and into the 70's, first in
my father's darkroom, then my own, before life got in the way of
maintaining a wet darkroom.

~~
http://tinyurl.com/onl76re
http://tinyurl.com/mhprbf5
http://tinyurl.com/ljctfh9
~~
...and don't envision the B&W potential.

Probably not with those shots, but here are a couple of thoughts when it
comes to producing B&W images from digital sources.

I picked those shots to show some of my distractions. Seems I've always
had a thing for high contrast and saturated colors. It all goes back to
learning
to make printed circuit boards, Kodalith and photo-resist at about the same
time I was starting out in photography. Um, that and all the psychedelic art
of the time. ...old habits and all that. :-)

Again, all of that is available in the digital darkroom, including
simulating film types with all sorts of saturation and contrast
characteristics.
....and you can add all sorts of psychedelic effects from color
inversions, replacement and stuf such as solarization.


Some subjects and events do not lend themselves to B&W interpretation,
and in those cases only color or a duo-tone treatment will work.

Looking for B&W subjects, selecting and capturing them as B&W originals
to be presented to their best effect, takes a reasonable amount of
preparation (even if you are a Cartier-Bresson or Weegee) and subsequent
darkroom work as demonstrated by Adams & Weston. Shooting intentional
B&W with a digital camera requires similar selection, preparation, and
post processing, only these days the darkroom is your computer.

The wonderful thing about photography today is a lot of that painstaking
work regarding the mechanics has been simplified. So while some subjects
& images might not initially appear as potential candidates for B&W
processing, the digital darkroom gives one the tools and freedom to
experiment to find that potential.

That said, I'm wondering what your shots looked like in color.
I suspect they have a much larger impact in B&W.

They have a different mood & feel in color, so the impact is different.

https://db.tt/6STtc1jB
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1295663/FileChute/screenshot_962.jpg
https://db.tt/t4mKtPM1
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1295663/FileChute/screenshot_963.jpg

Very interesting. From the B&W I'd imagined the window as being
a rich deep mahogany.

That is one of the things with B&W, much can be left to the
imagination, and interpretation of the viewer, and many times it can be
a way of recovering an interesting B&W image from a wishy-washy color
image.

There are those images which without B&W conversion, would be rejects
or marginal at best:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1295663/FileChute/screenshot_965.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1295663/FileChute/screenshot_966.jpg

Then you can get an image captured in the most unlikely locations &
circumstances and use the digital darkroom (in my case Photoshop) to
get something beyond the original. This was an opportunistic shot taken
in the back of a car with the window rolled down. A mobile studio if you
will. This one involved selection, extracting, masking, adding a
texture, and then making the B&W conversion.
The result:
https://db.tt/sU8pOMbA
The progression from original, to extracted color with added texture, to
B&W:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1295663/FileChute/screenshot_964.jpg


I'm rather enjoying the technical content of this thread, or at least
this sub-thread.

Thanks for filling in some background and details.

I am using Lightroom 5 + Photoshop CC (2014) for my post processing
workflow, others can use whatever suits them.
My B&W conversions are not simple desaturation to gray scale, I use NIK
Silver Efex Pro 2. That gives me a very good degree of flexibility with
the ability to apply simulated color filters, film types, and tones.
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/silver-efex-pro/

==
Later...
Ron C

BTW: "==" does not work as a sig delimiter. If you use the sig feature
of your NG client (I see you are using Thunderbird) the standard sig
delimiter format is "dash, dash, followed by a space" or "-- ", then
use a CR and type your sig. If you use that convention the sig does not
appear in any response.
So it should look something like this:
--
Later...
Ron
--
Regards,

Savageduck

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

For that very reason, jprior to my retirement, I used to wear only
custom made shirts cost over $299, each. I only rotated fifteen of
them,
and they all had french cuffs. I had cut make and trim suits, which
were
fine. All of my ties were custom made and matched my suspenders.
These
were also expensive, but like other things i life, presentation
counts.
Now I were cheap slacks, Am down to one suit and two tuxedos. I will
admit that my casual shirts are decent quality, but they fit me
better.

in other words, you tried to impress people with the price tag of your
shirt than your skills (or lack thereof).

Hey geniuys, you need to get the retainer, first. Oh! I forgot, you
know
nothing about business. You don't get retained by a Fortune 500
company,
or some of the largest privately owned copanies in the world if you
show
up looking like a slob. You get the invitation to a retainer conference
based upon proven ability.

nobody said anything about showing up looking like a slob, but when
someone brags about the price of their shirt rather than their skills
or accomplishments, it's clear that they have very little to offer
beyond appearance.

i know an ip attorney who has never lost a single case including
against microsoft. *that* is how he gets clients, not who makes his
clothes.

The clothes you wear are to some extent linked to your clients.

to some extent, but the point which you miss is that bragging about a
$299 shirt rather than one's accomplishments means there isn't much
beyond the surface.

You are mistaken to think that PeterN was bragging. He was agreeing
with Philo about the merits of wearing high quality garments. That
they are also expensive is a both obvious and a side issue.

he absolutely was bragging. why else bring up the price of the shirts?

it's one thing to look presentable, but it's something else entirely to
brag about the price or designer of the clothes.

On Tue, 14 Oct 2014 20:30:01 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

For that very reason, jprior to my retirement, I used to wear only
custom made shirts cost over $299, each. I only rotated fifteen of
them,
and they all had french cuffs. I had cut make and trim suits, which
were
fine. All of my ties were custom made and matched my suspenders.
These
were also expensive, but like other things i life, presentation
counts.
Now I were cheap slacks, Am down to one suit and two tuxedos. I will
admit that my casual shirts are decent quality, but they fit me
better.

in other words, you tried to impress people with the price tag of your
shirt than your skills (or lack thereof).

Hey geniuys, you need to get the retainer, first. Oh! I forgot, you
know
nothing about business. You don't get retained by a Fortune 500
company,
or some of the largest privately owned copanies in the world if you
show
up looking like a slob. You get the invitation to a retainer conference
based upon proven ability.

nobody said anything about showing up looking like a slob, but when
someone brags about the price of their shirt rather than their skills
or accomplishments, it's clear that they have very little to offer
beyond appearance.

i know an ip attorney who has never lost a single case including
against microsoft. *that* is how he gets clients, not who makes his
clothes.

The clothes you wear are to some extent linked to your clients.

to some extent, but the point which you miss is that bragging about a
$299 shirt rather than one's accomplishments means there isn't much
beyond the surface.

You are mistaken to think that PeterN was bragging. He was agreeing
with Philo about the merits of wearing high quality garments. That
they are also expensive is a both obvious and a side issue.

he absolutely was bragging. why else bring up the price of the shirts?

it's one thing to look presentable, but it's something else entirely to
brag about the price or designer of the clothes.

I read it not as bragging but as giving others some idea of what it
cost him to keep his clothing up to the required standard. The need
for fifteen shirts at that price stopped me for a minute but then I
realised that he was probably sending them out to a laundry service
and would need an adequate safety margin to protect him against
running out of clean shirts.

But bragging? Not in my opinion.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On 10/14/2014 7:38 PM, Savageduck wrote:
...snip...

==
Later...
Ron C

BTW: "==" does not work as a sig delimiter. If you use the sig feature
of your NG client (I see you are using Thunderbird) the standard sig
delimiter format is "dash, dash, followed by a space" or "-- ", then use
a CR and type your sig. If you use that convention the sig does not
appear in any response.
So it should look something like this:
--
Later...
Ron

I fully understand that "==" is not a delimiter.
I use it as an end of message (much like 30) and leave
my dot sig there because attributes get mucked
up way too frequently. [mostly by Google Groups
users]

I do know that the double dash is hard coded as
a delimiter.
==
Later...
Ron C
--
PS: Yes, this is part should be delimited...

In article , Ron C
wrote:

Just for the heck of it, here's an article that might make some folks
wonder why bother spending big bucks on a DSLR when a smart
phone will do.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/...amera-vs-dslr/

The whole article is really pointless. You cannot compare a DSLR with a
camera phone in a sentence that contains the word "photography".

Sure you can take pictures with both. But you cannot establish a bokeh
or zoom in to telephoto with a smartphone camera.

Try this with a smartphone:

http://www.mhmyers.com/bfly/images/dsc_4530ps.jpg

--
m-m
http://www.mhmyers.com

In article , M-M wrote:

Ron C:
Just for the heck of it, here's an article that might make some
folks wonder why bother spending big bucks on a DSLR when a smart
phone will do.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/...amera-vs-dslr/

The whole article is really pointless. You cannot compare a DSLR
with a camera phone in a sentence that contains the word
"photography".

Uh, why not?

Sure you can take pictures with both. But you cannot establish a
bokeh or zoom in to telephoto with a smartphone camera.

Try this with a smartphone:
http://www.mhmyers.com/bfly/images/dsc_4530ps.jpg

Sure, he

http://www.gottabemobile.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/iPhone-5-Macro-Lens-Sample-2.jpg

See, there are solutions to putting macro, tele and wideangle lenses on a
smartphone. The one used above is called Olloclip.

Since you have to put a special lens on your DSLR to get the nice bokeh
shot in your example, there is nothing to say you can't do that with a
smart phone as well, when comparing them.

Here's a guy that only takes photos with an iPhone:

https://www.twenty20.com/littlecoal

If I hadn't told you, you would have thought all were taken with expensive
DSLR equipment.


--
Sandman[.net]

In article , M-M
wrote:

Just for the heck of it, here's an article that might make some folks
wonder why bother spending big bucks on a DSLR when a smart
phone will do.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/...amera-vs-dslr/

The whole article is really pointless. You cannot compare a DSLR with a
camera phone in a sentence that contains the word "photography".

nonsense. of course you can.

Sure you can take pictures with both. But you cannot establish a bokeh
or zoom in to telephoto with a smartphone camera.

so what? not all photos need that. do you carry your slr and multiple
lenses everywhere you go?

here is another comparison:
http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-5s-review-patagonia
This iPhone 5S beats out the 5 in every camera test and in many ways
I prefer it to my DSLR. *Sure it has its pros & consŠ but for the
first time ever, I didn't bring my Canon 1DX and I didn't regret it
one bit. That's saying a lot.*

Try this with a smartphone:

http://www.mhmyers.com/bfly/images/dsc_4530ps.jpg

there are always edge cases where one will trump the other, but on
average, smartphones do exceptionally well in typical situations and
can do things slr users can only dream of, like easy panoramas or
instant uploading somewhere.

In article , Sandman
wrote:

Here's a guy that only takes photos with an iPhone:

https://www.twenty20.com/littlecoal

If I hadn't told you, you would have thought all were taken with expensive
DSLR equipment.

They are all certainly beautiful photos but anyone in the same place
and time could do the same with their smartphone.

Of course the "eye" of the photographer is the most important.

--
m-m
http://www.mhmyers.com

In article , M-M
wrote:

Of course the "eye" of the photographer is the most important.

exactly.