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Titanium
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Titanium said:DetlevCM said:Titanium said:DetlevCM said:Titanium said:bvukich said:unfocused said:The last thing I need is a touch screen.
I won't entirely dismiss a touch screen, but I do wonder how that would work. As it is, every time I look through the viewfinder I end up with smudges on the screen. I wonder how they'd prevent me from changing settings with my nose.
Keep in mind too, that with phone touch screens, you have to have special gloves for the winter. Never say never, but I just have a hard time getting my head around the idea that this would be a good thing.
The proximity sensor will probably disable the touchscreen when it is up to your face. Much like phones do. The screen already turns off when triggered by the proximity sensor.
That being said. I want a touchscreen about as much as I want a swivel screen, which is not at all.
How do you compose your shots 1 inch above the surface of water? Or freezing mud? What above those overhead shots with arms fully stretched out? How do you deal with camera mounted on a fully extended monopod peeking through the side of the helicopter, on a speedboat, over the balcony from 60th floor of a tower or a moving car tracking another?
Truth is, unless you hook up an external LCD monitor, you can't do any of these shots without the flip-out screen.
But these are extreme examples. Personally, I find a fully articulate screen on my G11 a true blessing. I am sick and tired of squatting and standing like a spaz behind my camera mounted on a tripod because I'm 6'5". My neck starts hurting, my knees wanna pop-out. I compose ALL of my shots on a flip-out screen and it's a dream come true because I always look at the camera from the most comfortable position. I dictate its place, not the other way round. Last time I used a viewfinder was on my Minolta Dynax 9Xi in 1998. I learned photography in the early 90s and of course used a conventional viewfinder. Looking back - I really don't I miss it. It's a remnant of another era. You can't see the image as sensor sees it. No DOF preview without dimming. No colour balance preview. No this, not that. Sorry, I can't accept that in 2011.
Today, I use the viewfinder only if LCD gets too dim in a direct daylight...which almost never happens.
This is how I see it: people feared cars when horses were the only means of transportation. No one appreciated photography 120 years ago because it wasn't considered a true art. Nobody wanted sound in the era of silent films and LCD screens were unheard of in 35mm film cameras. Get used to a good thing mate, it's here to serve you and make your life easy. Good ahead and flame me now.
Actually, you can - you should know your camera good enough to estimate the filed of view.
With today's megapixel count you can easily frame a bit wider to allow you to level the image.
And it's not that difficult to do at all.
I'm sure you can but why would you when there's technology that takes guesstimation out of the equation? I'll choose to control my composition versus shooting in the dark any day.
Maybe because I still like to think that there is still some art to photography - which makes some people better at it, an some worse.
It's the same reason I don't really like Photoshop, but at the same time appreciate its features.
The most editing I feel that should be done is CameraRAW (which offers the same options as film).
I see. So by this logic, those who use camera's viewfinder are true photographers and artists and those who compose their shots with LCD screen...are not? Fascinating. Old 8X10 view camera used by Ansel Adams in the previous century didn't have the viewfinder either. Entire back of the camera was an 8x10 screen and picture was reversed. This is how he composed his legendary shots. He must've been a hack too I guess.
As for your comment regarding Photoshop - I think you're completely off the mark.
Greatest photographers in history spent HOURS and sometimes DAYS in the darkroom printing that perfect print from one single negative. Ansel Adams, America's greatest landscape photographer ever, wrote volumes of books on how to selectively adjust the lighting during the printing process in order to bring out the detail in the shadows and in the highlights. See Amazon.com for his incredibly literature.
He used dodging and burning (same tools exist in Photoshop today) to control the exposure levels across the print. He developed an ingenious lighting matrix (a grid of bulbs) with ability to control the intensity of light coming from each bulb during the printing of enlargements and that's how the bright skies in his prints always retained the detail, likewise, in the shadows. Isn't that a precusor or today's HDR? He was always removing intruding elements that peeked inside his composition such as branches of trees branches by carefully rotating negatives and cropping the outer edges of his exposed frames. He died in 1982, way before the advent of digital photography and computer image processing. What do you think he would've thought of today's tools?
He experimented with various chemicals, development times, types of print media, all in order to enhance colours, mood, vibrance or tonal ranges, etc - that's a today's equivalent of brightness/contrast/levels/curves/colour balance in Photoshop. In fact, most of the image adjustment tools in Photoshop today are inspired directly by the chemical/optical processes in the darkroom. Legacy of great masters.
Do yourself a favour. Learn how to use Photoshop -seriously-, don't just appreciate its features and frown upon it. Put it to good use and your photography will benefit from it greatly.
Here are some of Ansel's famous quotes that I find very relevant in this debate:
"Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships."
"The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways." Ansel Adams
No difference today - take a RAW image with you digital camera. That's your score. Bring it into Photoshop and express your vision fully. That's your performance.
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