The Truth

Unfortunately digital noise is not the same as film grain.

If that's the case then all he has to do is click on the link to find out.
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

I agree

Quote: "No one is making a bad camera or a bad lens or a bad light or a bad camera bag or a bad sensor" - this seems to sum up his "rant", and I think that the principle point there is difficult to contest.

However, I would add that, considering aspects such as: what one wants from the equipment, what one is trying to achieve, how much one can spend, and when comparing similar items, some of those things might be less good than others.

Cheers.
Philip

Ah, one of our perennial favorite debates.

Any of you fancy swapping your shiny new K3 for my dusty old *ist D L that I have in a cupboard somewhere? I promise it will not in any way diminish the quality of your output.

If you are a great photographer - your images will still be great

If you are not a great photographer - well, lets face it, there is little point you owning that K3

There are few things as black and white as some of the great images taken by great and not so great photographers.

Carl

No its not. The only images where some noise seems beneficial is in decent light and artificially added ... Then it is just another filter 'effect', nothing to do with the debate about the camera / photographer equation.

Nigel, I posted that bit specifically in response to your assertion that:
I was just pointing out (rather badly) that that's just an opinion. If you don't mess around with the noise and smudge it around, then it is very like film grain and perfectly pleasant side-effect of pushing the envelope.
But my main point was that I don't really agree with the main thrust of the argument. There are indeed bad cameras. A good camera won't transform a bad photographer, but it will add to his ability to capture difficult images, say, very contrasty, or poor light.
A good photographer can always go a bit further, whatever he has in his hands, but he's not going to lumber himself with something like a WG-3 if he doesn't have to.

Aha! A challenge to see what we can do. Does this prove or disprove the argument?


That's a WG-3 photo, so is it OK or not?

That doesn't prove anything really.
It's not a particularly challenging subject - all the time in the world to compose your shot, good light to one side, everything on the same focal plane (not the usual lottery of where it's going to focus), bit contrasty and predictably, the shadows have filled-in. Sky is starting to look a bit smudgy/grainy - wouldn't want to look too closely at that or heaven forbid, introduce a bit of sun!

Fair enough, will try harder! If I find something more challenging I'll have a go and post it, but that's not really what I use the WG-3 for, so it may take a while.

I know where Darkmunk is coming from with the WG3, I take one away working, really don't have the weight allowance nor space for taking much else so chose the WG3 for its ruggedness (another discussion I'm sure) but this shot was so much nicer when seeing it live especially with the colours that were there at the time




As for the original topic, I am more than capable of taking a lowsy image with my K3 as I could with the K-r, but for those that I do nail with the new camera they do definitely have something over what the k-r could kick out when I nailed the shot with that, so I do agree, but for me that odd 1% (in my case) when it is all there the kit makes a difference.


don't know why this refuses to rotate grrrrrr

In general I agree with the "'tis the workman not the tool" argument up to a point.

BUT

Difficult lighting conditions (very little light or ultra-high contrast, for example) will quickly find out some cameras.

What do you want to do with the final image? A large landscape print to hang on the wall will look a lot better taken on David Storm's K3 than on my venerable £60.00 K100. If, like me, all you do is to show image on the net then it's much less important.

Taking pictures of things that move. My DSLRs simply are not capable of taking photographs of fast moving aircraft at air shows. From reading posts on this site I know there are camera/lens combinations which are.

But, to be honest, I don't do much pixel peeping which is why I left MX-1, K5 etc. safely locked away and happily took my £50.00 CX5 out for a walk this weekend.

Someone who claims to have had "Five years as an Editor in Chief, two years as a wedding photographer, a half a year at Magnum Photos, and two years as a working photojournalist" should know that tools do make a difference.

Or maybe this guy took all his wedding and photojournalist photos on a mobile phone cam.

The article is nothing more than the author projecting his own hang ups. The fact he needs to qualify his diatribe with "Five years as an Editor in Chief, two years as a wedding photographer, a half a year at Magnum Photos, and two years as a working photojournalist" in the first place ( and no I'm not prostrating myself in awe with ) gives us some clue as to the not so hidden inspiration for the article.

We all know the person pressing the button determines how good the photo is, but then we also all know that a mobile phone cam is no good for professional sports photography.

I've often followed blind links such as this to find they go to a video clip that exceeds my allotted bandwidth. Generally now I don't bother with them. So I quite agree some description of the link would be a benefit.

Tools do make a difference.

Try using an Imperial wrench on a Metric nut, and you'll quickly find out that it does.

Same thing goes for cameras. A good 24 mpix will always outperform a good 6 mpix camera.