fiestaturbo.com

[- Danny Boy -]

Taken from this thread my-ug-focus-rs-springs-and-exhaust-vt197573/

your camera blows my mind... nvm the RS

The camera is just a workhorse. The photographer and the post processing are what should blow your mind.

I remember doing a wedding once and someone said to me 'your camera takes some really nice photos' and I nearly punched them in the face

[jonyb4]

no his camera is like a 22mp or so, but clearly Adrian is very skilled

[heeman10]

Cracking shots, Ade, and the car looks great. The 2.5s don't seem shy about making strong power, so that'll be a fun road

The camera is just a workhorse. The photographer and the post processing are what should blow your mind.

A rare piece of understanding!

A professional photographer (named Jon) who once gave me a few tips told me a great story a couple of years ago. He had a friend who was a professional chef. Jon had shot some pictures for this friend, who was very pleased with the images, and told Jon that he "must have a really good camera!". The deal was that Jon would take these pictures, and in return, would be treated to an exquisite three course meal by his friend, Michelin style. When Jon got to the end of his meal, his friend came through from the kitchens to ask if he'd enjoyed everything. Jon said "Yes thank you, that was great. You must have a really good oven!".

[jonyb4]

not strictly true though is it?

i understand very much that its 'just a workhorse' but your not going to take breathtaking photos on some sub £100 bridge

[dontpannic]

not strictly true though is it?

i understand very much that its 'just a workhorse' but your not going to take breathtaking photos on some sub £100 bridge

Of course you can.

"The best camera is the one a photographer has on them at all times"

Photography isn't just about the camera, the shot, framing, composition and subject matter are all far more important.

ETA:
http://gizmodo.com/5965443/32-amazing-p ... -on-phones

And:

All taken on mobile phones.

[jonyb4]

no it isnt.. my £100 camera cant take the shots my current can, and that itself cant match that that is even better...

[dontpannic]

no it isnt.. my £100 camera cant take the shots my current can, and that itself cant match that that is even better...

You're talking about image quality where as 'taking a better photo' is much more subjective than lens type and sensor type.

http://igniteshow.com/videos/your-best- ... u-have-you

The biggest problem has always been that people go out, buy themselves a £300 camera and although the pictures aren't grainy they declare them fantastic images and call themselves photographers. There's so much more to it than the equipment being used.

[jonyb4]

but each of them phone pics were taken on top of the range phones, and theyre still not 'that' good, grainy, and so forth, albiet yes artistic and beautiful some of them

phones lack diversity, eg manual focus.. zoom that doesnt ruin the picture quality/resolution, high diopter macro etc etc


your talking to me like im stupid, if anything im an advocate for the lesser camera can still do what someone with 2 grands worth of camera and lenses.. i only have a bridge yet i can produce a wide range of brilliant photos, it cost me less than £300, im rivaling the work of a semi professional photography in my local photography group

but yet again i couldnt with my old camera, it wasnt very sharp, no manual focus, limited zoom, no attachments for it

[dontpannic]

I already have proved it above. However.






All taken with iPhones.

[jonyb4]

why you insist on proving a phones camera lol, i know what theyre like my HTC one x has a cracking camera

this is all somewhat derailing his RS's thread :/
maybe we shoudl make a general disc thread

[- Danny Boy -]

It all depends what you want from a camera too, and what your style is.

What is this argument about? The fact that Jony thinks it isn't possible to get decent pictures with a sub £100 camera? All depends what you mean by decent. Sharp and clean? If so, you could be right, but nowadays most cheap compact cameras are well up there in terms of quality.

Everyone who starts out in photography believes having super sharp clean pictures is the way to go, in fact I still prefer those pictures because of detail. But at the same time, that can show many flaws in what you have photographed.

It might be worth a bit of research into Chase Jarvis. He is someone that lives by the quote 'the best camera is the one you have with you' and that in my opinion is totally true. Whether it be a £3000 DLSR, or a £5 disposable film camera. The camera simply takes the picture, the photographer makes it.

Related to that, you might want to watch DigitalRev's series called "Pro Photographer, Cheap Camera"

In this feature we challenge one pro photographer to do a photo shoot with a cheapo camera. The camera is chosen entirely at random, with the choice of: a Lego camera, iPhone 2G, Vivitar thing, Rollei crapline 102 and a Yashica EZ F-whatever. See how the pro does with the most modest of equipment in this video.

They have some awesome videos there, the cameras are pretty much all crap, but the photographers show what can be done with them. There is one with some monks or something, I think it's Chase Jarvis, and he is using a Lego camera, it's proper s**t, but the outcome of the pictures is awesome. They even used a 0.3mp buzz lightyear camera on one challenge too. Might be more than 0.3mp lol, but even so, awesome pictures

Heeman - that is pretty funny,

[AdrianFRST]

My belief is you need a combination of both. You can take good photos with a cheap camera, like the iPhone ones above. But they would be much better with decent kit. Composition wise you can get close (assuming similar focal length) but there are things you simply can't do with a cheap camera - get shallow DOF, track moving objects with servo focus, shoot high ISO, or use raw and therefore pull more from the dynamic range.

In situations with limited space like at car show, my shots aren't composed any better than most others, but they look great because of the image quality, blurred backgrounds, colours that pop and skies which aren't washed out.

Then there's knowing what to do with a raw file when it's in Photoshop. That's where the magic happens for me!

I remember doing a wedding once and someone said to me 'your camera takes some really nice photos' and I nearly punched them in the face

Answer to that is "Thanks, I taught it everything it knows!"

[jonyb4]

i agree with adrian, i wasnt say its impossible.. jesus dunno where that come from, but its certainly not going to produce a decent quality image with a rubbish camera, the image sensor just isnt up to it

my photos here can make the point


this was my first camera when i decided to learn the trade, its a £99.99 entry level bridge


its decent enough, but blurred and washed out somewhat, its at about 20x optical

these taken on my Phone, HTC One X, it was past midnight, £500 top of the range phone (last year)






these were taken today on a decent enough digital camera, about £80 back in its day ( the point that video was making made me want to just take my old digital cam out when i went for a walk with my girlfriend and leave the bulky bridge at home)



im very impressed with it really, its only 8mp with a 3x optical (so your words have sunk in )


finally these show my workhorse, my top of the range bridge camera, showing the needed diversity of a higher end camera (and not even high at all compared to DSLR's)

with a Raynox DCR-250 macro conversion lens



8 shots per second



(not that it has a BULB mode) long exposure shot (again you cant support an iPhone on a tripod, let alone choose long exposure)

[jonyb4]

i have a Film being developed as we speak i captured using my Russian 35mm SLR, ill post some up to add tot his comparison when i get them back


end of the day though, Adrians camera is clearly VERY capable, and so is he as a photographer, ive seen many of his work and they show alot of skill

[dontpannic]

i agree with adrian, i wasnt say its impossible..

But you did

but your not going to take breathtaking photos on some sub £100 bridge

Which is where I came in with the 'of course you can' comment. At this stage we were talking about photos as in shots, rather than image quality and grain etc.

but each of them phone pics were taken on top of the range phones, and theyre still not 'that' good, grainy, and so forth, albiet yes artistic and beautiful some of them

Kind of a contradiction in point. Top of the range phone means nothing, the image sensor is still tiny compared to a dedicated DSLR and is only on par with the "sub £100 bridge". You then go on to say artistic and beautiful.

Photography isn't about the camera, and isn't to a certain extent down to the quality of the image. Composition and post processing make much more of a difference than the cost of your camera.

This was a photo I took in 2004, on a cheap and cheerful 3mp point and shoot camera.
http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/01-0 ... onely.html


By no means would I consider myself a photographer at all, but I'm capable of composing a decent shot with whatever camera I'm using.

again you cant support an iPhone on a tripod

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Glif-iPhone ... B0052G679K

[jonyb4]

Right you are nick

[dontpannic]

Let's not kill the discussion stone dead. Let's get some counter points, other examples.

Obviously bigger and better cameras will provide better image quality, I'm not disputing that, but a 'good' photo encompasses lots of things rather than just camera quality.

[andymac]

My belief is you need a combination of both. You can take good photos with a cheap camera, like the iPhone ones above. But they would be much better with decent kit. Composition wise you can get close (assuming similar focal length) but there are things you simply can't do with a cheap camera - get shallow DOF, track moving objects with servo focus, shoot high ISO, or use raw and therefore pull more from the dynamic range.

This.

I say time and time again, there's no substitute for quality glass and a full frame sensor when you're talking about the quality of images.

The art aspect is entirely subjective, but suffice to say an average shot taken on a good setup will garner more attention than the same shot taken on a phone. As Ade mentions, achieving a useful DOF on anythin other than a full-frame setup is a 'mare for a lot of very technical reasons and the imagery doesn't tend to "pop" in the same way as a result (Technically, a lack of subject isolation caused by a combination of lens curvature, focal length, aperture and target distance. Lots of physics stuff.). There are some cracking photos taken on phones, but I say that from a subjective, artistic point of view - the quality of those photographs is excellent, however the quality of image often sucks donkey balls.

Having said that, I took a pile of photos at my sister-in-laws wedding (alongside the official togger) and in general, I felt the quality of the photos and images I produced was generally better than those of the photography on the day. Maybe I cared more to go the extra mile in post-process or maybe it was because I was looking for more natural, candid photos - I don't know.

What I *do* know, is that while the D7000 I have now is *technically* superior to the EOS 5 Mk1 I used to have, the resulting imagery continues to fail to put a smile on my face and I find myself using it less and less as a result. Some better glass may fix that temporarily but it won't stop me wanting a new EOS 5 long term...

[andymac]

but your not going to take breathtaking photos on some sub £100 bridge

Which is where I came in with the 'of course you can' comment. At this stage we were talking about photos as in shots, rather than image quality and grain etc.

Which is really the point, isn't it.

Image quality vs photo quality. Which / what are we discussing?

[jonyb4]

i fail to see how we've come to this lol, all i said was ade takes fantastic photos with his camera, i cant make a car stick out of the background like that, it looked as though it was literally jumping out my monitor

coupled with the fantastic quality, the photographer side of the pictures were very impressive, but i know theyve been taken on an expensive camera

then someone brought phones up, and take less equipment with you is 'better'

if thats the case.. just buy a bridge, they do most things a SLR can but no need of dozens of lenses, my camera bag is tiny yet it holds everything shy of my monopods and tripod

[dontpannic]

i fail to see how we've come to this lol, all i said was ade takes fantastic photos with his camera, i cant make a car stick out of the background like that, it looked as though it was literally jumping out my monitor

coupled with the fantastic quality, the photographer side of the pictures were very impressive, but i know theyve been taken on an expensive camera

I see your point. However you originally mentioned that Ade must have a decent camera as you couldn't get those shots with a sub £100 bridge, which is where the differential between image quality and shot quality came from. Hence...

then someone brought phones up, and take less equipment with you is 'better'

Not quite - I quoted the famous expression - the best camera is the one you have with you. It could be a £6000 DSLR, it could be a point and shoot, it could be your phone. The point there was that a photographer can get a fantastic photo from whatever camera they have with them.

[jonyb4]

i fail to see how we've come to this lol, all i said was ade takes fantastic photos with his camera, i cant make a car stick out of the background like that, it looked as though it was literally jumping out my monitor

coupled with the fantastic quality, the photographer side of the pictures were very impressive, but i know theyve been taken on an expensive camera

I see your point. However you originally mentioned that Ade must have a decent camera as you couldn't get those shots with a sub £100 bridge, which is where the differential between image quality and shot quality came from. Hence...

no you cant... ive proved that above, not even a decent point and shoot will get anywhere near ades

[andymac]

What you mean, reading back, is that you don't get subject isolation (Tight DOF) with a bridge or phone camera.

That's quite true, you will find it hard to achieve with anything other than a full frame camera.

Can still take great pics on a phone or point-n-shoot though