Ken (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} shadowplay2) wrote,@ 2006-05-26 21:51:00 |
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doubling up
Kinetic Sculpture Race weekend... the one time each year when I consistently shoot digital. The one time when workflow speed matters enough to make it worth contending with all the other issues.
Basically, I need to shoot quantity on these weekends, and then need to have it up on the web quickly afterwards. Not so much this year, but the past few years speed has been essential. In 2004, I actually had web pages posted each night as the race progressed. Before midnight each night, the days events were uploaded.
But I've just finished packing a camera bag for tomorrow. This year I'm mostly shooting for one team instead of doing semi-official coverage for the entire race. Still, there's a bulky DSLR body in there, and three lenses, an extra battery, and three extra CF cards. Fortunately I'll never be more than 25 or 30 miles from home, and getting closer with each hour of the race, so no need to haul a laptop.
Then, hiding in one corner of the bag, my tiny little Leica and a few rolls of film... the setup that travels around the country with me, the one that produces 95 percent of my images. It fits in a jacket pocket, in fact I just recently carried it that way for most of a day.
There are still Leicas... and Nikons, and a lot of other mechanical beasts of burden... built 40 or more years ago, and in daily use. I'm pretty sure today's state of the art DSLRs will be taking up landfill space long before 2046. It's not only the durability issue, although there is that... just read that a Nikon D50 shutter is expected to last for 50,000 frames, which many pros do in an average year... what do you expect for 500 bucks? It's not just the rapid technological advances and resulting two-year obsolescence cycle, either. These things just are not elegant tools. They're slapped out in a hurry, a race to beat the competition, cutting-edge electronics packed into an afterthought body. Some recent mid-level designs, like the D200, are a step in the right direction, with metal frames and the ability to meter with manual focus lenses, and with viewfinders which are at least a slight improvement over the dark little tunnels on most models, at a fair price. But they still aren't at risk of winning any design awards. I'm still waiting for a compact, solid, elegant design, one that makes it easy to see what we want to take a picture of.
Then, there's the way we use them. It's possible to do stunning work with a DSLR. A few people do. But the auto-everything technology encourages laziness, it encourages not ever even learning a lot of very basic things. Earlier today, looking through about 30 photogerapher portfolios, I was reminded very strongly of that. These people varied in experience, from more than 20 years to less than one. Ironically, the only portfolio that I thought was strong belonged to a woman who has been at this for about two years. All the rest looked the same. The standard cliches: The basic studio shots, flat lighting and plain backgrounds; digital is good at this, unfortunately not all of the photographers were. The basic location shots, with contrasty lighting overwhelming the limited dynamic range of digital resulting in dense shadows and blown out highlights. The attempt at fantasy images through extensive image manipulation, more painting than photography, except without the benefit of art classes. The common thread, inconsistent exposure, auto white balance, too much Photoshop badly done, with poor color correction and over-gaudy colors; and accidental composition, almost as if the photographers were so intent on their prime subject that they forgot there was a background. Did they not see all that clutter in the background, or just not realize that it mattered?
So, the next three days will be my annual challenge, my attempt to do better. I have the advantage of fast lenses, I'm shooting with an 85mm f/1.4 for the most part, so I have the option of throwing distracting backgrounds out of focus. I'm not really all that good at digital, not like a few of my everyday pro friends who can make Photoshop do tricks. So it's a little scary that I'll be able to do better than a lot of what I saw online today, without even breathing hard. It's not that I'm that good, not when I venture outside the realm of film; it's that the others just haven't worked very hard at it.
Kinetic Sculpture Race weekend... the one time each year when I consistently shoot digital. The one time when workflow speed matters enough to make it worth contending with all the other issues.
Basically, I need to shoot quantity on these weekends, and then need to have it up on the web quickly afterwards. Not so much this year, but the past few years speed has been essential. In 2004, I actually had web pages posted each night as the race progressed. Before midnight each night, the days events were uploaded.
But I've just finished packing a camera bag for tomorrow. This year I'm mostly shooting for one team instead of doing semi-official coverage for the entire race. Still, there's a bulky DSLR body in there, and three lenses, an extra battery, and three extra CF cards. Fortunately I'll never be more than 25 or 30 miles from home, and getting closer with each hour of the race, so no need to haul a laptop.
Then, hiding in one corner of the bag, my tiny little Leica and a few rolls of film... the setup that travels around the country with me, the one that produces 95 percent of my images. It fits in a jacket pocket, in fact I just recently carried it that way for most of a day.
There are still Leicas... and Nikons, and a lot of other mechanical beasts of burden... built 40 or more years ago, and in daily use. I'm pretty sure today's state of the art DSLRs will be taking up landfill space long before 2046. It's not only the durability issue, although there is that... just read that a Nikon D50 shutter is expected to last for 50,000 frames, which many pros do in an average year... what do you expect for 500 bucks? It's not just the rapid technological advances and resulting two-year obsolescence cycle, either. These things just are not elegant tools. They're slapped out in a hurry, a race to beat the competition, cutting-edge electronics packed into an afterthought body. Some recent mid-level designs, like the D200, are a step in the right direction, with metal frames and the ability to meter with manual focus lenses, and with viewfinders which are at least a slight improvement over the dark little tunnels on most models, at a fair price. But they still aren't at risk of winning any design awards. I'm still waiting for a compact, solid, elegant design, one that makes it easy to see what we want to take a picture of.
Then, there's the way we use them. It's possible to do stunning work with a DSLR. A few people do. But the auto-everything technology encourages laziness, it encourages not ever even learning a lot of very basic things. Earlier today, looking through about 30 photogerapher portfolios, I was reminded very strongly of that. These people varied in experience, from more than 20 years to less than one. Ironically, the only portfolio that I thought was strong belonged to a woman who has been at this for about two years. All the rest looked the same. The standard cliches: The basic studio shots, flat lighting and plain backgrounds; digital is good at this, unfortunately not all of the photographers were. The basic location shots, with contrasty lighting overwhelming the limited dynamic range of digital resulting in dense shadows and blown out highlights. The attempt at fantasy images through extensive image manipulation, more painting than photography, except without the benefit of art classes. The common thread, inconsistent exposure, auto white balance, too much Photoshop badly done, with poor color correction and over-gaudy colors; and accidental composition, almost as if the photographers were so intent on their prime subject that they forgot there was a background. Did they not see all that clutter in the background, or just not realize that it mattered?
So, the next three days will be my annual challenge, my attempt to do better. I have the advantage of fast lenses, I'm shooting with an 85mm f/1.4 for the most part, so I have the option of throwing distracting backgrounds out of focus. I'm not really all that good at digital, not like a few of my everyday pro friends who can make Photoshop do tricks. So it's a little scary that I'll be able to do better than a lot of what I saw online today, without even breathing hard. It's not that I'm that good, not when I venture outside the realm of film; it's that the others just haven't worked very hard at it.
