Digits and junk food
All this stuff about pictures should probably be on another thread, but there are parallels with audio, so what the hell.
Once you realise that a consumer digital camera is just a very cheap television camera, everything falls into place. (A studio broadcast camera is about £50k, plus another £50k for a 50:1 zoom lens.)
The CCD sensor only has a limited dynamic range (about 50dB) and unlike film, it doesn't have a nice S-curve that gives compression at the top and bottom of the (65dB) range. As a consequence, exposure on CCD cameras is critical, and highlights are not allowed. Even worse, CCDs are sensitive to infra-red, so the one highlight they really can't tolerate is a glowing valve heater. It reproduces as magenta, rather than orange. (The better broadcast cameras have an IR filter.)
Poor motion portrayal is not actually a fault of the CCD but of the recording and compression system that is desperately trying to reduce the data rate to something manageable.
Yes, 70mm produces cracking pictures. Bizarrely, some films have been distributed on 70mm yet were shot on 35mm rather than 65mm!
For quality, I shall be sticking with pre-1979 LP, valves, real ale, and emulsion. Junk food can be catered for by digits...
All this stuff about pictures should probably be on another thread, but there are parallels with audio, so what the hell.
Once you realise that a consumer digital camera is just a very cheap television camera, everything falls into place. (A studio broadcast camera is about £50k, plus another £50k for a 50:1 zoom lens.)
The CCD sensor only has a limited dynamic range (about 50dB) and unlike film, it doesn't have a nice S-curve that gives compression at the top and bottom of the (65dB) range. As a consequence, exposure on CCD cameras is critical, and highlights are not allowed. Even worse, CCDs are sensitive to infra-red, so the one highlight they really can't tolerate is a glowing valve heater. It reproduces as magenta, rather than orange. (The better broadcast cameras have an IR filter.)
Poor motion portrayal is not actually a fault of the CCD but of the recording and compression system that is desperately trying to reduce the data rate to something manageable.
Yes, 70mm produces cracking pictures. Bizarrely, some films have been distributed on 70mm yet were shot on 35mm rather than 65mm!
For quality, I shall be sticking with pre-1979 LP, valves, real ale, and emulsion. Junk food can be catered for by digits...
Here's a case where digital really is better!
Re: hello old boy
I definitely agree with that. Every time I look at friends snapshots (film or digital) I have no interest in them. This is even worse if I have been looking at good 4x5 chromes on my lightbox that week.
I have 11x14 prints from medium format that I think are too grainy and should have been shot on something bigger. If I know I will need big prints I get out the 4x5. I don't use the 4x5 all of the time because it weighs something like 15Kg in its case and costs $4 per shot for film and processing.
I have seen some good digital shots, but they are not much good beyond 8x10 or 11x14 inches. One thing I have been seeing lately is getting drum scans and then printing on something like a durst Lamda. The results are equal to conventional wet printing, but it allows greater flexibility. It costs $$$.
I don't have as much of a problem with music, but I will not listen to really cheap pc speakers and such. I actually don't have anything connected to my pc since I don't want to buy or build anything decent. Maybe someday I will build something.
Darrell Harmon
Neutron Bob said:
I definitely agree with that. Every time I look at friends snapshots (film or digital) I have no interest in them. This is even worse if I have been looking at good 4x5 chromes on my lightbox that week.
I have 11x14 prints from medium format that I think are too grainy and should have been shot on something bigger. If I know I will need big prints I get out the 4x5. I don't use the 4x5 all of the time because it weighs something like 15Kg in its case and costs $4 per shot for film and processing.
I have seen some good digital shots, but they are not much good beyond 8x10 or 11x14 inches. One thing I have been seeing lately is getting drum scans and then printing on something like a durst Lamda. The results are equal to conventional wet printing, but it allows greater flexibility. It costs $$$.
I don't have as much of a problem with music, but I will not listen to really cheap pc speakers and such. I actually don't have anything connected to my pc since I don't want to buy or build anything decent. Maybe someday I will build something.
Darrell Harmon
Content vs technical quality
Wow! I wish I had the ability to justify a camera like that. However, as geoffwa says, "High quality can't compensate for $hit content!" Perhaps one day I will outgrow my F4.
Conversely, I get really hacked off at being subjected to soft and soggy (TV) pictures when I know perfectly well that the existing system is capable of far better. I once saw cracking quality pictures of a football match (slightly less interesting to me than comparative paint-drying), yet they were shot in the 70s.
dlharmon said:
Wow! I wish I had the ability to justify a camera like that. However, as geoffwa says, "High quality can't compensate for $hit content!" Perhaps one day I will outgrow my F4.
Conversely, I get really hacked off at being subjected to soft and soggy (TV) pictures when I know perfectly well that the existing system is capable of far better. I once saw cracking quality pictures of a football match (slightly less interesting to me than comparative paint-drying), yet they were shot in the 70s.
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