Official Announcement of Nikon Df
- Thread starter jeff7id
- Start date
I only shoot raw and there will be post processing during raw conversion.
Don't believe in shooting ooc as I want to get the best image quality possible from my equipment.
I only shoot raw and there will be post processing during raw conversion.
Don't believe in shooting ooc as I want to get the best image quality possible from my equipment.
I challenge your notion of best IQ possible "from your equipment " idea... post processing is generated by software using data on raw files.. shouldn't ooc jpegs be more in line with the purist idea of just relying on the camera?
since this was extracted from the df thread n the philosophy of the camera is pure photography.. I would just like to hear your thoughts on this.
Regards,
Sean
Firstly, if the details are not there in the first place, no software can recreate them.
I am from the era of film photography. To me, raw files are analogous to film negative/positives and require human intervention to produce the best prints or slides. If the details are not in the negatives, no one no matter how good his darkroom technique is can increase the details in the prints. He can only make them look better or as good as they could be given the constraints. Hence photographers go to professional printers if they want to produce output for exhibition and not your neighborhood printshops. Using software in the digital world is just like using different mixes of developers and toners and printing techniques in the darkrooms of the analog world of photography.
OOC JPEG files to me are like Polaroids. How good each one is is mainly dependent on the camera and film used and can't be improved upon once they left the camera. I have used many brands/models of digital cameras over the years and to this day, I have not come across a camera that could produce an OOC file that could not be bettered by a properly processed Raw file.
So I am a purist in this respect as I want to control the image quality of what I shoot to my liking and get the most out of my gears. That way I can blame no one but myself if the final product turns out bad. Also, someone who is into pure photography does not refer to someone who is totally reliance on the camera to just produce an OOC image file for him. If that's Nikon's intended definition, then the Df would have been the world's first full-frame DSLR to be without a Raw shooting mode.
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I very much agree with Tomcat's response and would like to add that the very concept of OOC jpeg is no purer than shooting RAW. In that a JPEG is still a processed file governed by a set of parameters chosen by the camera or operator in the in-camera settings.
Whether the camera's jpeg engine processes the data coming off the sensor or your chosen computer software, after that data has been stored in a (RAW) file doesn't make one purer than the other. It's just a choice that we photographers get to enjoy in the digital age.
If one wants to be really a purist, RAW is the only thing available. It's like developed film, minus the dodge and burn done by the camera.
Thanks all to those that shared your thoughts on this.
Just to b clear.. I'm not suggesting pp ain't "pure". I totally agree with bringing out the best of the image thru pp techniques n it will probably b the best method now to extract the potential from every single frame. Maybe it too idealistic to say ooc don't require any touchup either jpeg /raw.
On the analogy of development of negatives, photographers back then care less about IQ n focus on capturing the moment. So was just thinking abt the df philosophy, if the notion of pure photography is to b interpreted as bringing the joy of just capturing the moment, and at the same time rendering the best possible IQ of our time, the user shld find the ooc pleasing enough that not much pp is required.
that's y I m interested to hear feedback of df users.
Just to b clear.. I'm not suggesting pp ain't "pure". I totally agree with bringing out the best of the image thru pp techniques n it will probably b the best method now to extract the potential from every single frame. Maybe it too idealistic to say ooc don't require any touchup either jpeg /raw.
On the analogy of development of negatives, photographers back then care less about IQ n focus on capturing the moment. So was just thinking abt the df philosophy, if the notion of pure photography is to b interpreted as bringing the joy of just capturing the moment, and at the same time rendering the best possible IQ of our time, the user shld find the ooc pleasing enough that not much pp is required.
that's y I m interested to hear feedback of df users.
All photographers, past or present, analog or digital, care about image quality as much as capturing the moment. There is nothing more 'bang balls' than thinking we have just captured the perfect moment only to find out that we had misfocused, or set the wrong ISO, WB or exposure compensation, or worse forgot to remove the lens cap when we finally got the chance to review the shot. It is just that the analog shooter would only find that out days later when he got time to develop and print the roll of film he shot while the digital shooter can find out almost immediately and might still have the chance to retake the shot if the moment is still there. Or if he had shot in Raw, correcting wrong parameters like WB and exposure is a piece of cake compared to shooting OOC.
And like I said before, I have yet to meet a camera that could produce the perfect OOC jpeg and this unfortunately includes the Df. In that, I am not just a purist but also an realist... the perfect camera that can take the perfect shot automatically has yet to be invented. But taking photos with a Df do bring back memories of those days when I had to fiddle with various dials on a film camera to set up a shot. Such actions do slow one down somewhat to think about how to take a shot to capture the moment and not just to simply set the camera to Auto (which we still can by the way with the Df) and fire away machine-gun style hoping that the perfect image is captured in one of the frames. There is great satisfaction in knowing that we had full control of the camera and had personally decided on what exposure settings to use to take that perfect shot of a perfect moment and it came out well or as we had expected or intended.
It is just that the analog shooter would only find that out days later when he got time to develop and print the roll of film he shot while the digital shooter can find out almost immediately and might still have the chance to retake the shot if the moment is still there. Or if he had shot in Raw, correcting wrong parameters like WB and exposure is a piece of cake compared to shooting OOC.And like I said before, I have yet to meet a camera that could produce the perfect OOC jpeg and this unfortunately includes the Df. In that, I am not just a purist but also an realist... the perfect camera that can take the perfect shot automatically has yet to be invented. But taking photos with a Df do bring back memories of those days when I had to fiddle with various dials on a film camera to set up a shot. Such actions do slow one down somewhat to think about how to take a shot to capture the moment and not just to simply set the camera to Auto (which we still can by the way with the Df) and fire away machine-gun style hoping that the perfect image is captured in one of the frames. There is great satisfaction in knowing that we had full control of the camera and had personally decided on what exposure settings to use to take that perfect shot of a perfect moment and it came out well or as we had expected or intended.
Actually photographers in the past are a lot more obsessed with image quality. They spend days , weeks and months in the darkroom to perfect the picture in the darkroom and make a final negative.
Not only is this true of landscape photographers (like ansel adams) even street photographers are obsessed with darkroom work even down to the type and quality of paper used.
I encourage you to read up on books on darkroom processes and workflow. Ansel Adams has a couple of very good ones, "the Negative" and "the Print". Also read up on darkroom techniques of Michael Kenna. You will see how involved they are to ensure top notch image quality.
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Yes yes. And many of them lugged 8x10 view cameras on heavy wooden tripods over the hills to get the perfect shot. And the popular technique used was called the zone system to optimize image dynamic range.
Today we have in digital realm 200 point AF, 99 fps, 2 million point "matrix" metering and HDR. And they laugh at pure photography.
Thanks for the recommendations, will have a look at them when I can make a trip to the library..
Sadly I was born in to the digital era and have no clue about the film/negatives days. I'm amazed at how can anyone holed themselves up in a darkroom many hours just for that few prints. I guess this is a hardcore as photography gets.
We r so damn pampered now.
You never know.. maybe someone in the world is still doing that..
Would b nice to see the process from pressing the shutter button to the end photo.
I am perplexed by the imagination that digital photography is the end it all for film. Sure, it is, for the 35mm format, and indeed, the medium format too.
But I know of large format photographers who do exactly that (carry the tripod an and the 4" x 5" film etc).
Why do i bring up large format? Yes, I am certain that we would have large format digital back technology that is commercially viable in the future. But even with the best lenses and the best digital back, there are other things to master. One example would be the adjustment of both the lens plane and the film plane in accordance to the Scheimpflug principle. This is one thing that the simple presence of a digital sensor and an autofocus module can solve.
As for large format photographers, there aren't many left, and but the few that are left are good at what they do. Ansel Adams, the photographer mentioned earlier, was one of them.
But I know of large format photographers who do exactly that (carry the tripod an and the 4" x 5" film etc).
Why do i bring up large format? Yes, I am certain that we would have large format digital back technology that is commercially viable in the future. But even with the best lenses and the best digital back, there are other things to master. One example would be the adjustment of both the lens plane and the film plane in accordance to the Scheimpflug principle. This is one thing that the simple presence of a digital sensor and an autofocus module can solve.
As for large format photographers, there aren't many left, and but the few that are left are good at what they do. Ansel Adams, the photographer mentioned earlier, was one of them.
For those who are interested in the Gariz Case, it will be available next Monday or Tuesday in our dealers store.
You may PM to register your interest with the authorized dealers who will contact you once the stock arrives.
You may PM to register your interest with the authorized dealers who will contact you once the stock arrives.