And I have to add this quote from Ansel Adams’ book “Examples” page 163 - Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada, from Lone Pine, California, 1944…
I used my 8 X I0 Ansco view camera with the 23-inch component of my Cooke Series XV lens with a Wratten No. I5 (G) filter. The film was Isopan, developed in Kodak D-23. The negative is rather complex to print. It is a problem of agreeable balance between the brilliant snow on the peaks and the dark shadowed hills.
The enterprising youth of the Lone Pine High School had climbed the rocky slopes of the Alabama Hills and whitewashed a huge white L P for the world to see. It is a hideous and insulting scar on one of the great vistas of our land, and shows in every photograph made of the area. I ruthlessly removed what I could of the L P from the negative (in the left-hand hill), and have always spotted out any remaining trace in the print. I have been criticized by some for doing this, but I am not enough of a purist to perpetuate the scar and thereby destroy for me, at least the extraordinary beauty and perfection of the scene.
You see, even before digital, even the greats “edited” images
I generally agree with you from the artistic and creativity standpoint but there’s more to the story.
My previous post on the incredible power of the focus and tracking systems in the best mirrorless cameras is for me personally the perfect example of “good” technology because it has freed me {mostly} from an organic technical limitation that has degraded oh so many of my photos during my lifetime, despite using some of the best SLRs and DSLRs with some of the best optical viewfinders of the time. The problem hasn’t been with crappy cameras or bad technology but with me, and modern mirrorless technology has come to the rescue. And I think that electronic viewfinders have gotten so good that it doesn’t matter much which kind you have, optical or electronic, because both are sharp, smooth, clear, and in the case of electronic close enough to real time that the difference is negligible.
Has this focusing technology clouded my mind’s eye and degraded my ability to visualize a good scene to photograph? I don’t think so, and conversely, it has probable helped me be a better photographer because I can spend LESS time and effort trying to focus where I want to focus and spend more time looking for the perfect angle, or expression, or instant in time to push the shutter button. I still shoot the same ratio of 1 somewhat decent shot for every 200 or so but at least I don’t have to throw away as many good pictures because of bad focus
Another group that would praise the “good” of mirrorless focus technology would be those who cover any kind of sports or subjects in fast motion. I seriously doubt that you would find many sports photographers that would give up what they can do now with their advanced mirrorless cameras to focus on, track, and take burst sequences of fast action to record that “best” instant of a play.
I think it would be a serious mistake to offhandedly dismiss new technology as unnecessary fluff that gets in the way of creativity… like technology in general it can be bad but it can also be very beneficial. Let’s just make it more friendly and easier to use so it’s not intrusive. Keep the manufacturers’ feet to the fire until they finally figure out how to make cameras simple again!
Oops, big mistake. I used to write “seeing”. Then I emphasized it by writing SEEING. Joanna pointed out the proper word for what I was trying to say, “visualized”.
Seeing through my eyes is “seeing”.
Seeing within my brain is “visualizing”.
I’ve said it so many times that I use the wrong word without realizing it. For everything I wrote up above, I really meant “seeing with my mind”, which means “visualizing”.
I don’t really pay attention what I “see” in front of me - I “visualize” what I’m thinking. More later… need to go out for a dog-walk, with camera.
Without meaning to be in any way annoying, does that mean you really saw the big blank white area in the clouds and wanted it to appear that way in the final print? Or were you hoping that it was “fixable”?
Now, which is it? That could be interpreted as you are taking the dog, with its camera, for a walk
Neither - since the sun was going to be way too bright anyway, I thought a burned out hole near the sun was what anyone would see when looking towards the sun, so it didn’t matter. I ought to have tried to underexpose as you suggested, but then I might start losing information in the dark areas. My rule is “don’t shoot into the sun”, along with “it’s fine to break the rule when necessary”. I wanted all the clouds, and the reflection. I didn’t expect to be able to “fix” it.
It was difficult to look at with my eyes, because it was so bright despite the clouds, and getting worse by the second.
I’m not so bothered by pure white and pure black appearing in my images. To me, that was the penalty I paid for capturing the whole image as I did. …and other than for experienced photographers, I doubt anyone will even notice.
For posting here, I expected everyone to notice, but I didn’t see any way around it - although in retrospect, underexposing might have improved things…
Well… my brother takes a walk around his property three times a day with his dog, and I come along, looking for interesting scenes begging to be photographed. I also need the exercise. While watching them, I think the dog is taking my brother for a walk, not the other way 'round.
Not under-expose, simply correctly expose This is where something like a 2 stop hard grad filter in front of the lens would have come in useful, just for that top bit of sky.
Yep, I agree - and I need enough information to be able to do that. For digital, I understand that being a little underexposed is preferable to being a little overexposed, but with the sun being in the photo, almost, this might be impossible for me to do well.
When I get home, I’ll measure up the filter sizes on my lenses, and order one, perhaps with step-up-rings for smaller diameter lenses. My 35mm Summilux takes a “Series 7” filter. My 50mm Summicron and 135mm Tele-Elmar take 39mm. My Voigtlander - need to check, and my 90mm Summicron takes a very large filter size.
I have several polarizing filters I haven’t used very much lately. Most are 52mm for my Nikon lenses, and I think I have a 42mm (??) for my Fuji.
After this morning’s experience, I need to re-think this stuff. For perfect focus, the software to make perfect focus more obvious is certainly better than my eyeball. Joanna has her eyepiece to enlarge her view of the ground glass screen. That’s effectively what my Visoflex on my Leica does for me. Writing this now, I understand how much I am depending on my Nikon’s “autofocus”. I need to think about this some more. …but for viewing the screen my Nikons have a better viewfinder than any digital screens I have gotten to try. Since I’ve never tried the newest Nikon screens, I can’t really comment. (The Visoflex fools me - it “feels” optical, not digital, but I know it’s the same digital image that can be viewed on the back of the camera…)
Can I suggest, if you have a number of different lenses with differing thread sizes, that you look at the Lee Filters 100mm filter system
It allows you to buy only one holder, which takes either square full, or rectangular graduated, filters. Then all you need is one adapter ring per diameter of lens, which I tend to leave permanently on each lens with a plastic clip on lens cap. I have adapter rings on all my lenses, DSLR, MF and LF - so, I just move the holder to whichever lens I am currently using.
So far, so good, but picture My Leica M10 in this photo rather than the DSLR, and the rangefinder and viewfinder windows hidden behind as in this photo:
These filter holders and their filters eat a lot of space in the bag. I thought about magnetic filter holders, but this would just be the exchange of other downsides: each filter needs a magnetic ring, each lens a magnetic threaded ring plus magnetic lens cap and usually there are no fitting magnetic lenshoods. Lack of lens hood is also an issue of Lee or Haida holder (and their siblings).
Also, using a lens with M49 or M52 thread and putting an adapter-ring for the holder with an outer-ø of 105.5 mm? Come on, that just looks ridiculous and creates some strange space problems in a bag. Currently I’m using ND rear filters for the 14-24 DG DN and the rest of the holders (one for 150 × 150 mm filters for the DSLR version of the 14-24) rests quietly at home. These rear filters also do create some handling inconveniences and probably optical problems. But I take them to do long time exposures in daylight, so that’s ok.
No, I ‘ve seen two other brands, one was Manfrotto (Xume, I believe) and another one. My lenses’ filter threads range from M43 to M95, plus 4 lenses with no filter threads and ultra wide. Simply a too big variation to be covered by a single system – and I’m not deeply into filter use. I just thought that @mikemyers was asking for a system for relatively small Leica lenses, so maybe your suggestion will help him.
Well, we’re a little bit (really?) off track, but I’ll just add that an expensive filter system like the Lee is maybe not the best option for a viewfinder camera. The Lee will interfere with the finder’s view, while not showing the effect of a grad filter at all - except through the screen at the back of a digital camera, but this would somehow annihilate the charm of using a Leica in the first place.
I sympathise with your frustration, Ed, but there is a way out. First, Joanna’s basic advice is good: Buy a camera with dedicated buttons. This makes Nikon a much better choice than Sony. Most of the functionality has explicit buttons which are in the right place. And there’s lots of those dedicated buttons. Sony has four or five custom buttons which have to be programmed on each camera. Remembering what’s on C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 is a distraction. Nikon usually only offers between one and three custom function buttons which for the most part it is not necessary to use all of them (I use mine for instant access to alternate focus modes).
The Canon 5X series and up is not much different from Nikon (I shot Canon before Nikon, loved the bodies but tired of crippled video in camera after camera and the Z6 won me over, but now I mainly shoot OVF D5 and D850 for sport, use the Z6 for video). I do not like the controls on consumer Canon bodies at all (exception for the M6 I which does have physical buttons) but even the lowly Nikon D3300 has a fabulous physical buttons and controls set up.
What all three of the big companies have in common is a MyMenu. Make sure to set that up first with your most used functions. If you can just remember how to get to MyMenu you no longer have to do deep dives in the menus. Many cameras also have a quick controls button for ISO and picture quality and colour balance off the back screen. On the Nikons the settings grid is accessed with the i button. On at least the D5 & D850 the i button settings cannot be customised unfortunately. And they are certainly not what I’d choose, apart from Custom Control Settings and Active D Lighting. I would like to see functions more like Electronic Front Curtain than Colour Space or Network. Here’s the D5 i button controls and the D850 offers the same controls with no way to change them:
Happily, on the Z6, one can choose the i button functions available, as well as the customisable MyMenu. The Z6 controls match Canon’s 5D III/5DSR controls very closely. Those two cameras had perhaps Canon’s best standard control set up with no silly touchbars in sight (EOS R) or missing buttons.
In any case, what’s key here with every modern camera is to get those deep menu items which are important to you and which you change regularly into MyMenu. The second step is to go through all the rest of the menus and set them to what you want more or less once and for all.
For Nikon, if you don’t like the camera manuals (pretty dry), Thom Hogan writes more conversational handbooks for every Nikon model with explanations of how the features work and some recommendations for settings. I only own one of his camera guides (despite having about five Nikons here now) but the Z6 one definitely helped me with the switch from Canon to Nikon. I’m loathe to buy his guides for all of my cameras as I suspect there’s a fair amount of repetition in them, explaining how Nikon menus and Nikon autofocus works.
Having come from 12 years as a dedicated Canon shooter, I purchased my first mirrorless body and first Nikon ever, the new Z fc. I downloaded the 624 page user manual and read every word of it in a couple of weeks. I was able to do that because many of the features are similar from camera system to camera system. My main purpose was identifying what features were available and how to access them.
How we best acquire knowledge can vary considerably from person to person. However, I found the Nikon manual very accessible and it answered all my questions about using this new camera.
By the way, the quality of the results I’m getting with this small, lightweight, mirrorless camera with its 16-50mm kit lens generally exceed the quality of the images I was getting with my Canon 7D Mark II with far more expensive large and heavy lenses.
My Nikon Z fc is missing a few nice to have features that were on my Canon, and has fewer fully programmable buttons then my 7D Mark II, However I quickly accommodated and was able to set up the Z fc to work the way I needed it to. While using the I menu it’s not as fast as the dedicated buttons of my Canon, if speed was still an issue for me I wouldn’t have purchased a camera with so many manual dials. .
Congratulations on your new camera, Mark. I’d love to spend some tim shooting a Z fc.
I too felt strange moving from my 5DS R to the Z6 when I first picked up a Nikon.
That 16-50mm was a surprise to me too (I have it on my Z50) after living with Sony’s awful 16-50mm for years (replaced the kit with the Sony ZA 35mm f2.8 and lived with fixed 50mm focal length). What’s particularly wonderful about Nikon’s 16-50mm is that it’s quite fast at 16mm with a f3.5 aperture. The optical stabilisation is also good. This makes it a great lens with which to shoot impromptu handheld video (the Z fc has the flip screen so you could even film yourself with aplomb).
What took a long time to get used to is how zooms rotate in the opposite direction (manual focus as well but with my autofocus lenses I don’t use them much in manual focus mode and my vintage manual focus lenses are mostly Leica, Olympus OM and Minolta which all do focus in the “right” (Canon) direction. I use my manual focus lenses on the Z6 as the EVF is so good and one can pop in and out of 100% zoom with just a single button (I programmed f1 beside the lens to do it: one can choose 50% or 200% but I find 100% to suit me best). I shoot manual lenses less than I expected as 1. children are fast 2. I like Nikon’s AF glass enough in terms of image quality, size, weight and price that I’m satisfied with it. Since I started shooting sports seriously I’ve become accustomed to autofocus. But I do occasionally still shoot performance with the Z6 and manual lenses.
That’s the Z6 with an Olympus Zuiko OM 135mm f2.8 from about 1977. Wonderful tiny metal lens which is just a joy to handle. The performance is a modern ballet at Slovak National Theatre (old building).
PS. Someone has changed forum settings so that our images are saved at a maximum of 1920px on the long side. The original crop was 4951x3534px, i.e. this is not a small crop from the centre of an image but most of the original negative and mostly framed in camera.
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