Gentlemen,
i think the meat is pounded and grinded to a hamburger. positions are set, remarks are made.
let’s move on.
i understand both camps and me too can be straight forward in some context.
But and i hope i translate this correctly:
let’s remain polite and hold each other in their esteem even when opinions and perceptions come into conflict.
I see this thread as a brown pub where I occasionally walk in and talk , debate and argue about all sorts of things with a beer in hand. And when i get bored or irritated, i just go home.
maybe we have to close this thread and start a new chapter and a new thread:
Livingroom smalltalk and debates about anything and nothing.
here you can post anything within the forum rules and respect rules and every one can enter and participate or just be ignoring those threads and just go to the regulair dxo forum chapters.
You did a lot more than start it. You posted1079 times to it, which is 38.5% of the total. Additionally, the majority of everyone else’s posts were in direct response to yours. And the majority of the remaining posts were conversations between others about your posts. Out of 2800 posts only a relative handful did not involve you personally. How could you not know that? Even if you only add your posts to @Joanna’s and mine, which were all about you, the three of us alone account for 61% of the total posts. This is most definitely your thread and only your thread.
Well, I found this thread very educational and have never considered it to be Mike’s thread. Even though he might have done most of the posting. I also suspect a lot of other people have found it beneficial.
I will also agree that I have only ever criticised Mike’s images. That is mainly that I have not seen anybody else’s images that deserve criticism.
Still, this is only my opinion and is far as I am concerned Mike can keep it up.
Thanks! I’ve found the feedback fascinating, useful, and better than what I learned anywhere else, other than PhotoJoseph’s webinars, but this discussion has helped me more than PhotoJoseph.
I also found it enjoyable, and fun.
Unless people want me to do so, I have no intention of posting more images here… and I wish more people would do the same, personally. I don’t deserve to monopolize all the attention.
stuck
(Canon, PL7+FP7+VP3 on Win 10 + GTX 1050ti)
2820
As explained already, the ‘problem’ with posting just photos and then discussing their artistic merits,or otherwise, is that that sort of thing is not really within the scope of this forum. This place is primarily a product specific user feedback site. In other words, uploaded images should be secondary to / in support of, some aspect of a DxO product feature.
There are many discussion based photography forums out there. I’ve already suggested you try Cambridge in Colour, where you created an account, made one post (to which I responded) but then have not returned.
In this chapter or any subchapter under the header dxo photolab i agree.
The i have a problem with this image in PL to get this better.
Or i want to do… Is this possible
Or i would have this feature is there a workaround until they add it?
And such is suitable not a never ending debate and smalltalk thread like this one.
If there is a place in dxo forum which is clearly non dxo related but more a place to chat about things other then PL related questions and tips/tuto’s, then it’s fine too to have longthreads about nothing and everything.
In an other forum on which i am a member they have to invite you to the “livingroom” and it’s not visible for open visitors so personal things like photo’s and info isn’t in danger to be misused by internet webpages scanners. And we can have fun talk about the weather , the monday blues , weekends fun you name it aslong as it’s within respect to others.
Because you can ignore that chapter/header if you like and if the “new posts” list has a checkbox for hide or show LR then you can be cleared form any undesired distraction.
This kind of places keeps people who don’t have questions about PL active on this forum.
But there is a but.
1 moderation can be a pain in the b…
2 it’s for fun, nonserious mostly small talk about experiences and sideways related pl’s photography. Hollyday talk.
3 when it derailed it can be closed easily and or deleted because it helt no important information.
Thanks to DxO, it’s easy to see where people may be spending their time.
This topic has generated a lot of off-topic discussions, and it has also brought up some wonderful answers and explanations from @Joanna, in a way that some people (like me) found easier to understand. It has grown to include a very special group of contributors. It also brought up differences in the types of photos being created, and why.
Everything here is connected to PhotoLab. Why buy this camera or that camera - well, which works better with PhotoLab. To me, the off-topic discussions let all of us understand each other better.
I’m just one person, but I can say this - but for this forum, I would have given up on my PhotoLab download and continue using Lightroom. Anyone reading just this one topic, would have a better understanding of what PhotoLab can do - thanks to several people here, especially @Joanna.
My own thoughts - as @stuck wrote, this place may have been intended to be a product specific user feedback site. It has grown (degraded?) a lot since then. That was the reason behind the title for this thread, so all this discussion could go on alongside the “official” forums. It’s up to each of you to decide for yourself.
There are so many types of “photography”. There are dozens and dozens of image editors. I used to be completely pleased with Lightroom, at least until Adobe made it subscription-only. But for that, I’d never have found PhotoLab. And PhotoLab had their own “secret weapon”. Two of them. Webinars, and this forum.
I write too much. This place has a life of its own… many of them.
Well, I was just thinking out loud, but it’s no big deal. I was just thinking that’s the same reason to me for why my Leica is getting dusty, but lately I find myself thinking more and more about Saul Leiter and his photography.
I woke up this morning thinking about how I use PhotoLab. I used to have an order in which I thought about most of the tools, one at a time, and decided whether or not they were needed. Thanks mostly to @Joanna, I now look at my image, and one by one, consider what major corrections I need to make, then find the appropriate tool with which to do so. I’ve gotten to prefer her way, as little by little, the most important “errors” get corrected first, and the image gets “shaped” into what I want to share. My old way was more “mechanical”.
I indicated I was not going to respond to you anymore, but for the moment I’ve changed my mind. Anything can become mechanical if you let it.
I know that @Joanna is not a big fan of your Leica, but regardless, it is an excellent camera. If you have a good prime lens on it you should be using it, especially for street photography. I like using cameras with prime lenses precisely because they are less flexible than zoom lenses. They force you to view the world differently and frame images in ways that you might not have considered with your zoom lens on your D780.
I’m not suggesting that you abandon your D780 kit, but neither should you abandon your Leica kit. Sometimes taking a break from equipment that you’re very familiar with, like your Leica, allows you to appreciate it that much more when you get back to it.
I am not a great photographer like @Joanna, but I have always been a believer that what you capture, and how you capture it, is often more important than the equipment used. Sometimes too much focus on planning and the mechanical aspects of capturing an image can take away from the spontaneity and joy of capturing a great image of a fleeting moment. Of course, that does not usually apply to fine art photography which often requires a significant amount of thought and preparation.
I’ve been to your website on a few occasions. You captured a number of very interesting images years ago. I’m guessing many of them may have been taken with your Leica and almost certainly were not processed in PhotoLab. Yet they still worked and looked better and are far more interesting than almost everything you have posted here since joining this site. You need to consider why that is. No one here can answer that for you.
Thanks for the reply, especially two things you wrote:
Difficult to explain - I “use” the Nikon, but the Leica feels like it is part of me.
For me, when taking photos just for the sake of taking them, the joy in doing so more enjoyable for me than capturing the technically most perfect image. Most of the photos on my Smugmug site were fun to capture, at least for me.
I now enjoy PhotoLab more than the other image processors I used to work with, but I do best when I create photos that I like, more so than to satisfy others - magazine editors excluded. For them, I gave them what I thought they would want to print. They weren’t my “favorite” images.
Tomorrow I will dust off my M10, and try to remember how to use it. I’ll still continue to use the D780 for photos that the Leica can’t do.
Not strictly true. It’s more a case of horses for courses and I feel that Mike’s photography was better served by having a zoom lens SLR than being limited to fixed focal lengths and ending up doing massive crops.
Which contradicts what you said about the Nikon starting to feel part of you only recently.
I know I’m indecisive now, and always have been. For example, yes, I said the Nikon is starting to feel like it’s part of me, but not nearly so much as my rangefinder cameras.
For me, nothing is “black or white”; everything is “shades of gray”. I’m very non-decisive. Heck, Nikon, Leica, Fuji, they all have their strong points. I can’t, and won’t, say one is better than the others, but I can certainly say that I get more enjoyment out of the Leica. But there are times when my Nikon will be better, and times when my Fuji will be best. I guess I’m dealing with personalities, while Joanna is dealing with specifications. Of course, my goal is usually on-line presentation, not huge enlargements.
It’s like cropping an image. Every time I look at the image, I change my mind. Then Joanna re-crops it differently. Me? I keep changing my mind. Maybe this is a problem with me, not with my cropping.
I completely, totally, agree. Visualizing the scene to show what I want to show is the most important. Which gear I use is secondary. Skill and technique are very important, but secondary to “the picture” that you or I are trying to show - including our feelings towards the image.
There once was a time, when all my efforts went into capturing the best image in my camera - exposure, focus, trying to keep the image sharp, and composition. I didn’t do color processing, and what I could afford. was B&W, so that’s what I shot. First, a box camera, then a 35mm Contax Rangefinder, then a Nikon SP rangefinder, and finally a Leica range finder. Then the SLR world opened up, followed by the DSLR.
I think Paul Leiter spent most of his time arranging what he wanted in his viewfinder. He probably took hundreds of images, and what we get to see are the best of the best. It took ages before he was recognized. I wonder if the images we get to see now from Paul were the ones HE thought were best, or were the selections made by others?
Perhaps one reason why I enjoy my Leica so much today, is that looking through the viewfinder window, with the little rangefinder window inside it, or maybe an extra viewfinder for W/A or Tele, is what I did for so much of my life.
What I am dealing with is using the best camera for the job in hand, that is going to give me the best RAW file for processing.
I possess…
Ebony SV45Te with 72mm, 90mm, 120mm, 150mm, 180mm, 210mm and 400mm lenses.
Mamiya RZ67 with 50mm, 110, 180mm and 250mm lenses plus extension tubes
Mamiya 7 II with 80mm lens.
Nikon D810
Nikon D850 with 20mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 105mm, 28-300mm and 80-400mm lenses
I have not used any of my film cameras for over 7 years - I keep them because I have a chest freezer full of 5" x 4" sheet film and 120mm roll film. Will I ever get to use them again? Hopefully, now that Covid is out of the way and we can finally plan shooting trips without too many problems.
The only real need I have for 5" x 4" film would be if I were ever to consider doing an LF project for an exhibition, where I wanted to make gigantic prints (bigger than 6ft on the long side).
The two Mamiyas are virtually useless, or at least make for harder work, having to develop and scan film, when I can get more resolution using the D810. Put a quality fixed lens on the D850 and the only real reason I keep the Mamiyas is because they make great still life subjects to photograph with the D850.
I also have a Canon G12, which is kept in the glove box of the car, never needs charging and its only advantage over my iPhone is it is more controllable and has a zoom that can cope with anything from macro to a reasonable distance.
But, nowadays, I just throw the D850 with the 28-300mm, plus tripod, in the back of the car and I can guarantee that virtually everything I want to shoot can be framed and perfected in the camera, leaving me very little work to do in PhotoLab. It makes life so much easier and means I don’t have to spend anywhere near the time I would if I used any other camera.
As has been said before, it’s not the camera that makes the image, it’s the photographer but… having one camera, that I know intimately, allows me to concentrate on making that image, not trying to remember which camera I am using and how it is meant to work. Heck, I can even choose the framing from 1:1, 5:4 or 3:2 and have nothing outside of those proportions visible in the viewfinder.
So, it satisfies some emotional response but that is where we differ. I need to be able to create a digital record of what I see, without having to compensate or allow for framing that doesn’t match the final image. I don’t want to see “stuff” in the viewfinder, just the image, only the image and no more than the image. I don’t want to lose image resolution cropping. And I definitely don’t want to have to change, not only the lens, but the viewfinder as well, just to get a different framing and, even then have to throw away large parts of the image because I couldn’t get close enough.
But that is what is made you a photographer. Now, it seems you are more interesting in taking snapshots without much thought and rescuing them in post-processing. And, with that attitude, no matter which camera you use, your images will only ever be just that - rescued snapshots.
All the encouragement and ideas some of us have given were to get you to the point where you become, once again, the photographer you used to be.
