Unfortunately, or fortunately the aesthetic side of photography is impossible to automate. A monkey or a moron will never take an award winning picture, as they do not know where to point the camera.
July 14, 2023
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tried the same experiment again on my quality 28inch 4k monitor and the d810 shows better detail.
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I certainly hope you don't use Aperture mode, Program mode, Shutter speed mode, calculate your exposures manually using the sunny 16 rule, use only full manual flash, and so on, and so forth. And none of this autofocus malarkey. Anything less than that is definitely less than amateur status, and there's no room for that in interwebz photography.
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Yep, I have often posted that with today's modern cameras and a big enough supply of bananas you can train a monkey to take a nice photo using Auto mode, especially in good light and if DOF is not an issue.
That's easy.........they will have all gone to the AI Photography industry.
In any case it's unlikely to affect me as I'll most likely be pushing up daisies by then 🤗🤗
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You just described the way I shoot and yet I post shots on the interwebz 😉
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Ah, I see the misunderstanding. I meant easy to teach, not easy to grasp. The technical knowhow follows simple, known rules based in science and a logical structure. Know that, you can teach it. Teaching things like composition and visualisation is not so easy. There are rules of thumb, but no real rules - in fact much of creativity depends on the absence of hard rules. If it was otherwise, anyone could do it with enough training.
I don't agree with that at all. First, 'less than amateur' isn't a formulation I would accept. 'Amateur' and 'professional' aren't statements of expertise, they simply say where a person's income comes from. A professional is anyone who's living comes from photography. I know quite a few, and some use automatic modes all the time - and still produce photos that sell well. Their skill isn't in mastering the technical side, it's in visualising and taking photos that their customers want. Others do take a very technical approach. By the same token, I know amateurs who have extremely deep knowledge of the technical side, deeper than any professional that I know personally. There are all sorts. I don't see any particular merit in using manual or automatic modes. It's like saying that you're less of a driver if you use an automatic gearbox, or a synchromesh gearbox if we take it back a few years. People find their own way to get the results that they want.
As for 'all the photography jobs', they'll still be there - because not everyone has the talent to take good photos. In fact, one of the reason that these discussions get heated is because many people without that talent invest themselves in their technical knowledge with the idea that it is that which makes them a good photographer. As a result they get quite resentful if that technical knowledge is questioned. -
Looks like that's not the case.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute -
Yes I am aware of that copyright scuffle, and was undecided to use the word monkey or moron. Monkey seemed just seemed a kinder word.
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🤣😂 i would have used moron with a reference 😁
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The sole reason I mention the monkey is that I believe one already did take an award winning photo. As for the moron part, we'll some dude already did with a photo contest without submitting an actual photo, so we're into that territory anyways.
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Haven't used anything but manual since I learned how to use it. Never used Aperture priorty in my life. Learned long ago not to trust a computer to make a creative decision for you. And personally, I'd rather have mistakes, which I can learn from, than near ideal pictures I don't grow from taking. That's where I started and I've seen people not grow by staying on that path.
I don't care about what tools you use to enhance your talents but if you're shooting in full auto, how are you in any sense a photographer? Don't you have have some semblance of how your craft functions to say you're using it? It's like riding in a Nascar car for the test lap and calling yourself a Nascar driver.
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The techs so good right now actual monkeys take good pictures. The techs not getting worse. What will even be the point to hire a photographer when the camera does the job so well by itself? We're already seeing forns of this now. I don't forsee how that trend will reverse as the tech gets better.
I agree it's all about making an image, but if you don't have some semblance of your tools, what are you even doing spending money on a camera? Just use your darn phone.
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Going back to the original topic, I've yet to find a camera that will visualise a shot and do the composition for you.
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Exposure by itself is rarely a 'creative decision'. More like a technical one. The side effects of exposure setting, DOF and motion blur are more often chosen for creative reasons.
There is another question abut the extent to which creativity is enabled by technical quality. For me the answer is 'sometimes' -
I do understand your need for absolute control of the process, but I think there's room for leveraging automation if the behavior is understood.
My favorite subject are operating steam locomotives. I use my camera's highlight-weighted matrix metering mode to determine exposure because there are too many things changing in these scenes, including the movement of large machines. I've studied that mode's behavior and know that I'll get good highlight-preserving exposures that I can work in post. With that, I can concentrate on focus and composition, and not get run over... :D
There are many use cases in photography, only some that give one the time to carefully consider all aspects of the capture.
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I am aware of that story, where an organisation tried to get the royalties paid to the monkey. But it was a human guy who set up the camera and more or less guaranteed the framing and composition, the monkey just had to press the shutter a few times until the human operator was satisfied with the random poses.
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In fact the 'human guy' who set up the camera bankrupted himself unsuccessfully trying to assert his copyright. It never got to court, but the default position was that the shots were public domain because an animal can't have copyright, not being a legal entity. There were some animal rights people campaigning to get the monkey awarded copyright, but they didn't get it to court either. Without a court ruling there is no precedent. I suppose it would hang on what the photographer actually did, and whether it was enough to have had a creative input to the photo.
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"Never used Aperture priorty in my life. Learned long ago not to trust a computer to make a creative decision for you."
Now there is a thing. On a recent photographic expedition, with my Nikon 24 PC on my Z7, because shifting the the lens does not fool the meter like it does on my D850, I was quite happy to use Aperture priority as using manual metering would have given me the same settings at a given aperture. It was a good base for the HDR sets as well.
But then in some situations I just used the compensation dial to tweak the exposure.
I would say in my preferred genre, technical quality, and technical concerns are an important part of the creative process. But for my old Jazz photography, the poor technical quality of the pushed film, adds to the charm. Performers have shot on digital seems a bit too literal.
