April 11, 2023
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You are twisting my words. Look at my images.
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This forum is certainly living up to its namesake being revived. Thread after thread of pages of posts arguing over trivial things and opinions and tech stuff way over the heads of beginners already.
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Where do you draw the line in what is photography related knowledge that is not technical in nature, much of photography is very technical its just the nature of the beast.
Macro how one creates an image is very technical, from how your frame the subject to the very perspective you select, how you light the subject
Wildlife how to shoot in quality light, how you go about getting to the subject, understanding the very subject you are photographing is in its self very technical.
Portrait how many books have been written on the very subject of light and framing, all are very technical in nature to the setup -
I will also add that much of the technical side of photography and how it is used by many of the older photographers is that's the technical knowledge one has that creates the images they capture, so how can one argue that there is no need for a technical understanding of how things work.
I have been ask several times how do I take the images that I have. Its the technical side that has permits me to understand how to go about taking the image I want to captured.
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Thanks for posting that. I'd forgotten about that post. I've almost forgotten about the show. It opened during the part of the Covid epidemic when we didn't know it was already here. It is one of the longest running shows that the Museum has had, because they left it up when the only way you could see the images was by appointment. Not a record that I'm particularly proud of. BTW, Rand47 made a trip to Monterey to see the show and I walked him through it. Nice to have a face to put with the name.
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Watching Rick Beato interview some of the rock greats, I am always impressed by the in depth music theory knowledge of these guys. I grew up thinking that jazz musicians were the eggheads and rockers just learned by ... osmosis?
I understand your point about there being lots of 'technical' photography (I would put photo journalism solidly on the art side), but even those more technical types of photography do not require an understanding of the physics of photons and how they are converted to electrons, passing through the fiddly bits of the camera to become a raw file.
Perhaps there should be a forum titled "In Here We Really, Really Geek Out". 😁
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I am saying that there is always a technical side to photography. You can ignore that, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. I also believe that knowing your tools can only improve your ability to use them.
I am currently working on an article for Lensrentals about raw exposure that I hope will help even the numbers-averse.
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There is a technical site to photography, but it should be viewed as layers. How many layers deep you want to go depends entirely on what you want to do with your photography.
The folks who used to buy point and shoot cameras now use cell phones because they are also point and shoot cameras. For them there is no need to get technical.
Folks that want something better get into the first layer, basic photographic theory around focus, exposure (aperture vs time) and basic composition. Again, there is no particular need to delve into photons fiddly bits and raw.
You just need to know enough about your tool to get the results you want. Want something more out of your images? Dive in a layer deeper. Learn more about your tool.
Some of the threads originally in the beginners went directly from the shallow end of the pool to the 10 meter diving platform. It's all good discussion, just not very beginner.
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Right now I only see one small group of people doing the pi**ing, and it isn't the 'scientists'.
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thats to funny. my daughter is 20 and a classical trained muso since she was 7. she went to an arts school where music was just as important as maths and english. she has been playing as a professional solo artist for the last year. and even though im a hack guitarist i have had a blast buying her all her professional equipment and setting up a full recording studio for her. even though i cant play for sh...t i used to build hand made pa systems for bands back in my youth and still have a basic knowledge of the equipment and i will tell you what it is🤨 its call a truck load of money and buy the best and most expensive gear there is 😁 i never knew how good a hand made acoustic guitar sounded till i bought my daughter her dream guitar and the top of the range 1000watt column array pa.
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My words.
Just to remember you I'm a DP beginner that jumped ship from Films last shot was more than 20 years ago.
From then I obliterated Photo, limiting myself to report images, until last here when I started to take "Pics" again with my cell.So many Lingo you use was already used at that time, NP, but most modern jargon let me out completely.
FE: "raw converter" "ACR" and so on..I love to learn,
but just to read something really interesting I have to look out for words, for getting a better understanding instead of a general meaning.At some point I had already opened 18 new tabs just to grasp correctly what I was reading in the "histogram" post. ( also there I found bad attitudes from people in the Knowledge - I Ahuhmmed once in the first page!!)
I'm wondering how a passer-by would love to stop, start reading and STAY as I did ....
... It was only at the beginning of 2023 I discovered DPR.I'm a tech man myself, used to speak tech's jargons.
I do refrain from using any of them while I speak in public or in private conversations,
when I'm not sure who I speak to.You never know where the audience level is,
and is better to attract to your cause people, than to repel them
(Careful people do less unintended damage)
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Some general comments on this thread.
1. BQ on DPReview had a similar problem to the one discussed in this thread. The usual course was that a beginner would ask a question, someone would give an incorrect, misleading or unhelpful answer, often with the best intentions. That answer would be questioned and a heated discussion would ensue. The discussion almost always went to levels that a beginner would not want, because it had to go that far to explain to the poster of the faulty material just why it was faulty. These usually resulted in the thread being locked, which was not helpful to anyone.
2. As a solution to this, BQ has been split into two categories, BQ and BQ Discussion. The latter is a home for the discussions that surround BQ, so that beginners genuinely coming for help don't find it confused and obfuscated by what might be to them an irrelevant discussion. It can work two ways. If you want to respond to beginners questions on BQ, use that category. If you want to discuss around what has been said there, use BQD. If I see a thread on BQ which is going into a discussion, rather than answering the question, I will split the thread and move the discussion to BQD. Thus these are a pair of curated categories. By the same token, if a beginner is getting answers that seem to be incorrect, misleading or unhelpful, they will be removed to BQD also, so the issues can be resolved.
3. Speaking personally, I have no truck at all with a view that tries to split photography into 'artistic' and 'technical' and tries to pose them as two opposing camps. Most great artists are also excellent technicians. One of the main pre-requisites for artistic excellence is knowing the medium in which you're working. I also have little sympathy who get irate about their knowledge having been found lacking. Take that up with those that taught you. Or take the opportunity to learn, don't abuse those that happen to know more than you do. -
Interesting point of view. You mean that beginners shouldn't have the opportunity to learn from people who actually know their stuff?
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No - not at all. My point was that many genuine experts have lost perspective on what it is to be a beginner and, though well meaning, have lost the ability to communicate in words and ideas which are accessible to the intelligent layman. The rare truly great scientific communicators are those who know this and have the gift to explain complex concepts in approachable language. The remark was somewhat flippant - as indicated by the emoji which is omitted in your quotation.
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you are 100% correct. my 20 year old daughter is 1 year from finishing a honors deg in teaching science with a major in Biology, she has scored academic excellence awards in every subject. most people have no idea how to teach, period. but they think they do.
