(This is another in a series of articles based on posts I shared elsewhere. This one is based on a reply to a post concerning how important it is to move to a newer, improved sensor with higher photo site density. The immediate question had to do with how often the improvements would be significant enough to be seen, and the writer had correctly pointed out that there can be advantages to higher “MP count” when making very large, high quality prints.)
It is useful to try for a realistic understanding of how and when a higher MP sensor may show its advantages. This post tries to not take a position on brands and models, but rather to lay out a comparison of some relevant technical stuff — from which we can all draw our own individual conclusions.
There is a point below which you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between prints made from 22MP and 36MP cameras and above which you might be able to.(1) For example, virtually everyone would agree that the difference is typically completely invisible in small web images, and virtually everyone would agree that it could be visible if you closely inspect a print that is six feet wide. Since we could debate just where the boundary is — and, frankly, it is somewhat subjective — you could pick any point on the print size scale that you want and the principles will be the same.
Some Comparisons
Just for fun, let me use completely arbitrarily use two print sizes and base the comparisons on the 22MP Canon 5D Mark III and the Sony/Canon 36MP sensor cameras. Continue reading Concerning Megapixels→
We are very fortunate to be part of a small group of photographers and friends who gather every six weeks or so in one of our homes for an informal print review. Each of the photographers is talented and expressive, and while our stylistic and subject preferences overlap, each has a unique style and photographic “voice.”
Print reviews, especially when the participants comprise a group of very talented and perceptive photographers who are also friends, are very, very useful. They tend to force me to switch out of the regular ongoing “flow” of making a lot of photographs, and towards a more directed task of choosing work worthy of showing and then making decent prints of the work. This switch is another element of the “discipline” component of photography. Even more important, I hear diverse responses to the work, which range from the purely emotional (very important) to technical observations (also important).
It is interesting to see the range of responses — sometimes they are pretty much what I expected based on my own relationship to the images, but at other times I’m surprised. I had two of those surprises last night, and each of them came in the case of sets of related prints that I shared. One was a small group of three street photographs from my recent visit to New York City, photographs of dense and busy spaces that feature intense and wild color palettes. I had originally preferred one of the images to the others, but was beginning to gravitate to a second one in the set that included many more people. To my surprise, the group responded most strongly to the third, and their reactions to it made me reconsider my own feelings about the images in several ways.
The second group of photographs included five high-key black and white photographs, all of which belong to minimalist thread in my work that is about luminous atmosphere, usually from fog, that is so brightly lit by sun that it almost hurts to look into the scene. In order to get prints to somehow suggest that quality, I push the luminosity levels up about as far as possible, and the resulting images are somewhat minimal and often contain large areas of gentle tonal gradation. Among the five I shared were four that I made in California’s Central Valley. One of these is truly minimal, with a nearly invisible and diffuse horizon dividing an extremely luminous foggy sky from its reflection in still water below, and the only clear details are a few scattered birds in the water. I had almost chosen to not include this print, thinking that it might just be too minimal for other viewers. Much to my surprise, and without any prodding from me, the group preferred this image over the others. Live and learn!
Finally, it is a wonderful and useful discipline to hear my work critiqued and mostly adopt a learner’s attitude about what I hear. It is in my nature to try to persuade others of my point of view, but that is usually (but not quite always) the least useful way to deal with critique. The best and most useful thing is to hear and understand what others are seeing in the work, and to a consider it even if it doesn’t mesh with my own perspective. In the end, I can choose to accept or not what I hear, but hearing it is incredibly useful and important.
If you are fortunate enough to have perceptive, knowledgable, sympathetic photographer friends, I urge you to try to get together and try this, and to stick with it long enough to allow the process and the relationships to grow. (And thanks to any of you in the group who are reading this!)
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Late summer morning fog clears about oak and grass-covered California hills. (And yes, it is the same image I shared earlier as today’s daily photograph.)
I first encountered “AutumnIsAroundTheCorner” day — which is my own invention, so don’t try to look it up! — many years ago on a Sierra Nevada backpacking trip. I recall the day specifically, even though it was decades ago. At the time I didn’t know quite what it was even though I clearly sensed the symptoms. As we hiked, we passed an expansive, remote meadow in which a large group of deer were feeding. It was a summer day by the calendar, but it felt different from all of the previous days of that summer. The day was windy and we felt compelled to wear warmer clothes than on other days on this trip. After that I began to notice it more regularly and pay attention to it, and I am now aware of its arrival every year.
It comes unannounced and not on any specific day. For me it typically shows up on a day in the middle of August, at a point when we are just a bit closer to the end of summer than to its beginning. I suspect that its arrival is a rather subjective thing, and that it varies by location and each person’s exposure and sensitivity to natural patterns — though this week when I pointed out its arrival to my wife while we were walking, she agreed that she felt it, too.
I cannot quite put my finger on what it is that I sense, even though I’m certain that it is here when I do sense it. I think that the quality of light has something to do with it, and yesterday we both agreed that it made sense to speak of this light as being somehow “softer.” I know it when I see it, and when I then pay attention to the light I detect a certain loss of clarity in the atmosphere, almost as if there is a bit more of a luminous haze.
But it isn’t just the light. One August I was backpacking across a meadow in the Yosemite Sierra and suddenly becoming aware of it. Again, although I recognized what I was feeling, I wasn’t completely clear about the specific cause, though I had a very clear sense that it had to do with a change in the sound quality of the wind and the way it carried across space. More recently I experienced it while hiking though a place much like that in the photograph accompanying this post, and as I hiked I tried to understand as many aspects of it as I could. The morning breeze had a crisp edge, even though the sunlight was warm. There was a glowing haze as morning fog cleared. I walked past piles of fallen oak leaves and noticed a faint sweet, musty autumn fragrance, and as I walked on them I felt and heard their crunch. I wondered whether it might be that, at some subconscious level, I was aware that the sun was now a bit lower in the sky, or if I was more aware that seasonal plants had stopped growing and were now in decline.
On this day, whenever it arrives and without any doubt, I have a certain awareness of the inevitable approach of autumn and the fading away of summer. Until this day I live in the patterns of summer, taking the warm weather for granted, complaining about the heat, and making summer plans and perhaps putting them off, comfortable in the knowledge that there is plenty of summer left. I watch my vegetable garden grow and anticipate the ripening of vegetables and fruit. But then, on “AutumnIsAroundTheCorner” day, my perspective switches — now summer is no longer coming nor here, but instead coming to an end. Summer things must be done soon. It is time to plant a fall garden. And out there on the horizon of my thinking now are autumn and then winter… my favorite seasons of the year.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
If you don’t already follow The Online Photographer (or “TOP”), wander on over there and take a look. The slightly idiosyncratic blog often offers articles and commentary that provide interesting insights and which might make you look at things a bit differently. I read it regularly.
I’m mentioning TOP this morning because of something I saw there recently, a “something” that is directly related to this post, namely the TOP posts shared as “The Morning Coffee.” These are typically relatively short posts on a variety of subjects and at least giving the feeling of being somewhat informal posts written over a cup of coffee. Hey, I’m usually up early. I drink coffee. I like to write. Hence my own new “Morning Musings” series. We’ll see where it leads.
My “musing” for today relates to something from my recent trip to New York City. The brief story — likely to be expanded upon soon in other posts — is that I got to spend about a week wandering around Manhattan and Brooklyn with a camera. I had been thinking about doing some handheld night street photography for some time, and I had the opportunity on this trip. On one particular night, after emerging from a musical performance at a club, we headed off toward another performance in a nearby park. As we walked, hours after sunset, I pulled out my smaller “street” camera with a f/1.4 lens, raised ISO to 1600 or 3200 and started shooting. The ability to do this — shoot handheld in the middle of the night — was incredibly liberating. I’ve done a lot of tripod-based traditional night photography, but the technology of these newer cameras lets us shoot the night in an entirely different way, capturing quickly appearing subjects and conditions in ways that were essentially impossible only a few years ago. (Photos upcoming in the next week or two.)
Musing written. Coffee consumed. Now off to make some photographs…
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
