Back to basics.
This may be quite lengthy, a bit of a Friday story/blog, (although it is being written on a Tuesday)
I've been 'involved' with computing for 40 or so years. I've been 'less involved' with photography, but for more than 50 years. Personally, I am disappointed in how personal computers have developed, and also I have a similar disappointment in the lack of development of digital cameras/photography. Some things make me a bit 'crabby', even 'goat-like' according to some.
I have a belief that software can achieve much more than it does. Rapid development is stifled by marketing, company greed, patents, copyrights and so on (although there is a strong counterargument to this).
Recently, I've also been musing over the overlapping of art/science/photography. Photography is not considered as art in some societies, and from time to time I can stir a few rumblings here on opf. I was thinking of developing a Venn diagram, or similar showing, the real world and the world of images, and how the various sub categories of images overlap. We tend to talk in general terms wrt photography, but the aspirations of a wedding photographer are most likely far different than those of a landscape photographer.
More recently, I have read the quick review that Michael had undertaken on an expensive tilt shift lens in some comparisons with a lower priced canon (I see little difference in image quality, more awkwardness in use) and then Dawid's lonely bench, again taken with not a cheap lens. I see folk actually buying 'lensbabies', possibly not knowing that you can do similar with software, or with Vaseline coated filters. I think some of these purchases, are for some folk more like a pride of ownership thing - my car is better than your car 'cos it costs more, my P&S is better than your 5d, 'cos it's got more pixels, and so on. Comparative tests and assessments are virtually impossible to carry out, putting images side by side on web page, images taken at the limits of the sciences we are dealing with, can be quite meaningless. Maybe like using a garden fork to comb your hair, it sort of may work, but its a bit clumsy. I see folk coming into the digital photography arena, and being upset because they can not achieve the results that they think they should. There is a considerable misrepresentation of the camera capabilities at all levels of camera, and few raw beginners begin in 'raw', and initially they do not realise that they need to understand the other half (maybe its 80%) of the image making process, the essential stages in post processing. It is these often heavily post processed images that are used to advertise how great the camera is.
Many years ago, arguing with mechanical engineers, I tried explaining how I thought micro processors and electronics would be changing mechanical engineering. Specifically a carburettor, a fairly complex mechanical device, could be replaced with a simple electrically operated on/off fuel valve, with high speed electronic control - pulse width modulated - fuel flow. Some time later fuel injection became popular in car engines.
Currently, my belief is that you could make lenses out of old beer bottles, and correct for all the errors in software. Take a test chart with the lens, the software corrects for all aberrations - sort of more extreme ptlens, or whatever, connected with icc profiling, say.
You may know that I have also been exploring the possibility of getting into lf film, at very low cost, but I'm stuck on finding a lens. So, that is a bit of background to where I am at the moment, and if you are still reading this, then you must be here too....
Time to test a concept. Put my money where my mouth is - (small money, big mouth). Make my own lens, write my own software (or adapt a workflow to use existing software.)
I have a canon 20D camera. I have a set of cheap macro rings. I have a couple of even cheaper magnifying glasses. I have some sticky tape.
Now for the science....
Literally five minutes work, anyone can duplicate. This is _exactly_ what I did.
Step 1) look through one lens. If I position my eye, lens & object in line, I can, by moving my head and/or lens, get a magnified image. The magnifying glass operates succesfully, although the image stabalisation is not very good.
Step 2) tape lens to end of extension tubes. (mark 1 lens) (if you have no macro extension tubes then make a tube of cardboard.) these tubes were very cheap, but the air in them is as good as in tubes at twenty times the price.
Step 3) look through camera viewfinder, moving camera towards object. Result - nothing - no image, just light, maybe some shadows.
Step 4) inspiration..... use both lenses
step 5) hold second lens in front of camera and Mk 1 lens, move it to and fro - hey, sometimes I can see something, sometimes it is almost sharp, I have a new/old definition of a manual focus lens.
step 6) make Mk 2 lens. it is as shown below.
No real care was taken to line up the lens, or to make it all perfectly light tight - just taped together for a quick test for principle of operation.
step 7) take photo of something.
step 8) load image into pc.
step 9) find image on pc using picasa2.
step 10) be amazed, really, really amazed - what magical powers have been unleashed?
step 11) resize image, post on opf for 'peer review'. (I should have wiped out the exif file details, and persuaded some one else to post it under their name, for perhaps more unbiased views.)
step 12) revel in the praise (trying desparately not to give too much away wrt 'the secret of my success', without lying to those who may also have guessed.
step 13)The next stage - we have sand, I can make charcoal, hence I can make glass ;-)
but, magnifying glasses don't come much cheaper than this -
The image is posted here. http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4478
Yes, it was that simple - no post processing, no cropping, just converted raw image to jpg and resized for web (twice with Irfan view - too big the first time, and I forgot my copyright notice - so I jpg'ed the jpg - usually a bad move - non colour managed, then again (at Asher's request) with cs2 to assign srgb. Apart from 3 jpg chain, which was not deliberate, just laziness, there was absolutely no other processing involved.
Result - In another thread, where I was attempting to get to grips with 'art', I found a couple of images which did not comply with my personal definitions - I mentioned an important word - 'luck'. Although some may say that there was some skill in producing this orchid image, it was actually at least 99% luck - I just wish I had the same with lottery tickets.
The orchids (white ones) were a birthday present to my wife from our son. They were in the middle of the room on a low table. There was daylight from the patio doors, about 8ft away. I never moved the flowers, or adjusted the curtains. I went into the room, thought 'the orchids will do'. The 'lens' has no aperture setting, no focussing capabilities. For framing and focus I simply moved closer/further from the subject. It happened that for that object size, it was this much in focus at the distance to give the image cropped as shown. I never adjusted the iso value from whatever it was before. Manual focus with a sharp lens is tricky on the 20d, for this blunt lens, I started from where just beyond where it looked sharpest, set to multi-shot, and gradually moved the camera towards the flowers. The image posted was marginally 'sharper' than the other four or five.
I went back with the 24/70L - took some shots of the orchid - I'll really have to work on those to get them to look OK.
Having made up the lens again for the purpose of photographing the components, I took a few shots of a couple of more subjects. In this case the light was brighter, so I had to get really technical and change the iso setting of the camera, but again no processing.
I am not a professional photographer. For some professional photography you do not need professional gear. This maybe pushes this to the extreme, but the fundamentals of most professions is to trade off luck against skill and knowledge. If you have the five minutes, and a couple of magnifying glasses, and cardboard and tape, then this sort of messing about can be fun, and if luck is on your side, you may surprise yourself, maybe a few others. I could write another blog on why I personally like this orchid image.
but, just in case you wonder, I have just shown the image to my wife. Her response ---- 'Daaaad.., that's a failure!', and usually, she is right.....
Best wishes,
Ray
This may be quite lengthy, a bit of a Friday story/blog, (although it is being written on a Tuesday)
I've been 'involved' with computing for 40 or so years. I've been 'less involved' with photography, but for more than 50 years. Personally, I am disappointed in how personal computers have developed, and also I have a similar disappointment in the lack of development of digital cameras/photography. Some things make me a bit 'crabby', even 'goat-like' according to some.
I have a belief that software can achieve much more than it does. Rapid development is stifled by marketing, company greed, patents, copyrights and so on (although there is a strong counterargument to this).
Recently, I've also been musing over the overlapping of art/science/photography. Photography is not considered as art in some societies, and from time to time I can stir a few rumblings here on opf. I was thinking of developing a Venn diagram, or similar showing, the real world and the world of images, and how the various sub categories of images overlap. We tend to talk in general terms wrt photography, but the aspirations of a wedding photographer are most likely far different than those of a landscape photographer.
More recently, I have read the quick review that Michael had undertaken on an expensive tilt shift lens in some comparisons with a lower priced canon (I see little difference in image quality, more awkwardness in use) and then Dawid's lonely bench, again taken with not a cheap lens. I see folk actually buying 'lensbabies', possibly not knowing that you can do similar with software, or with Vaseline coated filters. I think some of these purchases, are for some folk more like a pride of ownership thing - my car is better than your car 'cos it costs more, my P&S is better than your 5d, 'cos it's got more pixels, and so on. Comparative tests and assessments are virtually impossible to carry out, putting images side by side on web page, images taken at the limits of the sciences we are dealing with, can be quite meaningless. Maybe like using a garden fork to comb your hair, it sort of may work, but its a bit clumsy. I see folk coming into the digital photography arena, and being upset because they can not achieve the results that they think they should. There is a considerable misrepresentation of the camera capabilities at all levels of camera, and few raw beginners begin in 'raw', and initially they do not realise that they need to understand the other half (maybe its 80%) of the image making process, the essential stages in post processing. It is these often heavily post processed images that are used to advertise how great the camera is.
Many years ago, arguing with mechanical engineers, I tried explaining how I thought micro processors and electronics would be changing mechanical engineering. Specifically a carburettor, a fairly complex mechanical device, could be replaced with a simple electrically operated on/off fuel valve, with high speed electronic control - pulse width modulated - fuel flow. Some time later fuel injection became popular in car engines.
Currently, my belief is that you could make lenses out of old beer bottles, and correct for all the errors in software. Take a test chart with the lens, the software corrects for all aberrations - sort of more extreme ptlens, or whatever, connected with icc profiling, say.
You may know that I have also been exploring the possibility of getting into lf film, at very low cost, but I'm stuck on finding a lens. So, that is a bit of background to where I am at the moment, and if you are still reading this, then you must be here too....
Time to test a concept. Put my money where my mouth is - (small money, big mouth). Make my own lens, write my own software (or adapt a workflow to use existing software.)
I have a canon 20D camera. I have a set of cheap macro rings. I have a couple of even cheaper magnifying glasses. I have some sticky tape.
Now for the science....
Literally five minutes work, anyone can duplicate. This is _exactly_ what I did.
Step 1) look through one lens. If I position my eye, lens & object in line, I can, by moving my head and/or lens, get a magnified image. The magnifying glass operates succesfully, although the image stabalisation is not very good.
Step 2) tape lens to end of extension tubes. (mark 1 lens) (if you have no macro extension tubes then make a tube of cardboard.) these tubes were very cheap, but the air in them is as good as in tubes at twenty times the price.
Step 3) look through camera viewfinder, moving camera towards object. Result - nothing - no image, just light, maybe some shadows.
Step 4) inspiration..... use both lenses
step 5) hold second lens in front of camera and Mk 1 lens, move it to and fro - hey, sometimes I can see something, sometimes it is almost sharp, I have a new/old definition of a manual focus lens.
step 6) make Mk 2 lens. it is as shown below.
No real care was taken to line up the lens, or to make it all perfectly light tight - just taped together for a quick test for principle of operation.
step 7) take photo of something.
step 8) load image into pc.
step 9) find image on pc using picasa2.
step 10) be amazed, really, really amazed - what magical powers have been unleashed?
step 11) resize image, post on opf for 'peer review'. (I should have wiped out the exif file details, and persuaded some one else to post it under their name, for perhaps more unbiased views.)
step 12) revel in the praise (trying desparately not to give too much away wrt 'the secret of my success', without lying to those who may also have guessed.
step 13)The next stage - we have sand, I can make charcoal, hence I can make glass ;-)
but, magnifying glasses don't come much cheaper than this -
The image is posted here. http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4478
Yes, it was that simple - no post processing, no cropping, just converted raw image to jpg and resized for web (twice with Irfan view - too big the first time, and I forgot my copyright notice - so I jpg'ed the jpg - usually a bad move - non colour managed, then again (at Asher's request) with cs2 to assign srgb. Apart from 3 jpg chain, which was not deliberate, just laziness, there was absolutely no other processing involved.
Result - In another thread, where I was attempting to get to grips with 'art', I found a couple of images which did not comply with my personal definitions - I mentioned an important word - 'luck'. Although some may say that there was some skill in producing this orchid image, it was actually at least 99% luck - I just wish I had the same with lottery tickets.
The orchids (white ones) were a birthday present to my wife from our son. They were in the middle of the room on a low table. There was daylight from the patio doors, about 8ft away. I never moved the flowers, or adjusted the curtains. I went into the room, thought 'the orchids will do'. The 'lens' has no aperture setting, no focussing capabilities. For framing and focus I simply moved closer/further from the subject. It happened that for that object size, it was this much in focus at the distance to give the image cropped as shown. I never adjusted the iso value from whatever it was before. Manual focus with a sharp lens is tricky on the 20d, for this blunt lens, I started from where just beyond where it looked sharpest, set to multi-shot, and gradually moved the camera towards the flowers. The image posted was marginally 'sharper' than the other four or five.
I went back with the 24/70L - took some shots of the orchid - I'll really have to work on those to get them to look OK.
Having made up the lens again for the purpose of photographing the components, I took a few shots of a couple of more subjects. In this case the light was brighter, so I had to get really technical and change the iso setting of the camera, but again no processing.
I am not a professional photographer. For some professional photography you do not need professional gear. This maybe pushes this to the extreme, but the fundamentals of most professions is to trade off luck against skill and knowledge. If you have the five minutes, and a couple of magnifying glasses, and cardboard and tape, then this sort of messing about can be fun, and if luck is on your side, you may surprise yourself, maybe a few others. I could write another blog on why I personally like this orchid image.
but, just in case you wonder, I have just shown the image to my wife. Her response ---- 'Daaaad.., that's a failure!', and usually, she is right.....
Best wishes,
Ray