Click To Listen>> Photography Podcast. PPS #74
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Today’s Host... Gavin Seim.
Today we’re going in depth on digital quality and the Six Keys to Image Quality. Gavin discusses what he’s learned about getting down and getting the best image quality possible from digital files.
Notable Time Indexes:
- 00:00 Introduction. The Challenge
- 07:05 The Six Keys to Quality.
- 26:07 Editing Process in depth.
- 29:18 Film resolution thoughts. More process.
- 49:05 Thoughts on cameras, sensors & lenses.
- 51:23 The new printer. Canon IPF8300.
- 56:52 Picks of the week (links below)
- 59:20 Coming workshops and closing thoughts.
- 1:04:32 The after show.
NOTE: The Pro Photo Show Christmas contest winners will be announced soon. Stay tuned.
The Six Keys to Getting Great Image Quality.
The Fuji X100 looks really good.
A look at RAW vs JPEG.
I got the printer from JVH Technical in Seattle.
HDR Photography. The new film. Not that overused fad from the 2000?s
A couple landscapes makers that use 8×10 view cams… Rodney Lough Jr – Michael Fatali.
ABOVE: A crop from Sunsets Hidden Falls showing blacks and detail. The full image and process details are here.
Another example. Silver Waves of Grain. Wheat field image details and results of painting out the noise.
Bull of the Mists. An example of in image shot at ISO 3200 due to necessity.
Picks…
Rouge Flash Benders.
Sun Seeker.
Gavin’s Power Workflow3 LR Presets. Use code PPS to save 15%
Great podcast! Don’t be apologetic about it being boring or what. It’s really interesting! 😀
Thanks very much Billy.
Gavin,
Really nice podcast. It’s nice to see you went a little old school in this cast. This one would have been a great round table discussion. I must admit I had a lot of chiming in to do myself. My thought are that I feel that images are almost becoming too clean in digital. There is truly a time and place for noise/grain in an image.
Lenses – 100% important. I understand what you are saying on the zooming in and checking your images at 100%. As a wedding photographer I am sure you find that quality to go down when you run and gun. The stability factor can sometimes be overshadowed by the ‘gotta get the shot factor’. I keep one 2 of my older digitals because of the fact that they offer that ‘grain’ if you will … even though in digital no matter how we look at it … it’s noise. Knowing what your creative outcome is and what your equipment is capable of (let’s say ISO 800, 1600 or whatever before the noise gets too bad) makes a huge difference in the quality of the image produce.
We try to get it all correct in the camera … even when it comes to noise I think. So many of the new Nikons and Canons are taking the “perfect” while being in an automatic mode. Outside of the technical aspects of composition and such … uncle Harry can just point his D3s and shoot and capture a beautiful image. It is the proficient, professional photographer that can take that image and create more than what comes out of the camera. Perfect example is that well-known children’s photographer Tamara Lackey still uses a 1DsMarkII in studio because of some of the old features and limits that model had on it.
It’s amazing! 2 or 3 years ago film was a novelty and something that some photographers shot to be different. Now with the emergence of high ISO cameras everywhere now the Canon 1DSMarkII or 40D and the Nikon D200 or Nikon D2X are cameras that have now taken that place in novelty cameras that produce something that the new camera no longer do. Some might say that would be artifacts and noise but when that was all we had wasn’t it about learning to use the equipment we had instead of going to the next great thing. Vincent Versace created some unbelievable fine art work with a D200 and D2X back in the day. Some of our most iconic images of the past were images filled with “noise” and or grain if shot with film. Some of them not perfectly focused.
The key is that those images were made with intent to be produced that way. I could go on for days on this subject of creative nature and intent of photographers. I will finish with this quote I’ve Vincent Versace say on many occasions: ‘the more we know about the middle, the more informed we are in the beginning because we are in service of the end … the print’.
Again, great podcast and I hope you can keep it going along these lines. This quality topic is something that rings true with all photographers … Wedding or not. I am an Editorial Portrait photographer based in South Florida and I have posed this question of quality a lot lately. It was great to hear your thoughts and I hope to hear more of similar topics in the future with PPS. Great job!
Ken Tucker
Editorial Portrait Photographer
Coral Springs, Florida
Thanks for the input Ken. Good thoughts. I will comment on the grain. The newer digital cameras keep producing better looking grain. Yes, it’s technically noise, but it looks much more organic. Like you’re saying, we don’t always have to remove that. With that quality texture from today’s cams and features like adding grain in LR, I think we can “almost” get a film like feel.
And yes, this would make a great RT. I had a lot to say in regards to my experiments of late, so I went solo. But we’ll be talking about quality more. Maybe our first live show should be about it.
Gav
Wow… I want your printer… Where do you live?? I’m not above stealing that sucker… 🙂
It’s pretty amazing Ken. I’m in WA. You’re welcome to swing by and peek. But no stealing.
Did you just say Lightroom 3 ? What you meant to say was Lightroom 5 right? I enjoy your podcast – just came upon your website and photography and I like it – but I am concerned based on what I saw it’s good but I’m concerned that like this podcast, you stay very surface level on about 80% of what you talk about – that is, you just keep it general.