the last word

Photography meets digital computer technology. Photography wins -- most of the time.

  • site home
  • blog home
  • galleries
  • contact
  • underwater
  • the bleeding edge
You are here: Home / The Last Word / Photography & technique

Photography & technique

May 24, 2017 By JimK Leave a Comment

When the Sony a9 arrives — soon, I hope — I will jump off into another weeks-long, geeky, mathematical analysis. Hey, that’s what I do, right? But I try to put that kind of thing in perspective for myself, and occasionally for you, dear readers. Here’s what I wrote on someone else’s blog a few weeks ago:

…what’s most important about making photographs is not related to sharpness, bokeh, LaCA, LoCA, focus shift, focus stacking, swings and tilts, exposure, spherical aberration, PDR, FWC, RN, AA filters, camera and lens brand, whether the capture was digital or analog, whether printed on an inkjet printer or with gum bichromate, or any of that technical stuff. As someone who writes a technically-oriented, gearheady blog, I try to do a post every year or so to point that out. We all know it to be true, and it’s easy to forget while you’re looking for your keys under the lamp post.

On the other hand, cameras and lenses are tools, and photography has elements of craft (though some would deny this). From that perspective, it is worthwhile to select the best tools for the job at hand, and to learn to use our tools to the best effect.

Technique is not the objective. Technique is the road.

← Leica WATE & 18 mm SE on Fujifilm GFX 50S Sony a9 testing →

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

March 2021
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« Feb    

Articles

  • About
    • Patents and papers about color
    • Who am I?
  • How to…
    • Backing up photographic images
    • How to change email providers
  • Lens screening testing
    • Equipment and Software
    • Examples
      • Bad and OK 200-600 at 600
      • Excellent 180-400 zoom
      • Fair 14-30mm zoom
      • Good 100-200 mm MF zoom
      • Good 100-400 zoom
      • Good 100mm lens on P1 P45+
      • Good 120mm MF lens
      • Good 18mm FF lens
      • Good 24-105 mm FF lens
      • Good 24-70 FF zoom
      • Good 35 mm FF lens
      • Good 60 mm lens on IQ3-100
      • Good 63 mm MF lens
      • Good 65 mm FF lens
      • Good 85 mm FF lens
      • Good and bad 25mm FF lenses
      • Good zoom at 24 mm
      • Marginal 18mm lens
      • Marginal 35mm FF lens
      • Mildly problematic 55 mm FF lens
      • OK 16-35mm zoom
      • OK 60mm lens on P1 P45+
      • OK Sony 600mm f/4
      • Pretty good 16-35 FF zoom
      • Pretty good 90mm FF lens
      • Problematic 400 mm FF lens
      • Tilted 20 mm f/1.8 FF lens
      • Tilted 30 mm MF lens
      • Tilted 50 mm FF lens
      • Two 15mm FF lenses
    • Found a problem – now what?
    • Goals for this test
    • Minimum target distances
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Printable Siemens Star targets
    • Target size on sensor
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Test instructions — postproduction
    • Test instructions — reading the images
    • Test instructions – capture
    • Theory of the test
    • What’s wrong with conventional lens screening?
  • Previsualization heresy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Recommended photographic web sites
  • Using in-camera histograms for ETTR
    • Acknowledgments
    • Why ETTR?
    • Normal in-camera histograms
    • Image processing for in-camera histograms
    • Making the in-camera histogram closely represent the raw histogram
    • Shortcuts to UniWB
    • Preparing for monitor-based UniWB
    • A one-step UniWB procedure
    • The math behind the one-step method
    • Iteration using Newton’s Method

Category List

Recent Comments

  • Maurin on Zeiss Batis 135 on Nikon Z7
  • JimK on Zeiss Batis 135 on Nikon Z7
  • Maurin on Zeiss Batis 135 on Nikon Z7
  • Scott Pilla on GFX Natural Live View and raw file histograms
  • Macro Guy on THoS: a NYT infinite loop
  • JimK on Sony 135 mm STF on GFX 50R
  • Alexander Häggström on Sony 135 mm STF on GFX 50R
  • Mike King on Metabones 1.26x Expander on GFX 100 with Otus 55
  • JimK on Diffraction and sensors
  • Barry Benowitz on Diffraction and sensors

Archives

Unless otherwise noted, all images copyright Jim Kasson.