Does technical image quality matter? (Chase Jarvis)

the things i care most about in photography are how portable the system i am using is, how capable it is, and whether it will allow me to get the picture i want.
If it meets 2 or 3 of those objectives, then i start to worry about how "nice" of a system or aesthetic it is.
Examples: A Nikon FE2 is more capable, for the most part, than any Leica RF. I have 3 FE2's, and no Leicas. 🙂
I do not shoot medium format anything.
I am a big SLR fan.
I shoot .jpg only- i have a .jpg tattoo.
 
I save every dang negative, the glassines are numbered and the contact sheets contain matching numbers. There are also bits of who/what/where/when/why scribbled on the back of the contacts. The file starts in 1961.

When I post things on line I try to include enough "key words" so Google can find it.

A lot of those photos are hardly "artistic" but when a researcher for a publisher is looking for a picture of a person or event, and your picture is the only one that turns up...
 
jfretless said:
The current obsession with image quality may be one group's attempt to turn photography from a artistic form to a technical one...
John
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Some of this might be a carryover from the world of PC's, where tech specifications really do matter. The things that count in that branch of the digital family tree can almost always be measured. It's also easier to generate copy by riffing on all those numbers, whether you're writing a review for a magazine, posting on a blog, or commenting on a forum like this.
 
wgerrard said:
Some of this might be a carryover from the world of PC's, where tech specifications really do matter. The things that count in that branch of the digital family tree can almost always be measured. It's also easier to generate copy by riffing on all those numbers, whether you're writing a review for a magazine, posting on a blog, or commenting on a forum like this.
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I see it more as a hold-over from the Group f/64 monsters. They did horrible things to photography in the name of sharpness as an end unto itself.
 
ferider said:
It's easy to make a technically lousy photo with a perfect camera.

It's impossible to make a technically perfect photo with a lousy camera.
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Ade-oh said:
Wrong. It may take a little more effort but I can take photos of much the same quality with my Leica MP, Nikon F5, Leica IIIc etc etc etc. It doesn't mean that any of them are good photos, though.
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i don't see how ferider's statement was wrong. sure, any camera is capable of being utilized to make an interesting photograph, but they aren't the same quality across the board. you're using thousands of dollars worth of top shelf leicas and nikons, and of course you won't be seeing a dramatic difference in image quality.

the issue isn't whether a camera of any caliber can be used to take a sharp ISO100 f/16 1/100th photo of a street on broad daylight. i think a lot of it is versatility. i recently took another day trip into washington DC since the weather was nice, and i quickly became privvy to the limitations of an inferior camera. my $20 rangefinder had a fixed lens which maxed out at f/2.5 on the wide end and f/16 on the narrow end. with a shutter speed range from 1/15th to 1/500th. with ISO400 film loaded, the camera was simply unable to adapt to the dramatic range of light levels that i encountered through the day. sure, it was perfect for shooting in shaded areas, but it was practically useless everywhere else since f/16 and 1/500th was blown out in the sunny outdoors, and f/2.5 and 1/15 was severely underexposed in many buildings and the subway system. i ended up tossing the camera back in the bag, and shooting with my SLR instead since it was able to offer me the range i needed to get the exposures i wanted without pushing and pulling in the darkroom to get what i wanted.

was my rangefinder a bad camera? no. when the conditions were right, it's capable of helping me produce great results. however, if my creativity as a photography and ability to capture what i want in the way i want to is inhibited to the point where i leave the camera in the bag, i think it easily qualifies as a lousy camera for my uses. you can argue that some shots in the subway tunnels actually look rather fascinating due to the motion blur of the subjects, but there is a difference between getting a good shot and getting a good shot that you as an artist set out to create.
 
alt4852 said:
i don't see how ferider's statement was wrong...
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Because he was making the same mistake you are. You seem to be looking for some numerical way of judging the quality of an image based on the technical ease with which the equipment dealt with the specific set of circumstances present when it was taken: there's a lot more to good photography than that.
 
I still don't understand why you read that into my statement, Ade-oh, and also fail to understand what argument you are trying to make. I didn't talk about numerical ways, or image quality, just technical perfection. And IIIc, F5, etc. are not lousy in my book.

Yes, for the average 600x800 flickr post of "street" you can use an iphone. No, you can not use an iphone for a good 20x24 high resolution landscape.

Yes, your Summitar is good enough for close up, environmental people portraits. No it is not good enough for stuff that I like to do sometimes. And that and liking Ansel Adams is my choice, isn't it.

Roland.
 
Ade-oh said:
Because he was making the same mistake you are. You seem to be looking for some numerical way of judging the quality of an image based on the technical ease with which the equipment dealt with the specific set of circumstances present when it was taken: there's a lot more to good photography than that.
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not numerical by any right, more so a judgment of capability. the only numbers that i mentioned were in reference to exposure control. ignore them if you wish, as it isn't vital to explaining my main point.

i think photography has a lot to do with the photographer's eye for seeing a scene before them, and capturing it the way they want in the frame. as i said, if a piece of equipment is hindering the photographer from creating what they envision, then it is a lousy camera to use for that particular photographer.

good photography is about seeing and expressing. if you're hamstringed by a camera or lens and unable to fulfill your original artistic vision, then i think the tool is wrong for the job. i'll reiterate that i understand that great photos can come from modest equipment, but if a lens is unable to resolve detail that the photographer sees or aims to accetuate, then as a tool, it is a detriment to that photographer's work.
 
ferider said:
Yes, for the average 600x800 flickr post of "street" you can use an iphone. No, you can not use an iphone for a good 20x24 high resolution landscape.
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But does the print size and resolution necessarily make it a good landscape, that's my point... and actually, once one has mastered the capabilities of an iPhone are you sure one can't produce an interesting and arresting 20x24 landscape?

I'm not criticising your taste in photography and I'm not suggesting for a nanosecond that every of camera is equally good for every photographic genre, but I am suggesting that the quality of an image can't be measured by simple metrics.
 
Actually, I would say that Leonardo, like most of the Renaissance painters w/their meticulous use of perspective & study of optics & anatomy, etc. were pretty heavy into technical quality. In your example, he just happened to use non-archival materials. 😉

Ade-oh said:
Funnily enough, Leonardo da Vinci's painting 'The Battle of Anghiari' fell apart a few years after he painted it because, IIRC, he used an experimental fresco technique which didn't work out. The image was, by many accounts, his great masterpiece but I guess it would get the RFF thumbs down for poor technical quality.
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it's funny to ask this question on a forum where people spend hundreds, or even thousands extra, for some questionable increase in
-sharpness
-accutance
-contrast
-microcontrast
-bokeh quality
-"glow"
-"3D feeling"
-"film look"
-"rendition"
-"silky-smoothness"
-"robustness"
-"solidity"
-"legacy"
-xxxxx
 
bmattock said:
I see it more as a hold-over from the Group f/64 monsters. They did horrible things to photography in the name of sharpness as an end unto itself.
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I suspect that most folks who fixate on the tech specs of their DSLR's and let that drive their buying decisions have never heard of Group f/64 and don't see themselves as doing "art" when they photograph.
 
furcafe said:
Actually, I would say that Leonardo, like most of the Renaissance painters w/their meticulous use of perspective & study of optics & anatomy, etc. were pretty heavy into technical quality.
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True, and it really doesn't matter to anyone looking at a da Vinci.

Somewhere in Florence, da Vinci had colleagues who painted with equal technical skills but whose work didn't succeed.

Technical capability is just a measurement of a tool's attributes. What counts -- in any art or craft -- is the ability of the tool user to exploit that capability to make manifest his or her imagination.

To me, it's obvious that technical qualities alone cannot make an interesting photo. I might take a photo depicting one square foot of a perfectly black wall. That photo might possess excellent technical quality, but would possess little other merit.

Likewise, a lack of skill, or a lack of camera capability, can hamper a photographer's ability to create what he wants to create.
 
Al Kaplan said:
The f/64 school of thought was a reaction to pictorialism as exemplified by William Mortenson.
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Yes indeed and in the sense that they were attempting a truly photographic aesthetic, rather than one that emulated painting, they were fully justified. Unfortunately I think they went too far and became obsessional.

Personally I've always admired Walker Evans' approach. He used everything from Polaroid to 35mm to 10x8, according to what was appropriate to the circumstances, but one never feels that technique became a fetish for him.
 
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