Snake oil in photography

[TulseLuper]

Great pictures happen outside of the camera.

The suggestion that in this day and age there is anything inside the camera that truly makes a difference is the snake oil.

As someone with three excellent camera systems, I mostly agree. There are Magnum photographers using old iPhones these days. Jeff Mermelstein's latest book comes to mind as one of the best photo books in recent memory, and it was shot on a smartphone. You can't buy imagination.

There are more niche applications than non niche.

Also generally agreed.

 

[oceansize]

Leica.

Not the camera or the lenses per se but the mystique built around the brand.

Leica - fantastic cameras, (if you remember to take the lens cap off) eh, Mr Clapton?

 

[Bernard23]

Photography is not like audio though, unless you're a journalist perhaps. Otherwise it's all about adding flavours, not stripping them away. Here we are in the recording studio, not in the art gallery.

 

[Keith_W]

Having an interest in photography and hifi made me realize there are a lot of similarities between the two. There are photography subjectivists and objectivists. Some review sites are similar to subjective audio in which they shower a product with praise for its sharpness, 3D rendering, bokeh, colour, and so on. The kind of language used would not be out of place in a magazine like TAS. Other sites provide optical measurements, product teardowns, and all sorts of data.

The interesting difference is the far greater tolerance of subjectivists in photography. For example, film photography has less resolution, less dynamic range, is more expensive, difficult to process, and all this affects your final image which will have a distinct look. It is unquestionably inferior to digital in every technical and practical sense. Yet people like this look, and film photographers are not subject to the same kind of disdain from digital photographers that some on ASR have for the audio equivalent i.e. vinyl or tube amplifiers. I guess some people like their coloration.

Of course there are debates like whether full frame is a waste of money, that you don't need medium format, and that Leica is nothing more than a photographer's Louis Vuitton. I suppose there people with the same streak of anti-elitism that runs through both communities.

There are some in photography who like "ICM" (Intentional Camera Movement) in which a slow shutter speed is chosen and the camera is intentionally moved during exposure. Sometimes the lens is defocused to give a dreamy look. I questioned why someone would use an expensive lens for this kind of photography, given that if you are going to intentionally defocus the lens and product a blurry image, any cheap secondhand lens would do. But I have been told that even for ICM, different lenses have different effects. I neither have the experience or knowledge required to challenge that thinking.

The other difference is that whilst audio enthusiasts band into subjectivists and objectivists, photographers band into manufacturers. There are endless wars between Canon/Nikon/Sony fans which would be hilarious if it happened here, e.g. Topping and RME owners arguing with each other about whose brand is superior.

 

[TulseLuper]

The interesting difference is the far greater tolerance of subjectivists in photography

In hifi we’re dealing with reproduction, not production, of original material. It’s nonsense to say a format with less dynamic range, for example, is inferior when talking about a medium for artistic production.

 

[Keith_W]

In hifi we’re dealing with reproduction, not production, of original material. It’s nonsense to say a format with less dynamic range, for example, is inferior when talking about a medium for artistic production.

I happen to think that if you use Photoshop and Lightroom, you can replicate that look without going through the expense and inconvenience of film photography. Of course it's a minority opinion in photography forums and might get me shot (not with a camera) if I said it to the wrong person

It is also nonsense to think that there is no personal preference involved in reproduction of music. The very existence of at least three types of subgroups of Harman target preferences should be enough to tell you that.

 

[Bernard23]

There's nothing creative about hifi though, it's purely a reproductive process. The hifi equivalent is comparing printers, paper, monitors, HDMI cables etc.
Comparing cameras is like arguing fender is better than Gibson, same for editing apps. Photography is far from faithfulness of reproduction of reality, we deliberately distort it, even the basic process of framing & cropping changes reality.

 

[JeffS7444]

Having an interest in photography and hifi made me realize there are a lot of similarities between the two. There are photography subjectivists and objectivists. Some review sites are similar to subjective audio in which they shower a product with praise for its sharpness, 3D rendering, bokeh, colour, and so on. The kind of language used would not be out of place in a magazine like TAS. Other sites provide optical measurements, product teardowns, and all sorts of data.

An intelligent and thoughtful photo blogger whom I sometimes follow incorporates the words "Science" and "Lab" into the title of his blog, despite the lack of both in his writings, but everyone's got their little blind spots I suppose! I appreciate sites which bench-test products in a more stringent manner, such as plotting lens MTF data and sensor dynamic range. But for my purposes (not news/documentary imagery), the ultimate look of the desired photograph can be whatever I want it to be.

Boke must be a quantifiable thing to a lens designer, because many a new lens is designed to produce a pleasingly smooth out-of-focus rendition. For example:
https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/lenses/full-frame-e-mount/p/sel100f28gm

 

[Koeitje]

Same manufacturer, same lineup... Alpha 7 III is clearly better as both sensors used in OM/Olympus cameras. But pick different camera by Sony with higher pixel count (I took Sony Alpha 7R III which has 42.2MP sensor). You would notice that the noise is getting worse with higher pixel count, regardless total sensor size - because of smaller pixels. Also for some reason many other 24.2MP Sony cameras are really not on par with A7III in terms of noise.

I think you are confused about noise and pixel counts. Pretty much the only thing that matters for noise is sensor size. There is some slight generational differences, like back illuminated sensors, but that is about it. Higher pixel counts give you higher noise at a pixel level, but if you scale them to the same size you will notice the noise is about the same regardless of the number of pixels.

Also, differences in bokeh are a real thing. Its determined by the number of diaphragm blades used in a lens. Mirror lenses also produce a vastly different type of bokeh, which might not be to your taste. Here's an example of the the difference the number of diaphragm blades make:

And here is a mirror lens:

Photography is mostly about art (unless journalism or scientific), and you are free to prefer whatever you want. But don't act like bokeh differences are some kind of myth and that it doesn't matter.

 

[Roland68]

Also, differences in bokeh are a real thing. Its determined by the number of diaphragm blades used in a lens. Mirror lenses also produce a vastly different type of bokeh, which might not be to your taste. Here's an example of the the difference the number of diaphragm blades make:

And here is a mirror lens:

Photography is mostly about art (unless journalism or scientific), and you are free to prefer whatever you want. But don't act like bokeh differences are some kind of myth and that it doesn't matter.

Bokeh is certainly not a myth, but while the aperture blades have a big impact, there are some other details that affect bokeh.
Some special bokeh lenses show that the individual factors that lead to an attractive bokeh are not so easy to master for the manufacturers. Imaging performance and attractive bokeh do not have to be mutually exclusive either.

In my post #23 I wrote something about it and posted a link where anyone can do a real blind test with bokeh lenses.
And this test is not corruptible.

 

[Offler]

I think you are confused about noise and pixel counts. Pretty much the only thing that matters for noise is sensor size. There is some slight generational differences, like back illuminated sensors, but that is about it. Higher pixel counts give you higher noise at a pixel level, but if you scale them to the same size you will notice the noise is about the same regardless of the number of pixels.

Also, differences in bokeh are a real thing. Its determined by the number of diaphragm blades used in a lens. Mirror lenses also produce a vastly different type of bokeh, which might not be to your taste. Here's an example of the the difference the number of diaphragm blades make:

And here is a mirror lens:

Photography is mostly about art (unless journalism or scientific), and you are free to prefer whatever you want. But don't act like bokeh differences are some kind of myth and that it doesn't matter.

Those are highlights which is one of the effects of bokeh.

My point wasnt that bokeh isnt real, my point was that there are available lenses which are basically with technology from the 70ties - heavy glass lenses, not modern materials, without autofocus, without weather sealing or image stabilization, with asking prices about 2000 dollars.

 

[Bernard23]

Surely a lens is all about refraction and reflection. It's quite easy to measure those consistently across multiple labs. The rest is about AF speed, build quality.

 

[PierreV]

Noise has many components: shot noise(or Poisson noise, essentially the sqrt of the flux), read noise, dark current, and quantization noise.
The dominant factor is, by far, shot noise: that's why darker areas or underexposures are always noisier than lighter areas or properly exposed images.
More light is always better in terms of noise.

Smaller pixels (say 3 µm) used to be much worse than bigger pixels (say 6µm) because the sensing area of 2x2 3µm was smaller than 1x1 6µm. The sensing area did not cover the full pixel surface (columns and lines separation, even CMOS micro-electronics). That disadvantage has now been greatly reduced thanks to microlenses, back illumination, and the like.

The other area where large pixels had an edge was dynamic range (because they had a greater electron well "depth" or capacity). Binning solves that problem, but only if it doesn't add noise. That depends to a large extent on read noise. Initially, the CCD architecture and the way it was read used to provide a big gain in read noise (1x read noise for 2x2 binning vs the 4x read noise in CMOS architecture). But that stopped being the case when CMOS read noise became so low that even 4x its read noise was lower than the CCD read noise). You still get a tiny amount of additional noise in 4 small pixels vs a large one though. The next generation of small pixel-based sensors could even improve on larger pixels in terms of the dynamic range because the trenches of the "walls" of the wells will be/are used. That should be the revenge of the small pixel

The dark current becomes an issue for long exposure, or if the camera overheats (as many of the recent top-of-the-line models tend to do).

Read noise remains a concern for some applications (ultra high speed among others).

There are some cases where, if you look for the optimal resolution, pixel size vs focal length matter because you want to sample the MTF at Nyquist, but those cases aren't applicable to everyday photography.

Still, in today's world, the very dominant factor is the ability to gather light. The bigger the lens, the bigger the total sensing area, the better QE (because you need to convert those photons to electrons), and the higher well capacity are the dominant factor.

A single Sony AR IV 3.76 µm CMOS pixel laughs at the 11.56µm Canon 1D CCD pixels.

 

[Bernard23]

Noise has many components: shot noise(or Poisson noise, essentially the sqrt of the flux), read noise, dark current, and quantization noise.
The dominant factor is, by far, shot noise: that's why darker areas or underexposures are always noisier than lighter areas or properly exposed images.
More light is always better in terms of noise.

Smaller pixels (say 3 µm) used to be much worse than bigger pixels (say 6µm) because the sensing area of 2x2 3µm was smaller than 1x1 6µm. The sensing area did not cover the full pixel surface (columns and lines separation, even CMOS micro-electronics). That disadvantage has now been greatly reduced thanks to microlenses, back illumination, and the like.

View attachment 261874


The other area where large pixels had an edge was dynamic range (because they had a greater electron well "depth" or capacity). Binning solves that problem, but only if it doesn't add noise. That depends to a large extent on read noise. Initially, the CCD architecture and the way it was read used to provide a big gain in read noise (1x read noise for 2x2 binning vs the 4x read noise in CMOS architecture). But that stopped being the case when CMOS read noise became so low that even 4x its read noise was lower than the CCD read noise). You still get a tiny amount of additional noise in 4 small pixels vs a large one though. The next generation of small pixel-based sensors could even improve on larger pixels in terms of the dynamic range because the trenches of the "walls" of the wells will be/are used. That should be the revenge of the small pixel

View attachment 261872
The dark current becomes an issue for long exposure, or if the camera overheats (as many of the recent top-of-the-line models tend to do).

Read noise remains a concern for some applications (ultra high speed among others).

There are some cases where, if you look for the optimal resolution, pixel size vs focal length matter because you want to sample the MTF at Nyquist, but those cases aren't applicable to everyday photography.

Still, in today's world, the very dominant factor is the ability to gather light. The bigger the lens, the bigger the total sensing area, the better QE (because you need to convert those photons to electrons), and the higher well capacity are the dominant factor.

A single Sony AR IV 3.76 µm CMOS pixel laughs at the 11.56µm Canon 1D CCD pixels.

Great info.
Owning the Sony won't automatically make you a better / more successful / togger though.

The capability of the detector is far more important to industrial and medical applications. Trying to make optical or x Ray images traceable to the SI so as to be able to make certified measurements is really difficult. Arguably it's these applications of photography that are closer to the demands of the audiophile.

 

[Roland68]

Those are highlights which is one of the effects of bokeh.

My point wasnt that bokeh isnt real, my point was that there are available lenses which are basically with technology from the 70ties - heavy glass lenses, not modern materials, without autofocus, without weather sealing or image stabilization, with asking prices about 2000 dollars.

Maybe the manufacturers have reasons why they build a lens exactly like that. There are some newly released vintage lenses (or similar) on the market, I'll exclude them here.
My first question would be what is "no modern materials"?

For me, the most important thing about a lens is its imaging performance. Without them, everything behind them becomes less important. There are enough lenses on the market that reduce the resolution of the camera, even well below 20MP.
Perhaps I should also mention that it wasn't even 10 years ago when the big camera manufacturers didn't have a lens in their range that transmitted the resolution of their 50MP cameras, especially not at full aperture.

Points such as glass lenses, autofocus, image stabilization (in the lens) and also weather protection affect the imaging performance of a lens and must be specified and included during development.
Again, I can take the Zeiss Otus as an example. Everything that could affect the imaging performance was really left out and the highest quality glass lenses and materials were used.
How many lenses are there that can match the imaging performance of the Zeiss Otus lenses at FF and wide aperture, especially the 50mm?

Every manufacturer would do well to omit all unnecessary functionality that is not absolutely necessary. The service life and precision are also affected by functionality such as autofocus, image stabilization (in the lens) and weather protection.
Personally, I also prefer stabilization by the camera sensor, as it makes more sense and is much more effective, and it works with every lens on the market.

The most important point comes right at the end.
As with most development-intensive products, the price is made up of development costs, production costs and quantities. In the case of small quantities, the costs must be shared among them.
It's no secret that the first 90% of a development is easier and cheaper, the next 5-7% is at least twice as expensive. At the last 2-3%, the development costs explode 5-10 times or more, or the development has to be considered a flop/total loss.

And that's what bothers me the most about your statement. A manufacturer learns the most about problems and weak points from a product that is so well developed and pushed to the extreme.
Exactly this experience flows into the next generation and makes the next affordable lenses better.

 

[julian_hughes]

Those are highlights which is one of the effects of bokeh.

My point wasnt that bokeh isnt real, my point was that there are available lenses which are basically with technology from the 70ties - heavy glass lenses, not modern materials, without autofocus, without weather sealing or image stabilization, with asking prices about 2000 dollars.

So buy something else.

 

[Lambda]

So buy something else.

He wants the creamy bokeh but he don’t want to pay for it

Maybe he also want it in a smartphone with 300x zoom

 

[JeffS7444]

My point wasnt that bokeh isnt real, my point was that there are available lenses which are basically with technology from the 70ties - heavy glass lenses, not modern materials, without autofocus, without weather sealing or image stabilization, with asking prices about 2000 dollars.

Sure, lenses like the recently reissued Leica Noctilux 50/1.2 (~8000 USD) have been surpassed by any number of more modern designs which may sell for a fraction of the price. But people are not buying it for state of the art performance. Ditto the 100/2.8 Hugo Meyer Trioplan.

 

[Keith_W]

How many lenses are there that can match the imaging performance of the Zeiss Otus lenses at FF and wide aperture, especially the 50mm?

I point you towards the Lensrentals 50mm comparison test. You would find that the Leica APO-Summicron 50mm is sharper at the edges than the Zeiss Otus at the center. You might say that the Leica Summicron is an f/2 lens, but the Leica Summilux 50/1.4 is also sharper than the Zeiss.

Of course, sharpness isn't everything. The Leicas are also lighter (about 1/3 as heavy), smaller, and equally well built. Both lack AF. In Zeiss' favour, the bokeh is smoother than the Summilux but not the Summicron.

 

[Offler]

He wants the creamy bokeh but he don’t want to pay for it

Maybe he also want it in a smartphone with 300x zoom

Well... I have seen a portrait tutorial where photographer took Sony 85mm F1,4 lens on a fullframe system. He set the lights, stopped down to 5.6 to have whole person sharp.

a) From the shots taken by the same lens at wider apertures I can tell that it has great bokeh.
You may not use it well in studio with single color background, as such background does not add anything. You can use that shallow depth of field, but...

b) In POST he added digital blur to background, around the head and shoulders.
Instead of opening the aperture just a bit to get natural blur he instead went through a process in post which took 10-30 minutes. Also he could use bracketing on different apertures in case he would prefer more blurry or more sharp variant of the same shot.

And this guy has 250k subscribers on youtube. He does know how to use Lightroom and photoshop, but he does not know how to work with lenses and cameras.

Also for the record I paid about 800 dollars for Sirui 50mm f1.8 Anamorphic (APS and M43), specifically because of its bokeh and oval highlights. Its fully manual, but the cost was just 800 dollars.