What Digital cameras can't do, The mind can!

[O]

Using only natural lighting and no cropping as well as no photoshop usage. Let's see what you can do with your camera! Use your imagination! Next time I will challenge you to Themes! Enjoy and have fun!

Fantastic challenge, love it is all i can say, it’s a challenge we sometimes put to club members, and going black and white was also allowed.

A twist, Honestly, one of the best challenges is try going without a phone or lap top or the internet for a week or a month, you will defiantly be very different at the end of that experience.

Trending in some clubs now is the use of the internal adjustment pre-setting of your camera when using JPEG fine, your allowed to set the camera to a level or sharpening, suitable contrast saturation etc etc etc fitting to the environment, its been interesting for many and quite enjoyable.

The Challenge shows how much we are dependent on editing software and modern tools.

It also makes us think about composition of the story telling, the most powerful tool of all and getting things right in camera, a art being lost these days.


Only an opinion

 

[Larry S.]

Okie Dokie! Straight out of the camera? Yup..got some …60’s forward.. they tell a story. No “fudging” of images.. some converted to digital from Tri-X, Plus-x, Panatomic-X, Ektachrome, and whatever film I could get…. 35mm, 2-1/4 square, 4X5 sheet… whatever. If you have been with this endeavor for a while you know the smell of Microdol-X and other chemicals.. not to mention the halzid chems in the “fix”… We “dodged“and “burned in“ back then because what we saw on the paper easel was blown out or too dark to give a decent print…. not unlike what we do today with a bit of help from technology. Ansel Adams and others found ways to make marginal negatives produce outstanding prints. Straight out of the camera means “instamatic” or Polaroid to me. Even phone cameras have advanced editing capabilities. Here’s a couple “straight digital conversions” from 69 w/Nikon Ftn and Pentax Spotmatic….Bad times…good photos… converted w/D850+ES2
…Yes..a story, without image manipulation

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[Lance B]

I also don't particularly see the point of these sorts of "challenges". The RAW file out of the camera bears little resemblance to what your eyes perceive the scene to look. The highlights are much lower and the shadows much lighter to my eyes yet the image may have very dark shadows and the highlights near clipping or blown. When I post process the image, it is to make it close to reality, to what my eyes saw not what the camera actually records.

This obsession with some where "you cannot do any adjustments in post process" is a relic from film days where the average Joe had no way to adjust an image taken on film as they just sent it off to the photo lab and it came back "as is". If you were shooting negatives, the lab actually did some adjustments to make the print look decent. The only "untouched" images were generally slides. The few that actually developed their own film images probably had more chance to adjust certain aspects for printing but they still had limited ability to do anything about making it look more like reality, especially as film was generally way lower in DR, way lower DR than your eyes.

Again, I think this is just an obsession with film and the "nostalgic" belief that film was somehow pristine and virgin when in fact it wasn't for the pro's, just the amateurs who didn't do their own processing and printing. For me, the whole purpose of photography is to make the final image look closer to reality, closer to what my eyes saw, not what the camera "saw" because the camera "sees" things differently to what my eyes actually saw in real life. To add to this in the film era, there is pre-photo manipulation which includes flash, special lighting (colour castes etc), removal of rubbish from the scene (now we can clone it out!). This was mainly done in the film days as it was more difficult to do in processing and printing. Yes, it is still done in the digital era but it is less important than it once was. What is the difference in boosting shadows in post process compared to boosting shadows with lighting or flash? Changing white balance in post compared to putting a filter over the lens or use special lighting or reflector? How the heck do you do that with a bird or animal in the wild? However, and again, the bird looked different in reality than what the camera gave me as a result due to the way the camera captures the range of tones and light compared to my eyes. There is no way to do a controlled shoot with a wild bird or animal as it an anathema for the pristine wildlife image that the pundits demand. I mean, in many ways it is absurd.

Film used in a creative way due to it's limitations is a different story. Film with certain look due to the lower DR, or certain colour saturations, or grain etc but that was an inherent film limitation but it didn't make it right, just different. However, that can still be achieved by judicious post processing for digital, but oh wait, then here we go again that you can't do post processing in the digital realm to make it look like film.

The point is, there is always some manipulation made whether it be pre or post photo whether in the film or digital realm. Why is pre photo deemed to be the benchmark when post photo can be so much better and more accurate to your eyes and simpler. Why are some trying to make out that it is better to pre photo manipulate compared to post photo? Why is that an advantage?

 

[Doug Herr]

Here's an example of SOOC as the camera and Kodachrome X saw it, and post-adjustment the way my eye saw it.

50 years ago the sky in the high Sierra Nevada mountains was deep blue and when a cloud covered the sun that was the light I had to work with. Ideally, to get it right in the camera I'd have told the Pika to wait while I hiked 5 miles to the trailhead, driven 200 miles to Samy's in Los Angeles to get a 72mm color correction filter, driven back to the trailhead & hiked back to the camera hoping the light hadn't changed much. The CC filter would have dropped the shutter speed well below the 1/60 sec the light & film required which means that instead of leaning against a rock for steadiness I'd have to find a way to set the tripod up in the scree. Or, I could have gone back to Samy's for some High Speed Ektachrome (ASA 160) and push-processed it as ASA 400. The size of the grain would have rivaled the rocks, and I'd still have needed the CC filter.

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Somewhere in this thread was a comment that the SOOC nearly always looked better than the processed. You decide.

 

[O]

Using only natural lighting and no cropping as well as no photoshop usage. Let's see what you can do with your camera! Use your imagination! Next time I will challenge you to Themes! Enjoy and have fun!

The way i understand the challenge is No lighting added, no editing in software, do the very best you can in your camera within its capabilities.
Using the right glass the right settings and above all as cropping is not allowed its imperative that the composition be done to the very best possible.
Getting it right in camera to the very best you can is the objective.
This puts pressure to select the right time to photograph in order to optimize light and colour along with avoiding shadows where necessary.
Selecting the optimum combination of time light and speed for sharpness, colour, exposure.
Let me know if i am off course here please.

With DSLRS or Mirror Less or any camera that is used other than film, the shots have to be in JPEG or RAW or TIFF etc.
Ok JPEGS by default are slightly optimized in camera compared to raw.
The internal settings available in picture quality ie: sharpening, contrast, saturation brightness etc etc have an influence on JPEGS only not RAW.

The main challenge is composition, natural lighting, exposure, tolerable has to be JPEGs, unless the challenge is only for film which i find unlikely to be the case.

The objective is to get great usable photos with out editing in PS LR or using added external lighting, the answer is absolutely you can, you just need skill sets, something these new cameras are eroding and slowly introducing new computerized controls requiring different skill sets more IT based.

I can produce out of a Z8 Z9 Z7II a perfect JPEG fine image in camera using a 50mm 1.8S in P mode, iso is defaulted to 12800 auto.

My girlfriend can nail money shots with this set up, and she doesn't even know anything about photography or the camera or how to use it other than when i tell her
" hold it up, look in the back screen till you see what you like in the way you want it and then push the big button on the top right hand side"
Instant money shot......her reaction

boring she says i would rather use my I Phone LOL

If its getting the best in camera with out editing in software or using lighting externally or cropping then hey love it, its what we do in the club sometimes.

Only an opinion