Show me one digital printer in the world who can achieve the kind of tonal sophistication and luminance that Julia Cameron did in a converted chicken coop in the Victorian era,
Choose literally any of them at random, Alan. It doesn't matter. Cameras, lenses, paper, printing technique and overall print quality has improved since the 1800s. This is not news.You could have picked other shot of hers.
Choose literally any of them at random, Alan. It doesn't matter. Cameras, lenses, paper, printing technique and overall print quality has improved since the 1800s. This is not news.
This is entirely separate from the merit of her artistic output, which isn't the issue. The issue Drew raised is the ability of modern printers to equal the excellent chicken coop quality of her prints. Of course they can.
Her photos have a special glow about them and they're very artistic. It's not about pixel peeping.
The three questions to Alan were all rhetorical Drew. I have no personal interest in printing like they did when Grover Cleveland was president, as fun as it may be.I have no idea what you can or cannot personally do. But what I'm contending for is that esthetic ends CAN'T be isolated from one's own concept of sharpness. Even in technical fields, microfilm applications need one kind of sharpness, machine vision its own kind, or rather specified kinds; surveillance and astronomical applications, likewise. In microscopy, one kind of visuals sharpness often transpires at the expense of another kind, and different lens varieties are tailored to each. Now we come to artistic applications, and you have companies like Cooke Optic making cine and still lenses with different types of sharpness, or even variable sharpness, all oriented toward esthetic nuances.
Even debates over the latest Zeiss versus Nikon 35mm lenses often revolve around different types of perceived sharpness. Throw in a Leica enthusiast and it become a dueling issue. I've had large format Dagor lenses prized by some for a certain "roundness" to their edge rendering, sharp as it was, while you get something different with some tessars, and yet something else in the latest plasmats. Call it obsessive if you wish, but every bit of it factors into the inherent variability of the sharpness question itself. And a lens which responds one way with a particular film might respond quite differently with a particular digital camera. Let the engineers tell you why, if even they can. I judge the endpoint; otherwise, you go nuts, just like this thread itself.
To those who are currently contributing to this thread, please be mindful that your comments are edging toward the possibility of having this discussion locked and reinforcing the decision to disallow comparisons between the two realms. Let's refrain from it!
I have no idea what you can or cannot personally do. But what I'm contending for is that esthetic ends CAN'T be isolated from one's own concept of sharpness. Even in technical fields, microfilm applications need one kind of sharpness, machine vision its own kind, or rather specified kinds; surveillance and astronomical applications, likewise. In microscopy, one kind of visuals sharpness often transpires at the expense of another kind, and different lens varieties are tailored to each. Now we come to artistic applications, and you have companies like Cooke Optic making cine and still lenses with different types of sharpness, or even variable sharpness, all oriented toward esthetic nuances.
Even debates over the latest Zeiss versus Nikon 35mm lenses often revolve around different types of perceived sharpness. Throw in a Leica enthusiast and it become a dueling issue. I've had large format Dagor lenses prized by some for a certain "roundness" to their edge rendering, sharp as it was, while you get something different with some tessars, and yet something else in the latest plasmats. Call it obsessive if you wish, but every bit of it factors into the inherent variability of the sharpness question itself. And a lens which responds one way with a particular film might respond quite differently with a particular digital camera. Let the engineers tell you why, if even they can. I judge the endpoint; otherwise, you go nuts, just like this thread itself.
For those interested in actual technique with visual results, rather than trying to dumb down both the esthetics and the craft of this alleged topic to some interminable debate over which one of two hundred varieties of apples to compare the which of forty varieties of oranges, well, that kind of thing is better addressed on specific relevant threads rather than here.
Thanks for allowing the discussion Matt. It is interesting. I still think there is much more to learn here. At one point in time what Ms Cameron was doing was also a new toy and we continued to learn and develop.
This thread was about a very specific question, which some have addressed tidily and concisely. It is you who has dragged it all over the place, without - I must add - any visual results to support what you say.
My curiosity about most things photographic is enormous. I just wish folk would keep to the subject or make a new thread; and avoid long rambling posts.If you find satisfaction in a tidy and concise explanation, your curiosity might not have been particularly piqued to start with.
My curiosity about most things photographic is enormous. I just wish folk would keep to the subject or make a new thread; and avoid long rambling posts.
It would also make the thread easier to comprehend if folk quoted the point they were responding to, instead of assuming we can guess - I sometimes wonder if everyone knows how to do this.
… if only she could have mastered proper focus, imagine how different her images would be.
Did “special glow” and “very artistic” end in the 1800s? Can they not be achieved today with modern printing methods? Should I start albumen printing from glass negatives?
I was commenting on the fact that her photos were very artistic and not dependent on modern equipment and methods. In fact, that's what gives it such a nice look. I suppose people can get the same affect today, but most won't bother. It's why so many pictures today look so sterile because of modern film, sharp lenses, and other exacting tools. Frankly, I'm guilty of that sterile look as well. There's a lot to be said for imperfection.
It reminds me of how Timothy O Sullivan was handed a 35mm camera in his old age, and he remarked if that been around, it would have been what he would had taken along, down the Colorado River rapids.
FIlm sharpness depends only on the lens and resolution of the film. Digital sharpness depends on the lens, resolution of the sensor, plus the camera's program is artificially sharpening the image file.
Sharpness isn't a strictly objective phenomena, it is a perceptual phenomena. You can have two similar images where one appears "sharper" than another, but the less sharp appearing image resolves more detail.
We tend to gravitate toward sharp appearing edge details. There are all sorts of ways to enhance the appearance of those edge details. Unsharp masking is one such approach.
Is not the perceived sharpness of film images based upon resolution and acutance, i.e., boundary contrast? While the resolution may be baked into the film, acutance can be influenced by development. Was not the original analog unsharp masking intended to enhance boundary contrast?
Timothy O'Sullivan died in 1882 at the ripe old age of 42. Needless to say, there weren't any 35mm cameras around at that time.
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