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Friday, December 20, 2013
Canon is a Working Horse, Sony Junk, Said Ken Rockwell..
Rockwell is a man of extremes. Everything for hims is either gold or junk. And he himself is only posting pictures of his son. That is not much to do with photography. Though I agree on his opinion concerning Sony.
This is why I've been using this moniker 'SonyFFbeta', because I think it's only the very brave or those with unlimited camera budgets that have bought this A7r thing for adaptation.
The theory and concept is great, this idea that you can use any old glass on the FF thing, but in practice this has been demonstrated to be a bit hit and miss. Some results have been excellent but others way off the mark. It's also about having a useful all-purpose capable camera which I don't think the A7 is. Manual focus can get a bit wearisome. No OS.
I'm frankly tired of throwing money at camera shops and have become extremely picky about what I buy. I think this is down to improved knowledge and experience with these devices over the past few years. A man has to know his cameras limitations, or more importantly, the limitations of the camera he's about to dump £2000 into.
This is reason I tend to pour over the reviews and specs and throw out a few feelers by saying stuff like "the K-3 can't do what the IIs does", basically to get in responses by people who own both to give me an idea of whether spending a big load more money is going to make that much difference.
Wow linking to Ken Rockwell, claiming you only shoot jpeg, basing the Q system that you once praised, claiming the K-3 has a noise problem. I think this week is an all new low for you Rice.
Would any professional rely on auto white balance when on an important photo shoot? No...This would be a bigger concern if it was a Rebel versus other entry-level cameras, where the user is looking for help on a scene, but not in a 'pro test' where no one is just going to rely on the camera to set the balance.
And using a Leica lens on the Sony makes this test even more moot - If you are letting the camera decide, then let it have its own native-mount lens (even an E-Mount would make this a better comparison.
To me, I would rather see how each camera allows you to adjust the white balance. And guess what, Pentax's adjustment system, utilizing the previous photo, has been the BEST white balance adjustment system since at least the K10....
Couldn't disagree more. A camera is as good as the pictures are that COME OUT OF IT without any PP.
This is true for the amateur and ESPECIALLY for the professional photographer, who is shooting for a living and has to look at the hours he/she needs to put in it per picture.
I do PP occasionally but would HATE a camera that forces me to shoot RAW and tune the white balance by hand, or correct the white balance in every second shot.
BTW, auto white balance is a clear strength of Pentax. And is - at least for my user profile - way more important than some other features.
the "pro" who shot the wedding of my sister last year actually did it using jpeg - exclusively. He even told me casually that he would pass-on all the unedited shots to "his girls", later for editing. Once at the church ceremony he came over and asked if I had gotten rid of that "green-ish" tone in my shots that he could not remedy in-camera for the life of him.
And you know what: Some shots ended up as gray-scale jpegs on the 5 disks that my sister and her other half received weeks later.
That said: I did not regard his work as "inferior" in any way. He actually knew his way around a wedding, photographically speaking! I felt that some of his photos inspired me when looking at them the first time. So no: bad photography does not equal shooting "just jpeg" - when you know how.
"Bad photography" exists everywhere. jpeg, raw, negatives, slides - it's freaking everywhere! Look at all the test-shots on those gear-head sites. Totally un-inspiring!
PS: the "pro" I was talking about was shooting the latest Canon 5D mark III at the time (was out about 2 months then, and he was casually telling me what he did not like (!) about the changes in its user interface ;-)
furthermore: "f you are letting the camera decide, then let it have its own native-mount lens"
that is the most-borderline BS that I have read in your whole post! Lens coatings change over time. What is important is what kind of light reaches the actual light-absorber (==sensor). That's what is going into the "thought process" of the camera-internal jpeg-"engine", nothing else matters. It can only decide on the ground of what it sees and/or does not see. The rules of physics and properties of electro-magnetic waveforms are universal. So what lens you put on sure will have a result of what light you capture but CANNOT not affect the inner workings of software algorithms inside of your camera in any way other than stimulate their INPUT. And different input will most-certainly get you a different output. Simple as that.
The camera maker now has to fine-tune and accumulate a matching number and quality of THROUGHPUT-engines (software-paths) in order to give an answer to whatever light you chose to give to it (through mounting whatever lens and using it in whatever light you come across).
If you want to make sure YOU "nail it", then YOU have to make sure that you'll nail it - q.e.d. Ken Rockwell might be a humorist, but technically-speaking he very rarely shouts out nonsense. People openly looking down on Ken do it for superficial fun, not because they criticize his (detailed) insights.
People reading bad jokes about him and wasting their laugh for more than a few seconds cannot be skilled photographers themselves IMHO. Simple truth: Ken is not "God". But for some he seems to be "anti-Christ".
What's wrong with pentax WB? Its far more accurate than lightroom's auto setting, which when I shot with panasonic cameras I was forced to use all the time to get something that at least was more accurate than what I had. It might go slightly cool at times, but other than that I find it pretty darned good. Skin tones under artificial light are usually pretty nice.
"White balance and colour In their automatic settings, the white balance systems of both cameras perform very well. On the whole, the EOS 7D tends to produce slightly warmer images than the K-7, but in most situations the difference isn't huge. Pentax appears to have calibrated the camera to make images more neutral, which in some circumstances is desirable, but it can take some of the atmosphere out of a shot.When shooting a still life in fairly warm ambient light, for example, the K-7 produced a cold and cheerless result next to the warmer version produced by the Canon camera. The true picture was nearer to the EOS 7D's interpretation, but neither shot can be regarded as 100% accurate."
I've already heard that a lot of Leica lenses that are expensive don't work too good on the little Sony and if size isn't a problem for another grand you can get a Canon 5D3 or wait a year for the Canon 5D4 instead of spending a lot of money on a Leica but the few times I've read Ken Rockwell's blog it's had some logic to it until now.
Logging you in...
foton · 586 weeks ago
Simon · 586 weeks ago
SonyFFbeta · 586 weeks ago
The theory and concept is great, this idea that you can use any old glass on the FF thing, but in practice this has been demonstrated to be a bit hit and miss. Some results have been excellent but others way off the mark. It's also about having a useful all-purpose capable camera which I don't think the A7 is. Manual focus can get a bit wearisome. No OS.
I'm frankly tired of throwing money at camera shops and have become extremely picky about what I buy. I think this is down to improved knowledge and experience with these devices over the past few years. A man has to know his cameras limitations, or more importantly, the limitations of the camera he's about to dump £2000 into.
This is reason I tend to pour over the reviews and specs and throw out a few feelers by saying stuff like "the K-3 can't do what the IIs does", basically to get in responses by people who own both to give me an idea of whether spending a big load more money is going to make that much difference.
zosX · 586 weeks ago
Daedbird · 586 weeks ago
Would any professional rely on auto white balance when on an important photo shoot? No...This would be a bigger concern if it was a Rebel versus other entry-level cameras, where the user is looking for help on a scene, but not in a 'pro test' where no one is just going to rely on the camera to set the balance.
And using a Leica lens on the Sony makes this test even more moot - If you are letting the camera decide, then let it have its own native-mount lens (even an E-Mount would make this a better comparison.
To me, I would rather see how each camera allows you to adjust the white balance. And guess what, Pentax's adjustment system, utilizing the previous photo, has been the BEST white balance adjustment system since at least the K10....
Chris · 586 weeks ago
This is true for the amateur and ESPECIALLY for the professional photographer, who is shooting for a living and has to look at the hours he/she needs to put in it per picture.
I do PP occasionally but would HATE a camera that forces me to shoot RAW and tune the white balance by hand, or correct the white balance in every second shot.
BTW, auto white balance is a clear strength of Pentax. And is - at least for my user profile - way more important than some other features.
ftw · 586 weeks ago
Heiko · 584 weeks ago
the "pro" who shot the wedding of my sister last year actually did it using jpeg - exclusively. He even told me casually that he would pass-on all the unedited shots to "his girls", later for editing. Once at the church ceremony he came over and asked if I had gotten rid of that "green-ish" tone in my shots that he could not remedy in-camera for the life of him.
And you know what: Some shots ended up as gray-scale jpegs on the 5 disks that my sister and her other half received weeks later.
That said: I did not regard his work as "inferior" in any way. He actually knew his way around a wedding, photographically speaking! I felt that some of his photos inspired me when looking at them the first time. So no: bad photography does not equal shooting "just jpeg" - when you know how.
"Bad photography" exists everywhere. jpeg, raw, negatives, slides - it's freaking everywhere! Look at all the test-shots on those gear-head sites. Totally un-inspiring!
PS: the "pro" I was talking about was shooting the latest Canon 5D mark III at the time (was out about 2 months then, and he was casually telling me what he did not like (!) about the changes in its user interface ;-)
Heiko · 584 weeks ago
"f you are letting the camera decide, then let it have its own native-mount lens"
that is the most-borderline BS that I have read in your whole post! Lens coatings change over time. What is important is what kind of light reaches the actual light-absorber (==sensor). That's what is going into the "thought process" of the camera-internal jpeg-"engine", nothing else matters. It can only decide on the ground of what it sees and/or does not see. The rules of physics and properties of electro-magnetic waveforms are universal. So what lens you put on sure will have a result of what light you capture but CANNOT not affect the inner workings of software algorithms inside of your camera in any way other than stimulate their INPUT. And different input will most-certainly get you a different output. Simple as that.
The camera maker now has to fine-tune and accumulate a matching number and quality of THROUGHPUT-engines (software-paths) in order to give an answer to whatever light you chose to give to it (through mounting whatever lens and using it in whatever light you come across).
If you want to make sure YOU "nail it", then YOU have to make sure that you'll nail it - q.e.d. Ken Rockwell might be a humorist, but technically-speaking he very rarely shouts out nonsense. People openly looking down on Ken do it for superficial fun, not because they criticize his (detailed) insights.
People reading bad jokes about him and wasting their laugh for more than a few seconds cannot be skilled photographers themselves IMHO. Simple truth: Ken is not "God". But for some he seems to be "anti-Christ".
Dante · 586 weeks ago
zosX · 586 weeks ago
zosX · 586 weeks ago
In their automatic settings, the white balance systems of both cameras perform very well.
On the whole, the EOS 7D tends to produce slightly warmer images than the K-7, but in most situations the difference isn't huge. Pentax appears to have calibrated the camera to make images more neutral, which in some circumstances is desirable, but it can take some of the atmosphere out of a shot.When shooting a still life in fairly warm ambient light, for example, the K-7 produced a cold and cheerless result next to the warmer version produced by the Canon camera. The true picture was nearer to the EOS 7D's interpretation, but neither shot can be regarded as 100% accurate."
Read more at http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/round-ups/53...
Jonathan · 586 weeks ago
Jaz Johal · 586 weeks ago
Richard · 586 weeks ago
tipentax · 586 weeks ago