En liten språkövning med en lite för en del provocerande text

Getting it right!

There is no such thing as "getting it right" in the camera anymore today than in the film days. Getting as right as possible, maybe.

I spent as much time in the darkroom "getting it right" as I do today in a digital darkroom "getting it right." Most all great photographers have been "making it right" in darkrooms of one kind or another throughout the history of photography. "Getting it right" in the camera to Ansel Adams and most any image that has appeared over the years in National Geographic and Time/Life magazines has meant getting it as best you can, knowing that color correction, dodging, burning and other things will and must be done later to get it really right. Over those same years, the term "getting it right" has been used as an excuse to not learn good processing skills whether in digital or film photography, for folks who didn't wish to learn that whole other half of the image taking process.

All digital cameras take RAW files initially. All of them. From that point, you have two paths. One person can let the camera's Post Processing software convert that image willie nillie according to some fairly basic "one size fits all" outcome, while another person can use a more robust software package to hand process the output based on each and every very different image. Which way is "getting it right?" If the person who took the shortcut and let the camera do the processing were to adjust all the camera settings for each shot, maybe that method might be more reasonable at "getting it right," but few bother. Generally if a photographer is taking that shortcut, they aren't going to bother adjusting the camera's processing settings for each image. They are just going to fire away. They might adjust the camera’s settings every now and then to taste.

Every great image that the likes of Ansel Adam created was individually done unique masterpieces from his darkroom. He never got it right in the camera. Like others today, he realized that it is impossible. He created the Zone System in order to address the fact that you can't get it right in the camera. That's what the Zone System is about. Cameras, film or digital cannot "get it right" except by maybe one in a trillion pure luck.

I'm not disparaging people who wish to skip part of photography. Learning good computer skills is just as hard today as learning good darkroom skills were yesterday. Understanding how light is absorbed by a sensor or film requires additional learning. We know that a camera's sensor can not capture the scene as we saw it. We know that they don't have the color depth or dynamic range of our eyes. We do the best we can to capture as much as possible then try to adjust those things later to make it closer to “right.”

So, when a person says they are going to "get it right" in the first place or in the camera, or if they think that the processing half is manipulation or fixing the image, I wonder where they are coming from. I wonder if they think their camera's software magically knows how to do the thousands of possible things needed to get each unique image "right." It seems to me to be similar to letting the camera make all the decisions in full auto mode, verses taking control from start to the end of the process. Are they hoping the camera’s post processing software will "get it right" and then claiming that's the purist way to do it.

Lycka till med översättningen ( om ni vill).

// Leif M

2012-03-21 12:49   l1nd3c0n

Fully agree :)

Svar från Rhodos 2012-03-21 13:17

Finns en del tänkvärt i texten, hur man sedan förhåller sig till ämnet ifråga är ju upp till var och en

Ha Det! Leif M

2012-03-21 17:23   Olle

Fotade du aldrig dia under din analoga period? Om så var fallet; "How did you get right, if not in the camera?"

Svar från Rhodos 2012-03-21 18:17

Visst fotograferade jag dia under min analoga period men det var ju inte med någon autoinställning, det gällde ju att ha lite hum om att ställa kameran för rätt exponering för att få någorlunda bra resultat resten var upp till labbet, det var då det.
Nu handlar väl inte texten direkt om dia utan mer förhållningssättet i dagens digitala bildbehandling visavi dagens/gårdagens mörkrumsarbete.
Tilläggas bör kanske att det inte är jag som är pappa till texten i ovanstående blogginlägg utan den är saxad från ett forum på webben men jag tyckte att den var lite tankeväckande så därför publicerade jag den.
// Leif M