Bipod

I agree: subject matter and style are paramount. But a photographer needs whatevre resoluton
he needs for his subject and style--nothing less will do.

Frankly, Burke, I don't care about medical photography (gee, teratomas!) or forensic photograhy
(blood splatter!). Why the heck do we do photograpy? It's to try to create a satisfying image--
not a horror show.

There is surpisingly little technology that helps us create a lsting, high quality print. Computer
printers and inks are a nighmare of uncertainty.

Only the final image matters: Not what you see though the viewfinder, or on the back of the camera,
or on the computer monitor--because a photographer can't exhibit or sell those digital images. (There
is a small market for stock images, but it' doesn't pay much.)

Chances are your granfather shot in medium format and your graeat-granfather in large format/
So what's so great about a small camera? Is't image quality more important than convenience?

I think we agree on that point: photography is about photographys. Not just image-capture
(security cameras, trail cameras).

With large format one has resultion to burn--so crop away with no worries! With medium format,
one has adequate resolution even when conditions are not ideal. With miniature format ("full-frame"
in marketing- speak) one has barely adequate detail for a high-quality 8 x 10" print.

I spent many years living with barely enogh resolution, and its very limiting.
It's always better to have more of something than not enough.

Why can't we move forward--closer to state-of-the-art digital cameras, such as the camera on the
James Webb Space telescope.? Why do we have to go back to 110 format ane even smaller?

Consumers want small and conveient. They want Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga., Who cares?
If it's a popularity contest, smart phone cameras wins hands down.

The giants of photography aren't Nikon or Canon or even Kodak. They were Mathew Brady,
Eadweard Muybridge, Carlton Watkins, Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange,
Henri Carier-Bresson, etc. Why can't we start our discussions there-- rahter than with the latest digital
toynology?

Have better burshes make better painters? Have better text editors made for beter noveliss?
Not that I can see.

The discussio of photography has been hijacked by gear manufactures and their cheerleaders.
What has always mattered is the right ool for the job--not the latest and greatest. Judge the
tree by its furit. We have all this digital technology--is today's photography really better?
Not in terms of auctoin prices!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

[Note: Off-topic ramble ahead...]

For now, she's perfectly happy to illustrate the materials she does. Family obligations keep her plenty busy when she's not working. She has no immediate need to exhibit, but she keeps her options open.

Yes, passion and determination really do matter. Mine's communicating with words and images for training purposes. My core skill, developed since my pre-teen years, has always been transforming worthy thoughts into appropriate words and grounding images that lead to desired actions. Along the way, that has led to at least nine different roles. The goal hasn't been photography, but has INVOLVED photography in a big way.

I learned by being a commercial radio announcer for two years that, just because I know enough to do something well, that does NOT mean I have the desire or need or patience or temperament to do it. Country music and some of my audience drove me cRaZy (I'm a devoted fan of rock, rock-and-roll, jazz, blues, bluegrass, classical, alternative and experimental music). The job itself, in small-market stations in the late '70s, was something best done by a computer (the FM side of an AM/FM station I worked for on weekends WAS computerized). Trying to start a broken backup generator in a snowstorm at 5:00 AM, and cleaning guard dog waste out of the fenced area around the transmitter hut, were a couple of the last straws. The realization that WKRP in Cincinnati was absolute small market radio reality was the real kick out the door!

I have a degree in economics, and I took accounting, but I would make the worst CPA on earth, because I can't stand staring at numbers long enough to do my own taxes. (I TOTALLY respect accountants, though! Good ones — honest ones — are worth lots of gold to their employers.)

I know how to repair and refurbish Macs (just performed major RAM and drive swap surgery on my son's MacBook Pro yesterday), but I never considered doing computer maintenance for a living. It's fun once in a while, but Apple's making it harder to do.

I knew how to do school portraiture, created an entire training curriculum for it, and trained others to do it for years, but I never wanted to do it for a living. I don't have the patience with kids. Flipping burgers is an easier job, and it pays about the same... The big portrait companies don't pay their photographers squat.

In summary, if you want to do something well enough, you'll do it. If you don't, you won't. That's okay, so long as you find an enjoyable and fulfilling role to play and place to play it. I count myself as one of the lucky ones.

Keen

It depends upon how far you enlarge it, and how close you view it from. For most situations most people can't tell.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

You can often get an idea regarding focal length because of background compression or separation, the rest.... not so much, even macro there are a lot of ways to shoot macro without a macro lens, but large images of tiny things are generally shot with some sort of macro set up, but not necessarily a macro lens.

Bipod

I agree: some subjects require more resolution than others at a given print or display size.

But for most representational (i.e., non abstract) subjects there is some enlargement where he lack of detail
becomes annoying.

As I said in an ealier post, thanks to human anatomy, we are used to seeing a certain level of detail at each
distance. If we see less, it likes wearing dirty glasses.

I'd like to know more about that---I'll look it up when I have time.

One problem that's unavoidable is the economics of IC fabrication. In any chip family, the bigger ones are always
more expensive (e.g., 2 core processors cost more than single core processors). As long as the chips are made from
wafers cut from silicon crystals, physically large chips will be expensive to make.

The cost structure of film cameras was completely different: even cheap P&S cameras were 35 mm.
Making wider film requires wider equipment, but otherwise it's no different than making narrow film--
and the film wasn't included in the price of the camera.

One option is to shoot film, then scan the negatives. I'm not a fan of scanners, but they have gotten
better if you're willing to pay a lot. Then you can use PhotosShop print however you want.

Beth Moon's workflow is film to digital to contact printing! I'm very impressed with what she's able
to do (given the low-contast inherent in platinum paper).

I agree--and well said! Photographs produced for the art market only became common in the 1880s,
and only became accepted by museums in the 1920s. And the number of photographers making a living
from fine art photography is much smaller today than it was 50 years ago (when there were enough collectors
to support a whole tribe of Westons!).

But photography as we know it (respected as an art form) would not exist without it. Two things put
still photography into American psyche: fine art photography and glossy magazines such as Life
and Look. Magazines are dying, and photography just doen't look that good on the average
computer monitor.

When I was doing web sites, I found that bad photographs -- attention-grabbing commerical junk--
worked better than good ones. But graphics works best of all. Computer monitors are really a
graphics medium:
https://www.deviantart.com/dofresh/art/Steampunk-789289727

On a computer display, for still photography to compete with digital graphic art is an uphill battle.

Those are all legtimate, important trades. But so are house painting and bricklaying.

Forensic photography and medical photography....lucky you.
Maybe you all can get together and compare photos of crime scenes, tumors,
and stranger's weddings. I wonder which is more horrifying?

Some day soon, there may be no place to exhibit, no collectors to buy prints,
and no government grants for photography. (The 2019 Budget just released
by the White House does not include any funding for the NEA. or NEH--if
the budget were enacted they would be closed down.)

The only reason those things exist in the US today is because generations of brilliant
photographers from the 1880s though 1960s made it their life's work to get photography
accepted as fine art.

All that work can be undone by a few casual comments on the Internet, if they
get repeated by enough people.