Digital or SLR?

[Michael Georges]

Michele:

I tried to send you an image, but even Zipped up the file size is too large for my gateway requirements. Sorry.

Marvin: Here are the whole painting images

[Michael Georges]

And:

[Marvin Mattelson]

Michael,

Were the details you posted part of the entire digital file of your painting or were they separate close-ups? The ones I had linked to on my previous post were details from the whole file.

Your paintings are showing great improvement, BTW. Congratulations.

[Michael Georges]

The shots I showed were just cut out of the original pics I took of the painting and were not close ups or separate shots at all.

Thanks for your compliments on my work.

[Michele Rushworth]

Maybe it just comes down to the difference in the edge sharpness of the actual paintings. (Duh!)

I've posted an overall shot of one of my sharper-edged paintings and then an "actual pixels" image cut out of the original overall photo (not a close-up photo).

I still see a bit more graininess in my darks compared to the one Michael posted, but the edges of the leaf closeup photo are a lot sharper than on the painting of the boy (as they are on the actual canvases).

This canvas is 30 x 40".

[Michele Rushworth]

And here are the actual pixels from the original shot:

[Michele Rushworth]

What I think is happening is that my camera is having an easier time focusing on the sharp-edged high contrast shapes in the leaf painting than in the softer edged, lower contrast shapes of my portraits.

Perhaps it is giving me an "in focus" signal when it's just doing its best guess.

Next time I'll try using a card taped to the side of the painting to use for setting the focus.

Perhaps it's also to do with overall light levels. When I photographed the leaf painting it was a bright day. That may account for the less grainy appearance than what I see in some of my portrait photos.

So many variables!

I do agree with you, Marvin, on the benefits of shooting 4 x 5's. I take my paintings downtown and have a professional color lab shoot 4 x 5 transparencies of all my paintings.

It's just that then I don't have a clean high res digital file in order to print 8 x 10's for my portfolio. I'm stuck with what I can get with my own digital camera. Doing a very high res digital scan at that color lab is much more expensive and so far I've avoided doing that for all but my favorite pieces.

The search for the perfect solution goes on...

[Mike McCarty]

What I think is happening is that my camera is having an easier time focusing on the sharp-edged high contrast shapes in the leaf painting than in the softer edged, lower contrast shapes of my portraits.

Perhaps it is giving me an "in focus" signal when it's just doing its best guess.

As I think through what you are saying my initial thoughts are that the lens of the camera only focuses at a specific distance from the lens to the subject. Once that distance is determined it then falls on the film or pixels for interpretation.

I think your theory about soft edges has merit, especially when these edges (or transitions) relate to certain colors. I have always thought that film saw reds more easily (or differently) than the colors around it.

For example when a cheek turn very gradually from light to shadow, film seems to interprete this more harshly, accentuating the reds and thus creating a more harsh transition than how my eyes view the same painted surface.

When I view this painting in person it looks very different to my eyes. Very frustrating.

I own both a SLR and a digital camera. I love having both of them as I use my digital camera a lot when designing webpages and find it too convenient in taking quick snapshots on vacations and such. But I am still leary about the long term effects in printing my photos from my digial camera onto photo paper. There is no concrete proof in stating that these digitally produced photographs from my hewlett packard printer will be staying around for 100 plus years. Oh yes, the printing companies will state that there ink is archival and will last for 100 plus years but nobody really knows for certain. I have worked at a print shop for many years and know a lot about archival ink myself. Also, don't let water get near those ink-jet photos!

I am knee deep into geneaology and own tons of old black and white photographs taken in the 1800's. Not only are these old photos clear but not a hint of yellowing or degrading in them.

Also, we save our images to CD's. They have done studies on how long CD-ROMs will last for - I have seen the average at 10 years. No one knows for sure to say the least. So in the future, will we be able to ever look at those precious pics from our CD's again and pass them on to generation to generation?

Even if studies has shown that my photos printed on photo paper will last 30 years, I want to have concrete evidence to make sure that any of my precious photos such graduations, births, parties, anniversaries, etc are all taken on my SLR camera and not my digital. There is no gaurantee at all in stating that our beautiful, precious pictures will stay around for years to come. I know, my myself, I want to be able to pass down as many photos about my family and friends to my children. It has already been said that the older black and white photographs will outlast the coloured photographs of our time but what about those ink-jet printed photos?

I am too stuck into the new technology and love my digital camera. Oh how convenient it is to erase the photo we don't want and having a filmless camera. I use it all the time (maybe even too much).

Film is the cheapest I have seen it in years and that is probably due to the fact for the popular market of the digital cameras. Thank you digital camera!!

[Morgan Weistling]

I have honed this down to a science and spent countless hours working out the little problems that you have discussed here.

One little tip, if possible with your camera, focus manually when shooting artwork.

Unfortunately, most point and shoot digitals don't let you look thru the lens and focus like my D100. While you are nailing the focus down, shine a flashlight at the center spot that the camera is on to see the paint ridges with little highlights that will allow you something to focus on if your painting is not giving you enough contrast to focus on. Also, manually set your depth of field to about f8, if possible, to give you a little buffer zone for error. Then bracket like crazy. Keep notes on what is working.

When I would shoot with my Nikon 990, I would have the problems you are having now. Also, check to make sure no stray light is hitting your lens. Sometimes you can not notice the lights are glazing over your lens and ruining your contrast. I block out my lights around my camera with large black foamcore boards attached to light stands. My shots improved right away with that one.

In digital SLRs, the lens is everything. The sharpness of your shots can vary dramatically depending on the quality of the glass. With the little point and shoot digitals, you are stuck with what you have. The farther you get back from the painting, the more you will see the limitations of those little lenses. The glass is just not the priority of the camera makers in that product line. Everyone is enamored with mega pixels and forget that a 5 megapixel point and shoot is going to give you this same sharpness problem. I have a 60mm Nikon flat field lens I use just for shooting artwork. It gives amazing sharpness and no distortions.

I have a 28mm-70mm Nikon lensefor figurative shots that can shoot in the dark it's so fast. What's nice, is that my lens collection will follow me to whatever new digital body they come out with(in SLR). Right before I bought my first digital, I bought a Nikon F100 film camera for the "real" photos I would be needing. On a whim, I bought the 990, for fun shots, and ended up never touching the F100 again. It was a waste of my money. I recommend to anyone wondering if they should put any money into a film camera at this point to really reconsider. Sell things to raise the money, do bake sales, take in laundry, try out for American Idol. Do whatever you can to raise the money for a digital SLR.

You won't be sorry.
Morgan