Reading many of the photo mags I like, I'm often struck by the super-critical, almost anal criticism of the slightest hint of 'noise' (formerly known as 'grain') found in even the best of photographs!
For instance in one magazine I usually enjoy, the Brit one "Practical Photography", in the 6/10 issue there's a fantastic closeup, face-on shot of a Pelican. It's one of the best bird pnotographs I've ever seen! -But the critic there blew up a tiny lower side portion of the birds feathers by 250%, discovered a tiny bit of blurring, and then labeled the shot as only being mediocre because of "noise"!
I haven't seen such anal nit-picking of a good (actually great, IMO) bird photograph in all my 60 years of experience with photography! -But then, unfortunately, it's not limited to this magazine or this critic either..!
From whence cometh all this obsessive concern over a bit of grain or a bit of blurring in good photographs? Is it a byproduct of our overly perfectionist, overly tech-loving-as-opposed-to-art-making, nit picking times? Or have the "experts" now become so jealous of the rising expertise of amateur digital photographers that they are negatively bending over backwards to try and preserve their own cherished positions?? ">})
Sheeesh, if all of these ridiculous perfectionist standards the photo "experts" want to impose on us now were around in the era of great 35mm photo art, magazines such as Life wouldn't have been able to publish probably 3/4's of their fantastic in-the-field shots!!!
And shooting candidly, that wonderful experience of capturing just the right moment, is something else to think about here... Because if we all had to spend all of our photo opportunities first carefully checking and adjusting our DSLRs to obtain the minimum possible amount of 'noise', the chances of obtaining that great one-inna-million picture would become damn near impossible!
So if the picture is great (or even only just good?), I say hooray for a little noise, hooray for some acceptable grain, and let's put all those perfectionist "experts" opinions back into the little nit picking boxes they are always trying to stuff our photographs into!
For instance in one magazine I usually enjoy, the Brit one "Practical Photography", in the 6/10 issue there's a fantastic closeup, face-on shot of a Pelican. It's one of the best bird pnotographs I've ever seen! -But the critic there blew up a tiny lower side portion of the birds feathers by 250%, discovered a tiny bit of blurring, and then labeled the shot as only being mediocre because of "noise"!
I haven't seen such anal nit-picking of a good (actually great, IMO) bird photograph in all my 60 years of experience with photography! -But then, unfortunately, it's not limited to this magazine or this critic either..!
From whence cometh all this obsessive concern over a bit of grain or a bit of blurring in good photographs? Is it a byproduct of our overly perfectionist, overly tech-loving-as-opposed-to-art-making, nit picking times? Or have the "experts" now become so jealous of the rising expertise of amateur digital photographers that they are negatively bending over backwards to try and preserve their own cherished positions?? ">})
Sheeesh, if all of these ridiculous perfectionist standards the photo "experts" want to impose on us now were around in the era of great 35mm photo art, magazines such as Life wouldn't have been able to publish probably 3/4's of their fantastic in-the-field shots!!!
And shooting candidly, that wonderful experience of capturing just the right moment, is something else to think about here... Because if we all had to spend all of our photo opportunities first carefully checking and adjusting our DSLRs to obtain the minimum possible amount of 'noise', the chances of obtaining that great one-inna-million picture would become damn near impossible!
So if the picture is great (or even only just good?), I say hooray for a little noise, hooray for some acceptable grain, and let's put all those perfectionist "experts" opinions back into the little nit picking boxes they are always trying to stuff our photographs into!
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