Mountain-Light
The Search for Quality
Most photographers want to produce quality images. But quality doesn't mean the same to everyone. The determining factor is - What's the ultimate purpose of our photography?
1. Are the photographs you take for personal use to be displayed in an album or in the I Internet?
2. Are you planning to sell your images either as prints or send them to magazine markets?
Quality - is defined in a dictionary as: "A high grade of excellence."
Are we creating high-grade images?
Quality here refers to the hardware the photographer uses to take a picture and the post-production.
To craft an image every part of the process must be tuned to achieve that goal.
To illustrate - years ago I was walking the Scottish Mountains with another photographer waiting for the best light to photograph a mountain scene. He carried a basic camera
box with a top quality lens. I had with me a heavy Bronica ETRSI with a good lens. Attached to my lens I placed an UV filter to protect it against scratches, that was a common
practice with many photographers.
"The more glass you put in front of the camera the less will be the quality of your pictures," he said studying my camera. "Protect your lens by covering it with the lens
cap. When you finish using your camera put it away in its protective cover. You should only place a filter in front of the lens to fulfill the purpose it was designed".
I took to heart his advice and in 30 years I only had one lens destroyed due to carelessness. Recently I was very lucky not to have a new lens destroyed by a bird, (See image
above.) I got too close to the creature and unexpectedly went for me, hitting the front of the lens with its huge bill.
Each part of the physical process of creating a photograph should be analyzed to see if any practices have been introduced affecting negatively the final result.
Let us consider just a few points:
1. If your camera is programmed to take JPG images instead of RAW, you're compromising quality. A JPEG image is processed in camera and at the end of the process some image
information is discarded and lost forever. For best quality you must take pictures in the RAW format, then the image is processed later in the computer.
3. With time the computer colour becomes inaccurate, it needs to be calibrated otherwise the colour in your pictures are not what you think they are and should be. This isn't
all, if you are going to print your images; the printer also needs to be calibrated so that it understands correctly the colours the computer is telling it to print.
4. If you save your image in JPEG and in time you re-save it a few times, be assured that the quality suffers. Every time you re-save a JPG the quality is downgraded.
However, some photographers may say at this point - The deteriorating effect of each single action, except for point 3, is so small that it is imperceptible to the viewers
eye. That's true! However, the key point to remember is that each single action is cumulative. After a few steps it becomes noticeable. You only have to do a few simple tests
to be convinced.
There are a number of ways to test - From the RAW file make two images. On one picture introduce a few of the negative actions above and save it as a TIFF file. On the other
manipulate it as little as possible in converting it from RAW. Save it as a TIFF. Enlarge a small portion of each image and compare the result.
I just selected a few basic matters relating to quality. These non-technical notes clearly show that quality is mainly determined by the photographer's attitude toward their
craft. This in turn is fed by other factors - knowledge, work ethics and pride in creating the best work possible.
The search for quality is a continuous process - there's always room for improvement.
Most photographers want to produce quality images. But quality doesn't mean the same to everyone. The determining factor is - What's the ultimate purpose of our photography?
1. Are the photographs you take for personal use to be displayed in an album or in the I Internet?
2. Are you planning to sell your images either as prints or send them to magazine markets?
Quality - is defined in a dictionary as: "A high grade of excellence."
Are we creating high-grade images?
Quality here refers to the hardware the photographer uses to take a picture and the post-production.
To craft an image every part of the process must be tuned to achieve that goal.
To illustrate - years ago I was walking the Scottish Mountains with another photographer waiting for the best light to photograph a mountain scene. He carried a basic camera
box with a top quality lens. I had with me a heavy Bronica ETRSI with a good lens. Attached to my lens I placed an UV filter to protect it against scratches, that was a common
practice with many photographers.
"The more glass you put in front of the camera the less will be the quality of your pictures," he said studying my camera. "Protect your lens by covering it with the lens
cap. When you finish using your camera put it away in its protective cover. You should only place a filter in front of the lens to fulfill the purpose it was designed".
I took to heart his advice and in 30 years I only had one lens destroyed due to carelessness. Recently I was very lucky not to have a new lens destroyed by a bird, (See image
above.) I got too close to the creature and unexpectedly went for me, hitting the front of the lens with its huge bill.
Each part of the physical process of creating a photograph should be analyzed to see if any practices have been introduced affecting negatively the final result.
Let us consider just a few points:
1. If your camera is programmed to take JPG images instead of RAW, you're compromising quality. A JPEG image is processed in camera and at the end of the process some image
information is discarded and lost forever. For best quality you must take pictures in the RAW format, then the image is processed later in the computer.
2. During image adjustments. Whenever you apply consecutive image adjustments in Photoshop, you progressively degrade the image.
3. With time the computer colour becomes inaccurate, it needs to be calibrated otherwise the colour in your pictures are not what you think they are and should be. This isn't
all, if you are going to print your images; the printer also needs to be calibrated so that it understands correctly the colours the computer is telling it to print.
4. If you save your image in JPEG and in time you re-save it a few times, be assured that the quality suffers. Every time you re-save a JPG the quality is downgraded.
However, some photographers may say at this point - The deteriorating effect of each single action, except for point 3, is so small that it is imperceptible to the viewers
eye. That's true! However, the key point to remember is that each single action is cumulative. After a few steps it becomes noticeable. You only have to do a few simple tests
to be convinced.
There are a number of ways to test - From the RAW file make two images. On one picture introduce a few of the negative actions above and save it as a TIFF file. On the other
manipulate it as little as possible in converting it from RAW. Save it as a TIFF. Enlarge a small portion of each image and compare the result.
I just selected a few basic matters relating to quality. These non-technical notes clearly show that quality is mainly determined by the photographer's attitude toward their
craft. This in turn is fed by other factors - knowledge, work ethics and pride in creating the best work possible.
The search for quality is a continuous process - there's always room for improvement.
Landscape and Wildlife Photography
