Plain Old Pictures

Part 2: How to stop worrying and do the work

Housekeeping

A brief aside, as Les reminded me today, I’ve been remiss in publishing our 2025 workshop schedule. Mostly due to actually hosting our 2024 workshops and doing the right now work we have to do. So without any more excuses, the Intro to Fine Art Printing in January 2025 is filled (Sorry we’ll be scheduling more). The first workshop on the books with openings is our Advanced Awagami Printing & Display workshop. Hurry we have three openings left on April 26/27 2025. Read all about and register via the link above. Feel free to ask any questions we’ll get back ASAP.

Hard to believe our first of these workshops was almost two years ago. Everyone loved taking home finished artwork. Take a look at a few BTS shots finishing up. Here’s the short synopsis; We start working with participants a couple months before the workshop to select images that will pair well with the two unique Awagami papers we will be using, we make proofs and prints for approval, then we put everything together with two very different and unique framing and mounting methods that highlight the materials and your art. You leave with final presentation pieces. Better yet, you learn to make them on your own.

Plain Old Pictures; Cameras Are More The Same Than Different

The opening screenshot shows everything you might want to know. The lens used, the shutter speed, the aperture, the ISO, the one adjustment made, the lens used and the kind of RAW file. But what about the camera? That was made with my Canon R6, the first version, soon to be know as the R6 “classic” based on historical precedents. Yes there’s a reason I made this first picture of old, beat up boots but more on that another day.

Why the Canon R6? It was laying next to me but and happened to have the 50mm lens mounted on it. It occurred to me that I could make that picture with any camera I’ve had ever, no problem. I could make 99% of all pictures I make with just about any camera ever but specifically cameras made in the last 10-15 years. Why? Because most cameras are the same. Just for the heck of it I grabbed my Fuji X-Pro 2 with 35mm 1.4 (the old crappy OG version) and made the same shot. This is a follow-up for the last Plain Old Pictures post.

I even used the optical viewfinder to make it without resorting to the EVF. Pretty darn close given how quickly I made the shot from memory after going and finding the Fuji and coming back to the scene. I use the exposure values I used on the Canon R6 to ensure exact equivalent comparisons. I do this sort of experiment periodically to level-set myself. I wanted to share it with all of you to combat the dreaded G.A.S. So… I continued onward of making the same picture with another ridiculous choice, the Leica M10. This should be Leica magical right…???

Uh Oh! That’s not the same picture, so I guess I was wrong. Of course it’s not the ancient rangefinder has a minimum focus distance of 0.7m and meters are big so ummm, this is at minimum focus distance rocking back and forth in an attempt to get the same focus plane. Ignore the aperture data, there’s no electronic data for the lenses, it’s a camera guess at the actual aperture. It was actually f/4 like the other lenses. In any case it’s the same picture for all intents and purposes. Maybe it’s better with more context and a bit looser framing? What about that extra exposure adjustment of a whole stop or so??? Ummm, Leica’s tend to do that (Fuji’s cheat on the ISO vs real exposure too but less than they used to and they tend to do it incrementally at higher ISOs). No matter, the same picture. I made another with the R6 attempting quickly to replicate the framing.

There ya go, same picture. So what have we learned? Why are all of us programmed to think different cameras with vastly different sensors produce radically different pictures? Why do we all think this to some degree? I know what you are thinking, the pictures would be more different if they were very different scenes right? Ummm, not so much. Most of in-camera differences you will see especially color differences are mostly due to white balance. This is the case for different WB preset tastes between manufacture’s and vastly different auto-WB interpretations.

Oooooh, the vaunted Fuji colors vs the legendary Leica colors… all fixed up with the same actual white balance and compensating exposure so the mid-tones and highlights are the same density due to Leicas under exposure disposition compared to real ISO. Am I saying there is no difference? Absolutely not but they are so, so far behind just about anything else you might do in-camera with exposure or in post that those things overwhelm minor differences in sensor architecture, color filter array tweaking, etc, etc, etc. Heck even the lenses are hard to distinguish from each other except for the Fuji 35mm’s additional depth of field given the same angle of view.

Use what you have, use what you like. Don’t worry too much about gear in the same league (real cameras with real sized sensors) and any reasonably decent glass (most of it). Go do the work, get better at all the things that count way more but make more pictures. There’s a reason for that first shot of the old boots at the top, I’ll follow up soon no matter if those pictures work out or not. I’ll also be sharing a few thoughts on tweaking your preferred look. Trust me I do not use “Adobe Color” and as-is as that is not my preferred look/taste. It probably isn’t yours either, the important part is it’s not as far off as most people think. That goes for black and white as well. Stay tuned.