Hello Martin and the list.
I post a bit long because, altough I know this list is dedicated to
Darkable, of which I'm an "afficionado", it seems important to me to share
here and then some thoughts about technique, mandatory related with post-
processing, after more than fifty years snapping around.
Another good rule as foreword: After listening to a photo preacher (me?)
take a look at his images... If they touch you anyhow - I really don't speak
about "good" or "bad" but about emotions! - it could actually be worth to
continue listening or reading. If not, it would be in most cases better to
pass your way.
Link to some the images I speak about is at the end of the post... ;-)
Post by Martin BurriSerge, like you write: Also in my eyes, more important than a gray card
is a calibrated Monitor which is good enough to display the colors
accurately (in my case a Dell UP2717D but there are many other options).
And, what I also find important, neutral-white environment light. I
bought a simple light bulb (Philips TL-D 90 DeLuxe - maybe TL-D Graphica
might be even better). It was much cheaper than the monitor and it
really helps. Prints (coming from a calibrated printing service) look
now very close to what I see on the monitor. (I calibrated the monitor
white point to 5300K which is equal to the light bulb).
I own a gray card but I almost never use it. I usually set the white
balance where it looks good to me. Sometimes even a bit towards the one
or the other side depending on the mood I want to have in the picture. I
don't care too much about "exact" physical white balance.
Of course, I can only tell about me - others might think differently.
Best regards,
Martin
What in my mind was important to say à propos struggling with WB:
a) Overall, as your post proves it, the colorimetric results depends on the
whole environnement and chain and in fact on a myriad of variables.
For example, and most people overlook this, with wich body you snap? The
color rendition are different from one manufacturer to another nonobstand
identical sensors. I would certainly take more care of that at the moment of
acquiring a system, than of his WB setting capabilities. As of digital
cameras, I owned a Canon G3 (2003), then a Panasonic G1 (2009, the very
first µ4/3 with an electronic 100% viewfinder) and to day an Olympus E-M5
(2013). The rendering I love the best comes out of the Canon, to day I cope
happily with the Oly E-M5 outputs but I found, together with other people,
that the rendering of the Panasonic is a bit pissy in the yellows area. As
are said the Sony's. And also, each lenses has a different color cast.
And... so on. Another (stupid?) example: If I read well some testings (and
looked well some galleries), buying a Fuji "trans" body and producing raws
should be a real stupidity...
b) printing a DIY grey card is not a goog idea without the help of mindst a
calibrated... grey card. We used them in the past to help the use of
handheld then inbuilt cells, I even used a spotmeter for a time, essentially
because "the making of a photograph" (title of a serie of books by Ansel
Adams) was a long and costly process. And making transparencies was a no
repentance process. Even Early BW films were not so tolerant to exposition
failures. To say it's only useful for professional critical work.
A fast look on Flickr, Ipernity or even Instagram proves that there are a
lot of talented photographer out there who know just nothing about theory.
That considerably refreshes the photographic art. That is also helped with
the fact that the "marginal cost" of producing numeric images equals nut, so
you can make gazillions of images for about nothing, once acquired a basic
gear. Experimenting is no longer costly.
At the times of negatives or transparencies that was another history. I have
recently calculated that the "programmed obsolescence" is to day less costly
for me than where films days with the same second hand bodies 20 years long.
Buying a new gear about each four years for about 2 grands costs me less
than costed me films and developpement on a same period, nothing said about
convenience! And not even to speak of blocking the access to the family
bathroom hours and hours. To day, a guy I know well "develops" his images
sitting his armchair... :-) Going for a trip needed me about three films a
day, you can imagine the size of the bag for a fortnight outing... To day,
one only has marginal costs if one prints, what I seldom do.
c) When listening to a Symphony played by Berstein or Karajan, who cares on
wich frequency the A was tuned that day? Who cares on the WB settings when
looking at photographs on the Net or even in a gallery? The mood, as you
said, and the style and the emotions created are more important.
And yes Dartable is a fabulously multitalented "grand orchestre" with which
I just love to interpret my originals.
The only "critical" technical variable in digital photography is exposing:
never never never overexpose! All other reasonnable technical tweeks can be
done afterwood.
Composition is the real and first target of making an "artistic" image. A
photographer can learn about it in books about painting too: the rules (?)
are the same. Yes, the photographic art is all about composition and
eventually color. So accurate colorimetry or photometry, nor gear, really
matter. Who, in a gallery, cares of what sort of pinsel a painter used?
Another painter, eventually? But not the gallery owner nor the audience.
And yes I'm really more and more confident on the manufacturers automatic
settings.
And yes I shoot my family and social images mostly in jpeg. No audience ever
cared.
On my last acquisition, a high end compact, I will tune a preset on 50mm
equivalent and "Super Intelligent Auto" (yes, yes!). And let go. :-) So
while strolling I will be feeling like a "mini Henri Cartier Bresson" who
used only one lense, one film and two settings, one for outdoors and one for
indoors. In the thirties, a Leica body with his basic lens costed more than
an arm and a leg. That's the real reason why he was from the beginning a
"one lens shooter": he couldn't afford more. Later he understanded that
using only one lens (50mm) and one film (TRI-X) made him a better street
shooter. The outputs of a today high end compact camera are of better
technical quality that the film with which he made a few of his most
celebrated images. So for Ansel Adams, in a lesser way. That tells us that
technical globbledigloop does't matter so highly. Cartie Bresson was gritty
on not cropping his images. Composition, composition... that's the first
what we see on an image. Ansel Adams, in his domain, was also highly aware
of composition. Composition is that's what real matters, so all the
dedicated modules in DT and others are unevaluable! Under others, of
course... :-)
Last sunday I made my first "test shooting stroll" with this compact. I'm
amazed! Some results are here:
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/sergeschmitt/44348154//in/album/963120 .
Originals are (more than 300) jpegs, 'cause I have to switch to a more up to
date Kubuntu before beeing able to use the last DT with those raws. I don't
really care, as you probably guess after reading me! :-) I have "built" a
style for them, and found that the consistency is correct. On "good old
times" I would have had to carry around about ten pounds of gear to obtain
the same and probably not better varied images. But these ones are done with
a less then three film cases sized little gear. A blessing for my 70 years
old surgeried backbone and injuried knee... ;-)
I am fully booked until Tuesday, so I wish you (all) a good WE.
Please forgive my froggish english, and thanks to those couraged enough to
read all my prose.
Best regards,
Serge