Livick on digital, Mike Arst's photographs

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Thanks Mike Arst for the pointer to this interesting article:
http://www.livick.com/method/treadmill/pg1.htm

BTW - check out Mike's recent images from Sweden, and be sure to leave comments.
http://www.pbase.com/mikearst/image/85801127/medium

[mikemeister_admin]

The article is right on, I also think that there are too many options on digital cameras that we will never use. Software programs on your computer are the same.
  Barry

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I have to agree - OTOH the complexity keeps going up, driven by the market.  As an example closer to home, the number of features in Curvemeister is increasing at a steady rate.  I guess the key is to make it possible to ignore the features that are not necessary.

[mikemeister_admin]

Wait, gentlemen, not so fast!  As Mike has recently gone "against raw" I'd like to point out that if you shoot raw files, many of that somewhat-confused photographer's gripes about "complexity" simply disappear.  With raw files (which is properly spelled "raw" and not "RAW," since it's not a particular file format or an abbreviation for an extension, but the plain word "raw") we can just forget about these things when we're shooting:

-- No "quality" settings
-- No "size" settings
-- No "white balance" settings

Are there more things we can forget about when shooting raw?  Maybe, but I've forgotten them . . .

Also, "more complexity" means "more possibilities" -- and that you or Joe or Peter or I have no particular need of "feature X" in a camera or an application doesn't mean it's not useful to a lot of other folks, and their needs count no less than yours or Joe's or Peter's or mine. 

[mikemeister_admin]

Oh yeah, and these also we can happily forget when shooting raw:

-- No "sharpening" settings
-- No "picture control" (saturation/contrast) settings

Frankly, it would stress me out a lot if I were to shoot nothing but JPEGs, with all those hard-wired settings to worry about and getting right! And I've now figured out what that upper-caps "RAW" term is an abbreviation of: "Relax And Work." :-)

[RonBoyd]

(which is properly spelled "raw" and not "RAW," since it's not a particular file format or an abbreviation for an extension, but the plain word "raw")

As in "uncooked"?... like the thought?... Or is that half-baked?

[mikemeister_admin]

Right on. Uncooked ain't half-baked!