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Proper exposure and focus is still as important in the digital age as it was with film.
As powerful as shooting with digital cameras and using software applications like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to process the images are, it is becoming obvious to me that a perfect exposure and dead accurate focusing is still as important as it ever was.
I mention this because I see more and more evidence of photographers ignoring their tripods, cranking up the ISO, relying on auto exposure, and generally believing that by shooting in the RAW image format, they will be able to fix the problems later in the photo processing software.
I learned proper photographic technique (back in the photographic darkroom age) with a Calumet 4x5 inch view camera and a stainless steel Majestic tripod, that weighed almost as much as a Volkswagen. So I really should know better, but I had also gotten somewhat sloppy lately and started relying on the high ISO capabilities of the D300, thinking that maybe the tripod was no longer all that necessary.
Getting an assignment last week to shoot the interior of a building with natural light, forced me to use a tripod though and to bracket all my (manual exposure) shots for the best images possible. Shooting every image that day a minimum of five or six times, with various exposures and focusing points, taught me a valuable lesson. Good photography still requires a lot of sweat and the basics that applied to getting a perfect image 20 years, 50 years and even 100 years ago, still apply today.
A few days later I was looking at a George Jardine Lightroom Tutorial Podcast on Noise Reduction and Sharpening (2007-0801) and I stumbled upon the same lesson for image processing. First he was manipulating one image that was interesting but not completely sharp, no matter what he did to correct the image there was always a point of final compromise. Increase the Amount of sharpening and you have to be careful with your Detail setting, apply too much Detail and you may have to introduce Masking and so on.
Next he showed an image that was perfectly exposed and exceptionally sharp and after trying a few adjustments the conclusion was, that no additional processing was necessary. No additional processing and no compromises.
That is when it really sunk in on me, just because we have the tools available to us, does not mean that we should strive to use them on every image. Our goal for both in camera and computer based image enhancement tools should be to use them as little as possible.
How true! "Fix it in Photoshop" is never the best choice.
While I agree that proper focus is just as important now as in the days of film, I'm not sure that anyone has ever felt otherwise. Focus is not recoverable via any post-processing technique and I don't know anyone who believes that shooting in raw buys them flexibility in this regard.
Exposure is another story and while I agree that proper exposure is important, there is more than one proper exposure depending on how you're shooting. When shooting JPEG, in-camera processing does a fixed mapping from the values in the raw data to the tone values in the final file, based on a tone curve and your various settings. Thus, obtaining a final image that looks aesthetically pleasing, exposure wise, is actually tied to the exposure itself. When shooting raw, the raw data values and output tone values are completely decoupled. This allows you to tune exposure specifically for highest-quality data capture. Most of the time, this means maximizing exposure consistent with avoiding clipping of detail-containing highlights and staying within tolerable limits on aperture (due to lens limits and DoF concerns) and shutter speed (due to motion blur concerns). Once you determine exposure, ISO follows directly: it should be as high as possible while avoiding clipping. This takes a fixed signal from the sensor (which is already as large as possible given aperture and shutter constraints) and amplifies it as much as possible to fill the input voltage range of the A/D converter, allowing as many tone values to be used as possible. The end result is the lowest noise and least quantization noise/posterization. The EC setting in your raw converter and your chosen tone curve and other settings then allows you to map tones as desired.
So, I agree with the premise but with the caveat that correct digital exposure is not the same as correct film exposure, with the two being most similar only for JPEG shooting.
Very interesting comment, which coincidentally confirms my point that it is important to bracket when a perfect exposure is critical.
I concede that focus is a separate issue but I am concerned about reliance on VR and Sharpness settings as opposed to using a tripod.
This is the unintended consequence of a new technology. In the days of film. If you had a marginal picture, you'd go "Oh well" and move on. Now there's the temptation to "save" it thru computer processing.
What's a photographer to do? Get the basics right. It will help you resist the temptation.
I agree. I have recently gone back to using a tripod for this very reason. I had grown lazy...whipping around the camera without thinking about it. Not only does the tripod create sharper images, it also forces you to slow down and analyze each shot craefully. Hell, I'm going to dig out my old lightmeter.
An interesting article from Gossen on the value of light meters for digital photography.
http://www.gossen-photo.de/pdf/digital_e.pdf
Manufacturers need to step up to provide digital photographers with a better exposure tool: a histogram reflecting the raw data and indicating the actual clipping point of each channel. There's no better indication of exposure quality than the results from a test photograph and yet most on-screen histograms in today's DSLRs are based on a JPEG converted using the current in-camera settings (even when shooting raw). After white balancing and tone curve are thrown in, it's hard to know where the actual raw data stands with respect to the clipping points in each channel of the sensor. Thus, it's hard to know how much the exposure can be increased to maximize dynamic range.
With Live View coming into vogue lately, it should be possible to avoid even the test photo stage, basing a proper histogram on the live data coming in either from the imaging sensor or (as in the case of Sony), the dedicated Live View sensor. The same principles for judging exposure would apply, but without having to take a test shot before getting the final exposure down. Indeed, the automated exposure modes should be keyed to such a proper histogram. And, there should just be one proper exposure: not one for JPEG and raw. Rather than creating the JPEG from the raw by using fixed black and white points, it should be possible to optimize the exposure for the raw data but then slide the black and white points in order to produce a final JPEG that appears aesthetically properly exposed, emulating what the raw shooter would normally do back at the computer during conversion.
My two cents.