This is posted with a bit of tongue in cheek, a camera designed by HP marketed at women as it is engineered to make them appear slimmer in a photo.
That being said, it does conjure up speculation on where engineering might take photography and puts further meaning into the debate on photo manipulation.
All cameras, all films, all lenses, all processing, and indeed all compositions manipulate an image. It's really just a matter of degree. Is this any different than a fisheye lens distorting an image optically or an ad agency retouching model images to sell cosmetics?
There really is no speculation. We already know for a fact that images can be distorted and manipulated to almsot unlimited extent. This has been the case since the invention of photography. New technology just gives us new ways of doing it.
While not disagreeing with your observations, there is to my mind a distinction with this product.
Where a wide angle lens wasn't designed for portraiture, it has been effectively used for this. The use of a view camera to increase perspective rather than reduce it.
The difference, is that this is a marketing development before it is a technical development. Where in the past the use, some might say abuse, of a photographic tool or technique might bring some excellent images, usually it wasn't the original intent. Over the years many of the improvements in photography were not developed with the professional photographer in mind, but that of amateurs to the benefit of both markets.
Many of us here will remember Bill Gates saying a decade ago, "Why would anybody need more than 640K of RAM?" What this camera may mean is a similar technical revolution in photography scarcely imagined now. Perhaps not Photoshop in your camera back, but far more control than currently exists and in ways we may not imagine.
Also, how is it different from say a built-in flash in a consumer camera? It allows you to manipulate the scene and capture light that wasn't there originally - is that wrong?
Whoa, I suspect you may be attributing something I'm not saying or may not be clear in. While I do find it amusing that the article's writer contends that this is a development to appease vanity rather than a strictly technical need, the contention on my part is not that it is a 'bad' development as much as it is an interesting one.
As previously mentioned, historically many improvements for the professional have come out of research to improve and appeal to the amateur market, so I'm not knocking that segment of photography.
Given the rapid changes in digital photography, coupled the historical connection between the professional and amateur markets, what this camera may be telling us is, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Telling your camera you want the shot to be at 200 ISO at 500th of a second and underexposed by half a stop with an 81A filter correction really doesn't seem that far fetched anymore.
David, I guess I didn't understand what you were trying to say. I agree there's still more to come but personally I think there's a point of saturation and diminishing returns too. I honestly have no desire to talk to my camera
Here I will disagree with you, love to be able to talk to my camera!
There is apparently, a press release from Nikon saying that after their recent spate of new camera releases, they will now be concentrating on 'user operablity.' I'm hoping that means that all the many functions I have on my D2X will become usable. My experience is that under actual shooting conditions, the choice can be between 'programing' the camera for the optimum setting or missing the shot. To be able to verbally set the camera would be a great help; as long as it didn't answer back!
Think if you could specify a filter with no loss of aperture as, rather than being optical, it is applied by in camera software. Perhaps even specifying a graduated neutral density filter including the amount of graduation and the density.
Don't agree with your observation on point of saturation and diminishing returns. Ten years ago a friend in computing thought I was nuts for paying the price for a 60Hz. If I had the money I'd be out getting an AMD dual processor tomorrow. If you were told two years ago that some of the most impressive shots in photojournalism would soon be made by cell phone cameras, would you have believed it?
While wanting to steer clear of Popular Science predictions for the future, which invariably never come to pass, it may be this sort of camera represents a future where in camera software offers the ability to buy plugins for specific effects or filtration which would allow a photographer basically a custom built camera.
Discussion
7 repliesThis is posted with a bit of tongue in cheek, a camera designed by HP marketed at women as it is engineered to make them appear slimmer in a photo.
That being said, it does conjure up speculation on where engineering might take photography and puts further meaning into the debate on photo manipulation.
Dave
There really is no speculation. We already know for a fact that images can be distorted and manipulated to almsot unlimited extent. This has been the case since the invention of photography. New technology just gives us new ways of doing it.
Guy
While not disagreeing with your observations, there is to my mind a distinction with this product.
Where a wide angle lens wasn't designed for portraiture, it has been effectively used for this. The use of a view camera to increase perspective rather than reduce it.
The difference, is that this is a marketing development before it is a technical development. Where in the past the use, some might say abuse, of a photographic tool or technique might bring some excellent images, usually it wasn't the original intent. Over the years many of the improvements in photography were not developed with the professional photographer in mind, but that of amateurs to the benefit of both markets.
Many of us here will remember Bill Gates saying a decade ago, "Why would anybody need more than 640K of RAM?" What this camera may mean is a similar technical revolution in photography scarcely imagined now. Perhaps not Photoshop in your camera back, but far more control than currently exists and in ways we may not imagine.
Dave
Guy
Guy
Whoa, I suspect you may be attributing something I'm not saying or may not be clear in. While I do find it amusing that the article's writer contends that this is a development to appease vanity rather than a strictly technical need, the contention on my part is not that it is a 'bad' development as much as it is an interesting one.
As previously mentioned, historically many improvements for the professional have come out of research to improve and appeal to the amateur market, so I'm not knocking that segment of photography.
Given the rapid changes in digital photography, coupled the historical connection between the professional and amateur markets, what this camera may be telling us is, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Telling your camera you want the shot to be at 200 ISO at 500th of a second and underexposed by half a stop with an 81A filter correction really doesn't seem that far fetched anymore.
Dave
Guy
Here I will disagree with you, love to be able to talk to my camera!
There is apparently, a press release from Nikon saying that after their recent spate of new camera releases, they will now be concentrating on 'user operablity.' I'm hoping that means that all the many functions I have on my D2X will become usable. My experience is that under actual shooting conditions, the choice can be between 'programing' the camera for the optimum setting or missing the shot. To be able to verbally set the camera would be a great help; as long as it didn't answer back!
Think if you could specify a filter with no loss of aperture as, rather than being optical, it is applied by in camera software. Perhaps even specifying a graduated neutral density filter including the amount of graduation and the density.
Don't agree with your observation on point of saturation and diminishing returns. Ten years ago a friend in computing thought I was nuts for paying the price for a 60Hz. If I had the money I'd be out getting an AMD dual processor tomorrow. If you were told two years ago that some of the most impressive shots in photojournalism would soon be made by cell phone cameras, would you have believed it?
While wanting to steer clear of Popular Science predictions for the future, which invariably never come to pass, it may be this sort of camera represents a future where in camera software offers the ability to buy plugins for specific effects or filtration which would allow a photographer basically a custom built camera.
Cheers,
Dave