This is prompted, by a podcast from Tin House Studio (at the very end)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt3JVrWxB1s
Opinions. As someone once said, “Opinions are like a#%eholes, everyone has one and not everything they produce is good”.
It is getting increasingly hard to;
1) Find clear and evenly balanced, correctly informed opinions from people who know.
2) Be able to tell the difference.
I am going to share an opinion here, but I hope it is a fair assessment of the state of things.
It is easy to get advice, but hard to get good advice, which I fear is going to become the norm.
Video suffers from this more than stills, because the base of older videographers is just not there.
The easiest way is to go back to known and respected sources, unfortunately harder with video, as so much has changed so fast. Books, written about photography are still trustworthy, blogs and vlogs are generally a mixed bag.
Proof?
Terminology for one, something that bothers me way too much, is paying the price of poorly educated people educating the next generation.
Example;
There is a raft of poor depth of field and aperture terminology going around, which to be honest make one of the hardest things to get your head around even harder. “A depth of field” is not a thing and should not be used as a catch-all to describe shallow depth of field or Bokeh. An image has more or less depth of field, but you need to say that.
Bokeh is also not just a term for super shallow depth of field, but rather a term for all sharp-to-soft depth of field transitions and their many qualities.
Wider apertures (along with other factors) = shallower depth of field = smaller f numbers = more light. Bokeh effects always result from this, not just from the amount of blur.
I would be wealthy if I scored a dollar for every time I have heard “more of a depth of field”, meaning shallow depth of field effect, or “smashed it with a bigger aperture”, but meaning a bigger number, not an actual bigger aperture which is a smaller number.
Another is using the term Lut for stills imaging when you are using a pre-set, which in stills should be called that and should not be treated as a fix-all like in video (and neither should it be in video). The habit of selling LUT’s does nobody any favours if the user needs to know more about colour grading.
Other opinions, more dangerous than annoying are the “never” or “only” ones, you know the type, the ones that inform you that there is apparently only one true way to do something properly, one brand, format, codec or programme worth having and all the rest are sub-par. These may not even be that obvious, just gently biased through faintly praising others.
Sometimes these are quite simply paid bias or worse ignorance.
Yet to meet someone who has done it all, used everything and tried every possible connotation of the art, so how would they actually know? One thing I have learned is, all brands have something to offer and no one way is the right way, but also the grass is seldom greener on the other side.
Always shoot RAW! I do, except for when I don’t.
Always use primes (or zooms). What utter crap. Each lens and use case needs to be looked at individually, not as a philosophy of type bias. I have a preference for primes because I have found they are generally better bang for the buck. Give me a pair of cheap, fast, but conservative primes over a monster super zoom any day, but that is my choice. The reality is, my zooms often surprise me, but my fondest memories are from a few special primes I have owned.
If you have f1.4 you should use it (often with miss-pronounced Bokeh or incorrect depth of field terminology).
Way to make all your images look the same as everyone else’s and chicken out of forming an proper story telling frame. Depth of field is like light or air or anything else, it has flavours, quantities and moods, so why not use them all.
Only use brand or format “X”.
Use what works for you, which is likely what you have and remember, brand preferences come and go. Ten years ago, Sony was only emerging in the industry until they got video AF right before everyone else, then they jumped over older brands, but for a long time they struggled to produce a decent lens. According to some recent reviewers, they seem to have invented superior lens design! To non AF users (i.e.professionals), they are still just one of many mid range brands.
Never crop, always crop, never post process (for authenticity), always post process for the best results (subjective), etc.
For this one I would simply flip it. What do you want. Decide this before you shoot and make the shooting process fit that. Why should an arbitrary choice made by some tech or committee many years ago decide for you what shape/size/colour or tone your work should be?
I like square, wide screen and sometimes, just as it comes. Colour gives way to mono as appropriate and I reserve the right to treat every image as I feel without using pre-sets or LUT’s to hide behind.
The best creators have an idea, then they do what is needed to realise it, they do not start with “my camera does this, so this is what I do”. Wes Anderson did not go out and buy a “Wes Anderson kit and LUT pack” and gain his signature look from that. Many will only decide on photography at all if it is the right medium.
My advice, and this is an opinion, but one that I hope makes sense, is do you rather than copy, create new rather than mimic, research when you have a valid question and then take the “vein” of truth from several sources. Don’t be afraid to fall back on time tested techniques when in doubt, because they tend to weather time better than trends. Read older and more respected sources if you are getting contradictory information and question, question, question.
Look at the masters, not so you can copy, but take heed of their journey, the way they did not copy, but created their own look.
Ask yourself who is talking as much as what they are saying. You may identify with the face on the screen and they may be very charismatic, but do not just accept what they say if that little voice in your head throws up a question mark. Anyone doing this for less than ten years may very well be caught up in the same vast ball of mis-information out there (but still consider themselves “veterans” or worse “guru’s” none the less).
The reality is they are getting results they like, so their opinions are valid, but are they sharing their thoughts accurately and are their ways ideal for you?
On that, listen to you inner voice. Intuition and instinct are the most under utilised resources we all have.