On Aug 31, 2012, at 10:15 AM, Darren Addy wrote: > Alright. I had a Ranger IPA and let the desire to unsubscribe pass. My > Quality of Life Index stinks bad enough right now without cutting > myself off from PDML (you see, I clearly have masochistic tendencies). > : \ > > I realize that "Kenny Boy" is a widely reviled character here on PDML > (and beyond), and I'm not clear if this is because his information or > conclusion is (often?) wrong, or if he is just hated as a Pontificator > (or worse, Nikon Fanboy). > : ) > > If I may, I would like to ask you to please "hold your noses" and tell > me, specifically, what you disagree with in the following Kenny Boy > essay on the subject of lens sharpness: > http://kenrockwell.com/tech/lens-sharpness.htm Please think of this as > a weekend diversion, should you not have time for it today. In > addition, if you have a link to share that you think discusses this > subject (lens sharpness) more lucidly, please pass that along.
Have you ever hung out on photography fora where people who recently knew nothing about photography, now know a little, and talk like they know everything? The ones who just learned that you can control depth of field by adjusting the aperture, and make me sound humble? Rockwell sounds like that. My problem with Rockwell is that some of the things that he says are important truths, and some of the things that he writes sound like he is a long time disciple of Timothy Leary. For example I agree entirely with this: Do you know what limits the sharpness of most of my photos, even those made with crappy equipment? It's the same things I mention elsewhere: imperfect focus, limited depth-of-field, and subject and camera motion. Your creative input to a photo makes far more of an imprint on the image than any small, and often invisible, difference in sharpness from one lens to another. Then he throws out something like this: Ansel knew about fractals before Mandelbrot ever wrote about them. Fractals means that there are similar levels of detail at every magnification, so that regardless of how close or how far you are away from trees, complete forests or individual leaves, there is always detail to be seen Which is not the definition of fractal by a long shot. He points to this page as some of his best pictures ever: http://www.kenrockwell.com/trips/2007-10-395/18.htm Those photos aren't bad, but if those are his best, then he's not even as good as Peter Lik. Another thing that I believe annoys people about Rockwell is that he writes as if he is the font of all knowledge photographic. This is very appealing to people that want simple answers, particularly beginners. Unfortunately a lot of the things he says are wrong, and are mixed in with some important truths. I think that a lot of his columns would make good fodder for discussion, not only what is write or wrong, but why and when. He says that nobody shoots f/2.8 in decent light. I often don't stop down that much unless the light is pretty good. Then again, my definition of "pretty good light" is somewhere around "enough light to read a newspaper". Overall, this seems to be one of his better articles. He makes some good points, and not too many gaffes. I find myself running up against the limits of my lens sharpness now and then, but it's rarely the limiting factor. > -- Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
