Rather old thead brought back to life QT. So readers note the first section of posts are from that old period.
I think that quote about being archival blah blah is somewhat dated and not likely what he might toss out today several years later. At the time his information seemed to say he was excited about the huge 11 stops or so of exposure latitude he was seeing on the cameras of the day. So yeah he could make some prints out in mid day light that film simply did not have the dynamic range to hold. I first saw one of Stephen's scanning back prints at a Seybold exhibition in San Francisco in the late 90s. A time when I was newly involved with early digital processes like CS Lightjet prints and 3.01 Photoshop and about to move to 6x7 and 4x5. Was hoping to learn something about color management systems and did buy a book at the show. He had a couple prominent large prints displayed and I brought back his freebee poster of Mt St Helens. Another large print of a bush against sandstone somewhere in the SW was very impressively sharp.
He seems to still embrace a "tiny jpgs on the web" mindset that due to downsizing kills vast amounts of interesting features in his web-sized pics. For instance those snow pics that look like blocked up white or shadow areas that are simply black would not look like that on a print haha. To make a comment about that shows a lack of experience with what digital downsizing tends to do. I will agree that his selection of many subjects are rather weak. Pretty much like the vast numbers of photographers that have not figured out how to find and locate exceptional subjects and or don't have the awareness, time, or patience to sit on the truly exceptional. One problem some photographers, even some with solid reputaions have is a tendency to show too much weak material with their few really strong pieces. Of course for many that are building up a body of work, that may be all they have. He isn't alone as I could name some real icons of our artform that have made some pretty mediocre coffee table picture books. I think that hurts Stephen's better material which is certainly there, though the small pics make that hard to visualize. Stephen is so firmly connected with the industry with credibility that he doesn't need to worry about our critical comments. He certainly has had a long time to develop his digital work and do so along side the equipment manufacturing reps and application wizards that create such so some of his technical skill are to be envied.
One comment I would make about digital sensors is that color hues across luminance variations are often not that accurate until adequately calibrated against color targets with look-up tables. All tri-color sensors have some level of non-linearities across 360 degrees of hues that need to be minimized by software look-up translations. That show up most obviously with compact digital cameras that are simply mass produced around an average expected variation in sensors and then bumped up my marketing to what they think customers tend to prefer. Today that is overly red and saturated. With DSLR's there is a more serious attempt for real color but unless a photographer buys the X-rite colorimeter, and big multipatch Gretag MacBeth color targets, software, and knows how to use it, the results are rather suspect. Commercial photographers like those doing product photography that are well connected with the reps can go to pricy classes to figure that all out but the best others can do is get the important white balances set. I wish I had 10k to toss around as I personally would like to have better color calibration tools even though I am working from film At least EPN-100, Provia, and Astia render pretty well that allows we film users that are looking for reasonably accurate output to not have to bother with the shortcomings of digital. In any case color-wise, the really weak link is still at the printing end though that has improved immensely the last decade. ...David
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Originally Posted by Emmanuel BIGLER
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