[Jonathan Cross Participant Posts: 51]

New Article Announcements & Discussions

on: December 16, 2023 at 1:57 pm

Thank you, Kevin for an excellent conversation with Joe.  While I have not been on one of his workshops or tours, I have known about him for a long time and have one of his books and another to which he has contributed; he is a master of his art.  The conversation raised a number of issues about where photography is going.  In the 48 megapixels topic in the Camera, Lenses and Shooting Gear section I have posted about my recent experience on a trip to Egypt, when I sometimes used my iPhone 12pro.  I print up to A3+ (13″ x 19″) and am really pleased with what I can extract from a RAW iPhone image, processing it in LR.  The super resolution in LR seems to work well and with selective masking, and slider adjustment I have printed images from the iPhone at A3+ that people cannot tell apart from ones from my Fuji X-T4.

I do not print larger than A3+ but no doubt professionals with corporate customers will need bigger prints.  I am reminded, however, of an apparently unrelated trend. People are tending to buy smaller properties in the UK, partly because many are being built and prices are high.    The means they do not buy big  furniture as they do not have the space.  Could the same trend apply to people who want a printed image, they increasingly do not have the space for a big printed image.  Then there is the rise of electronic viewing which may not need large numbers of pixels, even an 8k screen only shows about 33MP and 4k much much less.

I agree about the need to have a prints, as they provide lasting memories in ways that electronic ones do not.  I produce Blurb books of my trips and people who see them much prefer them to sitting with a tablet.  I also take images for a local magazine of people and events, and the published images do not need loads of MP, just as the Blurb books do not.  OK, people will say more MP gives more scope to crop, but then I can crop a 48MP iPhone image or a 104MP Fuji-X image post super resolution and still print as big as I want.

Is the hardware people want changing in an unstoppable manner?  Will computing power both within phones and in post processing packages mean large numbers of MP are less needed?  How sustainable is the market for high MP cameras, and will manufacturers of them be able to fund developments?  I am increasingly reluctant to upgrade to more MP.

It is interesting times.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

[Kevin Raber Silver Member Posts: 1311]

Re: Joe Cornish

Reply #1 on: December 17, 2023 at 1:00 pm

Jonathan, you bring up good points that I have had a lot of discussions on over the last few months.  I did do an article on how big you can make images from the iPhone RAW file and how . https://photopxl.com/how-big-can-it-go-iphone-raw-and-gigapixel/.

There are many photographers me included that are skipping next gen upgrades because what we have is already so good.  I find I am taking more and more images on the iPhone.  It’s always set to capture RAW which I then bring into my LR catalog.

And as Joe and I discussed, photography is changing.  I hear from some readers sometimes where they have slowed down on photography and found new interests like cooking, music, hi-fi, wine collecting, painting etc.

We will be doing some chats on all of this in the near future.  Stay tuned.  Joe Cornish is just one of dozens of photographers I know that are changing their business model.  Adapt or die, re-invent.  Now more than ever this is crucial.

Kevin Raber
Owner and Publisher of photoPXL

[Author]

Posts