This is an image of Ray Anderson. He's a professional magician who has worked his act for decades at Esther's Follies, a comedy club in downtown Austin. Every year or so I do a big photo shoot with the current cast of the club. I bring some flashes and big umbrellas and light up the stage. We shoot tons of frames and cover everything from Ray's individual performances to quick, set up shots of skits with multiple actors.
I've been doing their shoots since the film days and it's always fun. Sometimes they'll hit a joke so well that I'll be in imminent danger of laughing so hard I fall off the ladder I sometimes use to get level with actors' eyelines when they are up on stage.
I got an email today from the troupe. They were looking for a link they'd lost to last year's photo sessions. Since i am somewhat organized it took about 30 seconds to hit their overall folder on Smugmug and then drill down by date to the last session.
While I was nosing around in the overall folder and looking at individual galleries I came across an archive folder I'd put together with about 2,700 of my favorite Esther's Follies images done over the last 25 years. I found this one of Ray onstage.
It was shot on a day where we photographed probably 30 setups in an hour and a half. Back then I was shooting (at least on that day....) with a Fujifilm S2Pro camera. Essentially a 6 megapixel camera with an interpolation scheme that yielded about 12 megapixels in the finished files.
As you can see, the flesh tones are perfect, the white shirt has no burned out highlights, the shadows are open enough that you can differentiate the pleats in Ray's black trousers and the overall balance/contrast of the frame is about as good as it gets.
I got the camera in 2002 and this image was done in September of 2003. Yeah, it's only six or twelve megapixels (depending on how much faith you put into interpolation) so you can't blow it up quite as well as you can when using a 50 or 60 megapixel file but you'd be surprised at how quickly viewing distances flatten the field.
I liked the Fuji S-Pro series and had a number of them, including the S3 and S5. All great cameras as far as color and human skin rendering was concerned.
An unintended, morning reminder that digital imaging was good 20 years ago. Add in some experience with lighting and some understanding of technique and I'm pretty sure you could use the same camera in 2023 with professional results. Back then we were still going to print and posters. It's easier now since nearly everything goes to the web. The need for high res has actually (for this kind of work) shrunk.
Now a 6 megapixel file is probably the sweet spot for just about anything you're marketing on the web. No video in the cameras back then ----- probably just as well.
Ray is still doing magic. He's just more famous now.
9 comments:
Coincidentally, 2002 was the year I got the Canon D60, 6Mp of goodness. I still have a lot of the photos I took with it and the old Canon 18-135. Some of the 13x19 prints from the D60 and an equally ancient Epson 2200 are among my favorites of all time.
Got some time agora a VERY battered S5Pro, but with everthing working (even the shutter with 169k actuations), for around $70.
The colors still are amazing. And with good light and good glass, very sharp too.
I had an S3Pro and got nice results from it, although I could never get the hang of that funky quad-button interface.
Lately on YT there's been renewed attention on the Nikon D700 and Canon 5D Classic and how well they hold up today. I've never owned a Canon 5D, but I can certainly vouch for the D700 which I still use today.
Excellent quality indeed. I can’t get those skin tones with my Mirrorless system. Nostalgic file peeping with my 6MP Nikon D40 photos makes me smile.
I still take my Nikon D70s out for a walk occasionally. The images are stunning, especially for web use.
Eric
I shot magazine covers on the Nikon D1 and that was 2.8Mp.
It was just enough for an A4 size cover, but could be used even for double spread if necessary.
Based on my experience six megapixels is good for most magazine type print, but of course more pixels leave some room for error, cropping etc.
Thanks for sharing yet another interesting post.
Matti
I made many 16 x 12 colour prints from my Fuji S2 files, strangely they had a sharpness that many greater megapixel cameras seem to lack. The "experts" said that the largest prints you could get from that file size was 11 x 8 inches. I'm sure there's a technical explanation. The area where digital cameras have improved most since then is dynamic range rather than resolution as far as I'm concerned.
I believe too many people have no idea how important lighting, technique, and just plain "skill and talent" is. They think it all resides somewhere in the newest model of camera!
Some of the old Olympus CCD cameras also have great skin tone. For example, the humble Olympus XZ-1 that you can pick up now for next to nothing. You reviewed it yourself about a decade ago here on your blog (on https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2011/07/second-look-at-olympus-xz-1-mea-culpa.html). The last picture on that page (of B.) is absolutely stunning!
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