David B. Brooks Blog

As Chrstopher Hitchens, our transplanted British intellectual gadfly alluded recently on Larry King (CNN) one of the America's ugliest and cultural lowpoints, the nastiness of our election campaigning, will be over for awhile and then no more torturous embarrassment. But this election period is ending on an even sourer note with a financial crisis and an impending world-wide recession that the most astute economists see as being both deep and long. It may seem like a poor time to start something new, but for me I see it as therapy and an immunity from personal recession depression.

It has always been my nature to find what works for me regardless of whether most everyone else is doing something different. Since 1975 I have purchased and driven Saab cars almost exclusively, and still drive a Saab. When I was a freelancer in the 60's my colleagues used Nikons and I preferred the Topcon 35mm SLR camera system. And if I were not already very invested in another brand I think I'd probably choose and buy a Sigma digital camera. Not just to be different than the herd, but the technology and thinking Sigma employs I believe has positive image quality performance advantages.

Today, November 23, in the New York Times, Circuits by David Pogue, he said “Pixels Are Like Cupcakes”. Cute, and a good analogy that a digital photo sensor chip is like a sheet that cupcakes are baked in, and that each cupcake holder is like an R, G, or B sensor site, but rather than cake dough it gathers light focused on it by the camera lens. Then he goes on to argue that the size of the cupcake or sensor site is determined by the overall physical size of the sensor chip and the number of megapixels it has. Further he argues that as the number of megapixels is increased for a given sensor area size, the smaller the size of each sensor must be, so it gathers less light and therefore functions less effectively.

Dynamic range was not a term that was often used in film days for those subjects which had a subject brightness range in f/stops grater than could be squeezed onto film, especially the six or so stop range of color transparency films. But digital has introduced a relatively easier fix for taking effective photographs of a cityscape at night, the interior of an old European cathedral or in a rain forest. So now it is a bit of a rage, if it can be done, so let's all do it! I received a review copy of a book by Jack Howard titled PRACTICAL HDRI that should have been encouraging, and decided not to review it. Besides covering only Photoshop HDR and a few 3rd party odd-ball solutions, the results printed in the book would inspire me only to say why would I want to do this.