There is a phenomenon unique with Digital Photographers that has to be a relatively new thing brought about by camera forums. I am making a big assumption but I think it has got to be a sound one. That phenomenon is “pixel peeping”. What is “pixel peeping” you ask?
Pixel peeping is like surgery; dangerous and foolhardy in the wrong hands but necessary and important in the right hands. I exaggerate of course but not by much, heh. What it actually is at its most basic is zooming in to a digital photo, usually 1:1, and seeing if there is enough sharpness, any fringing or any artefacts. When experts review lenses you really do need to know if there are problems. Hence they do this sort of thing but also have graphs and charts and the like. Experts use special resolution charts, amateurs will use anything from the scene around them at the time, searching on flickr for photos tagged with the name of the lens (an obsession of mine) a friend holding up a newspaper.
When an amateur, such as myself, pixel-peeps it is like hypochondria, it’s almost like I am doing it expecting to find a problem and will not stop until I do. As mentioned earlier, I have done a lot of searching through Flickr to find examples of photographs taken with the lenses I am looking to buy. Of course this is unreliable as you do not know how much manipulation has taken place or what the full settings were on the camera at the time outside of a smattering of EXIF. And of course lenses, particularly the ones I am looking at, can vary between copies. All this doubt and fear of spending a few hundred quid only to end up “buying a bad copy” means a lens purchase for those of a nervous disposition like me will add up to a LOT of pixel peeping before, during and after.
While in Windsor I stumbled upon a camera store that just received a Sigma 17-70mm, one of the lenses I have had my eye on and also quite a new model so subject to a lot of rumours of QA problems according to the forums. I immediately tried it on my camera and started shooting. Now this particular store was selling the lens at about 10-20% premium to what I could get it online but I thought if I could get a good copy it would be worth it rather than risk getting a bad copy and have to argue with a returns department.
The problem was I only had the LCD screen to judge if I was getting good, crisp, colourful pictures or dull and blurred rubbish. While I judged the edges of the pictures to be pretty much uniform (one of the complaints people have had with this lens is one side being off compared to the other), and not overly nasty chromatic aberration (nasty fringing around high contrast areas), it seemed soft no matter what I stopped down to. The best results I could get were at f/10. Thing is I couldn’t be sure, its a little LCD not a monitor and not a print. They didn’t have a PC or a kiosk and my laptop was left behind, of course. So I left it thinking I will find somewhere closer to home.
When I shot with film I wouldn’t have even thought of doing any of that. I was happy with my 28-80mm kit lens and the only consideration I had when thinking of buying a new one, which I never did until buying a DSLR, was range. I now consider that kit lens to be the worst in my bag, not only because of this kind of over-analysis, but in part. (It really is a crappy lens, no doubt about it). Sharpness is not everything but has become my major worry.
Getting the pictures back and taking another look the lens wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared on the day but wasn’t up to what I had hoped it would be. Even though this lens is the cheapest of the ones I am looking at I still need it to perform better than what it is replacing, unfortunately it doesn’t.
Hopefully I will be able to find a camera store with
- fair prices, though I don’t expect them to be as low as online
- knowledgeable staff who are into photography (a little understanding goes a long way)
- equipped with a pc or kiosk so I can look at the results full size
So that is the malady, is there a cure? I guess not caring would be one cure but I for one don’t want to be lumbered with a few hundred pounds worth of useless rubbish.
null dslr, photography, camera, lenses
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Digital SLR Photographers and “Pixel Peeping”
There is a phenomenon unique with Digital Photographers that has to be a relatively new thing brought about by camera forums. I am making a big assumption but I think it has got to be a sound one. That phenomenon is “pixel peeping”. What is “pixel peeping” you ask?
Pixel peeping is like surgery; dangerous and foolhardy in the wrong hands but necessary and important in the right hands. I exaggerate of course but not by much, heh. What it actually is at its most basic is zooming in to a digital photo, usually 1:1, and seeing if there is enough sharpness, any fringing or any artefacts. When experts review lenses you really do need to know if there are problems. Hence they do this sort of thing but also have graphs and charts and the like. Experts use special resolution charts, amateurs will use anything from the scene around them at the time, searching on flickr for photos tagged with the name of the lens (an obsession of mine) a friend holding up a newspaper.
When an amateur, such as myself, pixel-peeps it is like hypochondria, it’s almost like I am doing it expecting to find a problem and will not stop until I do. As mentioned earlier, I have done a lot of searching through Flickr to find examples of photographs taken with the lenses I am looking to buy. Of course this is unreliable as you do not know how much manipulation has taken place or what the full settings were on the camera at the time outside of a smattering of EXIF. And of course lenses, particularly the ones I am looking at, can vary between copies. All this doubt and fear of spending a few hundred quid only to end up “buying a bad copy” means a lens purchase for those of a nervous disposition like me will add up to a LOT of pixel peeping before, during and after.
While in Windsor I stumbled upon a camera store that just received a Sigma 17-70mm, one of the lenses I have had my eye on and also quite a new model so subject to a lot of rumours of QA problems according to the forums. I immediately tried it on my camera and started shooting. Now this particular store was selling the lens at about 10-20% premium to what I could get it online but I thought if I could get a good copy it would be worth it rather than risk getting a bad copy and have to argue with a returns department.
The problem was I only had the LCD screen to judge if I was getting good, crisp, colourful pictures or dull and blurred rubbish. While I judged the edges of the pictures to be pretty much uniform (one of the complaints people have had with this lens is one side being off compared to the other), and not overly nasty chromatic aberration (nasty fringing around high contrast areas), it seemed soft no matter what I stopped down to. The best results I could get were at f/10. Thing is I couldn’t be sure, its a little LCD not a monitor and not a print. They didn’t have a PC or a kiosk and my laptop was left behind, of course. So I left it thinking I will find somewhere closer to home.
When I shot with film I wouldn’t have even thought of doing any of that. I was happy with my 28-80mm kit lens and the only consideration I had when thinking of buying a new one, which I never did until buying a DSLR, was range. I now consider that kit lens to be the worst in my bag, not only because of this kind of over-analysis, but in part. (It really is a crappy lens, no doubt about it). Sharpness is not everything but has become my major worry.
Getting the pictures back and taking another look the lens wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared on the day but wasn’t up to what I had hoped it would be. Even though this lens is the cheapest of the ones I am looking at I still need it to perform better than what it is replacing, unfortunately it doesn’t.
Hopefully I will be able to find a camera store with
So that is the malady, is there a cure? I guess not caring would be one cure but I for one don’t want to be lumbered with a few hundred pounds worth of useless rubbish.
null dslr, photography, camera, lenses
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