A fine conversation, but one that rightfully belongs in the Darkroom now that we've indulged it's placement here for over a day. Thanks.
Why, it is a light field camera. I don't know how it works but it takes some great pictures.
Nice shots. Are you shooting originals in black&white or doing a post conversion. I would imagine capturing hi-res color or raw images would be best, or is there a technical reason to capture in B&W?
Thanks for the link. I've gleaned that technique from a couple of websites I've visited and that book in PDF form online
http://cweeks.deviantart.com/art/Street-Photography-38038974
and tried it on my DSLR, with xly limited results. The fact that the D5100 autofocusses quite quickly makes it less irrelevant, but I'm sure getting that skill down, when using my non-focussing 50mm would considerably increase my "hit rate". The 35mm DX prime lens autofucousses very quickly, but I won't be buying it- I want to offload my DSLR kit and get an X100. There is no doubt that seasoned street guys have developed the art of "thinking like a camera" but the focussing options on the S95 are quite limited, centre frame is the only option given on MF. I'm hoping this is simply a compositional tool, and the dof/distance calculations will be maintained if I don't do anything to the focus, simply ignoring the prompt to fiddle. Having the ability to make the S95 100% silent is very good, but I'm finding there are only a few situations in which a "foreign devil" walking around taking pictures of strangers is seen as normal behaviour- on sunny weekends in public places, like parks and tourist spots, everyone is happy and many DSLRs are out. That shot of the guy with the great smile took about 1s to capture. In a supermarket on a rainy Tues afternoon, not so much!
In the biggest supermarket around here there is the habit of allowing kids to sit in the trolley so their parents are forced roll them around. This is ok if your kid is 2, but I've seen kids so old they can barely fit in the trolley! I really want to get a picture of a 12 year old in a trolley, destroying all the food that's in it, but last night those parents seemes to be on high alert and all I got was stern faces. I also tried colour. This seems to take away much of the impact of the shot, but I'll persevere and make a decision soon. I suppose one could take the view that shooting in B&W is deliberately giving myself an advantage- possibly an easy way to make something mundane appear significant.
Willdo. Thanks very much.
I think I'm going to have to get a couple of shots printed out exhibition size and be honest with myself- maybe frame them and donate them to a local pub or something then move on from there. There are a lot of people around with very flashy cameras and lots of professional studios in Suzhou catering to weddings and stuff- what these guys do with photoshop is truly wonderful. You pay them something like $500 and then wait for 3 months for them to do the post processing, but what comes back is very high quality. I mean, not really very representative of the people actually getting married, but it doesn't look faked. More like you've caught a disfiguring disease since the wedding!
I wonder if Chinese art-lovers are into the more gritty side of things. I hope so.