The Presidential Portrait Goes Digital 295
alphadogg writes "Barack Obama's election to US president has already brought a string of firsts, and on Wednesday there came another. The official presidential portrait was shot on a digital camera for the first time. The picture was taken by the White House's new official photographer, Pete Souza, and issued by The Office of the President Elect through its Web site. It was taken on Tuesday evening at 5:38 p.m. using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, according to the metadata embedded in the image file."
Re:Looking to dabble into a bit of photography mys (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.dpreview.com/ [dpreview.com]
Re:Public availability (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I seldom simply rant... (Score:4, Informative)
slow news day?
or VERY SLOW news day?
You decide.
There's an idle tag, but honestly, I think this is below the bar, even for idle.
Re:Something lost (Score:5, Informative)
Only to a point. The particles on the film that actually compose the picture are effectively pixels, and you can only attempt to remaster to some maximum quality before the limitation becomes apparent.
"As we move towards digital photography, the limitations of the format are going to become apparent as the technology progresses to the point where today's 16MP shots simply don't have enough detail to compete with 8x10 sheets of Kodachrome."
Except that digital photography can and does compete with film quality. The film photographers I know do not dispute that, they have moved on to claiming that there are things that can be done to photographs with film that cannot be done digitally; while they are correct, the techniques they describe are not common needed, and are not technologically impossible with a digital camera.
Digital formats will prevail in the end, simply because they are more versatile. It is easy to store digital photographs, easier to make copies, easier to print, and altogether less expensive and less polluting. This is not like film-vs.-tape, this is more like film-vs.-painting.
Re:5D Mark II... Sweet! (Score:5, Informative)
Mod it funny if you want, but he's right. It's the first SLR still camera to take full high-quality 1080 24p video footage. Given the camera's incredible sensor and lens selection, it's a still camera that threatens to cannibalize Canon's entire prosumer video line - which is why they had to artifically hamper some features, like disallowing manual exposure in video mode.
I work with video every day, and I have a hard time not using our 5D mkII over our $8000 Sony XDCAM on many shoots.
Re:Public availability (Score:4, Informative)
Is the posted 1916 x 2608 version [change.gov] not sufficient?
5D != 5D Mark II (Score:3, Informative)
The article states that the "5D" camera used for the photo has 12.8mp and costs $2K. This is true for the 5D, but the 5D Mark II has ~21MP and costs considerably more than $2K. If it cost $2K I'd get one!
Re:Looking to dabble into a bit of photography mys (Score:4, Informative)
Not specifically, but any decent base model DSLR run in manual mode will do the same thing. You can pick up a Nikon D100 for next to nothing. I've had one since 2004, banged the crap out it, gave it to my stepdaughter, had her bang the crap out of it an it still works.
I'm partial to Nikons if for no other reason that the lower end machines have spot metering (Canon, what are you thinking?) and Mirror Lock Up functions.
But DSLRs are great ways to 'learn' photography. You can take thousands of pictures without additional cost. You can take a whole series of pictures changing the aperture of the lens to see what affect it has on exposure time and depth of field. Sure, you could have always done that with film, but it would have cost you - both in time and money.
And best of all, you can retire to your basement and spend hours with your computer fiddling with the pixels.
Re:Looking to dabble into a bit of photography mys (Score:3, Informative)
It's not (so much) that there are things the SLR can do that the P&S can't;
I disagree.
There are two big things P&S cannot do:
1) Low light photography
2) Getting a decent bokeh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh)
Besides, lens on most P&S are lower resolution than the sensor itself, your mighty gazillion megapixel P&S has a lens that resolves to only 3 megapixel.
All this has a lot to do with sensors on P&S, they are about the size of the nail on your pinky finger.
Canon EOS 1D Mark II on the other hand has a 35mm full frame sensor. You will make about 10 P&S sensors with same amount of silicon.
Re:do we really need an article here on /. (Score:4, Informative)
How are they going to ensure that this photograph last at least as long as more traditional prints?
I probably assume too much, but I assume whomever is in charge of archives related to the President has a decent backup policy. The LoC is digitizing all of the FSA Project photos specifically because the negatives/prints are getting old and they want to be sure they are preserved.
How are they going to ensure that the digital file they open next year is the same one they just created? That it hasn't been altered or photoshopped or something?
I am guessing with an OSK-E3, since he was shot with a Canon 5D (or at least that is whay they want us to think). I'm amazed the official photo was done with a consumer grade camera, I figured they'd use something a little more presidential.
Re:Something lost (Score:5, Informative)
Film resolution is measured by granularity of the crystals used. In other words, MOLECULES. Digital resolution is measured in pixels. Molecules are more granular than pixels.
Actually the grains in film are much larger than individual molecules. Film grains, even in very good films, are around 2 microns in size. This is MUCH larger than the size of the individual molecules that make up the grain. Now the pixels in a good digital camera are around 6 microns, not that much larger than film grains. The big difference is that the digital sensors can detect multiple levels of light whereas a film grain is either exposed or not exposed. It actually takes a bunch of film grains (on the order of a couple of dozen) to accurately represent the levels of light that one digital sensor can represent. This means that digital cameras can actually have higher resolution than film.
The other thing to remember is that digital sensors can also map the intensity of light over time, all that film can do is measure the cumulative amount of light that it is exposed to. This means that with the right software a digital camera can use the minute vibrations of its mounting to produce an interpolated image with far higher resolution than a film image.
Color saturation of prosumer image capture devices are about an order of magnitude worse than good film.
Saturation is a difficulty with both film and digital photography but digital is more sensitive to it. With the proper use of lighting, filters, and decent software you can pretty much eliminate any problems in both film and digital photography. This is especially true of a controlled setting such as a presidential photograph. In that situation you control everything, it's not hard to produce a properly saturated image.
Longevity. What's the longevity of a pixel on digital media? I have lots of negatives and slides, over 100 years old, which still produce very nice prints.
The longevity of digital media is far better than that of film. At its worst you can just reproduce your digital image onto film and store it that way. At its best you can pay to have the digital information engraved on some sort of durable physical media, such as a metal disc. Although you may not notice it, film degrades quite a bit over time. It loses contrast and fine details and it gets brittle. The thing is that you don't have a reference to compare it against so you don't notice the degradation until it's too late. Digital information is protected by the fact that it's easy to make several perfect copies, protect them with checksums and other methods, and compare each against each other for degradation. Yes, eventually all information will degrade but it's much easier to keep a digital photograph pristine than it is to keep a film photograph pristine.
Couple important things (Score:5, Informative)
1) Get a tripod and use it, even if you dont think you need to! Even the cheapest POS camera can take okay stuff if you have a tripod.
2) For got your tripod? Use a rock, a stick, a mailbox. Use something besides your body to stabilize your camera.
3) *Learn The Rule of Thirds*!! Most. Important. Thing. Ever.
4) Visualize what the picture will look like before you take it. Move yourself and your camera until you like what will show up in the final result.
5) Move! Get that damn kid out of the way. Move until an annoying shadow is out of your shot. Look out for that wire that will show up in the middle of the mountain shot. This is #4 restated. Think about what you compose.
6) Dont use Photoshop. At least until you take good stuff without using it.
A good camera isn't important. Knowing how to compose a shot is the most important.
Re:There is no Office of the President Elect (Score:5, Informative)
5D vs. 5D Mark II (Score:1, Informative)
[The picture] was taken on Tuesday evening at 5:38 p.m. using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, according to the metadata embedded in the image file. [...] In contrast, the EOS 5D used for Obama's portrait has a 12.8-megapixel resolution and costs about $2,000.
Canon EOS 5D (2005, 12.8 MP): 2000 dollars.
Canon EOS 5D mark II (2008, 21.1 MP): 3700 dollars.
Being unable to tell the two apart: priceless.
Re:I seldom simply rant... (Score:3, Informative)
The pro can spend $5000 on a lens or a camera body and not feel the first pangs of sticker shock.
Re:do we really need an article here on /. (Score:3, Informative)
"I'm amazed the official photo was done with a consumer grade camera, I figured they'd use something a little more presidential."
Are you serious? Do you actually know anything about the 5D Mark II? It is most definitely _not_ consumer grade!
21.1 Megapixels
Full Frame Sensor
Digic 4 Image Processor
1920x1080 HD Video Capture
Over $3000!
I'm not at all sure why you think it's consumer grade.... you must be thinking it's part of their "Rebel" line since it has the EOS in the name..... but that is just not the case.
Sure it doesn't cost as much (and missing a couple of features) as a 1Ds MarkIII... but that camera also has the older Digic 3 chip in it. The 5D MarkII is brand new... and pretty much as state of the art as it gets.
Friedmud
Re:Public availability (Score:3, Informative)
Such as?
Shooting in RAW is great, and I do it all the time, because it helps me adjust exposure, white-balance, etc.
I'm not quite sure why you'd want to any of those things to a professional portrait that's already been through post-processing.