1014: "Car Problems"

[Fire Brns]

A good ol' regular whodunit!

On one hand the first guy to speak making a short remark is a sign of guilt on the other hand BHG is nefarious and would reply last to avoid drawing attention to himself. But then again long haired girl is completely unsuspected yet more likely to set fire to short haired girl's car over something trivial.

[project2051]

But what is this comic suppose to mean?

[chrth]

But what is this comic suppose to mean?

Man's Inhumanity to Man, duh

[dsawatzky]

Why it took him 13 days to take a photo of his car on fire I have no Idea, and in the 13 days you'd think he would have set up the perfect photo.

Well he did ask what's wrong with the picture, not what's wrong in his life that is represented by the items in the photo. Also, why does he even have a picture of his car 13 days ago? who takes pictures of their cars regularly?

I think the period of time - 2 weeks - is irrelevant. I brought my car to a detailer two weeks ago. It looked so shiny when they were done, I took a picture of it. If it caught on fire today, I'd take another picture. The two week period is irrelevant. That's just the period between the last time I took a picture of my car, and when the fire happened. If you took a pic of your new car when you bought it, your time period might be longer. If you're a photographer, I can almost guarantee that you have at least ONE picture of your car!

[Sprocket]

This comic should be called:
Having assholes for friends, who mistake being an asshole for intelligence, and have tricked many people into believing the same.

[Scott Auld]

So, did the protagonist get any resolution?

See what I did there?

But what is this comic suppose to mean?

Man's Inhumanity to Man, duh

I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir. The Jungian thing, sir.

[project2051]

So, did the protagonist get any resolution?

See what I did there?

But what is this comic suppose to mean?

Man's Inhumanity to Man, duh

I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir. The Jungian thing, sir.

Nothing so profound, actually I was just continuing compcarp's Pew-wee Herman theme. Which this comic reminded me of too, once he mentioned it.

[webgrunt]

What's wrong with this picture?

Well, you took it with a digital "camera", so it's hideous, artifacted to hell, compressed to shit, patches of solid color look like weird skin conditions, and there isn't a hint of definition about it.
Oh, and the car is on fire. Was that not intentional?

Digital camera technology has advanced since 1998.

[webgrunt]

My brain keeps wanting to turn around "take another crack at getting that shot" to "take another shot at getting that crack".

[RAGBRAIvet]

And now you know why I still shoot 35-mm film.

[Cervisiae Amatorem]

Best alt text in a long time! Actually made me lol. Bravo!

[mxyzptlk914]

NOOOOO!!!!

The system is down, I can't read my xkcd!!!

[llwang]

Was the car on fire? It looks to me more like the car transformed into some kind of legendary firey beast.

[Diadem]

Chromatic aberration doesn't necessarily mean that the camera is crap. It usually means a crap lens.

The lens is part of the camera, in most cheap cameras.

[rhhardin]

It seems like a version of "Why men shouldn't write advice columns" (google for it)

The trouble with digital cameras is aliasing and anti-aliasing.

Regular structures like tiles, chain link fences, siding, generate horrible moire patterns owing to the regular pixel spacing in digital cameras.

To prevent this, there's an anti-aliasing screen ahead of the sensors that spreads energy out so it can't hit a single pixel and cause the pattern.

That however blurs the picture.

So the picture is post-processed to resharpen edges.

That gives rise to an artifact of the over-sharpened edge, which in varying degrees is what makes digital pictures crap, though perhaps crap you can live with, depending on your taste.

That's what's wrong with the burning car pic.

[HermanVonPetri]

And now you know why I still shoot 35-mm film.

Curious, because all of the problems noted in the comic are still problems encountered in film photography. White balance is altered by chemical processing, focus is obvious, and chromatic aberration is caused by a lens combination that can't adjust for the refraction properties across the spectrum.

[Jamaican Castle]

And now you know why I still shoot 35-mm film.

Oh, it's trivial to make 35mm film look like crap too.
Just ask Coleman Francis.

[Eternal Density]

Made me grin. Good work BHG.

[eran_rathan]

And now you know why I still shoot 35-mm film.

you're an elitist snob with money to burn?

[jpk]

And now you know why I still shoot 35-mm film.

you're an elitist snob with money to burn?

He likes pictures that don't look like ass. (Or, if he's taking pictures of an ass, he wants a pictures that actually looks like an ass.)

Digital camera technology has advanced since 1998.

Right. There are more megapixels now. The picture is still atrocious.
The only reason people put up with digital photography is they don't actually look at the pictures they take, they just put them in flickr feeds that their friends ignore.

[Tova]

So the last comic poked a bit of fun at the expression "Wake up, sheeple." This one had a bit of amusement at the expense of the question "What is wrong with this picture?"

Can we have "That's how I roll" tomorrow, please?

[Webzter]

And now you know why I still shoot 35-mm film.

you're an elitist snob with money to burn?

He likes pictures that don't look like ass. (Or, if he's taking pictures of an ass, he wants a pictures that actually looks like an ass.)

Then obviously he'd be shooting large format film not 35mm... or, at the very least, he'd be shooting medium format. 35mm,

edit:

The only reason people put up with digital photography is they don't actually look at the pictures they take, they just put them in flickr feeds that their friends ignore.

I do have to say, though, excellent troll attempt.

[Anubis]

And now you know why I still shoot 35-mm film.

you're an elitist snob with money to burn?

He likes pictures that don't look like ass. (Or, if he's taking pictures of an ass, he wants a pictures that actually looks like an ass.)

Digital camera technology has advanced since 1998.

Right. There are more megapixels now. The picture is still atrocious.
The only reason people put up with digital photography is they don't actually look at the pictures they take, they just put them in flickr feeds that their friends ignore.

I can't decide if you're trolling or just a moron. Have you ever even seen a photograph taken with a modern mid-range or better DSLR?

[jpk]

The only reason people put up with digital photography is they don't actually look at the pictures they take, they just put them in flickr feeds that their friends ignore.

I do have to say, though, excellent troll attempt.

Then obviously he'd be shooting large format film not 35mm... or, at the very least, he'd be shooting medium format.

Back atcha.

Seriously, though, if you think a digital image can be compared to chemical photography, then you have no business bringing in distinctions of format. Digital imagery is great for a few things: journalism, stuff that's destined for the digital realm (obviously) and playing with the artifacting. But pretending that it makes an image that can be compared to serious photography is just silly.

[jpk]

I can't decide if you're trolling or just a moron. Have you ever even seen a photograph taken with a modern mid-range or better DSLR?

Can't decide if you're a rude little twit or just repeating the same clever phrase you hear everyone else saying because it sounded cool when someone said it a few years ago.

Yes, I have. I've got friends who are professional photographers, and they like to argue this point with me. So they bring out their best prints from their best cameras and I point out the huge and obvious artifacts all over them and they look sad and put them away.

What they, and you, don't seem to understand, is that there is no image processing software that doesn't compress and distort your image. So you end up with detail turning into blur, patterns turning into digi-fuzz, and subtle variations of hue turning into blotches. You're happy to ignore it because you're not actually looking at the image, and the algorithms are actually pretty good, if you're not paying attention. But look at one of those pictures some time and you'll see it.

[Webzter]

The only reason people put up with digital photography is they don't actually look at the pictures they take, they just put them in flickr feeds that their friends ignore.

I do have to say, though, excellent troll attempt.

Then obviously he'd be shooting large format film not 35mm... or, at the very least, he'd be shooting medium format.

Back atcha.

Seriously, though, if you think a digital image can be compared to chemical photography, then you have no business bringing in distinctions of format. Digital imagery is great for a few things: journalism, stuff that's destined for the digital realm (obviously) and playing with the artifacting. But pretending that it makes an image that can be compared to serious photography is just silly.

If you think a 35mm film can compare to medium format then you have no business talking about quality

I do wonder what you consider serious photography. I know of very few fashion or commercial photographers that haven't moved to digital medium format and any nature photographers I can think of have been on the digital bandwagon for many years now. I know of a few film guys but they're largely after chemical processing effects that just can't be pulled off digitally. So, I'm honestly curious who's still shooting exclusively film.

I guess I figure cover of Nat Geo to be serious enough photography for me. John Shaw, Moose Peterson, and Jim Brandenburg all shoot digital and have been for years. I have a stellar Brandenburg print over my fireplace. Although, when it's a soft-focus long exposure shot and then giclee printed on top of that, maybe that's not serious enough for you.

[Anubis]

I can't decide if you're trolling or just a moron. Have you ever even seen a photograph taken with a modern mid-range or better DSLR?

Can't decide if you're a rude little twit or just repeating the same clever phrase you hear everyone else saying because it sounded cool when someone said it a few years ago.

Yes, I have. I've got friends who are professional photographers, and they like to argue this point with me. So they bring out their best prints from their best cameras and I point out the huge and obvious artifacts all over them and they look sad and put them away.

What they, and you, don't seem to understand, is that there is no image processing software that doesn't compress and distort your image. So you end up with detail turning into blur, patterns turning into digi-fuzz, and subtle variations of hue turning into blotches. You're happy to ignore it because you're not actually looking at the image, and the algorithms are actually pretty good, if you're not paying attention. But look at one of those pictures some time and you'll see it.

First of all, if there are "huge and obvious artifacts" all over your "professional photographer" friends' best prints, they either need better cameras or they need to learn to use them properly (or perhaps you are just prone to hyperbole). It is entirely possible to obtain from a digital camera an uncompressed, undistorted image file, and in fact people do this all the time.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, pixel-level perfection is hardly necessary to produce compelling photography

[HermanVonPetri]

What they, and you, don't seem to understand, is that there is no image processing software that doesn't compress and distort your image. So you end up with detail turning into blur, patterns turning into digi-fuzz, and subtle variations of hue turning into blotches.

Look up "circle of confusion". In broad terms that defines what is considered acceptably in focus for a given format. It's based on the fact that there is no such thing as perfect focus or sharpness, merely what is or is not perceptible to our vision in the final medium. Because you can zoom in on a digital photograph to exceed what would have been the circle of confusion of the intended print does not make that digital print any less sharp than the same image in film format. Photography images are basically defined by the weakest link, whether that be the camera, lenses, print medium, or the human eye. It's more important to be concerned with how your photo is intended to be viewed and shoot accordingly than to be pixel peeping.

It's a fair point to say that many digital cameras don't handle color tones very well. But much of this is really just a matter of opinion based on what we are used to seeing and what we were never able to notice before. On the up side, the digital format offers a hugely important means by which to experiment with color tones to suit the aims of the artist without destroying the original.

Ok, so most of our DSLR photos aren't going to look like an Ansel Adams if we blow them up to wall sized prints, but on 35mm neither will yours.

[toadpipe]

This comic should be called:
Having assholes for friends, who mistake being an asshole for intelligence, and have tricked many people into believing the same.

Exactly, some people also mistakenly think knowing a lot about a few subjects means they are clever and smart at everything. They are very often completely wrong. Being clever out of context just makes you look like a rude idiot.

[whateveries]

Pfft. There is a serious density of foolishness being commited in this forum, all of this 'artifact' and 'aliasing/anti-aliasing' trainspotting is preventing you from seeing the wood for the trees.
you miserable bastards.
It is just the kind of foolishness that deserves you having your own car set on fire.

in other striking news the number of xkcd's to have met old musty's approval has almost reached double digits.

...The joke is a bit too sitcom-esque to work in a setting like that, but it's a good one.

See persistance does pay off, Mr. Monroe will be happy tonight.

[jpk]

If you think a 35mm film can compare to medium format then you have no business talking about quality

They're easily comparable: they're the same medium, modulo some differences in manufacture between different types of film. What's different is what the larger negative buys you, which is of course incredible, but it's certainly reasonable to compare them. I'd love to shoot in larger formats - these days, I don't even have time get out with my 35mm, which is a shame.

Now when you go to digital, the medium simply doesn't react in anything like the same way, except at the coarsest level. It's just nothing like shooting film, and looking at the result is nothing like looking at film.

The funny thing is, when I was last taking pictures actively, I was playing a lot with the peculiar artifacts that you can get with film - I'm not opposed to artifacts, they're intrinsic to any medium, what I object to is the attempt to simply pretend they're not there. Go look at the best digital print you can find. Look at a place where you know there's a gradation of color. I guarantee you'll see discrete bands instead. That's the nature of digital imagery, and it's the simplest illustration of the failure of that medium that I can offer you.

But as I say, if you don't care it doesn't matter.

I do wonder what you consider serious photography. I know of very few fashion or commercial photographers that haven't moved to digital medium format and any nature photographers I can think of have been on the digital bandwagon for many years now. I know of a few film guys but they're largely after chemical processing effects that just can't be pulled off digitally. So, I'm honestly curious who's still shooting exclusively film.

I'll go so far as to say that there is no commercial photography and very little art photography being shot on film today, and it's likely that film will effectively disappear as a medium in the next twenty years. The market has spoken.

To me, this is the end of photography. If you get some pleasure out of looking at distorted and artifacted images, I'm happy for you. I find them repulsive. One can recognize the intent of the photographer, but there's nothing worth looking at there.
Imagine if all we had of the Dutch masters was a collection of very good photographs of the original paintings. Now imagine that all we have of Ansel Adams or Walker Evans is high quality scans, or a digital print of Casablanca. The loss, to me, would be the same.
That's the loss that is being imposed on us by, basically, market forces and inattention. The upside is that someone might come up with a way to make good art with digital imagery, but it won't look like photography any more than photography looked like pen and ink or oils.

I guess I figure cover of Nat Geo to be serious enough photography for me.

Meh. I'm not interested in the venue, I'm interested in the image. I'm glad you like your print. When was the last time you looked at it?

[907Code-G]

Giant quoted text contained by spoiler tab:

Spoiler:

If you think a 35mm film can compare to medium format then you have no business talking about quality

They're easily comparable: they're the same medium, modulo some differences in manufacture between different types of film. What's different is what the larger negative buys you, which is of course incredible, but it's certainly reasonable to compare them. I'd love to shoot in larger formats - these days, I don't even have time get out with my 35mm, which is a shame.

Now when you go to digital, the medium simply doesn't react in anything like the same way, except at the coarsest level. It's just nothing like shooting film, and looking at the result is nothing like looking at film.

The funny thing is, when I was last taking pictures actively, I was playing a lot with the peculiar artifacts that you can get with film - I'm not opposed to artifacts, they're intrinsic to any medium, what I object to is the attempt to simply pretend they're not there. Go look at the best digital print you can find. Look at a place where you know there's a gradation of color. I guarantee you'll see discrete bands instead. That's the nature of digital imagery, and it's the simplest illustration of the failure of that medium that I can offer you.

But as I say, if you don't care it doesn't matter.

I do wonder what you consider serious photography. I know of very few fashion or commercial photographers that haven't moved to digital medium format and any nature photographers I can think of have been on the digital bandwagon for many years now. I know of a few film guys but they're largely after chemical processing effects that just can't be pulled off digitally. So, I'm honestly curious who's still shooting exclusively film.

I'll go so far as to say that there is no commercial photography and very little art photography being shot on film today, and it's likely that film will effectively disappear as a medium in the next twenty years. The market has spoken.

To me, this is the end of photography. If you get some pleasure out of looking at distorted and artifacted images, I'm happy for you. I find them repulsive. One can recognize the intent of the photographer, but there's nothing worth looking at there.
Imagine if all we had of the Dutch masters was a collection of very good photographs of the original paintings. Now imagine that all we have of Ansel Adams or Walker Evans is high quality scans, or a digital print of Casablanca. The loss, to me, would be the same.
That's the loss that is being imposed on us by, basically, market forces and inattention. The upside is that someone might come up with a way to make good art with digital imagery, but it won't look like photography any more than photography looked like pen and ink or oils.

I guess I figure cover of Nat Geo to be serious enough photography for me.

Meh. I'm not interested in the venue, I'm interested in the image. I'm glad you like your print. When was the last time you looked at it?

Personally, I think that as far as photography goes, the idea behind what the photographer is showing you is much more important than how smooth the colors are, so it seems unfair to say something like this will be the end of photography. And as for the paintings, in a digital format, we would at least have them the way they were intended to be. It's been widely known that the colors we see in those paintings are not at all what they were. Your reference to market forces pushing us into this however, is nonsensical. The "market forces" are merely what people want. If you happen to be someone that apparently can't stand digital photos, the internet holds very little for you these days. I don't think we would lose anything from not being able to touch the texture of the original paintings, since we can mostly only look at them from a distance through protective cases that most likely distort what the things really look like as much as a cheap lens does to film. As far as gradation goes for the colors, That is solved quite simply by storing more pixels than the eye can detect.

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

And now you know why I still shoot 35-mm film.

you're an elitist snob with money to burn?

He likes pictures that don't look like ass. (Or, if he's taking pictures of an ass, he wants a pictures that actually looks like an ass.)

Digital camera technology has advanced since 1998.

Right. There are more megapixels now. The picture is still atrocious.
The only reason people put up with digital photography is they don't actually look at the pictures they take, they just put them in flickr feeds that their friends ignore.

There's a good reason I ignore my friends' photos. I'm not wasting my time to look through 160+ uncurated, unedited pictures of your study abroad just for the good ones. Much less, I'm not looking through your pictures of last weekend.

[jpk]

Your reference to market forces pushing us into this however, is nonsensical. The "market forces" are merely what people want.

Halfway there. The market forces are the result of a continuous feedback loop, in which people choose from what they are offered. Supply and demand. Which blade of the scissors cuts the paper?
So I don't think that "merely what people want" is correct, but yes I did mean that people were choosing digital over film. That's what "market forces" means.

[jpk]

And as for the paintings, in a digital format, we would at least have them the way they were intended to be. It's been widely known that the colors we see in those paintings are not at all what they were.

That's an interesting conception of what a painting is. So you would prefer to look at a color photograph (large-format, natch) of some arbitrary Rembrandt, snapped on the day the painting was completed, over looking at the painting as it exists today?

I don't say you're wrong, but that's not what I'd choose.

[Diadem]

To me, this is the end of photography. If you get some pleasure out of looking at distorted and artifacted images, I'm happy for you. I find them repulsive. One can recognize the intent of the photographer, but there's nothing worth looking at there.

That sounds like over-the-top hyperbole.

Under optimal conditions, 35mm film has a resolution equivalent to about 20 megapixels. More typical for a high-end camera would be about 12. So digital photography is now about equal to 35mm film when it comes to image resolution.

That's not the only important part of a photo of course. But all these artefacts you are talking about are mainly the result of bad cameras or lenses. And remember, digital photography is still improving every day. Analog photography isn't. And it's not like analog photos do not have problems. Take an analog and a digital camera and make a photo almost directly into the setting sun. Tell me which one looks better.

[jpk]

Under optimal conditions, 35mm film has a resolution equivalent to about 20 megapixels. More typical for a high-end camera would be about 12. So digital photography is now about equal to 35mm film when it comes to image resolution.
That's not the only important part of a photo of course. But all these artefacts you are talking about are mainly the result of bad cameras or lenses.

Important? It's not even interesting. That being said, 12 is not quite "about equal" to 20. Might want to brush up on the math before you try to deploy numbers to prove a point.

But all these artefacts you are talking about are mainly the result of bad cameras or lenses.

No, sorry, that's just nonsense. You really think a bad lens is going to compress the data and produce digital artifacts?

[Anubis]

Under optimal conditions, 35mm film has a resolution equivalent to about 20 megapixels. More typical for a high-end camera would be about 12. So digital photography is now about equal to 35mm film when it comes to image resolution.
That's not the only important part of a photo of course. But all these artefacts you are talking about are mainly the result of bad cameras or lenses.

Important? It's not even interesting. That being said, 12 is not quite "about equal" to 20. Might want to brush up on the math before you try to deploy numbers to prove a point.

But all these artefacts you are talking about are mainly the result of bad cameras or lenses.

No, sorry, that's just nonsense. You really think a bad lens is going to compress the data and produce digital artifacts?

As I said before, digital cameras can and do produce uncompressed images.

[Diadem]

If artefacts from compression are what worries you, simply use the raw format. All high-quality cameras allow saving images uncompressed.

[pbnjstowell]

...And it's not like analog photos do not have problems. Take an analog and a digital camera and make a photo almost directly into the setting sun. Tell me which one looks better.

Or just take your 35 mm film of those sunsets to Costco to be developed, and see how fast they can ruin your photos for you. Sigh.

In other news... an insurance and a photography joke all in one! Hooray!